My vitriol is nearly exhausted (a true feat!)
I'm annoyed and frustrated, and well on towards numb.
"Say, I dislike the sport of baseball."
Out of the blue.
What do you say to that?
I chose to say nothing at all. Experience tells me it is just bait for MIL to go off on a tirade.
She goes off anyway when nobody bites, but I focus on the infant crawling around my lap
and the book on tape I'm trying to listen to that she's trying to talk at me over the top of.
"Boy, it's a shame you won't still be living here for that book-sale at the library."
The book-sale is in early January, we'll still be here, this has been explained before.
The company is still in process of moving the department from New Orleans to Nashville.
They wouldn't relocate us to New Orleans, just to relocate us to Nashville a few weeks later.
I say this, out-loud, everybody heard me because I saw their heads move up and down.
It's not something that just occured inside my head. Granted sometimes that is the case, but not this time.
She replies, "Gee, they wouldn't relocate you guys to New Orleans and then relocate you again to Nashville would they?"
Yeah.
I take a deep breath and play with the infant and try to tune them all out so I can hear my book on tape on the player next to my ear as I recline the chair.
Just get through dinner, then go to the gym, come back home to bed, and drive them to the airport tomorrow.
I can do this.
Suck it up.
Here's something I've noticed.
Maybe, if you want, you can check it out yourself and see if it holds true for you too.
When I meet somebody who talks really loud, all the time, even when they know damn well they're supposed to be being quiet, I know, right away, that they aren't going to listen to anything I say, even if it's in direct response to a question that they have posed to me.
My M.I.L. is one of those people.
She asked me a couple hundred times what she should get for my eldest daughter that would be appropriate for Christmas. Each time I replied with one item in particular that I thought would be perfect for her to get from her grandma. It was the same item each time. Within five minutes she'd be asking me what I would recommend for her to get again, as if I'd never answered the question. Everytime she called, the same question. Everytime they visited, the same question. I never waivered in my answer. At some point, many months into the game, it became comical, for me, in a noire kind of way.
So Christmas came, and now went, and you know what, my daughter didn't get the item that I had replied with faithfully for all of this excruciating interrogation process.
MIL's response to what she did get: "well, we got her this because we werent' getting a lot of feedback from you guys about what would be appropriate to get for her. You guys never gave us any ideas."
Dude.
But on the plus side, she talks so damn loud and in such close proximity that I no longer have to fake the hearing impairment... my ears are still ringing from lunch.
Last night she was reading the eldest daughter a bedtime story. The youngest was already asleep in the next room, and we were all trying to be quiet. Well, all, minus one.
I took the trash out and could hear the story, perfectly clear, outside the house, in the driveway. The house was sealed, windows and doors shut tight.
In...the...driveway...perfectly... clear.
Dude.
Then there are the completely pointless questions/comments.
"Boy, I sure hope she gets this job!"
What, like we thought you'd be rooting against your daughter furthering her career?
Glad you cleared that up for us.
Or did we need your permission before she changes jobs?
Would we really give a shit if you were opposed to the move?
So why make the comment? Of course we all hope she gets the job. Duh!
Too many examples, but cumulative, it's wearing and grating and I only have to hold out until Friday.
Then this will again become a post of humor and or insight, for now, it's a release valve.
And I apologize to those to whom this adds no value.
To those who can empathize, well, I feel your pain.
Butterflied boneless leg of lamb.
Savoury.
Baked brie with apricots, cranberries, almonds, and brandy in lattice-top pastry.
Tangy.
Greenbeans with pecans in sauce.
Well-balanced.
Affligem Abby "Noel" Christmas Ale from Belgium, 9% abv.
Warming and heady.
Braided breadsticks and salad.
Yummy.
Watching the kids open up and play with their presents under the tree.
Fantastic.
Feigning a medical condition that allows me to turn a deaf-ear to 90% of what my mom-in-law says.
Pure numbed bliss.
You know when somebody says something like, "I'm not a -------, but..."
and then they say something that gives them away as being a complete "--------" whatever they just denied?
Well, yeah, we're looking at a possible relocation in the near future.
To a Southern state.
Which leads my mom-in-law to say something along the lines of, "You'll need to research the area before you move anywhere, because you'll want to know what it's like."
Perfectly innocuous statement.
Rather obvious, perhaps mildly insulting (as if we wouldn't do any research?), but mostly harmless all the same.
This week has been full of little things like this to look over.
She continues, "I'm not a racist or anything..."
I immediately turn on my poker face to not reveal any reaction because I pretty well damn know what is about to be said.
"but you won't want to move in next to any black people."
I'm stunned, but my pokerface holds up, I might have taken in a little air sharply.
She continues, "I mean, you'll want to be in a white area of town, and not end up being the only white people in a neighborhood."
I stare off into space not acknowledging the comment, nor making eye-contact. I most assuradly do NOT make any sort of gutteral agreement noises. I realise I'm holding my breath and manage to get a few shallow cycles in.
She continues, "Because I mean, you just won't want to be around that. They have a whole different culture and they're just not the kind of people you'll want the kids to be growing up around or in school with."
I got up and said I needed to take a shower.
Because I did.
Because I felt dirty.
I will shield my kids from any indoctrination influence as much as possible,
so that prejudice does not become a family heirloom.
You don't really feel it going in, but the after-effects become visible shortly.
It is also the most pleasant way to deal with the extended stay of in-laws.
More mojito anyone?
That and fresh from the oven chocolate chip cookies.
Last night I leaned on the crutch of Samichlaus Bier from Austria, formerly from Switzerland.
14% alcohol by volume.
It's only brewed one day a year, December 6th, Saint
Nicholas' Eve, and then laid down for 10 months, changing casks for fresh yeast every so often to up the alcohol to its peak. Normally, yeast gets tired before it can reach that level, so several lagering stages are used. The 2005 vintage was magnificent and much more velvety smooth than you would expect at 14% abv.
The father in-law liked that one.
Which was the precursor to a very interesting evening of UNO Attack!!!
If you don't know, UNO Attack! is similar to the traditional game, with the addition of a card-shooter unit and three new command cards.
One new card allows you to trade hands with another player.
An additional wild card makes each player press the card-shooter button once before play continues with the newly selected color.
The other new command card allows you to lay down all of your cards that are of that color to empty out your hand. The card-shooter unit effects the "drawing cards" portion of the game, wherein you now push a button to determine how many cards you receive.
Sometimes you don't get any cards.
Other times you get between 2 and 10 cards, completely at random.
Very, very fun while toasty... even with the in-laws.
It seems that there is this game we play every time my in-laws come into town.
It's a take on "Where's Waldo?", with my wife playing the role of slippery quarry.
My wife's parents have been here two days now, and I've been alone with them, it feels like, for a majority of the time.
Tonight, for instance, is my father in-law's birthday.
I'm cooking him dinner and entertaining them while keeping up with the two kids.
Meanwhile, my wife is at a party with friends for a mother's group meet-up.
I don't even think she notices she does it, but when her mom enters a room, *poof*, my wife is gone and alone to keep the conversation going... mostly listening about topics I don't give a hoot about.
Before she left for this event, she informed me that she had a lunch set for the day she was supposed to take the parents back to the airport, so I will, once again be their chauffeur.
The original deal was that I pick them up, because she was still working, and then she would be their ride back down.
It's not a big deal, it's just what's happening again, and I have examples this time that I'm recording for posterity for the next time she refutes that it never happens outside of my head.
We've been in this house now for over three and a half years.
To the best of my knowledge, we've had the same electric utility meter-reader for that duration.
However, six months ago, our startled meter-reader left an urgent, pleading note taped to our door.
He had run by our yard to read our meter that morning and had seen through the rear sliding glass door that leads from the dining room to the deck, that we had two dogs.
Not only two dogs, but two BOXERS, his "most feared breed."
He stated that he liked his job and didn't want to leave it, but that he was so afraid of them that he requested that we apply for an RF-equipped meter, so that he didn't have to actually walk through our yard to look at the physical meter.
My first thought was, dude, it's been like three years and you didn't even know we had dogs until today, so it's not like it's a big problem and they're constantly harrassing you or anything, second of all, even today when you saw them it was only because you were looking INTO our house. They weren't even outside, no barking, no chasing involved.
But, you know, whatever. While I'm not campaigning for man of the year, I'm also not out to be the biggest dick that I can be. I figure this guy's afraid of dogs, no biggie, I'll call and request the RF meter so he doesn't have to get close to the house.
So, I call the utility, punch in my selections to the automated system, and end up in an extraordinarily long queue to speak to a human, to order the new meter.
After spending 45 minutes on hold, to speak to an operator, to order the meter, so that THEIR meter-reader will feel more comfortable doing his job, I am told by the representative that RF meters are in short supply and they don't just hand them out to every customer who calls up requesting one, and that they install them at their own discretion.
Excuse me?
I explain that, (and dude WTF?) I was calling at the request of my meter-reader, who had left a note taped to my door that he begged me to request an RF meter from his utility because he was afraid of the two dogs that he'd seen for the first time today, inside my house. That I didn't really give a flying fuck whether I had one or not, as it didn't do a damn thing to raise or lower my bill and have actually very little, if anything at all, to do with me. I only care that my electricity works, and that they read my meter accurately. I don't particularly care how they read my meter, so long as it's accurate.
If the RF meters were in such dire and short supply, then maybe they could communicate that to their own meter-readers so that they wouldn't go around taping notes to customers doors asking them to request the damned things. That I had spent 45 minutes of my own time, out of sheer courtesy to my meter-reader to request one, and now wished that I had ignored the request.
The operator replied, "you said you had two dogs?"
What? Yeah, two dogs, boxers, apparently they are my meter-readers "most feared breed."
The operator says, "Oh, if you have dogs then we can get the RF meter installed this week. Boxers are one of the worst breeds. We have a lot of problems with boxers."
You're kidding me.
Now they have plenty of RF meters and can get one installed this week, huh?
Problems with boxers? This is ridiculous, but whatever, yeah fine, get it installed, and yes, that's all you can help me with today, bye bye.
So they install it, and we're happy for six months. The meter-reader runs through the fringe of our frontyard once a month, and the dogs ignore him, from inside the house, like they always did before he spotted them.
Until this morning, when I let the dogs out for their walk into the enclosed dog-run off of our laundry room.
Apparently, just as the meter-reader was passing, at a jog, across our backyard, right along the fenceline to the dog-run.
There was running, and barking, and as much chasing as the far-side of the dog run enclosure would allow.
At which point, there was jumping up onto the fence and bouncing off.
Damnit.
If I went to all the trouble of getting the freaking RF meter installed, why was it that the meter-reader chose to go across our yard next to the one and ONLY spot that the dogs could possibly be?
Anywhere else, completely dog-free. The dog-run at 7:30 in the morning, occupied by two bleary-eyed pooping boxers who were startled by a stranger running across their yard.
Full-on red-alert mode.
All I could think was, bleary-eyed myself, "Shit, he probably thinks I was waiting for him and ambushed him with the dogs on purpose because he made me go to the trouble of getting the RF meter installed."
Really, I don't try to be a dick, it just works out that way sometimes.
Poor guy.
So, I'm making the 2.8 year old dinner tonight and I ask her what she'd like.
No reply.
So I go to the two ever-ready standbys.
Chicken nuggets or fishsticks.
Yes, I know they're overly processed. I also know that when the kid will eat nothing else, she will eat either chicken nuggets or fishsticks... and they are at least better than the nutritional content of twinkies or sugar cereal. So there.
Anyway, she says, "FISHSTICKS!" in a way that only a child under three can be excited about fishsticks.
I say great, how many would you like.
Silence.
Would you like 5 fishsticks?
"I want 5 fishsticks!"
The reply was so energetic that I think it's possible she might eat more than usual.
Do you want 6 fishsticks?
"I want 6 fishsticks!"
Hey, she never says yes to that, why not raise.
Do you want 7 fishsticks?
"I want 7 fishsticks!"
At this point my Texas Hold'em instincts take over and I decide to raise, feeling that she's bluffing.
Do you want 8 fishsticks?
"I want 8 fishsticks!"
Now I know it is a game and we get theatrical.
Do you want 9 fishsticks?
"I want 9 fishsticks!"
Now I'm thinking that this could go on for a while and I consider changing languages just to hear her mimic me.
Do you want 10 fishsticks?
Silence.
She looks down, shyly as though slightly embarrassed at having gotten caught up in the moment.
"I want 5 fishsticks." In a pleading voice that asks if she can get out of her prior commitment.
Our first four winters in the Midwest were frigid.
And snowy, very, very, snowy; except when it was too cold to snow.
Everybody told us that it usually wasn't that bad.
We believed them the first year on blind trust.
The second year they told us that we began to grow suspicious.
The third year they told us that we began to let on that we knew they were full of shit and they could stop it anytime they wished, thank you.
The fourth winter we told them that it was just cruel, that we were now in on the joke, and seriously, please stop it, we now know what to expect.
We have four seasons alright,
1) Almost Winter
2) Winter
3) Still Winter
4) Road Construction
I huddled inside, as if withstanding a siege.
Except then this year happens.
The high today was 54 degrees. In mid-freaking-December, 54 degrees!
Every other year, I don't remember it being above freezing, for the high, from early November until late March.
If this is what the weather really is like, most of the time, yeah, then this isn't so bad.
Our perceived realities are relative to our own diverse experience.
And now this place could grow on me.
I like the vast library. I love the expansive gym. I adore the two jacuzzi pools within the gym, and the waterslides, and the leisure pool, the lap-pool, and the sanity-saving child-center.
The changing colors of the trees are fantastic.
The diversity of wildlife grazing through our backyard is magnificent.
And now that I'm getting okay with staying here, the wife is getting more and more appealing offers to relocate.
Ain't that just the way of it? I'd like to think the lesson learned is to embrace and appreciate a place earlier on, but this place just really wasn't loveable those first four winters and I don't really know what I'd do differently.
Leave to pick the wife up at the airport in 30 minutes.
The 8 month old is already cranky, having played with her older sister instead of napping all afternoon.
And now, now she gets to ride in her car-seat for an hour to the airport and then an hour ride back home.
The car-seat mind you, is her least favorite object, possibly in her entire known universe.
I think it's the straps that get her.
This little girl just doesn't want to be fenced in, restrained, or held back by anything.
Thankfully the VW Passat stereo system really does "go to 11".
That way I can drown out the angry tidal wave of sound coming from behind me.
Then its with the wife again, and not just me with the kids, ooh, ooh, and Heroes replays tonight, and the new
Doctor Who is on after.
We should get home just after both have finished recording, so we can plop down and have couple-time, seperately, together watching our shows.
I love Friday date-night.
