So we moved in with my mother this year, right before the covid lockdown hit.  And as soon as we did, my mother took over being "the boss of everything".  She had to tell me where to put the furniture, where to put the tables, and she even took my furniture and used it as her own (even though we hardly had any furniture at all).  She even went as far as to tell me "You can decorate your room, but I get the rest of the house".  She's also famous for constantly saying "When I'm dead, you can do what you want with the house", meaning that I am not allowed to choose anything while she'd still here.  The funny part is that she thinks she'll be living here until she's dead.  The woman has dementia, and the minute I have to change her soiling herself, she will be in a home. 

The issue is that my mother picks dangerous things to do when nobody is looking, which has led to her breaking two bones this past few months.  She can barely stand upright most of the time, yet she constantly walks through our hilly and holey yard when everyone is asleep.  And she does it on purpose because she'll brag about it, as though being oppositional and defiant makes her a badass.  The last time she tried to do something stupid she broke a damn rib.  She was in so much pain that they gave her fentanyl and it didn't even touch it.  Every time she moved, she screamed.  And yet, she will bug me about going in the basement most days or some other stupid thing she wants to hurt herself with. 

She thinks she the boss of everyone and everything around her and we've had a hell of a time trying to keep her safe from herself.  And I can only imagine that as her dementia progresses, it will only get worse.  And know, these actions have nothing to do with her dementia.  This is the way she's always been.  Bossy, defiant, and unruly. 

When we found the house, one of the coolest things I fell in love with was the garden area.  And because I was so happy about it, she decided to be the boss of that, too.  I wasn't allowed to pick the plants to go in the garden.  I'm not even allowed to choose where my garden gnomes go (she made the comment that I should put them out at the cemetery on my father's grave the other day, which goes to show how much she respects my stuff). Every time I put a gnome where I want it, she moves it where she wants it. 

So she tried to head up this year's garden, even though I'm the one who's kept a garden for more than ten years, but for some reason she thinks because she did it when I was growing up, she is way more experienced than me.  My kids and I tilled the garden.  We also made it twice the size by fencing off the rest of the corner in our yard.  And she kept telling me where to plant the plants inside of it.  I said "If you're not going to tend it, I will put them where I want".  And I threw on my headphones so I didn't have to hear her bitching and planted them wherever I wanted.  It felt good to not let her boss me around.  But as it turned out, a fact I found out as I was planting them, she bought almost 10 tomato plants and a few squash.  I was like "What kind of garden are we making here?"  Nobody needs that many damn tomatoes, especially not us.  And they were all the same kind of tomatoes, too.   

So now I have a freaking tomato garden.  All that whining about not letting me plant what I wanted.  All that bossing me around.  All that "We'll, we're certainly not planting seeds from last year!"  All of it.  For what?  And the minute the work got complicated?  My mother washed her hands of the whole thing.  She went from "Don't you remember?  I've kept a garden all your childhood!  I know best!"  to "Ugggh, I kept a garden all those years.  I don't even want to do this ever again.  It's yours."  Thanks.  After you bought all the plants (aka: tomatoes) and it's too late to plant anything else.  Now it's mine.  Great. 

Well, if anyone needs some freaking roma tomatoes, just hit me up.  Soon, we'll have a hundred that will rot because we don't can and freezing them makes them gross. 

I did make a fresh topping for my noodles the other day.  I cut up one tomato, one zucchini and sautéed them with garlic powder and Italian seasoning and put it on top of linguine when the zucchini was soft.  It was quite delicious. 

But I can't eat noodles every damn day, nor will I eat tomatoes every day either. 

What a fun summer this is.  I hope yours is going better.