crazy in the gardens

This past week has been very much up and down in the gardens. Lots of sh*t to deal with. Such is life. But yesterday I just lost it. I got home from work and started making dinner, chicken quesadillas with salsa and sour cream and refried beans, very yummy, if I do say so myself. Would have been much better if we hadn't all had several pumpkin chocolate chip cookies while we were waiting for the quesadillas to get done...

While I'm in the middle of buttering and grilling the tortillas, the phone rings. It's my mom calling to tell me that she saw the foot doctor about the surgery she had last week and he said he could tell from the swelling that she had been doing too much walking. Then she says luvya, bye and as soon as I hang up the phone, it rings again and it's mom telling me she'll be making 75 deviled eggs for the after-funeral meal at the church for my friend Shannon's family, because her mom, Anna, died on Sunday, just three hours before Gordon B. Hinckley died. *Imagine that, Anna could be in the choir of angels singing to welcome him into heaven, since she did have a lovely soprano voice. That would be plenty of time for her to rehearse. I agree that that sounds so nice for Anna.* I ask when and where the viewing and funeral will be and she says my dad hasn't seen the obituary in the paper yet and she hasn't had time to read it. I hang up again and not more than two minutes later, the phone rings again and *surprise* it's mom. Dad just didn't recognize Anna's picture. The obituary is in the paper. I say, "Okay, I'll check it online," since I am still trying to grill, not blacken the quesadillas. But then, my mom says, "Hmm, Anna Pearl Christensen Perry, born. . ." and she proceeds to read the entire obituary to me ON THE PHONE WHILE I'M TRYING TO COOK QUESADILLAS!!! I try to get her to stop by telling her that I'll look it up online after I finish cooking and eating dinner, but she can't stop herself until she READS THE WHOLE THING TO ME ON THE PHONE. So after she reads the part that says the service will be handled by Jenkins Soffe Mortuary *the best mortuary around, every other place uses too much makeup* we hang up again, and I swear, the phone rings as soon as I put it in the cradle. I look at Jack and screech, "I CAN'T TALK TO HER AGAIN RIGHT THIS MINUTE!!!" and he looks at me like, "Geez woman, pull yourself together."

I answer the phone AGAIN and answer in a less than friendly voice, "Hello?" And it's my daughter calling about what I don't know because it takes me three minutes into the conversation to calm down and behave rationally again.