The smoke cleared out today...and so did my evacuees

Now, back to my life of self-absorbed isolation and regrettably anti-social behavior.

I have mixed feelings about the hosting of the guy with his mom and animals. I would like to say that I am just bubbling up with joy and an overwhelming desire to be a selfless helper, but I'm not. I'm more grimacing than gracious. And, I guess, petty and materialistic, too. Oh, and judgemental. While we're at it, throw in hypocritical just for safe measure. Of course, I was going to help this guy and his 83 year old mom avoid being made homeless by fire evacuation. And I would do it again. And probably be just as annoyed, too, unfortunately. I'm such a small person, really, on the inside.

The guy drove me nuts. He is extremely talkative and ever so ready to share his abundant knowledge. Mostly, he is obsessed with herbal medicine, functional medicine, German new medicine and some kind of radionics type mumbo jumbo which basically amounts to magic. He also asked me to watch a DVD on Dianetics, which I eventually agreed to so he'd stop talking about it (and because I am that bored). I am too tired now to even think of all the reasons why his obsessions annoyed me to death. Maybe if he didn't talk about them at such great length or steer every conversation in that direction...

I was polite, if unenthusiastic. But the thing that irked me more was his clumsiness and lack of awareness of what he was doing.

The list of things that got my goat:

He is one of those people who overshares in a loud voice and his stories could use a little trimming. I know, I'm one to talk, Mr. Long-winded himself.

He showed up with more animals than he originally spoke about on the phone. I was able to  accommodate them, but I would have liked to have known there was going to be a dog that had to be kept in the house. I have 2 indoor cats.

He crashed into my bookshelf on day one. I heard something crack, but I didn't see any damage. Moving on.

He would eat oranges and bananas and leave the peels in areas that would attract flies and in general stink up the place. I have a fly problem now.

He fed his cats some godawful wet food which made them poop and throw up on the carpet and bed. This happened while they were out on a shopping trip, so I was stuck cleaning it up.

He stunk up the house by burning broccoli in a pan of boiling water because it ran out of water while he wasn't paying attention.

He left his 83 year old mother here with me alone while he went out to watch Harry Potter and stayed out all day without giving me any ETA or instructions about her level of care. I had seen her use crutches, a wheelchair and require assistance while walking. Other times, I guess, she was able to walk on her own. I felt like he had just bailed on her to do his thing and left me responsible for her safety, but I had no clue about what she might or might not require.

And he left the crock pot on Hi while he was gone all day to the movies. The water was boiling out of the side after an hour, luckily I noticed and turned it down. Oh, and he broke the knob off the crock pot.

He also broke the on/off switch on the subwoofer in the bedroom, which is a big ticket item that we had shipped here at quite some expense. He wasn't paying attention when he was unloading his stuff into the closet.

His mother requires a certain amount of care and it is not my place to be the judge. I just felt he was not quite managing his marbles in doing the caregiving. She didn't shower for a week although he claims she is perfectly able to do so without him. I encouraged him to let her use our disabled shower, which she finally did.

He told me he flipped his mom's wheelchair on my front lawn by going down the steep part of the yard instead of going the long way. She flew out of the wheelchair and into the gravel driveway. I know accidents happen, but with the elderly you gotta be more careful, man.


I can't fault him for everything, though:

He did find a local guy who might be able to repair my speaker. We loaded it up and took it there before he left.

He did clean the room up to at least the level of cleanliness that existed before they brought all the animals into the house.

He did profusely thank me and apologize for any inconveniences.

He did listen patiently while I chewed him out for leaving his mom all day and for his other "crimes" of clumsiness and sloth. I am not the easiest person to endure a lecture from, so that was no small feat.


I guess it felt more cramped because the Camp Fire smoke kept me indoors for most of the 10 days. It didn't stop the two of them from going out to eat almost every day. They would drive 25 miles to town and back. They'd spend 3 hours or more in a restaurant because his mom has no teeth and it takes her that long to chew. If she needs to use the restroom, that's another 45 mins. At home, she would wake him up several times at night and require his assistance using the toilet.

I feel for the guy. He is in my situation 8 years ago, when Sharon was first getting really disabled.  He is at the beginning of the journey and I'm wondering how he will manage if he doesn't get some outside help. He us doing a lot of self-sacrifice to keep his mother out of an institution. She tells him she wishes to die at home. Sound familiar?

They slipped out while I was screwing around in the barn starting the quad and motorcycle engines. They left a note and he called me later. Now they are just a lingering memory. The room needs a good airing out from having 4 animals and 2 humans living in there for a week with the windows closed. Once it rains I can open up all the windows for the first time in 11 days.

Not sure if there's a moral or even a point to all this. It was an experience. Now it's over.