Mom and me and plumbing

Mom and I are doing our best to behave well with each other, but we share a long rocky history which we seem to be the victims of. The first of our screaming matches that I remember occurred in the kitchen of our house on Shamrock Crescent in The Green Acres suburb of Fort William in 1957, an ideal setting for a  nuclear family drama. There have been others over the years, not many but memorable. And it seems as if as we age the original ruts are the easiest ones to slip back into, to such an extent that I felt as I drove to Victoria this time a palpable pressure building up inside. Yesterday morning it burst out of both of us in a verbal blast of pent up emotion, followed by an hour's separation and the inevitable return and reconciliation.  We behave like the plumbing in the house did when the water was turned off for five weeks while I was in Mexico. As soon as it was turned on again, the pressure blew the works right out of the tank.  That problem was relatively easily fixed. We're a bit more complex, I think, but we are carrying on, carefully. 

I gave mom an outfit for her birthday and she bought new shoes yesterday. Here she is all dressed up for the Shannon Oaks June birthday party. 

Now it's Thursday night and I'm back at Barbara and Terry's. Mom and I had a good day today, lunch at Marilyn's, a drive along the ocean stopping to watch  wind surfers and whitecaps and 

a good piano concert in the evening at Shannon Oaks after which we went back to her apartment and had a good chat. 

And so it goes.