My parents are nuts.

Today I am going back up to Huntsville first then to sister Dawn's house in Niederwald. It will be a tense visit I am sure.

Over the last few days my parents have done their best to cover up illegal activity they are engaging in by telling us one lie after another, making up imaginary emergencies and after not getting the desired response from me, finally just doing what they want.

For example, when I told them I could not commit to coing over on Thursday to babysit Joyce while dad went to Austin (because I believed he was going there only to drop off pills to somebody) we got a couple of emails saying Joyce had fallen, that the neighbor was willing to come over and stay (all night if necessary implying that I was crappy because I wasn't) , that Joyce thought she had left the wrong impression with us and that daddy was not selling the pills, that they were hers (not true, his name was on bottle which I called her on). Then, on Thursday, I got an email at 5:43 am stating dad was going to ER, then later at 7:43 he was driving to Austin instead for the dr appointment that it turns out he did have (and to see the friend to give him the pills). So. We go from ER to feeling fine (It's a miracle!) driving 8 hr round trip in the rain, having taken 2 hydrocodone pills, in the rain.

My conscience is clear. I cannot be a party in any way to that type of activity. If nothing else, I hope they have figured out that I refuse to be played like a fiddle.

My purpose on this visit was to visit Joyce and hopefully help them in a productive way. I. Plan to also stop by again onmy way back to Cheril's house before leaving for California on Tuesday.

They need to be closer to the hospital and Cheril and I looked at a little duplex yesterday. It is too small but there is another possibility that we are exploring also. If they get moved down there, they will not be two hours one way from the hospital which is where they should have been in the first place.

We believe Joyce has Munchausen syndrome. This is a form of mental illness wherein people invent medical problems in themselves and sometimes other people (such as their children) in order to get attention and sympathy for themselves. I had never heard of this but after looking it up, it makes sense and explains a lot.

Texas April 2013

So here I am at my youngest sister, Cheril's apartment in The Woodlands, Texas just outside Houston. Here to visit my parents, Cheril, Dawn & Matt.

Main purpose of visit is to visit step-mom Joyce who has cancer. Small cell something. Caused by a lifetime of smoking. Last time I saw her was Thanksgiving 2012 and she looked like a concentration camp survivor, weighing 115lb. She has since lost 10 pounds from trouble swallowing and has had a feeding tube inserted. So not looking forward to seeing that. She had also shaved her head because her hair was falling out due to chemo & radiation treatments.

Joyce has always treated me decently. She would stay up late with me and listen to my teenage rants. She wrote to me throughout my life, always sent birthday cards and money. My parents were divorced when I was 4. My dad did not ever write and always seemed very quiet. Not that I got the impression he didn't care about me when I was with them, just that he didn't keep up with me when I was with mom, which was during the school year so I really don't know him.

Apparently I don't know either of them very well.

For a few years I have been hearing all these rumblings that my parents were swingers back in the 70's. The source of this story is my now deceased paternal step-grandmother, Mavis, who I called Granny. Granny is another crazy story but that will be for another post. I do not know whether to believe all this or not but my sisters are convinced. Cheril believes the story. She heard it from Dawn, who heard it from Granny. Why on earth she would tell Dawn something like this I cannot fathom except I do know that Granny did love to gossip.

Back to Joyce. The story she told me of her childhood was one of a passive mom and a dad who always thought he was being cheated on and was verbally abusive to her and her sisters. Joyce couldn't get out of the house soon enough and married young, but I dont know how young. Tommy cheated on her and she left him. She said she loved him "with a fire" and would never ever love another man the way she loved him, would never trust another man again. Along comes my dad and she married him. I was about 4.