rosewilder

Workers, unite! gratitudes

Today, I am so grateful for:

1. Starting the morning with a parent teacher conference with Frogette’s kind, compassionate teacher who is an outstanding professional in her field.

2. All the teachers out there who give their all under difficult circumstances and low pay.

3. Nurses, too- hard working, caring professionals who deserve so much more respect and compensation than they get.

4. The improved personal atmosphere in my office- not as tense as it was in the beginning of the week.

5. The hilarious scene from Weeds that I keep replaying in my head whenever my boss micromanages- where the mayor/mafia dude calmly explains to Guillermo that he doesn’t like to micromanage, but Guillermo needs to get his permission first if he plans to murder his coworker in front of her family.

So when I got home from work, I told Frog about the conversation.

And here’s the thing. I was angry, naturally, about her asking me- three times nonetheless!- to change the date. There was also an element of the funny in it, too, if you looked for it, in the audacity of that woman to be so self-centered and pushy.

But Frog was really, really sad. Rightly so, because, as usual, his mother chose to put everyone else’s desires over his. She chose to have Chanukah at her place on the day Frog couldn’t come, instead of the day that eldest brother couldn’t come. In effect, she’s choosing eldest brother over Frog. That is damn sad.

It was so sad, in fact, that I asked Frog if he wanted me to call his mom and eldest brother and ask if we could at least do the thirteenth at middle brother’s house instead of mother in law’s house as a compromise, so Frog could slip out of our house in the middle of our party and drive to middle brother’s house to see his family. Now goodness knows I did NOT want to converse about this further with my stupid MIL, and piss eldest brother off by asking him to drive in traffic since he already despises me, but SOMEONE has to care about Frog’s feelings in this matter, so I offered to do it.

Frog snorted, and said that he would much rather spend that day with people that he actually likes, andI gave him a big hug. But I feel so rotten that his mother treats him like such a piece of shit, and this is NOT helping me make peace with my inlaws. (Although it certainly feels better to rant about it.)

Then, MIL sent us an email, stating in her queenly decree tone that unfortunately we would be spending Chanukah seperately this year, since she had to do it on the 13th. (Really? Liar.) So, could she come to dinner at our house during the week of Chanukah instead? (To her credit, she did offer to bring dinner in- she’s not expecting me to cook.) She wants to see us and bring Emma her present.

Why, whenever she thinks she’s being nice, is it more work for me? She’d better be bringing Emma a big honking present.

AUGGGGHHHHH! So what am I going to do to start getting over these slights and make peace with this situation?

This year, my MIL told us that we would have Chanukah at Frog’s middle brother’s house on the 12th. Not asked, told.

So I invited MY extended family to my house for the 13th.

Three years ago, when we first moved in my house, I invited Frog’s family and my family together for Chanukah. They came, and it was fine, although a) it was a little crowded and b) for some fucking insane reason, Frog’s family seemed to be a bit uncomfortable with my family. (Now admittedly, my family, like every family, has flaws, but they are friendly almost to the extreme, would give you the shirts off their backs, so I don’t see why Frog’s family has to be so freaking hoity-toity.)

I invited both families for Chanukah again two years ago, but my MIL unilaterally decided that she wanted to have it at her apartment. Fine, whatever, so since she certainly didn’t invite my extended family, we went to her apartment one day, and had my family over on another day. Chanukah’s great like that- it’s not just one day, so you generally don’t have to worry about splitting your time between the families.

Last year, Frog’s middle brother had just moved into a new, bigger house. So they wanted to have Chanukah. No problem. Again, I had my extended family over on another day that week. Middle brother’s new house was large and lovely, and admittedly, probably a great deal better for hosting us all then my much smaller house.

Back to this year. I didn’t even blink when my MIL informed us we were going to do Chanukah at middle brother’s house again. On the calendar it went. As stated before, my extended family was invited to come that next day.

Ay, here’s the rub!:
My MIL sent us an email, saying that eldest brother had made a mistake, and got tickets for something the evening we were going to middle brother’s house. Also, eldest brother did not want to drive all the way to middle brothers house with the Sunday traffic. So could we please go to MIL’s apartment, much closer for eldest brother, on Sunday?

I immediately replied to all, telling them that we had already invited my extended family to our house the next day. I was also a teeny bit snarky in the email, explaining that I WOULD have invited both my family and Frog’s family to my house together, but the last two years they declined, so I didn’t ask them again this year. (I showed Frog the email to make sure he wasn’t offended by the bit o’ snarkiness, and he gave it his blessing- said it was quite subdued, under the circumstances.)

My MIL left a message on my cell phone, using her faux-social worker empathy voice, saying she wanted to talk about how upset I sounded on the email.

I called her back,(thank goodness I only reached her machine!) and sticky-sweetly said that it was SO thoughtful of her to be concerned about my feelings, but I wasn’t upset, I was just explaining, but thank you so much for your consideration of me! If the woman had an ounce of social/emotional awareness, she would probably realize how thick I was laying it on, and be offended, but she is clueless. That would require social and emotional skills, which she clearly doesn’t have. And she’s a social worker!

THEN, and this is the piece de resistance!, the insane woman called me at work, and asked me to ask my extended family to switch days, so they would come to my house on the 12th, and then Frog and I would be able to come to her apartment to join the rest of Frog’s family on the 13th.

I was stunned. Luckily, after a bit of hemming and hawing, I was able to stutter out that she probably didn’t remember this, but that my sister didn’t like to drive on Shabbat, so we couldn’t do it Saturday. My MIL actually said, “Oh, no, I remembered that, but I thought maybe you could do it on Saturday night instead, since Shabbat ends so early this time of year.”

O.M.G.! So, thank goodness, after a little more hemming and hawing on my part, I was able to recover enough to tell her that I couldn’t do it at night, because C and D were coming, and since D was 75 years old, I didn’t want to ask him to make a big car trip like that after the party was over in the dark in the middle of the night.

Then, fortunately, inspiration struck me, and I said, “C and D live all the way in [town x], which as you know, is not an easy drive.” The great part about what I said is that eldest brother lives in the town directly next to town x. So in effect, I was making a comparison between healthy 45 year old eldest brother’s whiny refusal to drive in Sunday traffic, and 75 year old C and D’s willingness to do so. Without having to outright say it.

THIRD STRIKE: My mother in law’s response to that- no, I kid you not, gentle readers, was, “Ohhhhh. Are you sure you can’t ask them?”

Now I was kind, but very firm. No more uncertainty, no more hemming and hawing from me. “No, Mom,” I said. “I can not ask everyone to come on Saturday night instead. That would be defacto DISinviting C and D from our family get together, and I am not willing to do that. Feel free to have the 13th without us, and while we will miss you, we will get together another time.”

AUGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Well, the good news is that I was able to maintain my boundaries calmly and kindly, and that ranting here about it is making me feel a little less insane about her insanity. Clearly, this is not my problem.