I live with a hermit!

  I've observed in the last couple of years (and it's increasingly getting worse) that the old woman is suddenly "ill" every time she has to leave the house.  She has a pattern and I see it every time anyone invites her to do something... First, she accepts with much enthusiasm.  Second, she waits until about a day before the event and she starts spreading the word that she is sick.  She'll call anyone she can think of and run down the list of her symptoms and she makes sure she tells more than one person, so people will say "You know... She did tell me she wasn't feeling good yesterday."  and the other person will respond "I heard the same thing!  Poor dear."  The next is the morning of, since I am the only person here she will refuse food and drink and tell me how sick she feels.  Then she'll tell me that she doesn't want to miss (insert family member's name here)'s birthday and she loves them more than life itself, so she is going to get it together.  Then she makes a plan for her day out loud to me.  "I am going to drink some tea, lay on the couch for an hour, go upstairs and get showered and then I should feel okay enough to go."  Then instead of doing any of these things, she goes outside and smokes.  Then I will go outside and check on her and she'll say "I don't know what I am going to do, but I just feel awful."  and I'll say to her "Maybe you should just stay home."  Suddenly the color comes back into her cheeks and it's like I just had the most brilliant idea ever.  I gave her permission to fink out on someone.  She'll say "Maybe they will understand if I tell them how bad I feel."  and she will call the person.  To be fair she almost always follows through with her plans after she makes the call.  She will drink a ton of cold iced tea and sleep on the couch for 556969 hours.  Then I'll work on getting her to eat and once I even made her soup, even though it's firmly against my religion.  I hate soup, I think it's the devil.  It smells like pee, looks like vomit and tastes like trash.  I'm totally off topic.

 Since the woman has taken to being sick so often, I am trying to get her to allow me to quit my job and be her 24/7 caretaker.  All I require is food, board, my cell phone bill to be paid and $20 a week for bar money.  I don't think that is too bad, do you? I'll keep working on this and gram will keep ditching everyone in the family.  Together we are a hot mess.