Frustration continues......

This morning, the phone rang in the middle of the night, and my heart nearly stopped.

Only to hear 'Good morning, my dear friend, it is 8:30 a.m. Put on my glasses, looked at the clock and said, 'Peter, it is 3:3o in the morning.'

Of course I went to the hospital early this afternoon, and they were just changing his Depends. Great to behold, hey... (The door was open a bit.) His 'perky' nurse was on duty. Yesterday I also had to wait while they changed the bandage on his foot, and she said, 'Now you can go in young man...' And I did a rubber-neck, and said, 'Young man??? Where???' She laughed and excused herself, she is half my age... I found it funny.

Today she came out, and looked at me sternly. 'Are you bringing him Coca Cola???' And I said, 'Whaaa? I would never bring him that. Ever.' (A liter or Co-Cola has the equvalent of 70 sugar cubes in it... just so's ya know... it would kill him.)

'Well, he said you were...'

Uh-huh...

So I told her about the 3:30 a.m wake up call, and the rest of it.

'I can't breathe.'

'Call the nurse to renew the oxygen.' (which is all they are giving him so far...)

'I can't, I'm in another room, (panicked) and I need to get out of here.'

Whereupon the nurse said, after relating this surreal call in the middle of the night... 'Don't go any further, I get the picture.'

However.... we have the upper denture mystery.

There was a second call, ya see, this morning. 'I lost my upper dentures', and the nurses were supposedly looking all over for them and could I come down and help them find it. Beg pardon???

I didn't beleive that for a second.

But after arriving... his uppers were still nowhere to be found.

So I rummaged around in his drawer, there is no one else in the room, so they could only be in his bed, and I wasn't about to rip that apart with him in it....

And instead marched down to the nurse's station, and said, 'Herr P can't find his upper dentures. Said there was a 'search' and you couldn't find them????' And one of them said, 'I gave them to him this morning, they must be in the bed somewhere. And there was no 'search'.'

Uh-huh...

And I went into Austro-mode, and said, 'Well it would be nice if you could find them for him...'

Herrgottnochmalfixsakramenthalleluja....

There is no diagnosis clipboard anywhere that I can surreptitiously look at... I have no idea what is happening... it is sort of disconcerting.

All I can assume is that he has to be stabilised before they really can DO anything concrete.

It's a mystery...

Have been busy .... with the Telly-com

Well hallelujah!

From the fucking Saturday before Christmas till NOW... I have been fucking Don Quixote on a donkey with a lance fighting damned windmills....

I got so desperate, I wrote to an Ombudsman in a local paper, per Internet... An Ombudsman is a lawyer, and they supposedly help people with problems like I was having.

I have never written to a newspaper before. Where I grew up, you fight and help yourselves. I got an immediate answer per mail, like ten minutes later. (Isn't the internets wonderful???) And she said, 'Fax us the receipt that the bill is paid, and we will go AFTER them.'

Well that was the day I was at the end of my art, as we say, and so I called the telly-com again (Just one last time... uh-huh), and heard, they had reactivated his connection. ON JAN 14th! A month later from the initial intervention..... Way to go, Tellys...

And it was cold, and snowing, if I recall correctly, so I didn't go out because I don't see so well in the twilight any more, and thought, ok, tomorrow....

Called and did not get a message, 'This number is unknown to us' message. And it rang and it rang....

Got to Peter's, sleeping like the dead. Phone? No tone... tee-vee? Forget it. Internet... ditto.

If you want to see cold fury... well, let's leave that, ok?

So I called, and I called and I called, and got insulting people, nice people, it's like playing russian roulette.... Except the nice ones couldn't DO anything.

This afternoon, the Ombudsfrau from the paper mailed me about faxing the paid bill.

So I was explaining what had happened meanwhile, thanking her.... and EXPLAINING, Peter has fallen out of bed so often meanwhile, knocking things over, he got the thing you plug in all the components into probably destroyed.

NORMALLY, they are supposed to be affixed to the wall, you plug them in and forget about it, your telly-phone, fax, modem, whatever.

Well this thing was on the floor near his bed, and half buried under a very heavy brass stand lamp after a fall, so I was 'hopeful' and thought, 'Ok, let's just plug them out, plug them back in, and maybe it will work.' Nada. And that is when I knew.... 'Oh, we got troubles....'

And I am a technical idjit.

Certified.

(Peter is worse... His toaster kept blowing fuses he can't reach on his own, so he unplugged the stove and the refrigerator two days ago. And wondered why the fuses were still blowin. Trying to use the defective toaster... That was FUN...)

Whatever, I was too busy to write the Ombudsfrau... because nothing was all right any more.

Today I get a mail from her... I should fax the receipt so she can go AFTER them....

I thought that was more than cool....

So I explained what was going on, and in the middle of writing.... the )))Telly-com((( called, and said they would send a technician down and fix it tomorrow morning.

But in all this hecticness... I DID have a pertinent question.

HOW... and with WHAT RIGHT, can you send out a bill demanding €40.00 for your television service, which you cut off and they never provided? I think it is illegal. I was so enraged, and the person I was talking to was so inept, I ended up yelling at him.

So snotty... 'If you keep talking to me like that, I will have to end this conversation.' I hope he has fucking nightmares for weeks. Incompetent git....

So I asked her....

I wonder what she will say.....

With luck he will have his connections back tomorrow again.

And I am STILL waiting to hear from social services again tomorrow, because the person I talked to is only in office Tuesdays and Thursdays, and otherwise 'on the road'. I got up this morning feeling so optimistic....

Ya' think...

You know, two birds with one stone, and all that junk...

And I 'think'.... I'm getting just too old for all this stuff. I could just pass it off like water off a duck... Now? There are days I feel like 'Grumpy Old Men'. Eeewwwww...

But still do what I can.

Fun in Looneytunesville...

Today... I tried to pull Peter's chestnuts out of the fire again.

No, not financially.

Battling the local Telecom.

Peter has been very ill for weeks now, and should have been in hospital. And I would have slapped him right in there... except... if I had called and he weren't in critical condition, and said he didn't want to go.... well, game over. I didn't have the 'authori-TAY' to do that.

And I was mostly in bed, with an intestinal infection, asthma, depression, what have you, I could barely do much.

And on the days I couldn't muster the energy to go there, I thought, 'Ok, he's gonna haveta call for help, and finally do it himself....' Except he didn't.

And several days ago, his phone connection got capped because he hadn't been able to go to the bank and pay his outstanding bills.

So two days ago, I dragged myself over there, got the money out of his account, paid the bill, and normally, if this happens, you fax in the receipt to the Telecom, and in a matter of hours, service is restored.... Normally....

So early this morning, I called the service line to get the fax number, because these aarrrsholes don't have it on their bills or stationary. Just the service line number.

So I gave them his client number, explained that the outstanding amount had been paid, and I wanted to fax it through. And the corporate fun began....

'Oh.... they cancelled his connection because the outstanding rate was too high. We sent him a notice...'

'Errm, we are talking about a very ill man here, who can't get out of his house alone, and needs a connection. Can you reverse that somehow?'

(There was a lot more, polite, but I was so steamed, and still kept my composure. For one thing, the person I was calling wasn't responsible, so why berate her? And as they say, you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar, you know? )

So we went back and forth, and I assured her it had been paid the day before, as I had done it myself, in cash. (Not mine, his.)

And she gave me the fax number, saying do it fast, or it would be deleted forever. And call back at noon-time.

Damn!

So I zoomed over to my former work-place, and my favourite former colleague was on duty, and I asked her to fax it asap. Which, of course, she did.

That was shortly after 8 a.m.

BTW... we have a cold snap... it had to be -10 degrees outside. For us, that is extreme.

So I came home to get warm.... made some hot tea... and waited, watching yesterday's news on the intertubes.

Which depressed me even more. How did so many crazies get into government positions, hey?

So... being a 'good' boy, noon rolled around and I called again.

EXCEPT. The shifts had changed, and the 'lady' I spoke with was 'polite', but actually nasty. Here it is always in the inflection, and implied, but believe me... not good.

Upon which... I remained calm. And polite. And we had a forty-fucking minute conversation. Where I explained how imperative it was that he at least had a telephone connection, as in several days ago he fell out of bed, couldn't get back into it, and had to call the fire department, who helped him back in....

(Why he called the fire dept. is beyond my understanding... he was afraid of calling an ambulance, I guess.... he is so messed up these days.... but they did it... seemingly.)

And THIS woman was hard as nails. 'No, the connection has been fully capped, and if he wants it back, he has to ask for it in writing and sign it, and it has to be faxed to us. And it should be done soon, because we can't do anything before Monday, and it may take a day or two, and as you might know, Christmas is just after that.'

DOUBLE WHAMMY!!! HEY...

WAY TO GO....

I just said, Yeah, I know... Ok, will do..' But was seething.

(Subtext? 'I don't know what confession you are....')

As I might know'....

Well Jeebus H. Christ and the dinosaur he rode into Jerusalem on! Probably a TRex for all I know...

Now, I have to admit... if you learn a language in later life, you end up having a slight accent. You can try and try, but if you didn't learn to roll your 'r's' as a baby, it's gonna be there. Mine is honed down fairly, and most people can't place where it comes from, but this 'person' clearly thought I was an Islamist, or something.... It was crass.

So... it was back on the busses way across town, to get a statement signed from Peter that he wanted to have his service back. Which I have to fax off tomorrow morning, because I was exhausted.

Doesn't matter, no one does anything on the weekends anyway.

And will do... because the horridays are coming.

The 'best' part of this is.... his telecom connection is connected with his tee-vee, radio, and internet connection, so everything is dead, and there is silence there. Total silence.

I don't know how many times I have told him to just have all that stuff automatically booked off his account, and it wouldn't have happened. But no.... and then I have to run around trying to 'fix' it. And listen to some arsehole imply I don't know what Christmas is.

Ahhh, Advent... when the spirit of helping your fellow man is so great, and everyone feels so cuddly.

If you are the CEO of some bank, probably...

Too bad Dickens died, and most of his books are out of print.

And oh yes, I keep seeing ads on MSNBC programmes.... for T-Mobile. I didn't know they worked that market, and believe they are from here. I'd stay away from them.

you know how you get at a cross-roads, and aren't sure

what path to take next?

That is where I am at at the moment.

Had a horrendous 'moment' with what seems to be a nice lady today at Peter's place.

Just after I had an asthma attack and threw up.

He can really make me so upset....

But the aggrievance on the others' parts is really understandable, and totally upsetting, but that has upset me for a long time now.

It has to do with personal hygiene, and the fact that his bladder leaks all over the place.

And oh yes, I was cleaning it all up. Till the other week when he let me call the police unnecessarily.. And he 'thinks' she is going to come down and clean up after him, and I went negative.

It had nothing at all to do with feeling 'slighted'. He is so going into Alzi-land, and I am so not going with him.

His latest folly? Buying a pc and internet connection so that he can see the dvd's he'd bought per telephone, so he can watch them.... instead of a new dvd player. That is so fucked up, I do not know where to begin.

It wouldn't have cost a tenth of what he paid for the new set-up.

And he has no idea how to do a pc, and isn't interested.

He just wants to see his dvd's....

But cleaning up after himself? Don't ask...

I had an asthma attack this morning and threw up.

And then had to face a neighbour, going out. She is friendly, and ok. She isn't angry, she was concerned. And wanted to warn me. Others in the house are complaining that it stinks of urine when they go out. Because he doesn't make it to the toilet on time at night, and doesn't clean it up. If I go in it gags me.

Well, all I can say, is let the house people come and check up on what he has done, and stick him in a home, hey. I know that sounds very crass, but you can only take so much.

And you can only DO so much, and then you get worn down.

And I can't take that any more.

And I can't take all the stress any more, and thought that the Serbian bitch would come down and do the cleaning, because I have enough to do at my place. He said that was part of the 'deal'.

You'd think....

So... am just going to let everything take its' course.

That sounds very hard of me, I know... but have been the 'protector' for too long, have put up with the whole shit for so long, have paid for his idiocy for way too long.

I'm not going to lift a finger.

I risked too much, lost too much, got hurt too much.... and really don't know what I should do any more, I really don't.

So... you see?

You can fall in lurv... And then you aren't really yourself. Till one day you wake up and find you spent way too much time, and got fucked over in every way possible. You can tell yourself that you meant well, you can tell yourself that things would become better, and hope... but you can also end up being the idjit.

Because you just loved....

And that isn't just because he became ill. I did so much.... I saved his life more than once.. But if I was ill, he treated that as if it were treason on my part. And my ideas weren't reasonable or me being accountable.

Everyone is accountable for themselves. Period.

Relationships....

People just end up hurting people. And the party who cares gets cut to ribbons with psychical razor blades.

Just don't come at me with gay marriage, or marriage of any sort.

I haven't seen ONE that was something to attain to.

Fuck, fuck fuck fuck fuck....

No one can find Giselle. No one.

Giselle is a family friend. She is the one who only had one child, a son, who recently, like a few months ago, fell over dead at breakfast one day. I wrote about that...

Giselle is unbelievably nice, and has so many quirks, she could be hilarious. For many years, she came to all our dinners at the high holidays, and there were only two rules. She would only eat fowl. And the corfee had better be heart-stopping strong, or else.

I once mentioned the fowl thing to a cousin of mine, saying, 'she will eat anything that flies', and got back the question, 'even a Boeing 747?' Cracked me up.

People in my family can be so flip.

And she was always a fixture at Christmas. She loved her some pretty trees, believe me.

She always played one-upmanship with Peter's aunt. 'Well YOU weren't here when...' and so on and so on. It was like schoolgirl rivalry. 'And he made you FISH for the first course, but he made ME a chicken salad!' (So there... so to speak...) I usually had to run to the kitchen and just fall apart laughing. Deadly duels, they were... and hilarious.

Whatever, when I left Peter's house... she had become ill, and has more or less been bed ridden for the last 8 years, her son took care of her, and he died, and he was somewhat younger than me.

Peter and his aunt have always been in contact with her, and she always, ALWAYS sends me her greetings and admonitions to take care of myself, and cares.

I was astounded that when her son died, she did not call Peter or Charlotte. She called me. I had to be brave on that call, and not burst into tears for her. I did that afterward.

And all of a sudden, hey... she can't get to the phone. Which is just outside the room she occupies. She has people from social services who see to her every day. So first I thought, 'ok, she's back in the eye clinic, because her retinas get detached, and they keep trying to fix it.' Her son used to inform us, and we would know all was as ok as it could be... but he is no longer among us.

So Charlotte mailed me today, and told me how worried she was that she couldn't reach 'Gisi', as she calls her. (Her real first name is Gisela, and Peter's mother used to call her Giselle, thus the confusion here. For me, she was Giselle.)

So I assumed she was in the eye clinic again. And got the info at the state hospital, and asked if she were a patient there, explaining that a nearly ninety year old lady couldn't be reached, and we were wondering if she had been put into the hospital. And no. There is no patient of that name anywhere on their records.

That sort of fucks my mind.

So... tomorrow morning, I am going to bus out to her hilly area, and try to find out what has happened.

As optimistic pessimist... oh, I don't want to go there.

But hoping that at best, she couldn't cope any more, and is in a home... at worst? I do not want to go there.

I DO know that I will go there with fear in my heart.

People who are kind should live forever, you know?

I hope it is a false alarm.

I was trying to explain everything to someone...

and turned it into a fairy tale, a fracutred one.


Once upon a time... there was this guy who was handsome and athletic, and lovely. And he had a fairy godmother who was incredibly scurile , and adopted him, and left him all her kingdom, including a long neglected house. The 'prince' was ecstatic, and turned it into a mansion, selling off valuable land to make it 'perfect'. And it was. But the 'prince' wasn't all that bright. And his vassal would try to counsel him, but he would say, 'NO, this is MY realm, and I will do as I please!'

It didn't take long, and the 'prince' took in an innocuous looking woman, who was in reality the worst witch in the Shire in which he resided. The vassal was distraught, and wrung his hands and warned him, but he wouldn't listen. Her ally was a warlock, who was capable of dark magic. And they bewitched the 'prince', and managed to take all his lands and house away from him. The 'prince' was so gullible, he never really noticed what the dark forces were doing. And the vassal had no powers.

It wasn't long before the witch and the warlock managed to send the vassal into outer realms, where he could have no power over the 'prince'.

But the 'prince' was happy. He thought that they would look after him forever and a day.

Except they didn't and weakened him. And took everything he had.

Now, the laws of the land said, they couldn't just throw him out. But they made sure he was miserable, and stole whatever they could from whatever he had inherited from his Fairy Godmother.

And when he became ill, and was sorry for everything, he had to leave, and they found a way to finally obtain the realm he had so lovingly built up, and he ended up in poverty and misery.

The vassal returned, and tried to have the protective forces of the realm rescue the 'prince'.... except he had been away too long, and the laws were changed.

And no one lived happily ever after.

End of story.

I did a test today.... and it wasn't a nice one

Was over at Peter's, and our friend Doro came over to help me out, because, I am NOT very good with anything any more.

It sort of turned into 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf ' because I am still so angry.

And I was fucking bloody Martha.

And you know what?

He didn't care.

At all.

He gave inane answers.

He just didn't care. Period.

(My heart just literally gave me pain, saying that.... literally.)

Oh, I didn't scream or yell. I didn't.

I just told her a story about what happened recently. Truthfully, but still so fucking angry it was bitter.

Ok, it wasn't a story. It was what happened. She obviously hadn't heard about him signing over the apt. although she and her husband bought the top left one years ago.

She kept giving me the thumbs up sign behind his back.

And then it got uncomfortable, and she left.

I called and apologised for having her subjected to that.

But I wanted to see how far along on the road to dementia he is.

And got an answer from her that I didn't want to hear.

'He never cared. Drop it. He never cared. It was bad enough when you left, but nearly getting you arrested? Walk away, and take care of yourself. We're here for you.'

Werner, who has seen me cry myself to sleep more times than I wish, trying for him not to notice, is far more adamant. 'Throw him away. You deserve so much better.'

My father's immediate reaction was very much like his. Heteros, hmpf...

I think it better not to throw people under the bus. They'll slip under there on their own, you know?

Gawwwd, am I tired at the moment.

There is a lot I am not putting in here, regarding the 'person' who managed to take away everything I had....

So, I guess, after 34 years, I'm going to give notice, final at the end of the month. And what Peter does after that doesn't touch me any more.

Goodness knows... I have done so much over so many decades, much of which wasn't easy... but one day you have to wake up and say 'enough is enough'.

And don't anyone get on my case about stretching it out, hey. I want it to be civil, and he can find someone else to leech onto. But not onto the few friends I have left.

After all that... well, it won't be easy, but it will be right. And it feels 'right' at the moment, so am sure.

Angry much? I do not know where to begin...

I received a mail from a former neighbor. She was on vac for four days, noticed that the shutters to our old place were turned down, the windows were tilted open, and asked if I had been in there.

So I called her, and said, no, hadn't been there in months.

So I rang up Peter, and told him someone had broken in, obviously. And that I was going to call the police.

He gave me the go-ahead....

For a change.

And the police broke in, and I.... got fucking egg on my face.

Becaaaaussse... Peter had given over his rights to the apartment in August, and never told me! So I was the breaker-in, because I still had the keys.

The owner came down with all the appropriate papers, Peter had signed it, and I was the idjit.

And everything that is left inside that apt. belongs to her, not me. Although he maintained otherwise.

Well, of course, Werner had to hold me back, with my little fists. I had brought him along, you see, for moral support.

He hates that woman more than I do, even, and wanted to keep me out of serious trouble.

The police weren't sure who was right in this case, and I didn't help matters any calling 'that woman' everything in the book. When my Irish is up, I am invincible, believe me. I think the worst thing I said was, 'you fucking tramp!'

Yup. I was actually fresh to a woman. I wanted to slap her into the middle of next week, but Werner held me back. He is very strong.

We had to give up the keys to the Mühlgasse 40 to the police.

I called Peter, of course on my underused cell phone, and he had to admit he had done that and hadn't told me.

So we were in the wrong... and hadn't known it. Fun. Not.

What the holy fuck is WRONG with people?

I am so tired of being lied to.

I just heard I am going to be sued in court.

I don't know what FOR....

I didn't attack anyone, except verbally....

I was upset and didn't know the facts.

And now you know why I don't like the idea of gay marriage. If you get a dud, you get into debt, and have to put up with their shenanigans, and NO.

Not for me, thank you... I have enough to do with all the lies, the subterfuge, and oh yes... he is so ill.

Well so am I at the moment, and it makes me want to puke.