Big Long Rant!

I am feeling very pissed off this evening. As I sit here, my poor mother is probably finally driving to the airport to pick up Gramps. He has been visiting my Aunt, L in FL for the last two weeks and was due to arrive home today about 2pm. It is now 6pm. For anyone keeping track, he didn't land on time!!

Aunt L put an 87 year old man on a flight with a 55 minute layover in Charlotte. He landed at concourse B and had to get to concourse E for his flight home. It does appear that the airline staff made sure that he made the connecting flight, however in order to do it, there was no way he had time to eat anything or use the restroom. For a diabetic, missing meals can do a lot of damage and as I have not yet seen him, I can only guess what his numbers will be tomorrow!!

Anyway, there ended up being something wrong with the plane and they had to turn around and come back and unload everyone. They said that they would be leaving at 3, then it was 4, then it was 5, then it was 7. Smug-Grandma spent her afternoon on the phone with L, my uncle, the airline, and Gramps all giving conflicting stories, flight times, flight numbers, etc. Finally we knew that a decision needed to be made about driving to Charlotte to pick him up. Charlotte is about 3 hours from here. About the time that it was decided that Smug-Grandma needed to go get him, the plane finally took off.

He is due to arrive any minute, so I hope that the plane actually left and he is on it and everything is truly OK with him and there isn't any lasting damage from all this.

Here is the kicker!! L was told over and over and over and over that she had to book him on a direct flight. The reason she didn't you ask? Well, the direct flight would have required her to get up about 4am to get him to the airport and she doesn't like getting up early. No one does, you crazy nut!! She did this to him, she put him on a flight with a connection that was too tight to begin with, she put him in the position of sitting in the airport for hours upon hours and she had the audacity to leave a message for my mother blaming Gramps for it all!!

I hate this women. I haven't spoken to her since I was 17 living with my then boyfriend and I visited with her in FL and she lost her freaking mind and spent like 2 hours during a car ride screaming at me about how my mother was horrible and how bad I had turned out. She said that I would never amount to anything and end up a pregnant teenager living my whole life below the poverty line because my mother had lived with her boyfriend before they got married and now I was doing the same. She railed me up one side and down the other for hours and I was trapped in that car with no way to escape the tirade.

I haven't had anything to do with her since. She tried for a few months afterward to be in contact. She sent birthday cards or a little gift or something, which I always marked "Return to sender" Not once did she ever even try to apologize for her behavior. In her sick little mind, she probably doesn't think she did anything wrong!

So, the years past and I moved on with my life and hardly gave her a thought. Until my Grandmother was dying. I saw her when I went to FL to see my Grandmother one last time (we were actually about 2 hours too late). Smug-Baby was about 4 weeks old at the time and I was polite to L and spoke to her when she spoke to me, but I had no interest in prolonging the contact and she never got close to my new, precious baby.

Since then, she has apparently figured that everything was fine again. I received a Christmas card (she must have looked up my address from my Grandmother's address book, because I never would have allowed it to be given to her). I started receiving e-mails (again I have no idea how she would have gotten my e-mail address) and gifts for my child.

She has been here once since Gramps moved and I saw her then and she made some comment to Smug-Baby about L being "the reading grandma" and how Smug-Baby would be receiving books from her. I again, didn't want to cause problems for Gramps by confronting her, but now I have received a birthday gift for Smug-Baby and this latest incident with Gramps is all too much! I am going to have to say something to her about staying out of my life.

When she e-mailed me about the medication routine before Gramps visit, she kept asking about Smug-Baby's sizes and measurements. I just kept my responses about the meds and didn't add anything personal. But again, I am going to have to tell her that she is not welcome in my life and especially not welcome in my daughter's life.

I don't allow my child to be around mentally ill people who could hurt her. I love my Gramps and I want his last years to be full of love and happiness and good health. I may have to keep my feelings about his eldest daughter to myself, but NOT FOR LONG!! I can only take so much!!!

Mom just called, she picked him up. I won't be able to find out how he is until tomorrow. She wouldn't be able to talk freely with him sitting right there. I hope he is OK and no worse for the wear.

Good night people - sorry for the rant!!