The Houseguest

Since I've been asked about it, I thought I might talk about something I alluded to earlier: my mother-in-law staying at my house. Before I begin, I just want to report that everything is OK, my marriage is intact, and no one has been suffocated with a pillow in their sleep.

About three weeks ago on a lovely Saturday afternoon, Luke and I were in Vermont shopping for a truck. I was excited because I had coerced Luke to stop at Yankee Candle in Deerfield, MA on the way home for some shopping, I mean for lunch. I love Yankee Candle and Luke... well not so much. He has tolerated Yankee Candle once or twice in the past when they had a car museum in the building. Now that they don't, I can't convince him to go, so getting him to stop there for lunch (wink, wink) was a big victory for me. I had him park at the far side of the building so we had to walk through the entire place to get to the restaurant (sneaky of me) and we were about 10 feet into the building when his cell phone rang.

Crap.

It was a friend of Luke's mom's saying that she had fallen and she hurt her arm and was at the emergency room in Manchester and she wanted him to come.

Like I said: crap.

We turned around, candle-less, lunch-less, and headed back to Connecticut to see Luke's mom. She had tripped on her way into Shady Glen. She fell forward and onto her arms and wound up shattering the ball in her shoulder. She would require surgery, possible shoulder replacement, but the emergency room couldn't do anything for her, other than give her medication and the name of an orthopedic surgeon to call on Monday. She couldn't do anything herself, she could barely manage sipping from a water bottle, and since she lives alone, I knew we had to take her to our home until she could get to the doctor and have her shoulder fixed.

Two weeks ago, she had a partial shoulder replacement, meaning they replaced her shattered ball and a portion of the bone leading up to the ball with titanium, and she's doing much better. And now It's time for her to go home.

I never considered myself particularly compulsive, or a neat freak in any way, but whenever we have anyone stay with us for any length of time, they drive me INSANE. We have another friend who lives out of state and stays for weeks at a time while he's working in CT and I adore him. I look forward to his visits and I miss him when he's gone, but after about two weeks at our house, I could kill him. And it's completely my fault. It's just that he doesn't follow our schedule. He's loud and perky in the morning when we're used to quiet and grumpy mornings. He asks a lot of questions like a little kid when we watch TV or movies, when Luke and I are used to such quiet that we practically communicate through ESP. He leaves his socks in the living room. He spills sugar on the counter and leaves it there. These are all silly things that drive me nuts. Poor Luke. How has he manage to learn my rules and live with me this long?

I digress. So yes, it's time for Luke's mom to go home. This Saturday she's moving back to her condo, and next week, Luke will be duct taping Molly's mouth shut while he tries to sleep during the day. Right now, Molly hangs out with Luke's mom all day, watching TV and snuggling on the couch. This means that she can see out the windows and bark at every threatening leaf and bird that drifts by. Next week, she will be forced to sleep with Luke in the bedroom where she will hopefully learn to stop barking so much and waking him up. Of course, if she can't, maybe I'll be forced to bring her to work every day. Wouldn't that be a shame.