Mum has gone to get her hair done. I’m waiting for her to call saying she’s finished, so I can go pick her up. Then we are off to buy “the lockable box” to keep the bitch nurse happy. We’ll get mum some socks, as the nurse wants them for her too. Apparently, mum doesn't own a pair of socks. Who’d have thought. Then we’ll go buy the ingredients for the bumble bees, yet a fucking again, thank you Lucy and we’ll make a new batch, for mum’s lunch on Friday.
I’m wondering if mum has called the nurse and told her she will be out this morning? I don’t really care, it’s the nurse’s problem. I don’t know why the nurse has pissed me off quite so much. And I know I’m being unreasonable, childish even, taking out my, what is sure to be, pent up anger at mum being sick on the nurse. Actually, quite possibly she is copping all my anger at feeling a bit like a failure, right at the moment, not being able to write – you know, this is what I wanted to do, thought I wanted to do and nothing’s happening.
I know, I’m feeling bored with my life, at the nothingness. David says I have to give myself a chance to get over the addictions I've quit. He says that may take a while longer, you know, to feel normal again. Maybe the nurse is copping all of my frustrations. Oh well, this morning I have decided antagonising the nurse is a great game to play.
She left a message saying she wants me to call her.
Not a chance sister, is all I can think.
I’m feeling very unsettled today. Nervous. Anxious. Out of sorts. I wish I felt well again. I seem to have felt like this ever since I quit cigarettes and pot. Maybe David is right. David says it takes time. I hope it’s soon.
Another buddy of mine who has also quit a daily pot habit says the doctor told her that it will take at least 3 months to get over it.
I also realise I have tinnitus.
I waited for an hour for mum, on the footpath at our meeting spot, after her hairdresser called at 2.15 to say she’d be there in an hour. The traffic was crap in the city, banked up and I certainly wanted to escape before peak hour. If I knew she was going to be so long, I could have gone and got all of the stuff I needed to get, then I could have picked her up, instead of waiting all day for her call. Why I gave her my home number and not my mobile, less to remember, she has particular trouble with numbers. But, she said at 8.30am when I spoke to her, that she’d only be a few hours, certainly ready by midday.
Here it was 4.15, I’d been waiting since 3.15.
I was leaving, had enough, heading to my car, not sure if I had got the information wrong, or if she’d left without me, if she was still in there. I was thinking, if she calls when I’m home she can just get on the tram. I looked back as I was heading to the car, one last time and there she was.
I stopped and watched her for a time, wondering if I’d leave without her. She looked old. Of course, I wouldn't, but I was pissed off and, I thought, it helped me cool down a little. Then I crossed the road and got her. I couldn't hide my anger, she copped it. Pissed off! We drove home in silence.
I threaten to leave her in Swanston Street, saying I was too pissed off.
Well, get yourself out of the bad mood, was her reply.
I harrumph at her.
The next thing, a little hand comes across the car full of cashews. “For you,” she says.
I don’t want any, I grumble, like a child. Her child, I guess.
We've got to go home and make the bumble bees, she says. You know that was such a ridiculous thing for her to say, after the harping she has done about them, only to let Lucy attempt to make them only to muck them up, so I had to repeat the whole fucking process. I nearly screamed.
We drop into the chemist in Burke Road to see if they have a locked box. They didn't. The say there is a Bunnings in Burwood Road. Lottie and I head over there.
“Why do we need this locked box?” Lottie asks.
So the nurse gets your pills from the chemist and then they are no longer delivered in a Webster pack. So the R. D. Nurses can administer your pills themselves. They need the box to lock all of your pills away from you, so you don’t over dose on them.
“What?” says Lottie. She makes those exasperated eyes, as if the world is mad. It’s vintage Lottie. “Ridiculous. For goodness sake. You don’t have to do everything the nurse tells you, you know.”
I laugh. Where do you think I get it from.
We get a box and go home.
Lottie is having a lunch Friday. It has consumed all of her thinking, to the point of distraction, for the last month. She has nearly driven me mad with the constant updates. You see, where once she would put on a spread, now it is up to me to do all the cooking, so the chatter about it has been constant and never ending.
The effort to find a Bumble Bee recipe has nearly bought me to insanity. You see, in the past Lottie had such things in her head and she’d just whip them up without a thought. But now the memory is failing, her several, read every time I have seen her in the last month, attempts to write a recipe down has amounted in 30 variations on the ingredients. Finally, a friend of hers sat down with all the variations and pulled one recipe together.
So, finally, I went and bought the ingredients, only to have Lottie give them to my niece to make, who promptly fucked it up.
So, after all the palaver, some how I have to go to the super market, yet again, to get the ingredients for the bumble bees.
“Well, you are not having the trifle then.”
“Oh yes,” says Lottie, looking at me with pleading cow eyes. “I need the trifle. I have to provide the desert.”
“What are the bumble bees for then?” I could hear my tone rising up an octave.
“Oh, they are just to have with a cup of tea, afterwards.”
“What!” Count to ten, Christian. Count to ten.
“Oh no, I need the trifle.”
“Okay!” I say. “Alright. If I can get pre-prepared jelly.” I knew I could get pre-prepared custard. The sherry was in the cupboard. This will be the most instant trifle you have ever seen.
“I’ll come,” says Lottie. “You’ll need me to sign for the ticket.” (she means credit card)
“No, give me your keycard, I’ll be quicker without you.”
I dash to the supermarket, get all the ingredients, whizz home.
“Here, you stand here,” I say to Lottie. I stand her next to me at the kitchen bench. “Chop the dates, the cashews and the raisins, here's the sultanas, the coconut and the condensed milk. I’ll construct the trifle.”
“I can use scissors for the dates, can’t I?”
“I guess,” I say.
At which point she pulls out the all-purpose, cut every thing scissors.
“You have cooking scissors, don’t you?”
“What?” says Lottie. She holds up the scissors, as if I’d asked to inspect them.
I open and close my mouth. Oh, who cares, I think.
I make the trifle, it’s huge. Lottie declares it a triumph with a clap of her hands. I whizz it into the fridge, disappointed the black current jelly and the strawberry jelly are the same shade of brown, so the colour variation wont be obvious. Lottie chops all the ingredients for the bumble bees. I mix them together. It bares no resemblance to the failed mixture Lucy made. I cook them in two lots. They come out of the oven looking like Lottie's snacks of old. I look at them sitting oblivious on the oven tray. It's been a journey, I think.
Lottie says she is sorry for upsetting me many times.
I say I’m sorry too. I give her a big hug. My father used to hug her all the time, I guess she must miss it. I've got to be nicer to her. I can’t get pissed off with her.
We eat pies.
I love my mum.
I leave around 7pm.
No comments:
Post a Comment