chatter

I wrote those last two posts about grama Lanter while waiting for a couple 12-13 year olds spend their money at an anime convention.

Right now it is time for bed right after a long nap o’clock.

For Hollace’s birthday this year, an anime con in Milwaukee was taking place so I asked Hollace if she wanted to invite her best friend to come along. Both girls immediately started to plan their cosplay (costume). Hollace decided to be one of her characters, Sun Trail. We bought a long red wig, a black dress (sorry no pleats), long boots (on sale at Target) and a grey tee shirt.

Hollace’s other friend wanted to be invited. Initially I said no but changed my mind mainly as a back up in case Melanie ended up bailing on us. So now Lyric is on board.

I went ahead and bought tickets for the whole weekend just so I could pre-purchase them and avoid the long lines to buying at the event. And boy, was that line long, well worth the extra $10 I spent for them.

A week before the event Lyric had the great idea of sleeping over the night before since we hoped to leave for the day early. I have Hollace gather up the addresses and phone numbers. We get Lyric’s but nothing for Melanie.

My plan was to call the mothers to clear it with them. I wasn’t thrilled to have to call anyone but I knew I should. I wrote a letter to send home with both girls explaining the itinerary and put my phone number. Before I could call Lyric’s mom, she called me. That helped, a mom not afraid of the phone unlike this one. We finally get Melanie’s address, no phone number but she had the letter.

That night, after Lyric’s mom called a few minutes before I was planning on leaving to pick her up, I pick her up. We had to hang around for a few minutes to wait for Lyric’s dad to come home to give her money. Then we head to Melanie’s house. No one is home, no one. Hmmm, good thing I have the back up friend since it didn’t look like Melanie was coming.

We go back to our house and I see if there is anyway I can track down a phone number to no avail. We order pizza and Hollace and Lyric go off to her room to do what 13 year old girls do.

Eventually I get a phone call from Melanie’s 16 year old brother. They are out and about and want to drop Melanie off here (phew). They end up an hour or so later then they said but that is alright.

The girls stay up to all hours of the night. I go to bed at 1:00am, around 2:00am, I remind them that have to get up early for the con. Later I find out that it was more like 4:00am that they went to sleep.

I get them up at 8:00am (was hoping for 7 but I knew they stayed up later and really, we didn’t need to get going that early, there was no real schedule).

We get there and like I said, so glad to get the tickets in advance where there was no line. The other buy at the time line looked hours long.

We walk around, check out all the crazy cosplays, the girls spend their money ($40 each) and go off to find lunch. But first I text Sarah (niece) who is there for the weekend as well. She comes down and she recommends a place for lunch.

We ended up staying until 6:00pm. Lyric was asking to spend another night but no way. I can’t have the girls staying up to all hours of the night again and I want my house back and a routine Sunday since I didn’t have it last week so I took them home and then fell asleep on the couch.

Shortly after that last post with the photo of Dorothy’s mother, RAW went down for his regular visit taking that photo with him. A couple days later she asks RAW to call 911 because she didn’t feel very good. I don’t think they ever found out what was wrong with her but she ended up staying in the hospital for 4 nights. I guess a couple of those nights she did have heart trouble but that was most likely caused by being off her regular Rxs being in the hospital.

Because of RAW’s now extended stay down there, I worked a day at home so I can teach Hollace how to get her self off to school on her own in case she had to like she had to the next day.

RAW came home while Dorothy was still in the hospital thinking that she was going to be there for a few more days until he could get back but she got released the next day and sent to the Lutheran Home for convalescence.

While he was down there, while driving her car, he is involved in an accident practically right in front of her house. Some young guy just home from Iraq made a left turn while RAW was going straight. It sounds pretty cut and dry, the other guy’s fault but the police report said it was both’s fault and that RAW was in the turn lane even though he was going straight. That doesn’t sound right to me. RAW knows that intersection so why would he be in the turn lane when he was going straight?

At the accident scene he was given a citation for having expired plates and no proof of insurance. It was becoming apparent that Dorothy was not handling her bills very well. Her license was suspended since she wasn’t able to show proof of insurance after an October accident she was involved in. She also had an overdue handicap parking ticket. She doesn’t get that in order to park in handicap she has to have a handicap placard which I am sure she is eligible to have, heck she already has the mailman delivering her mail right to her door now instead of across the street because of a doctor letter.

She was just going to be running into the store for 5 minutes but it turned out to be 2 hours.

Which brings us to the next bugaboo in her not getting it. The cell phone.

She had a Jitterbug phone and paid month by month, no contract. I guess that phone quit working (I think it was for non-payment of the bill) so she went to Sprint and got a new phone. She claims she didn’t sign no contract but she does now have a 2 year contract.

While RAW was visiting her in the hospital, he put her new phone in a bag with some milk which leaked and fried the phone.

That’s it, we will get her on our phone line for only $10 a month and another new phone. In order to cancel with no $200 early termination fee is to get a simple letter on a doctor’s letterhead stating why. RAW talks to the doctor who says no, Dorothy ok. It probably would of helped if RAW filled him in on all the bill messes. Anyway, Lutheran House faxes something over.

In the meantime we try to retain her old number and get it ported to the Verizon account. No problem, only now Sprint won’t waive the early termination because it is apparent we are still using the account just through another carrier–duh on us.

While RAW comes home while Dorothy is still in the hospital, he gets a call from his cousin Theresa. After her quick, how is your mother, she starts ripping into him about him hurting her mother’s feelings. “How dare you speak to my mother that way after all she has ever done for you.” This went on for 15 minutes. RAW has no idea what he said or done to Aunt Geri. Geri isn’t a wimpy sensitive little old lady. She knows RAW, she knows how abrupt he can sound. He calls Geri and she sounds fine before he could ask if he has offended her somehow Jay gets on the phone and talks cars.

I was pissed! Theresa has always been a royal bitch in the first degree but I couldn’t believe her gaul. Seriously woman, you have the nerve to call like that knowing the stress RAW was already under with his mom in the hospital, seriously?

The next weekend after Dorothy was at Lutheran House, we all go down there for a visit. I present her with her new phone.

A few days after we home RAW makes yet another trip out there to sort through the bills, deal with the car and insurance, citations and such. Originally he was trying to get back before Saturday cause Pam and Cindy and kids were coming out for Hollace’s birthday but we switched it to next weekend so RAW stayed out until tonight. His mom got released from Lutheran House on Friday so it just made sense that he stay there to settle her in.

I guess today has been a challenge to him and her both as she tries to regain her billing system while RAW tries to keep control. Lot of heated battles. She still doesn’t think she signed a cell phone contract or needs to deal with the handicap parking. Nor does she seem to acknowledge that her DL is suspended but at this point, her car is still getting fixed.

Hopefully soon we will have her name on a senior apartment waiting list which is what she has been wanting for a long time.

This is a picture of my mother-in-law’s mother. I think she died when Dorothy was 18. Or maybe it was after that, I guess I should go check on that.

This is the only picture Dorothy has of her mother. That photo is less then a inch big and all beat up. She was going to take it in to get refinished and enlarged and framed. I told her I can do that for her.

Because Dorothy is 88, she doesn’t need much in the way of Christmas gifts. She is of the age where she is going in reverse with her stuff, trying to rid herself of it.

While we were there she was trying to give me her mink stole to sell for her. It wasn’t really her stole but was given to her by a friend when she was getting rid of things so there was no personal history with it.

Because of this reversal of stuff, all I got her for Christmas was a stamp thingy that you roll over address on envelopes before you recycle them. She is paranoid about throwing away envelopes with addresses on them, preferring to burn them instead. Hopefully she will use the roller stamp.

The roller stamp is all I could find her this year for a gift and it didn’t cost that much so I was thrilled when she mentioned the photo of her mother. Tomorrow I will go out and get a nice frame, then wrap everything up as a gift.

I think it is those kind of things that make the best gifts for seniors.

Tonight Hollace went to her first formal dance at school. Acquiring a dress proved to be a bit of a challenge. Before I even knew there was a dance and she wanted to go, she already found a dress at kohls.com that she liked. It was pretty so we went to Kohls to look at it. I think they only had one dress and this wasn’t it. I soon realized it was an online exclusive so I go to order it. Because regular shipping would mean the dress would get here until after the dance I was ready to spring $20 for priority shipping. Only for some reason the site wouldn’t let me do it. I call them and they try, no luck. I go ahead and order it with standard shipping and go look for plan B.

I found a dress sort of similar at Sears.com and order it. Then we hit the stores to try and find a dress there as well as a shaw and shoes. We were successful with the extras but there wasn’t even a close contender for dress at all.

On Tuesday the Sears.com dress comes. Hollace tries it on over her clothes and freaks out when she gets stuck. She keeps declaring she hates dresses, she hates dresses.

The next night she tries again with out the extra clothes. She keeps the dress on for most of the night liking the feeling of fancy.

The next night I buy some black tights and she tries it all on again and wears it most of the night.

Tonight is the dance and guess what comes? Yes the Kohls dress, the original one gets here. Hollace puts it on and it is a hit.

We go and pick up her friend Marabell who needs a ride and I drop them off. All in and all she had fun even though her feet hurt from the heels.