If I were twenty years younger? Or, if I didn't have to make every job more complicated by playing with special paint treatments? If my joints worked right? If my family functioned better?

I was doing really well at getting up and down the ladder... until suddenly I wasn't. Knees decided to quit. So I decided to prime the cement floor... preferably while sitting. I wasn't sure it even needed it throughout. At the very least I wanted to make sure to seal the spot where the cat peed, but then one thing led to another and I kept going... until I couldn't do that any more either. Fumes.

While taking a break, the phone started to ring... and ring... and ring. I guess the ringing started earlier but I didn't hear it. Being over 800 miles from the nearest adult offspring has some advantages. There's still plenty of hand wringing that goes on, but thankfully, I'm far enough away to not have to live in constant adrenalin over-load as the roller coaster lives of some of my children rattle un-nervingly around me.

However, in an emergency, who ya gonna call? Who's supposed to always care? Mom. I did what I could. Ever have one of those days when everybody that you've been playing phone tag with calls you all at once... while you're driving... in the shower...on your way out... on another important phone call? Ever push the wrong button on a jail call and lose it? I did that today too. It was the most awkward phone day I've had in a while!

It was only the tenth time she's tried to reach me and I'm sure it won't be the last. Was it a fluke that I missed most of her calls? I'm sorry for the situation she's in. I'm also jaded. Good Samaritan? Enabler? Doormat?Chump? "B-word"... for resenting the intrusion?

Maybe she's innocent, maybe not. I don't want to have to care because that means I'm vulnerable to being sucked in. It means I get to put money on her books so she can call me again and again, disturbing my peace, acting like the innocent victim when I know she's probably not. Blah, blah, same old, same old.

All I want to do is PAINT! Well, actually, all I want to do is LIVE! But not my life... some other life. A life I can't even picture at the moment. At the very least one without jail calls.