See the expression, "when the shit hits the
fan." My father who used to live in Corfu alone (Corfu is a lovely Greek
island both my parents come from) with a nurse who took care of him is now in
the house with my mother and me. The one who was taking care of him left and he
can't really stay alone or take care of himself, so here he is. Take my
non-existent free time and make it shrink even more.
I have a new cat added to the swarm of cats that we have
in my house: she is a white Persian I found on the stairs of my building,
obviously abandoned. I am still struggling with her ear and eye infection, she
is months old (and not spayed), and small in size. I have the strong suspicion
she is an albino. She, on the other hand, is convinced she is my tail, and
therefore follows me everywhere, even to the bathroom, and "talks" to
me all the time. She has the type of flat face an animal would acquire after a
collision with a wall at a hundred miles per hour: looks like a crossbreed
between a goldfish and master Yoda. Not pretty, but certainly ugly enough to be
lovable. She also ignores my mother and everyone else in the house. Bloody
Persians. Never had one before. Such attitude!
I am going crazy as I practically have no time to myself.
My mother is not doing too well either. The second day my father was in the
house, he was running a fever and also had a few seizures (he is epileptic.) So
my mother come to the kiosk in a rather flipped out mode and I ask her if
everything is OK. Her answer?
"Oh, everything is fine. Your father is lying on
bed, pissing himself from the seizures, I have a house full of pissed underwear
and sheets, the cats are meowing because they are hungry as I had no time to
feed them, the dogs are barking cause they want to get out but I can't take
them out because during the power cut the fat lady from the other floor was
stuck inside the elevator and now the elevator is out of order, and I ask your
father if he wants to eat and he tells 'not now, I am fixing the car.' So I ask
him, 'what car?' and he says, 'the Renault. My hands are very dirty, I have to
wash them first.' "
The polite reader can hopefully understand the situation
and forgive my long absence. Or, as an old guy with Alzheimer's put it,
"since we don't smoke anyway, what do we need the fridge for?"
Needless to say, all these are happening while Greece is
in the middle of the worst heat wave (of the month June) of the last 150
years... We get such temperatures as 43C (110 F) daily. Straitjacket, anyone?
