No photos please

Today was a lump day. My legs were sore from the trek to the modern museum and back from yesterday, so I decided to stay in bed and read the book I was interested in. It’s the introvert in me. Sometimes the best thing for me is to simply sit back and read a book rather than going out and see people.

I eventually decided to get up around 3pm and head over to the nearby Thai restaurant and have a big tasty meal prior to, you guessed it, climbing back up four floors to my hostel room and back to my book. Around 8pmish when the sun went down, I decided to head out and go pub hopping. I really have a taste for British cider. I hit four different pubs until I ended up by the small pub next to the hostel. Most of the folks I met had spotty English, so I didn’t have too many good conversations. I did meet a cute blonde named Crystal that I chatted up for a half hour or so. I might meet her in a bar down on Grassmarket tonight if I’m out.

Slightly buzzed I headed down to a local doner/kabob spot around the corner as it was the only place open according to the bartenderess at the last pub. I talked to an Iraqian guy for about ten minutes there. He was a good guy and he gave me a break on a kebab since I just had change. We talked about speaking English and such. The weird thing is that everyone can understand me perfectly. But a lot of folks have trouble with the Scottish and English accents. I remember earlier “putting my Brooklyn on” (I was born in Boston and my grandparents lived in NY - apparently I had a marked Brooklyn accent until I was 7-8), and Crystal thought it was awesome. Apparently a New York accent is sexy in Scotland.

Now for the not-so-fun stuff. My mother’s caretaker called. Apparently mom had managed to manipulate the staff into giving her a key to the medicine cabinet. Not surprised. I warned them repeatedly that she was a Valium junkie from way back. I shown her doctor in Oregon the four separate prescriptions for the same drug from four different doctors. I told them about when she dumped all her prescriptions in a bowl and was taking them like candy when Jim was alive. I told them about her stay for two weeks in a Las Vegas treatment center for drugs (which she talked her way out of in two weeks). She’s just really really really good at manipulation.

So she claimed she did it to commit suicide. Riiiiiiiigggghhhhtttt. She is the one that told me about the ground glass she has in her crafts and how it was used in Arsenic and Old Lace to kill their victims. She had plenty of ways to kill herself if she wanted to. Why manipulate someone to get access to everyone’s pills, then suddenly be suicidal? OR it might just be that she was getting high like she used to, but she didn’t have the tolerance she used to.

Either way, it no longer bothers me like it used to. Just more manipulation tricks to get her way. I found out the hard way after four years that she will do whatever she will and that she considers me/her ex husband/family/whoever as just tools to get what she wants. There is not a person in there anymore. There is the “innocent sweet” face of a person, but her actions show someone uncaring of the damage she does to those around her to get her way. Cest la vie. Hopefully they will stick her in a psych ward for a couple months. If that doesn’t wake her up, nothing will and she needs to stay in a lock down to keep her from destroying herself or others around her.

Oh and sparkle ponies or some shit, so folks don’t think this is going to screw up my sabbatical. I don’t allow her that kind of hold on me anymore. Really, I’m thinking of a box of kittens playing with a ball of string.