Mater Matters

If I had to define hell, it would be a humorless tedium.
Wait. That's my life now.
I've spent the past few days trying to take care of the usual mundane crap, and in doing so, I've been forced to interact with my so-called "loved ones." Talk about an oxymoron waiting to happen. Now I know why I'm a workaholic.
I've gotten a bit of flak for my humor being "inappropriate." You know, your father dies and you're asked what the arrangements are, and one time you say something like "shake and bake" and you're branded forever. Hey! I was sixteen at the time.
So back to more "inappropriate" kvetching (and I'm not even Jewish) about my mother.

Irrelevant and stereotypical aside-- I was having a drink with a friend of mine from work who is Jewish. I told her that I was Italian (fine, I'm a typical mutt, but close to 1/2 Italian heritage). She told me that "Italians and Jews are like this" (crossed her fingers). I responded, "Yup. Food, mothers, and guilt."

Spending this past week with She Who Gave Me Life, I'm pretty sure that my father died to escape her. Don't get me wrong, I love her, but either give her a mute button or reduce my dosage. As I may have written here earlier, the more time I spend with her, the better I understand the Greek fascination with matricide. I was told (melodramatically, sniff sniff) that I had done "nothing" for her lately. Ohhh really...
The "nothing" that I've done for her in the past two weeks includes hauling all the Christmas stuff out of the cellar, picking out, buying, putting up, and decorating a Christmas tree, cooking Christmas Eve vigilia repast (Feast of Seven Fishes), traipsing to several stores to find window treatments for her bedroom, installing hardware for prementioned window treatments, putting up, taking down, refinessing and redraping $#W$@)(* window treatments, lather, rinse and repeat for kitchen window treatments, giving dogs "hair cuts" (she was convinced they were going blind because of hair in eyes), researching all hypochondriacal developments du jour, baking dog biscuits so that she could give them as a gift to a friend (which I wouldn't have minded but it became a demand, not a request), and putting summer clothes and rugs in attic for the season. This was all in between the usual refrain of "let the dogs out," "let the dogs in," and the ever-popular standby, "where are the dogs?"
Now the woman does a lot of good things, and she works hard, and I have the utmost respect for her and all she has accomplished. I tell her this. The fact remains: she... is... driving... me... crazy. Of course, I gave her the keys and climbed in the car for the ride.
Pseudo-psychiatry: I think I've allowed it because I feel sorry that she was "abandoned" when my father died. I fear that, as her only child, no one else will care for her. I contribute and enable, and I'm used to validating myself by being needed.
This is all well and good as to motivations, but it doesn't do diddly in getting my asterisk in gear.
Do you think I can ask for a divorce?