Sitting back here in the bar at Tara, having finished my coffee and read a little of the NYT. It's snowing out there, with more on the way over the course of the day.
Right after I took this photo a kid walked by in shorts on his way to the bus stop. I don't get these folks. I hopped out onto the porch shivering, and stayed there just long enough to get the shot and dive back in the door to the warmth of the house.
A little later this morning I'll be deposing a bad actor in a lawsuit over a looted estate. Seeing a lot of these cases lately, with dreadful players willing to do anything to make sure they get what they think they deserve, even if it comes at the expense of those who used to be loved ones. It's the passing of the last generation with any sort of accumulated wealth, while the ne'er do wells of my generation scratch and claw for a piece of that unearned fortune. Better to spend every penny before you go--that legacy you tell yourself will improve the lives of your kids and your grandkids is only going to be a source of strife, which in turn only enriches lawyers. Like me, for instance.
Come to think of it, feel free to engage in a little estate planning and leave a pile of nickels for us all to fight over. We're maintaining three different residences and an airplane, after all.
In a few minutes I'll drop a turkey in the oven, and I reckon P and I will live off the carcass for the balance of the holiday season. Peg's decreed that we need to start emptying the crowded freezer, and this bird, a gift to us at Thanksgiving, has taken up way too much room there for too long. Tonight the presentation will be traditional, but if anyone has a recipe for turkey leftovers you'd like to share, we are going to be in the market for the next couple weeks.
Assuming these depositions finish timely, my attention will then turn to my parents and the Christmas trip just over the horizon. I already feel sort of guilty for having not called this past weekend---my plan had been to dial them up on my way back from dropping off P at the airport on Sunday, but that went out the window when my trial evaporated (I think) and I flew P back to New York. My sister even called that night to ask why I hadn't phoned Mom.
Now I need to talk with all of them about Christmas, and I'm not looking forward to it, not one bit. Peg's working on the 23rd and back on the 27th, which means our only option is to fly to Texas on Christmas Eve, stay through Christmas Day, then catch the 6 a.m. from DFW back to ELM on Sunday the 26th. That little high speed pass through the Lone Star State will cost a little over $3 thousand in airfare (can't risk getting stuck in the Columbia with everyone's work commitments), plus the rental car assuming we can find one. And I am reasonably certain I'll get lots of guilting from the folks for making it such a short visit.
P suggested last night that maybe the better course would be to travel there on New Year's Day so we can stay a while. We'll just pretend it's Christmas. Mom and Dad won't have any other family coming for the holidays, after all, and one day looks pretty much like every other when your life is comprised of triangulating between bed, a chair in front of the TV, and the bathroom. Would it matter to them that on the 25th we're not there, if the trade-off is that we can move at a more relaxed pace a week later?
There are no good answers here, and it's just another opportunity for a little filial guilt as my parents fade and I'm nowhere to be seen, and getting spotty with my weekly calls that have been a discipline for me since I came home from the Gulf War. Maybe this is the last Christmas with them; it's hard to tell, and frankly I'm amazed and impressed that Dad has made it to 82 after a lifetime of scotch and cigarettes. But honestly these visits aren't a lot of fun---Dad sitting there with the TV blaring Fox News, alternating between trying to bait me over politics and complaining that Johnnie isn't paying enough attention to his every need; Mom in her chair, wig askew and drifting in and out of sentience with the Hallmark Channel or the local news drawing everyone's attention to the screen in the family room, Bobby in his recliner describing in detail Mom's last bowel movement while Katie escapes to the back porch to smoke. It's all a Christmas dish of which I can only stomach a small portion. And I feel pretty shitty about that.
Time to pull myself together, get that turkey in the oven, and go over my notes one more time before asking this morning's loser-heir why it seemed okay to get his mother to quitclaim an apartment building to him while she was in the throes of dementia. Then he tried to steal the proceeds of her burial insurance by claiming falsely that he was an only child and they needed to send the $10,000 to him. I think she still lacks a headstone, three years later. A piece of work.
I guess today's takeaway is that you might as well spend it all--that last part is going to stink on ice no matter what, with you sitting there in a diaper, and whatever you leave behind is more trouble than gift.
Opmerkingen