Happy Birthday Dad

I can't work out whether it feels like a long time since his death or no time at all.

It is ironic that I wish him a happy birthday now when I spent years, possibly decades, forgetting it when he was alive. Maybe I am re-imagining him as a good guy when I am perfectly aware of the truth of it. Then again, no-one knows all the truth about anyone else. He grew old, he changed; his other daughter wouldn't have survived the tribulations of life with the unreconstructed dad I knew. But whether he changed for her sake or through the mellowing of time is anyone's guess.

Do I wonder where he is? A vanishing of atoms, a ghost child playing on a beach, a reincarnated lion cub scampering across the Savuti... Yes I wonder where he is. I don't wonder if he is.

I kind of hoped for a dream of him last night, but that's the thing about dreams; you never get the expected, if you do it's not a dream. I didn't see him then, but that just means he will pop into my head some other time. Last night, the dreams were not pink, though one of the main characters in it was a mate known for general redness. Last night it was about being involved with some kind of music group/festival thing, but it was all very vague.

Now I must phone Mum to remind her to let people in when they buzz on the gate to the flats; they have her Christmas gift from me today. I am expecting her to completely ignore them.

¡Carajo!

How hard can it be?

Scenario: Mum's a loon. Profoundly mentally ill but lovely, extremely high functioning, very intelligent, and perfectly fine barring issues caused by said illness.

Issues include an aversion to electricity in the house, so right now she has no night light at all. She is absent minded occasionally, gets things wrong now and then, but despite the strangeness of her situation, she receives post no problem. It was how we stayed in contact before she got the phone with which she is now locked in mortal and seemingly eternal combat.

Hers is not a difficult place to find, not a hard address to fathom. So how come Inter-fecking-flora can't do it?

I bought this collection of living plants on the 19th to arrive on the 23rd, what an idiot I was. Now the couriers bimble haplessly around Granada tonight claiming that not only does her phone not work, they can't find where she lives. This is a baffler as the local post can find it easily, and no-one needs a bloody phone to manage it. There is a gate leading to the flats, the numbers and letters make it obvious who goes where, I mean, she is not an International Woman of Mystery, nor is this a case for Sherlock Holmes. One just presses the buzzer, gets in the main gate, presses the flat number and she is aware that someone is below. Like any other flats in any gated community anywhere.

But no. They are baffled.

They will try again tomorrow they say, but that's no good. If they couldn't find her today, there is no guarantee tomorrow will be any better, because the buzzer isn't going to miraculously become epsilon friendly in 24 hours. And even if they magically get it right tonight, she won't open the door because it's bloody dark outside and she is frail, easily frightened and 83 years old!

So she won't have a present or a card for Xmas Day.

Oh, my brother could send something but he won't. Or maybe I am wrong. Please god, just once let me be wrong about this benighted family, proof if any was needed that if alien abductions never existed, maybe they really should.

I will try to speak to her tomorrow because her #$@&%*! phone isn't working again today for reasons I will never be able to understand. And of course I will speak to her the next day and hope for the best. If I can get a video thing going that would be wonderful.

Present? Funnily enough though it may be delayed because of these furshlugginer couriers who can't work out a simple address, or whichever florist de puta madre decided to send flowers in the dark, the irony is that if she is not mortified by waiting, she will be delighted by the replacement. I have bought her a subscription to Fortean Times. She will absolutely love it.

I am now opening a beer.