dreadedcandiru2 (dreadedcandiru2) wrote in binky_betsy,
dreadedcandiru2
dreadedcandiru2
binky_betsy

Elizabeth's Letter, April 2009


Hello, there from the West Coast; as I write this, it's a cool, damp day in the Metro Vancouver area. The mildly unpleasant weather matches my slightly depressed mood. Sadly, life here in the city isn't what's been getting me down this time; it's, of course, having to be dragged into having to deal with Mom's deteriorating mental health that's done the trick. It seems, you see, that I wasn't having a stress-induced hallucination when I saw her roaming around downtown a few weeks ago complaining about how silly people had moved all the buildings around for some silly sci-fi movie set thirty years in the future. Before I could steer her into coming up to the apartment and out of endangering herself, she shrieked about how fat she looked and how the jogging suits didn't work or some such nonsense. With young James Allen (he's going to be named after Grandpa and a relative of Anthony's who still lives in the UK) only a few weeks away from his arrival, the only thing I could do was call 911 and hope the police weren't too rough on her. Sadly, Anthony is dead on when he reminds us all that Mom has to actually do something more than barge into Mike's house unannounced and do something frightening before the authorities can step in and put her away. I hope he gets that alarm system he mentioned installed quickly, then; I'd hate to think of her pulling the same sort of crap on Robin that she did on us. He's pretty much defenseless what with his being even less able to make sense of her flapping and honking than people with one-hundred percent hearing; he'll probably get smacked over the head for sassing her when she's on a tear when he simply can't understand loud crazy person.

I'd like to say that Dad is trying to help but he's not; as Phil, who showed up too late to collect Mom, told me, he's kind of given up trying to do anything constructive. All he does now is smile, nod and tell her what she wants to hear. He's thus become the Gaius Baltar of model-train loving semi-retired dentists. Shame on him for letting her forget April; shame on me for wanting to marry his duplicate. Not that I have, though; Anthony's a bit too otherworldly to play mental games on Dad's level. If there weren't such a thing as therapist-patient confidentiality, I could show you a phone book's worth of proof of that; it's become obvious that he was so wrapped in worries of being abandoned, he didn't see the signs that he was pretty much guaranteeing that Therese would leave. His halfway-articulate rant to that effect in the session the three of us had was the most honest thing I've heard him say in a long while. His reaction to her question about why she and Francoise WEREN'T worth fighting for was fairly enlightening; after about five minutes of sputtering like a clapped-out lawn mower, he'd made some almost-coherent remark about his having say and do anything to try to calm the both of us down. You see, he'd had no idea when Mom told him to swing by Lawrence's because she'd forgotten something important that he'd have to give a sex fiend a purple nurple. It's strange how Therese was more ready to believe him than I was but odd little reversals like that happen. I don't care how good an actor you are; you can't fake stupidity like Anthony's. It was sadly obvious that he'd never even conceived that the going-after was commissioned; he actually spent half an hour crying when I suggested he had a part in it. This leaves me at a bit of a quandary; I've been blaming him for that since last August; what do I do now that it's become clear that my loving Mom hired some goon to take a dive so he could play hero? It's not like they can put her away for it until she's lucid; it's sort of an injustice that she's made Milborough a prison for those around her with her as the sadistic head guard. All I can do now is try and afford Francoise and James some stability for the next little while. Now that the air has been cleared a bit, I might be able to swing that. At least Mom never went anywhere during the summer that I can recall; that'll make life easier on all of us; Mike's house-sitter has got a really nasty three months in store, though. Good thing she knows how to deal with the mentally ill; she'd have to, dealing with this family.

As for Francoise, saving the bast for last, I'm happy to say that her life is a lot more orderly than her stousins now that the adults in her life have decided to act that way; she's doing fairly well in the pre-school the three of us finally agreed on. The interesting thing about all this is that Anthony is finally starting to realize what a foob he was all those years. He finally seems to realize that nobody would have objected if he'd simply told people that he couldn't get married until he'd resolved his feelings for yours truly; this isn't a Jane Austen novel we're in, after all. Nobody would have blackballed him if he'd stood up and let her down easy. Anyways, it's too late to correct that oversight; all any of us can do is limit the damage we do.

I hope I don't have to weigh you down with my depressing baggage next month but with my family I know that that's not an option. All we can hope for is less depressing, not happy. Till then,

Hoping that Phil makes good on his threat to have my parents declared incompetent,
Liz.
Tags: liz, retcons
Subscribe

  • April & Becky

    I thought I'd contribute some unfavourite storylines: April, Becky and the neverending fighting. They met at daycare, aged 2, but the arguing didn't…

  • Why We Hate Anthony

    Title inspired by Shaenon K. Garrity's brilliant essay. And now...a look at Liz and Anthony over the years as they dated, broke up, dated, broke…

  • Tuesday, January 1, 2008

    Happy New Year! I am so dreading this strip. Okay, here's the Metro link without color. Let's get it over with. Panel 1: Oh, you have GOT to be…

  • Post a new comment

    Error

    default userpic

    Your reply will be screened

    Your IP address will be recorded 

    When you submit the form an invisible reCAPTCHA check will be performed.
    You must follow the Privacy Policy and Google Terms of use.
  • 14 comments

  • April & Becky

    I thought I'd contribute some unfavourite storylines: April, Becky and the neverending fighting. They met at daycare, aged 2, but the arguing didn't…

  • Why We Hate Anthony

    Title inspired by Shaenon K. Garrity's brilliant essay. And now...a look at Liz and Anthony over the years as they dated, broke up, dated, broke…

  • Tuesday, January 1, 2008

    Happy New Year! I am so dreading this strip. Okay, here's the Metro link without color. Let's get it over with. Panel 1: Oh, you have GOT to be…