What is real? And what is not real?

Oh, life with a hoarding mother... The gift that keeps on giving... 

She continues on her paranoid delusions that her neighbor is 'picking her locks' (does anyone do that anymore?  I thought if folks were going to break in they use a credit card, a kit, or a bump key...) and is breaking things.  She did finally go to an autobody shop only to have the owner tell her that her 'floppy seatbelt piece' was merely loosening due to age.  (The car is 24 years old, after all!)  I am not entirely sure she buys it 100%, but she always needs a 'wonderful stranger' to tell her what I have been telling her for years... And I used to run an auto body shop... But what do I know?  And my mother absolutely ascribes to sexist gender tropes, so since a MAN told her, then obviously that carries some weight.  It is exhausting.  But, she is now saying that someone (the hated neighbor) broke into her garage again and loosened the plate on her garage door opener, but she feels he was interrupted since the repair person she called said it was okay.  Allegedly the repair person told her to get the steel gates that proprietors use to protect storefronts that lock from the outside for the walkthrough door.  Um.  Yeah.  

The weekend before last, while my mother's neighbor was on vacation, my mother called her stating the garage had been broken into ranting.  She did not call me, and waited  until today to mention this.  I call bullsh*t.  She has twice had this neighbor and her fiance come to the fence with flashlights after 10pm to shine a flashlight so she can change the bulbs that she claims the hated neighbor in the turn is destroying.  She has also asked this neighbor to shoot her gun into the air or into the ground.  Same deal, different day with this craziness.  

My hoarding mother mentioned she has not been to her chiropractor in months, and that chiropractor is a classmate of mine from high school (and a major flying monkey of my mother's), and knows I was in town for the high school reunion.  I did try to contact her as I was headed to my hometown, but she chose not to answer (and I know she knows the reunion was that weekend, as the chiro told her months ago).  I guarantee this woman will say something along the line of 'so, how was your visit with Lisabeth when she was in town in July?' and a whole level of manufactured drama is about to be released.  I am not going to take a lot of her crap.  I called, I called again, and she did not call back until I was almost home.  DONE.  Consequences of her own actions.  Then I may have a conversation with my 'classmate'.  I am so done with her too.

On the good news side, I ran my first race post surgery this weekend.  I was 6 minutes slower than my usual, but did not have to walk at all.  It was a mixed course with pavement, field, and trail, one of the hardest for me.  I am glad I am on the way to getting my momentum back, and I have lots of additional testing at the teaching hospital at the end of the month, but I booked my flight for Florida for Thanksgiving, so I have that to look forward to.  I also will be celebrating the one year 'gotcha' anniversary of one of my sweet kitties tomorrow, and they make me so happy.  I am working too much, and I am hoping my schedule will normalize a bit in the next couple of weeks.

Life goes on.  Onward and upward!  Thank you for reading, and have a great week.