My new career as a fan

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?