Better and Better

Another one of those days - punctuated by an unpleasant scene with the finance guy in the previous post brought by the fact that I refused to sign off on his payment on the grounds that he didn't do the work. He said he would, but only if we pay for him to stay another week. Which I can't. No budget. It's not my fault he wasted the the all-expenses-paid two weeks he spent out here doing nothing. If he needs to stay here any longer to get the job done, he can damn well do so at his own expense.

Then I called Mama - as I do everyday - to de-stress, I hoped. Little did I know another fight was in the works. 90 minutes on the phone. Long-distance. First she freaked at me because when she wanted to know when we (as in me and K) were coming in the summer, I had to tell her we weren't. We've arranged to spend what remains of our annual leave in Sweden this year. Given the fact that Sweden is supposed to be my future permanent home, I think it's about time I got my first glimpse of it.

She said that if I felt more at home with his family now than with them etc.....Huh? Then she took it a step further and said that his family come and visit us much more than my family etc....and the whole thing turned into this convoluted argument about whether or not I love my in-laws more than my parents!

I was incredulous. It wasn't like my mother to be so irrational. At one point, I took a time-out and decided to dig deeper to find out what was really bothering her. Then it came out. One of her patients was found dead at his house last week. Because he lived alone - all of his children being abroad and his wife having passed away a few years before - he wasn't discovered until 4 days after death.

The incident clearly upset her profoundly. My mother did always get a bit too emotionally involved with her patients. But these days cases that involve older people and faraway children seem to really, really hit her on a personal level.

I felt it would be stupid to complain about my own work problem because it suddenly seemed trivial next to HER work problem. At least none of my work problems involve any loss of life. Instead, I spent the whole time trying to calm her down and make her laugh. I spoke to my Dad & ordered him to take her away some place this weekend to cheer her up. He said he'd be happy to if she wasn't working.

I was surprised. I hadn't realized that she still works crazy hours and weekends. My mother really is a workaholic. She really needs to take it easier at her age.

But in conclusion, she let go of the issue of our coming summer holiday.

Except just now, I was talking to my husband on the phone and when I told him that Mama wanted us to go to Casa this summer, he didn't let me finish. He said great. We could spend one week there and one week in Egypt - where his parents will be spending their holiday in Alex.

I have 23 days of leave and he has 21. Now 14 weeks are spoken for. So that leaves about a week to spend in Sweden.

I had been looking forward to a long, relaxing holiday spent getting used to the country and the house we're planning to live in. Not a holiday spent jumping on a plane every few days.

Oh well.