Happy Sunday Night.

The highlights of my weekend:

1) Promising myself that I wouldn’t spend Friday night at my mother’s house, with the filth and the dust and the mice. Not believing myself, to the point that before I left for work on Friday morning I packed a duffel bag with a single change of clothes—and my meds—in it. I ultimately could not abandon my brother, however, after he flew into town for what was supposed to be a discussion of my mother’s will and estate, potential powers-of-attorney, and how to arrange for care for her, should she break a hip or something—and the whole thing turned into a de-filthifying campaign.

So I slept there both Friday and Saturday nights on that love seat that is too small for me, and especially so if the dog decides to sleep “at” my feet (this means on my feet). I met the clothing challenge with a combination of dirty clothes, the stuff I’d brought, and a few things I borrowed from my mom (whose feet are small enough that I can at least wear her socks).

Unfortunately most of the toiletries I used to keep at her place had gotten buried in clutter, and most of the clothing I had there was unusable: My nicest bathrobe was covered in mouse shit, and one of my favorite long-sleeve T-shirts—which The Mom had washed, realizing that I’m irrationally squeamish about rodent shit and rodent piss—had been nibbled on, around the shoulder, neck, and armpit. I showed this shirt to my mother, asking if perhaps Mandy had bitten the shirt for some reason, because I can forgive Mandy a lot of her high-spirited, exuberant behavior. “No,” she told me; “I’m pretty sure that it was the mice.”

“Well, then,” I replied, “let’s get the fuck rid of the mice.”

I’m not sure what can be accomplished on the rodent front until we get some of the entry points sealed off (and, yes: until I can convince her to call a professional exterminator, I may just drop by with steel wool and duct tape—and maybe a little plastic sheeting for the fireplace, since I suspect the flue doesn’t seal properly). One does what one can; at least, I shall. Never mind that exterminators give free estimates; Mom’s worth as a human being hinges on her ability to handle this without professional help.

My brother and I did manage to take out five mice in one weekend, mostly with those low-tech wooden traps (we’re using three kinds, and I may look for other options—and possibly start wearing disposable gloves when I handle the traps, to keep the human scent off of ’em). My brother claims that we are trying to collect enough mouse-pelts to make a jacket (my mother and my husband agree that the mouse-fur jacket should be for me, since my stature would mean I needed the fewest pelts). I have told people that I am cutting off the little mouse ears, so I can make a necklace out of them.

2) The moment that my mother couldn’t stand it any more, since we were gathering up her valuable papers, plastic packaging, and stray bits of cardboard, putting them into recycling, and/or the trash. She had a panic attack, and then got hit with a headache and with vision problems; I think part of this episode might have been a migraine, but her sense of well-being probably wasn’t helped by the stress of having to Ignorant, Thoughtless Individuals Wantonly Getting Rid of Her Valuable Stuff. She was advised by both people in a variety of ways that she should consider verbalizing just a bit less, particularly while she was providing lavish constructive feedback on how badly I was sauteeing some sausages for her to snack on. This little episode culminated in my brother raising his voice, which he does perhaps every decade and a half, and my telling my mother to “shut up,” which I do in that explicit/offensive way perhaps every couple of years.

3) The eventual result of my brother touching the valuable papers on her bedroom floor that the dog had shredded, the migraine, the panic attack, my incompetence at sausage-frying, and the increasing intolerance among her offspring of Bounteous Verbalization was that she attempted to order us both out of the house, so we could have quality brother-sister time (sibling time is always especially fun when you’ve just been kicked out of your mother’s house), or so we could come out to this side of town and see my husband (because my brother flew into town largely so he could reacquaint himself with the Los Angeles freeway system).

The added advantage of us getting the hell out of her house—a little “value-added” benefit, or at least so went the argument—was, then there wouldn’t be any pressure on her to “get better” right away, and we wouldn’t be working unsupervised. I mean, having people in their late 40s who have known you all their lives cleaning your house is hard on a girl—especially one whose pit bull has only learned one lesson out of all those we’ve tried to teach it: do not hunt mice. Chew on people’s shoes, instead. Somehow my mother was able to get that message through to Mandy loud and clear. After years of trying more orthodox lessons, such as “lie down,” “sit,” “stay,” “get off the couch, you stupid dog,” and “stop begging for food; just because your owner is a soft touch doesn’t mean I’m going to reward bad behavior so flagrantly,” my successes in that arena have been few and far between.

I looked at my brother, who oozed the non-committal, passive-aggressive male vibe men in my family-of-origin have down to a fine art, and figured out that he wasn’t in the mood to humor her. So I informed her that she could stay in the family room, and we wouldn’t bother her at all until she felt better. It was our final offer, but it had to be reiterated several times before it sank in that she would not be getting her way in this instance. It had to be a tough moment; she has always gotten her way with me, and generally did with my brother, until he married a woman who, um, also likes to get her way, and with whom there are often decisions to be made about humoring vs. not-humoring. So mom kind of lost her place in line, there.

The real, non-ironic highlights of my weekend:

1) My mother and brother stocked the house just as lavishly with beer on their way back from LAX as I had on previous occasions when my continually thirsty cousins had visited to spend the entire weekend de-cluttering—and upgrading the maternal unit’s lighting, painting, and landscaping, as is their wont. (Not that I’ve noticed that their hyper-productive “vacations” in L.A. have been just as [un]successful as the hundreds of hours I’ve spent cleaning over there during the past four years. But I must keep trying, mustn’t I?)

I felt I’d crossed a line when I had half a beer with breakfast on Saturday morning. I’m transgressing beyond yet another boundary now, because in retrospect I wish it had been a full bottle. I may be headed to the gutter in a hurry. (But “at least I’m enjoying the ride.”)

2) An amazing dinner on Saturday night at a local Persian restaurant: so much good food, and so many amazing flavors (saffron, rosewater, pomegranate seeds; bitchin’ lamb, beef, and chicken; raw red onion to eat alongside the pita bread; a variation on lentil soup unlike any I’d had before, and I’ve had many). I’m usually a poor sport about playing dinner by the Mom Rules, which require that each person gets to taste what everyone else is eating, but I was happy to do it, this time. What a meal. I suggested that we simply all move in: no mice, lots of imported beer, and kick-ass food. Neither the mother nor the brother realized how perfect a solution this was to all of our problems, but people are short-sighted about these things.

3) Those five little mouse corpses. It might be that it was a drop in the bucket, but it felt so good to toss four little mousie bodies into the trash at once—the four that showed up while we were having fun at the Iranian restaurant on Saturday night—and then to take out the trash. They are adorable little creatures, but especially so in death.

4) My realization that I’m not really without a place to stay on the West Side; it’s just that I need to invest in some ammo cans if I want my clothes, toothpaste and makeup to remain intact and free of mouse shit.

I should get some extras, to store the mom’s food in. (I wonder exactly why it is that my brother and I preferred going out to eat this past weekend, rather than dining at my mother’s home. Quite the poser, huh?)

5) Twenty-five minutes after I told the sibling that both the trash bin and the recycling bin outside were Officially Out of Room, he informed me that both sets of material had gotten “compacted,” right in their containers. My mom told him he had an exciting career ahead of him as an old-fashioned winemaker. I merely told him how impressed I was at the “mass” of someone who could jump up and down on a barrel of trash and compact it so effectively. He claimed that it was the jumping that had done the trick, but I continued to lavish praise for how much heft a person would have to sport to accomplish a miracle like that.

The brother is a borderline mesomorph, but I know he’d have a beer belly if he didn’t get up at 5:00 a.m. five days a week to play racquetball before going to work. From this, and from our family track record, I can infer that he is deathly afraid, at the age of 48, that a beer belly will show up some day.

Hence, my panegyric to his trash-compacting abilities, both yesterday and today—at brunch, with my husband, who had to be told about Allyn’s talents as a compressor of recyclables and trash.

I realize that I’m a horrific human being, but that felt great. I’d do again in a heartbeat.

6) The moment that I told Allyn his eldest son has only returned “one or two” of the emails I’ve ever sent him. “I don’t think he’s returned that many of mine,” I was told.

Considering the fact that I know exactly where that little teenaged bastard got this bad habit, it was another golden moment.

I shall now spend the last few hours of the weekend knocking my head, Dobby-like, against the nearest wall.

But it was worth it.

Tagged as: beer, clutter, family relationships, Iranian food, mouse-control