In which I am a big fat bitch about my own husband and I feel guilty about it

I am the biggest bitch in the world because I do not want to talk to my husband, who has spent the entire day dealing with his dad's diarrhea, refusal to eat, refusal to do physical therapy, and with the incessant phone calls from Ted.

I got to work at 7:15 this morning after a long weekend with houseguests and a cranky husband. I spent the day at work with a new computer that will not do what I want - I have submitted I think five tickets already for a computer I have had six work days.

I got home, fed the cats, did some more work, completely re-did my password for this blog because apparently, when I signed up for google analytics, everything changed on the blog as well - damn you google and your acquisition of blogger, went to tennis, which I did not feel like doing but I hate wasting money I have spent for tennis classes more than I hate going to a doubles class by myself, even though the only reason I signed up for the class was to take it with Primo.

I got back to my car after class and saw that Primo had called.

I called him before I even started the car.

He always calls me on his drive back from the rehab center.

We talked for a minute and then he complained about the noise. "What's that noise? Is that music? What is that? I can't hear you!"

"I don't have the radio on," I answered.

"Are you in the car?" he asked.

"Yes."

"It's too noisy. Why don't you just call me when you get home?"

Because when I get home, I don't want to talk on the phone. I want to talk on the phone while I am in the car because then I am not using time I could be using to read a book or watch the last three episodes of Revenge to talk on the phone.

See what I mean?

My husband has literally been dealing with shit - OK, someone else has had to clean it up, but that's what he has had to talk about all day - and I do not want to talk to him.

I am a bitch.

But I do talk to Primo.

And we talk about Sly's diarrhea, some of which might be because he has been taking a lot of antibiotics for a UTI (no, I didn't know men could get them, either), which he got because he won't drink water.

We talked about how Sly told Primo to bring him his low dosage Cialis pills from home but not the high dosage. Low dose is for urinating. High dose is for something I did not think 81 year old men did.

And I am worn out because I do not want to be the person who does not get to bitch but is only bitched to.

In which I can't figure out how to bend another person to my will

Turns out Sly was using the walker and he still fell.

This does not bode well for his future.

Primo is all full of agita because this is super stressful.

His stress is not helped by Ted and Jack, who want to send messages using the Apple messenger, iMessenger. It doesn't work well with non-Apple phones. Primo had called yesterday morning and Jack told him that he couldn't talk just then because Sly had to go to the bathroom and that Jack would call back.

Half an hour later, Jack had not called.

"That's an awfully long time for someone to need for the bathroom," I said.

Turns out Jack had sent a note using iMessenger only Primo did not get the original note or the 17 that followed as Jack and Ted talked via iMessenger (rather than just picking up the darn phone - once you have more than a few texts, it is time to talk and I say that as someone who hates talking on the phone) until five hours later.

He asked them to use facebook messenger or regular text, explaining that there was a long delay in his getting information.

Ted's response?

"Get a real phone."

Would you be ticked off if someone wrote you a flip response like that?

I would.

I was.

So was Primo.

Primo replied ( rather tactfully, I thought, because I am already at Bitch Eating Crackers stage with Ted), "Funny, but if you want me to have information, you need to use another way to communicate. If I don't get the message, it's your problem, not mine."

Except of course it is also Primo's problem because he can't stand not knowing (can anyone? Isn't that what caused the original Fall? the desire to know?) and because he is way too involved in this whole thing.

My sister, who is a nurse practitioner, and her husband, who lost his first wife to cancer, are visiting. Their advice is that Primo should draw some boundaries.

My sister's words: "Your dad is an adult. He gets to make his own decisions. You cannot force him to eat. You cannot force him to drink enough water. You cannot make him do rehab. You cannot make him want to get well or to do the things necessary to get well. In fact, if you spend all of your time there in the rehab center with him, you are actually making it more comfortable for him and giving him less incentive to work to get out of there."

Primo knows all of this intellectually but emotionally, he is caught up in this. I can't make him set boundaries, but I sure get frustrated that I am losing my husband to a mean old man. I want Primo to say, "Enough" and walk away - or at least not spend all of his time down there.

If that won't happen, I want Sly to be man enough to give Primo permission to walk away: "Primo, you have spent the past two and a half months here with me. That's enough. It's time for you to get back to your life."

I can't make either of those happen, which means I am probably not going to see my husband again for the next few weeks after he leaves tomorrow. And we might have to cancel our vacation, which we have been planning for a year. I want Primo to tell Sly to drop dead.

OK. I want Primo to tell Sly, "Dad, we have gotten you through the crisis stage and now it's time for you to concentrate on getting well by eating right, drinking enough water, and doing your rehab. You don't need me for any of that. It's something you have to want for yourself. I will call you every day, but for now, I am stepping back."

In which Sly falls (again) but this time it's not because he is drunk but because (we think) he thinks he does not have to follow medical advice

Primo and I were at a music festival. He has been home for a few days and plans to return to Florida on Sunday. He spent his first few days home sleeping, relaxing, and doing some political stuff. He cut the grass, but I told him the other chores were on me - that I wanted him to rest while he was home.

We went to the festival today and saw Taylor Dayne, who is amazing. She is older than I am but is in great shape, which is both inspiring and depressing, because if you can't be a little bit chubby and flabby when you are 53, when can you?

We had fun wandering around, listening to bands, eating festival food.

Then BAM.

Of course something happened to ruin everything. (Well, for Primo. Not for me. Except if it's ruined for Primo, it is ruined for me.)

Sly called.

In the almost ten years that I have known Primo, his parents have called him fewer than a dozen times. The burden of the calling is on him, not on them.

If Sly called, something bad happened.

Primo tried and tried to return the call - he hadn't heard the phone ring because we were at a music festival.

Sly didn't answer.

Primo finally called Jack.

Sly had fallen and was in the ER with a broken rib.

He had fallen trying to get to the bathroom. Of course he had not called for help. Of course not. Because he is so healthy and can walk from the bed to the bathroom without help - even though he couldn't even go from the wheelchair to the car seat without getting dizzy, breathless, and faint when I was there.

I shrugged. "Nothing you can do for a broken rib except wait for it to heal."

Primo was not so sanguine.

"I can't even have one week without his creating some kind of drama," he said. "I can't get a break from this at all."

Later, we discovered that Sly had his phone turned off. That is not useful.

In which Sly overshares with Primo again

Primo: I talked to my dad. I don't think he's ready to live on his own.

Me: Why not?

Primo: He said he couldn't make it to the bathroom in time and had to poop in his diaper.

Me: Oh my.

Primo: I hope I am never like that.

Me: Like what?

Primo: Where I treat an event like that as a casual aside instead of something to be viewed with horror.

Me: You mean, something you would bring up in conversation with your child only in the context of, "I hate to have to tell you this, but I am so horrified and I am concerned about what this might mean about my next steps," not as, "Oh yeah this happened and then I watched TV."

Primo: Exactly.

In which Primo blesshisheart thinks asking Sly not to drink means Sly will stop drinking

Me: Tom (my surgeon friend)  said someone needs to tell your dad's doctor about his drinking.

Primo: Does it matter if he used to drink?

Me: What do you mean?

Primo: Well, he's not drinking now in the rehab center. And I have asked him not to drink when he goes home.

Me: Well that will work.

Let not your hearts be troubled

You guys, don't be worried if there is not a post every day. I was re-dating the posts around Doris' funeral. This was all happening in June and I was just realizing that there was so much material that I could post almost daily. I had set the posts up to go once or twice a week, but it was going to take too long to tell the story. There are breaks, either because I didn't organize properly or because - thankfully - there was nothing to tell that day.

In which Sly asks quasi-strangers to come collect his urine-soaked clothes to wash them

I realized upon reading what is posting now - I am writing this in present time - that I left out some critical details about Sly's clothes. (Almost all these posts, except when I state otherwise, were written as the events were happening. There is about a four-month lag time.)

Primo, as you know from the previous post, was going to be gone for a week. He set a schedule for feeding the cats and visiting Sly - maybe the only reason anyone would visit Sly is if they were forced to? - I know that's why I went to see him - to preserve marital harmony and to keep Primo from having to deal with Sly alone.

The big question was who was going to wash Sly's clothes?

Because Sly kept peeing on them. Don't know if they didn't have the right diapers or if he wouldn't ask for help in time or what. I can't remember. These are the kinds of details the mind tries to forget.

I don't know why they didn't just have the rehab center wash them - probably because they would have had to been tagged or labeled and Primo just wasn't up for another big task and I do not blame him.

Ted has a friend from college who lives near Sly. Ted'sFriend and Ted'sFriend's Wife came to Doris' funeral. They seemed like really nice people, which has both Primo and me scratching our heads and wondering what we are missing about Ted or what the friend is missing about Ted.

But maybe if you are not family, you are treated better by Ted - after all, people who are not related to you do not get stuck being around you unless they want to be there.

Sly's solution was for Ted'sFriend's Wife to come every day to get his urine-soaked clothes and to wash them.

I did not find out about this until the question had been asked and answered, otherwise, I would have done everything in my power to stop Sly from asking TFW TO SPEND AN HOUR A DAY DRIVING TO AND HOME FROM THE REHAB CENTER TO COLLECT AND WASH HIS URINE-SOAKED CLOTHES.

The man has no boundaries. None.

I would not dream of asking the spouse of someone I barely know TO DO MY REGULAR LAUNDRY.

Sly thought is was OK to ask the spouse of someone he barely knows to wash his urine-soaked clothes.

Guess what?

She said sorry she was washing her hair.

In which Primo and I have to build up that wall

You guys, I am too tired to write much (which you have probably noticed in some of the recent posts, where I took notes during the event and wrote it up later, reducing some things to the level of "Doris died. We had a funeral. The end."), so I am going to share this photo with you.

This is the hallway outside of the guest room at Sly and Doris' house.

The bookcase is in front of the door and there is a piece of plywood on top of the bookcase (with, later, my suitcase added to prop up the plywood) to keep the cats from trying to get into the bedroom all night, which is what they did my first night there, hurling themselves at the door handle (a lever, not a knob) with loud desperation at 3 a.m. and again at 5 a.m.

Have you ever heard cats jumping at a door? In the middle of the night?

It is very noisy.

"My parents thought there would be a actual door in that opening," Primo explained.

"Do they know what a door looks like on an architectural drawing?" I asked.

I guess the answer would be no.