A new approach...
Today I tried a new approach to the "SIL" situation. I thought at first, I would take her shopping and then I thought better of the idea and decided to pick up what I could remember from her list and just give her a 30-minute warning that I needed to leave to go to work. It seemed in my little pea-sized brain that she would get the concept that I needed to go to work, and she might understand that she could not go to my work. We unpacked her groceries and I put the things that she decided were no longer good to eat into a bag to take to the chickens. I then called a friend of hers for her to talk to since the friend had called several times this week. I noted that she could not carry on a conversation without being prompted with what the correct response to a question would be. The person who called had recently lost her husband and although SIL had been told of the loss it has not registered. Her friend asked mostly yes/no questions and that went okay. When left to respond ...