"I've been gone for awhile now...."

I've been away for awhile...well, all summer actually. The last few months have been challenging, a death in the family and a trip to Payson Arizona to take care of my 87 year old mother who wrestles with dementia. My stepfather suffered a heart attack in early august and is recovering from surgery in a rehab facility. My twin sister and I are here to "take over" so to speak, which if you knew us, is sort of scary and confusing, especially to the aged! Yesterday we made my mother laugh so hard she wet her pants twice in one day, a record both of us are proud of! We watch DVD's regularly....harmless, sweet, Tom Hanks happy ending movies, on a T.V. so old all the actresses have the same coral colored lipstick, and at volumes so loud all the neighbors know our bedtime. Last night my sister was watching "Sleepless In Seattle " with my mother, for the umpteenth time, and spotted a rather large, brown, woolly mammoth, crawling across the wall in the dining room. She screamed for me(in the bedroom) to bring the hand-vac or a baseball bat.....what ever would be less damaging to the drywall....to "kill the mother fu*ker"! She only used the F word twice, and when trying her patience, told me to "shut up!" after reassuring me several times that IT WASN'T bigger than a bread box. She managed to do the deed, quite nicely, with the latest issue of Time magazine, smearing John McCain's face with a variation of gooey brown spider guts. My mother watched amused from the couch, and said, " I raise bigger ones in the Cadillac!" I've never seen a spider that large inside a house before!....it's legs were unbelievably long, I swear it had knuckles! The body ALONE was bigger than the green olives I was swallowing whole and chasing with a tumbler of Pinot Grigio.I'm thinking flame thrower.......
Payson is an interesting place....all the cashiers call me "honey"(I'm 54yrs. old) either because they're all over the age of 70 or because they've seen me driving around in a borrowed SUV with a licence plate that reads COWBOY. I've learned that it's better not to make eye contact with ANYONE waiting in line with me at Safeway, the hardware store, or the pharmacy. There is an eagerness, by the local townsfolk( 95% seniors) to share their personal medical histories....tales of fungal toenails, unexpected heart attacks, and constipations only a Paul Bunyon sized plumber's helper could remedy.
We take my mother to visit my stepfather everyday in the rehab center. The staff there is wonderful and very caring...of coarse my stepfather can't wait to get out! When I left today I passed the recreation room and heard an old man singing, rather loudly, It's Now Or Never", accompanied by an old fellow playing a saw...... and I thought.... yep, that's about it in a nut shell... While my mom visited her husband, my sister and I wandered over to our favorite new restaurant..... it has the nicest little bar.... it serves Blue Moon beer on tap with an orange slice! For about 45 minutes we schmooze the bartender and leave a big tip in hopes that tomorrow, he'll see "COWBOY" pull up into the parking lot, and have two 'cold ones' waiting for us. In the meantime we're here enjoying my mother's, sometimes scattered, lucid moments and hoping this all has a happy ending or at least enough Tom Hanks to make it sweeter.