THE SAFETY DEPOSIT BOX

A warning email from Bonnie saying Peg was making noises about wanting to get into the safety deposit box again, wanting to know where the key was, wanting to bring everything home again "to see what's in it" even though all she has to do is look at the list I update on the computer anytime something is removed or added. And sure, enough, a phone call followed about ten minutes later, Bonnie urging me to talk to Peg and to please please leave her, Bonnie, out of it, that she didn't want to get in the middle as had happened once before, when Peg refused to give me the Tiffany Lamp money she'd promised me and made Bonnie, who'd just started working there, take her to the bank to open a new private account with just Peg's name on it, plus cart the contents of the safety deposit box home to scatter around the property.

PEG:  "Where is the key to the box?! I need to get into it!"

ME:   "No, you don't, Mama. Last time you did, you didn't put stuff back, bonds and jewellery got lost all over the house--"

PEG:  "YOU TELL ME WHERE THAT KEY IS!"

ME:   "I have it here with me." (not true)

PEG:  "Well I'm calling the bank! And a lawyer! YOU stay out of there, do you hear me! I worked goddamn hard for my money-- "

ME:  "Mama. I am not stealing your money, or anything else.  I am trying to prevent things from getting lost--"

PEG:  "WHEN have I ever lost anything! WHEN?? Just name one time. ONE TIME! I have NEVER lost--"

ME:   "I found the savings bonds in a bag under your pillow. What if there'd been a fire? GONE. And you are totally responsible for those gold coins going missing."

PEG:  "ANDY STOLE THOSE COINS!' (Andy was Outside Bob's predecessor)

ME:  "Maybe. Maybe not. But the fact remains they are GONE. And no one would have had the opportunity to steal them had they not been lying around on your desk for months instead of in the bank where they belong."

Case closed. Except because you're dealing with Peg, this conversation went round and round, me having to mention Andy And The Coins and Sleeping With The Bonds about 12 times before she changed the subject, moving onto Norway money, which there is not much of but she thinks there still is--and then finally to "selling some land". I was on the phone for over an hour. Oddly enough, I was patient with her most of the time (except when she inferred I was stealing from her) and tried to calm her. She was crying, at the end, about the no money situation. Which I felt badly about, though it pleased me on some level because it meant at least she was recognizing the issue and not dismissing it, preferring to talk about when Dominick's coming or the meat loaf she and Terri made.

MEDICAL NEWS:

She goes for an eye op next week in Springfield. Nothing drastic, she's had the other one done before. And she has the follow-up visit to her cardiologist the week after. When she was in the hospital last February with congestive heart failure, the cardiologist told me she had anywhere from three months to a year. It'll be 3 months in May.

Porchlight, the Visiting Nurses Assoc, leaves after 60 days, which is coming up soon. They will take their state of the art digital vitals recording machine with them (it sends her weight, heart rate, oxygen level in the blood, and something else, can't recall, maybe her breakfast order--right to their offices in Lee so we get a heads up if anything's amiss). Although I hear we can rent it from them if we want (no I do not).

Am seeing if she qualifies for Hospice based on her age and what this cardiologist might have to say. If so, it would please me, as we then have regular nurse visits plus home health aide, should she feel like showering at all while she's still alive.

STAFF:

Terri needs a week to ten days off to go her HER mother and move apartments. Peg now says she is perfectly fine staying alone (no she is not). I don't know who's going to cover for her, not me. 

Dominick helped Peg rearrange the furniture in her "dressing area", then after he went home, she made Terri redo it, then dragged Bonnie inot the act until she was forced to write me an email saying she wanted it to go on record she will not shove heavy stuff like shove bureaus and desks around any more. So apparently Peg did it all herself when Bonnie thought she was napping.

WHERE IS ALL HER ENERGY FROM? Christ.