The way this trip has been set up, I really won’t have much, if any, alone time with my mom at all. It’s usually the times when Chris would go to the office or leave early to go back to New York when she’d corner me and chew me out about something she didn’t like or got mad about that I did. But we don’t have those windows this time because a) Chris isn’t working and b) Chris and Kaia will be with me the whole time. The little bit of alone time we got yesterday was during our walk to the pie shop in the Outer Richmond. I was getting annoyed at how cluttered, dirty, and dangerous the house has become. When I look back at my childhood, our home, for the most part, wasn’t very cluttered at all. My dad was anal retentive with organization back then; he always knew where everything was, and everything had its place. In his older age now, he is dirtier, more cluttered, and hoarding like never before: multiple toaster ovens (“in case ours breaks”) are stacked on top of each other in the basement. A dresser is sitting in the corner of the dining room table. An exercise bike is positioned blocking a dining room chair in the dining room. Piles of boxes, cans, and who-knows-what completely cover the breakfast room table. You can barely see any of the dining room table surface. The amount of hoarding has really gotten out of control. It’s almost like some switch got turned on in my dad’s brain when he hit his 60s, and he just wants to hoard everything humanly possible. My parents could not conceivably enjoy living in their own home. And if you cannot be comfortable in your own home, then where are you going to be comfortable?

I made this case to my mom, and she insisted that she “is disabled,” and she doesn’t make the decisions of the house. I pointed out to my dad that the kitchen floor was buckling and bubbling; he stepped on it to confirm it, then had no reaction. I pointed out all the spider webs growing on the ceilings of both bathrooms and all over the kitchen. My dad nodded to acknowledge he heard me, but he did nothing to change it. In some way, the amount of dirt, dust, and cob webs that have accumulated everywhere is like a sign of death and decay of the house.

Ten years ago if I noticed this stuff, I would have immediately been all over it and vacuumed up the cob webs, dusted and wiped down all the surfaces, and cleaned up all the clutter. But I wouldn’t have been able to throw it away; I would only have been able to toss it into some bin or box. So once I’d leave, it would all become a mess again. I did this cleanup once before, years ago, and my dad was completely up in arms and hissed at me, even though all his little screws and tools were scattered all over the sun room floor. I don’t do it anymore because I know it will be a temporary fix, and once I leave, it will all be in a disarray again. Plus, I don’t have that much time here anymore. I also have a toddler to care for, and she’s my priority while visiting in that house, not the nastiness of the state of my parents’ living situation.

In the short time we’ve been here thus far, Kaia has already managed to get her foot stuck in a snap mouse trap (which luckily was weak and did NOT snap on her), got her hand glued to a mouse glue trap, and also taken out almost all the detergents and cleaners within reach in both the toilet room and the main bathroom. She’s taken my mom’s vitamin/pills mini plate, stolen my dad’s pill containers, and grabbed endless of my mom’s little trinkets at her sitting area. She’s also tried to open bottles of Lysol, Pine Sol, and other harsh surface spray cleaners. I told my mom that Kaia was grabbing everything, and why didn’t they clean up before we arrived (she claims they did)? And her response was, “You have to watch her!” Ummmm, yeah. We cannot watch her every second. We’ll be lucky if we leave this house once this trip is over and don’t have to call the Poison Control Center.