In the history of weekends that suck, this one is taking the proverbial cake. I took Friday off of work to go and see my Auntie. She knew me. We talked. I took her putlejon, but she was too weak to eat it. Yesterday I went to see Mummy for the first time in two weeks. I hadn’t been because of the chest cold from hell, and I didn’t want to visit her while hacking up lung and sniffling. With the Auntie, what the hell. She was actively dying, so what was a cold germ going to do…kill her? Hah. I was so shocked at my mother’s appearance, that I went straight to a bar and downed a shot of scotch. She had knocked her shin on the wheelchair and had a bruise that went from her knee to her ankle, and was highlighted by a skin tear about two inches long, in a v-shape…She had a blood blister on her big toe the size of a dime. Her “good” eye was weeping and half-shut. The psoriasis had come back on her scalp with a vengeance. She was grinding her teeth. And then, she said the Girlcousin’s name. Whee. Drink!

Today, I tried to sleep in, and got a phone call around ten from the family at my Auntie’s bedside. If I was on the road, they said, I should put the pedal to the metal, because it didn’t look like there was going to be much more time. I woke the RLA and tossed on my clothes, all the while moaning that three days of this in a row was taking its toll on my mental health. And before I got my jeans zipped up, the phone rang again. Never mind. Dilemma has been solved. Auntie is gone. We’ll all meet at the funeral. Tomorrow or the next day.

I keep telling myself that I can’t possibly be an alcoholic, because the shot of single malt I downed at 10:15 this morning nearly killed me.

I have locked myself in my studio for the remainder of the day. I’m going to rearrange the space and make it a sewing room again, instead of my computer lab/knitting storage.

6:00 p.m. I lied. There was just no way I could concentrate. Instead of organizing, I washed three skeins of yarn and hung them to dry. I finished a book. I did the crossword. I changed the bedding. I smoked cigarettes and stared into space. Time to feed the dogs.