As of last Friday afternoon, I'm not going to Texas, at least not anytime soon. Apparently my grandmother, threw a huge fit about moving, threatened to call the police on my father if he or anyone else tried to move her out of the house, threatened to find all the pills in the house and take them rather than move, etc. In other words, Gramma is DESPERATE to stay in the house, and is pulling out all the stops to try to force the family to leave her where she is. She loves to be a drama queen, too, and has been doing that consistently for the last week or more.

I spoke with one of my uncles Friday, and told him that I would talk with her and see if I could get anywhere. I was too drained on Friday to even attempt to talk with her, and needed to think a little more about what I might say, so Friday I ran a couple errands, napped, and went out on a fabulous date with a VERY cool guy (another eharmony match, this was our second date). This one may actually break the three date record for this year. We went to dinner at Benihana and then went to the movies and saw "Raising Helen", which was very touching and had some great comedic elements, too. We both really enjoyed it.

Saturday morning I woke up at 8:30 when Anne called me asking me to bring her a soy hot chocolate from Starbucks. Sure. When I am ready to face the world, I'll do that. Then my uncle called me asking if I'd spoken with Gramma yet. Nope, but I can do it now, I'll call you back later. Called Gramma, got a completely different story from her 'they can come take me away now, they won't have to handcuff me or anything, I'll go willingly'. As if ANYONE would handcuff a 91 year old woman to move her into an assisted living facility. Puleeze. So she was totally being the drama queen even with me, and was playing into the martyr role. She seemed to think that my 3 uncles and my dad had put me up to calling to try to convince her to move. They hadn't, but I told her that at least a half a dozen times and it never sank in, nor did she remember telling me any number of things. We spoke for over an hour and a half, and I suspect that without the repetitions, our conversation might have lasted 15 minutes, total. This woman should NOT be living alone, but insists that she is FINE. Claims she can still sweep the porch, run the vacuum, cook, etc. At 36 years old, and 55 years younger than she is, even *I* have trouble maneuvering the vacuum sometimes, and she can barely walk, so there is NO WAY she is running the vacuum.

The net effect of all this is that the boys (as my uncles and dad are referred to) are all thoroughly hacked off at Gramma, she's thoroughly hacked off with them, and I am about the only person speaking to all parties involved. We were supposed to have put down the deposit on the place she would have been moved to by last Friday, so now the room will go to someone else, and the boys will have to try to find someplace that is as nice, as close to my dad, as reasonably priced, etc, and then convince Gramma to move, to boot. So I'm not going to Texas until she gets moved and we need to clean out the house.

And I am just drained. Whooped. And yesterday after my conversations with my uncles, then Gramma, then Dad, I went and got Anne's Starbucks, got one for myself, and ate a slice of lemon cake AND a mint chocolate cookie from Starbucks. Slight kneejerk reaction to stress, I think! Then a couple hours later I was shaking like a leaf from too much sugar and not enough protein, and about the best and fastest option at the mall I was at was a hot dog on a stick. (And yes, there was some shopping therapy involved, too.)

Met my date at yet another Starbucks (and drank water!) and we sat and talked for two hours. Very nice man, has a black belt in Ken Po (I think that's how it's written) and is bright, articulate, and intriguing. So we'll see. (But right now the guy from Friday night is WAY ahead of the game - I'm REALLY comfortable around him already.)

After my date, I dashed home to pick up Mike to go see the third "Harry Potter" movie. Once we got to the theaters I realized that I needed protein (again) and there was little around that was decent, that we had time for, AND that I could sneak into the theaters. I bought what turned out to be a rather unsatisfying turkey wrap and ate it during the previews. All in all, a day of what amounted to probably the worst food choices I've made in a single day in YEARS.

Today at least started off with good food. I woke up at 6am and dragged myself out of bed around 8. I made some eggs with spinach, feta cheese, and red onion, plus two pieces of spelt toast. Yum. And mango lemonade. Very yummy. Showered, and realized I was tired again, so went back to bed, and slept another two hours. My uncle called me and woke me up to ask me if I'd spoken with Gramma, so I recapped the situation with him. Couldn't get back to sleep, so ran some errands (more shopping therapy) and purchased the ingredients to prepare dinner to celebrate Anne's birthday.

I cooked for about 2 hours to make this pasta dish (rice pasta with salmon and shrimp and garlic and lemon juice, etc.) Anne was about 40 minutes late, and the pasta was mushy, the salmon was dry, and if she'd griped even for an instant she would have gotten an earful. But it was still really good, and she seemed to enjoy it all, which was really the point anyway. I gave her a pair of earrings that she'd pointed out to me a couple weeks ago, and also the soundtrack to "Mamma Mia", which she'd taken me to for my birthday last month. We spent a few hours catching up on the events of this week, which mostly involved me talking about the events of the week with my family, and telling her about my dates. And I heard about her week at work, her mother, and nothing about the guy she's been dating because she didn't want to talk about it (something is clearly wrong, but she didn't want to go there yet).

Didn't get another nap in before coming to work, so I am already fighting to stay awake.