It's been about three hours...

It's been about three hours since the last time I coughed. It's a nice change. I feel like I might be turning the corner, physically anyway.

But a cloudy day spent mostly indoors, other than a dog walk in the light rain, seems to have left me rather blue.

I'm rather stressed over my consulting gig. I'm behind on my work for them since I've been so damn tired and sick.  On top of that they apparently had a couple of minor crises yesterday and I couldn't be available to help troubleshoot. I feel badly that I wasn't available for them, but I'm also really frustrated at how quickly my contract manager moved to extremes; at least one of the crises could have been avoided with just a little less, um, "freak out". I feel loyal to them for keeping me on full-time while I was going through really hard times, and while I need the money I know I can get another gig, even if it's just temp work from time to time, to help make up the difference. Bottom line is that I'm seriously considering canceling my contract. I just don't think it's worth the stress, but I'm worried about damaging my karma by "bailing" out on these folks earlier than I said I would.

Luckily, my full-time job is still going well. Some of my co-workers feel like it's a crazy environment, but it's nothing like the level of craziness I've dealt with in previous jobs (including the current consulting work). There are no personal attacks, no invasions of privacy, and generally few expectations of selling your soul to the company store.

On the personal side, there are also little threads of stress weaving in and out. There's the usual 'my-divorce-still-isn't-final' and 'I-still-can't-believe-i'm-getting-divorced' stress, and that's definitely weighing on me tonight. But since that's well-trodden subject matter, I'm going to skip the details and move to something I've alluded to for a little while: my grandma.

My grandma Alice, my mother's mother, is 80+ years old and is currently convalescing in San Antonio at a rehab/assisted living center. She broke her hip back in January and has been on the mend ever since. There was some thought, initially, that some other medical complications meant she was just weeks from death, but tough to the end, she is hanging in there and, frankly, making life hell for lots of folks from time to time.

Among other complications, grandma's care is causing major strife among the sibings. The issue is that the youngest kids, led by my aunt Deb/godmother, and to a certain extent, most of the oldest, are fully dedicated to grandma's care, meaning that someone must visit her in the rehab center every day, and when she is released, each sibling with a home will be responsible for housing and caring for her for a shift of a few months in that home. However, my mother and her oldest sister, who are 55 and 65 respectively, have made it known that they do not want their mother living with them. My mother has also been reluctant to visit grandma out in San Antonio as well.

You see, grandma isn't exactly grateful or happy when people come to see her or try to do things for her. Before she broke her hip, she stayed with my oldest aunt in El Paso for about 6 months and did her best to be miserable and to make my aunt miserable the entire time. That experience is what, I think, led both my mom and aunt to decide that grandma would not be welcome in their homes.

Naturally, the other siblings are pretty pissed about this. They feel that even if my mom doesn't support the decision to care for grandma in this way, she should still be willing to support the other siblings in that decision and therefore take part in grandma's care. I see both sides of this argument. My mom doesn't have a very close relationship with her mother, but she does have close relationships with her siblings, and in order to preserve those relationships, the sibs feel that mom should still take care of grandma, if for no other reason that the fact that they 'say so'. But mom and her oldest sis disagree, so now there is not so subtle retaliation going on--the younger sibs are no longer allowing the non-participants to use the family vacation timeshare which was left to them by their father--my mom's step-dad, my grandma's second husband. It's petty, but it is what it is, and I'm in the middle.

I've visited grandma in San Antonio a couple of times because my aunt Deb has asked me to fill in while she was out of town. I went because of my relationship with Deb and not because of my relationship with my grandma, which is pretty nonexistent. Deb has always supported me, and particularly so over the last year of this divorce evil, helping me out financially and using her connections to hook me up with a lawyer, not to mention putting me up on the weekend whenever I needed some human contact and family around me. I'm there if she asks me to be there. But I hate that she is giving my mom so much grief. I hate that they're at odds with eachother. My mom has her reasons, believe me, beyond that my grandma is being a pain now. (I'll deal with those reasons another time.)

It's late and I'm tired and stressed and a bit depressed and not getting to a point anytime soon. I hope that the family can weather the drama and come out as close as before. And I hope I can turn off my mind tonight and get some sleep. The Democratic county convention is tomorrow and I'm supposed to be there at 9. Don't know how I'm going to do it.

Damn. I just coughed. Guess it's time for my next dose of medicine. Good night, all.