Between my mother's endless lunatic rantings, my brother's general sense of helplessness, and the usual Family Holiday Twist and Shout, I am somehow relieved to realize that even as I dodge bean balls and endure trials in my personal life, many of life's routine challenges just keep rolling along with out interruption.
It's like I'd imagine the cockroaches will be during the Nuclear Holocaust. The world will be melting in a cloud of caustic, noxious God only knows what, and they'll still be scurrying about trying to find a way into your Fruity Pebbles.
And I think for a moment, that maybe I should just go with that thought. So what if my personal life is going gloriously to Hell? Pretend it isn't! The rest of the world is! Like my friend Kate's mom used to tell us, "Smile and no one will notice." I'm going to smile and hope that I don't notice.
So I decide to dive back into some routines I'd let slide.
First Friday night the kids return from a week at Lars's Camp Crazylikealoon, we'll get pizza, have a carpet picnic and watch a favorite old movie. Even a Christmas one, even if it is too early.
Saturday morning will be a pancake feast and the kids get to do the flipping.
At least one night each week, we'll not run from the dinner table to do a 100 independent things but play a board game instead.
And on Sunday, immediately following Mass, we'll go to Starbucks and get frothy things to drink and spend a little time just talking to each other.
Sunday comes and it is a dreary, drizzly yuckfest and no one wants to get out of bed. Not even me. So the dash to Our Lady of Condemnation looks like one of those celebrity obstacle course shows. We skulk into the front row of the church just as Father is telling everyone to be seated. So we, being the only ones still standing, draw some attention.
Including that of an old neighborhood/high school chum, Casey Callahan. He and his family lived at the bottom of the hill I grew up on. He mouths "Hi" and winks. He's a winker.
My daughter immediately recognizes him. We'd bumped into him at Mass a few years back around Christmas. His brother lives in nearby and he'd been visiting, as he was now, evidently.
All of a sudden she's church whispering that I can borrow her lip gloss. And offering me her Juicy Couture perfume. And a stick of Bubbalicious. What else does she have in that bag?
I look at her quizzically and she waves me in for a whisper.
With her king-sized lisp she hisses in my ear, in front of God and everyone, "Mom, he's cute and he likes you."
I am not sure what signals her radar is picking up but suddenly I am self conscious about my outfit and am considering taking her up on the lip gloss thing.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
I Say Now, Who Do, Who Do You Think You're Foolin'?
The letter, intended to inform my friend's son that he'd not gained entrance into the National Honor Society, incredulously, was a form letter. And not even a personalized one.
Umm, hello, it's a prep school. Ignoring for a moment that it has a far finer reputation than an impersonal form letter would suggest it has, it has a very small, select student body. How many of these letters could there have been? 6? We couldn't have taken the time to address these boys by name? At least in this situation?
It also had the incorrect date. Last year.
It was also so poorly written, so insulting in its comments, so dismissive of this boy's effort and worth, that I at first thought surely it was a bogus letter written by some smart-ass fellow student who wanted to play a prank to razz the other NHS contenders.
But it wasn't.
And if it were, even a fellow student would not have made the grammatical errors this woman made in her letter. A student making a genuine effort at a prank would know to demonstrate a more impressive command of the written word than that. Because they'd want to be convincing.
Evidently, making a convincing demonstration of her competence was not on this woman's mind. Again, I am baffled at what motivates people. She could not have made even a half heartedly robust effort at turning this into a teaching moment for these boys? She cared that little?
And suddenly I am turning into a she-wolf myself. I am completely appalled that a letter like this went to any young person, let alone a young person whose parents shell out a king's ransom in tuition and other sizeable gifts every year to send their kids there. I would expect more from that school. I would expect more from a public school. I would GET more from a public school.
My first thought, however irrational, is to pick up the phone and confront this so-called teacher. Was this letter intended to have the boys considering going home and sticking their heads into their mother's ovens?
It is at this point that I stop and remind myself that I am not my mother. And I am not this boy's mother, either, hello.
Instead, I use my words. Words are in my wheelhouse, even if they aren't in Senora's. I compose a thoughtfully worded, direct email to my friend suggesting that she write a letter, and I suggest statements and ideas and "opportunities to improve" upon the way this situation had been handled for her use in the letter:
Get the date right and for God's sake proofread.
Greet the students by name.
Commend the students for completing the rigorous application process. Applaud their effort.
Provide meaningful feedback on where they could improve their chances of gaining admission the next year by cultivating this skill or that, or focusing on this core value or that leadership opportunity.
Offer to shepherd them through this year with a eye toward next year.
But the letter that had already made its way into these young mens' hands had already achieved a D.
Discouraging.
Disengaging.
Disheartening.
Devaluing.
Dismissive.
Degrading.
Disgusted.
I am completely disgusted.
I could go on. I am sure my friend did. I am not sure what Fate has in store for Senora, but it is a good bet she is not on the National Honor Society committee any more.
Umm, hello, it's a prep school. Ignoring for a moment that it has a far finer reputation than an impersonal form letter would suggest it has, it has a very small, select student body. How many of these letters could there have been? 6? We couldn't have taken the time to address these boys by name? At least in this situation?
It also had the incorrect date. Last year.
It was also so poorly written, so insulting in its comments, so dismissive of this boy's effort and worth, that I at first thought surely it was a bogus letter written by some smart-ass fellow student who wanted to play a prank to razz the other NHS contenders.
But it wasn't.
And if it were, even a fellow student would not have made the grammatical errors this woman made in her letter. A student making a genuine effort at a prank would know to demonstrate a more impressive command of the written word than that. Because they'd want to be convincing.
Evidently, making a convincing demonstration of her competence was not on this woman's mind. Again, I am baffled at what motivates people. She could not have made even a half heartedly robust effort at turning this into a teaching moment for these boys? She cared that little?
And suddenly I am turning into a she-wolf myself. I am completely appalled that a letter like this went to any young person, let alone a young person whose parents shell out a king's ransom in tuition and other sizeable gifts every year to send their kids there. I would expect more from that school. I would expect more from a public school. I would GET more from a public school.
My first thought, however irrational, is to pick up the phone and confront this so-called teacher. Was this letter intended to have the boys considering going home and sticking their heads into their mother's ovens?
It is at this point that I stop and remind myself that I am not my mother. And I am not this boy's mother, either, hello.
Instead, I use my words. Words are in my wheelhouse, even if they aren't in Senora's. I compose a thoughtfully worded, direct email to my friend suggesting that she write a letter, and I suggest statements and ideas and "opportunities to improve" upon the way this situation had been handled for her use in the letter:
Get the date right and for God's sake proofread.
Greet the students by name.
Commend the students for completing the rigorous application process. Applaud their effort.
Provide meaningful feedback on where they could improve their chances of gaining admission the next year by cultivating this skill or that, or focusing on this core value or that leadership opportunity.
Offer to shepherd them through this year with a eye toward next year.
But the letter that had already made its way into these young mens' hands had already achieved a D.
Discouraging.
Disengaging.
Disheartening.
Devaluing.
Dismissive.
Degrading.
Disgusted.
I am completely disgusted.
I could go on. I am sure my friend did. I am not sure what Fate has in store for Senora, but it is a good bet she is not on the National Honor Society committee any more.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Loves Me Like a Rock
I am forever astounded by other people and the care and concern they take with various aspects of their jobs. As in, no apparent care and concern whatsoever.
It is my job to be this way, being in Human Resources, but even when the people in question are not in my company's employ, I wonder about their motivations. And wonder what their Human Resources person is doing about it. And wonder what random thoughts of befuddlement are coursing along their synaptic junctions. And wonder if I should give them a call, a little friendly collegial advice.
The situation in question pertains to a dear friend of mine whose son I have known since birth. I consider him as close as my own. I beam with pride at his (myriad) successes, suffer his (thankfully few) losses, and endeavor to support him and coach him and guide him to the extent that he'd need me to. Or allow me to, for that matter. I adore this kid. And his mother.
The boy, let's call him Griffin, goes to a top flight prep school whose reputation is as long as the drive up the hill to reach the hallowed halls a select few boys call home for 6 years. They come to school as boys, learn to become men, and along the way, become the refined, upstanding, dutiful, successful, socially graceful people we all hope and pray on a stack of Bibles all of our boys become. Our girls too, for that matter, but this is a boys' school. Let's stay on point.
So, Griff was invited to apply for the prestigious National Honor Society at the end of his sophomore year. Very nice accomplishment in its own right.
He did not get in. A huge disappointment. Especially since there were many hurdles to clear, and Griffin seemed to clear all of them admirably, with the possible exception of the very subjective interview, which everyone knows is a wild card. I interview for a living and know every tactic and buzzword, and I am generally as uncertain as the next guy when I've finished being interviewed for something. There is simply no telling.
Griff learned that he didn't get in on the authority of some underground informant. This sent his mother into a typical she-wolf tailspin. Griff expressed that this was especially disappointing since he knew who got in, and knew that those kids were in a class together where the teacher told all of the students what questions they'd be asked at the interview.
I'm sorry. Did someone just describe what my Honor-Code-endorsing college would have called "UNAUTHORIZED AID" and would have failed you for having accepted?
My friend is understandably pissed. She calls me.
She asks my official interviews-for-a-living opinion.
Now I'm pissed. These kids are all inexperienced interviewees! They don't know what they want to do this weekend let alone how to tell someone about what impact they intend to make on the world around them. The kids with the questions clearly had the edge; had the benefit of asking their parents for ideas and rehearsing their answers.
My friend shares an e-mail exchange with me. It is between her and the Spanish teacher who evidently had the responsibility of making the decision as to who got in and who did not.
Senora dismisses, even poo-poos the value of having known the questions. No impact. (Of course she'd like my friend to believe this. To acknowledge the benefit would mean a lot of re-evaluating and reconsidering. What a pain!)
Lo siento, Senora. Not buying it. The kids with the questions would have, at a minimum, a swagger, a lack of nervousness, a preparedness that the others did not. It's like performance enhancing drugs only the academic version.
We are discussing just this when she is presented with The Letter.
And I can hear her hair bursting into flame.
It is my job to be this way, being in Human Resources, but even when the people in question are not in my company's employ, I wonder about their motivations. And wonder what their Human Resources person is doing about it. And wonder what random thoughts of befuddlement are coursing along their synaptic junctions. And wonder if I should give them a call, a little friendly collegial advice.
The situation in question pertains to a dear friend of mine whose son I have known since birth. I consider him as close as my own. I beam with pride at his (myriad) successes, suffer his (thankfully few) losses, and endeavor to support him and coach him and guide him to the extent that he'd need me to. Or allow me to, for that matter. I adore this kid. And his mother.
The boy, let's call him Griffin, goes to a top flight prep school whose reputation is as long as the drive up the hill to reach the hallowed halls a select few boys call home for 6 years. They come to school as boys, learn to become men, and along the way, become the refined, upstanding, dutiful, successful, socially graceful people we all hope and pray on a stack of Bibles all of our boys become. Our girls too, for that matter, but this is a boys' school. Let's stay on point.
So, Griff was invited to apply for the prestigious National Honor Society at the end of his sophomore year. Very nice accomplishment in its own right.
He did not get in. A huge disappointment. Especially since there were many hurdles to clear, and Griffin seemed to clear all of them admirably, with the possible exception of the very subjective interview, which everyone knows is a wild card. I interview for a living and know every tactic and buzzword, and I am generally as uncertain as the next guy when I've finished being interviewed for something. There is simply no telling.
Griff learned that he didn't get in on the authority of some underground informant. This sent his mother into a typical she-wolf tailspin. Griff expressed that this was especially disappointing since he knew who got in, and knew that those kids were in a class together where the teacher told all of the students what questions they'd be asked at the interview.
I'm sorry. Did someone just describe what my Honor-Code-endorsing college would have called "UNAUTHORIZED AID" and would have failed you for having accepted?
My friend is understandably pissed. She calls me.
She asks my official interviews-for-a-living opinion.
Now I'm pissed. These kids are all inexperienced interviewees! They don't know what they want to do this weekend let alone how to tell someone about what impact they intend to make on the world around them. The kids with the questions clearly had the edge; had the benefit of asking their parents for ideas and rehearsing their answers.
My friend shares an e-mail exchange with me. It is between her and the Spanish teacher who evidently had the responsibility of making the decision as to who got in and who did not.
Senora dismisses, even poo-poos the value of having known the questions. No impact. (Of course she'd like my friend to believe this. To acknowledge the benefit would mean a lot of re-evaluating and reconsidering. What a pain!)
Lo siento, Senora. Not buying it. The kids with the questions would have, at a minimum, a swagger, a lack of nervousness, a preparedness that the others did not. It's like performance enhancing drugs only the academic version.
We are discussing just this when she is presented with The Letter.
And I can hear her hair bursting into flame.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Trick or Treat, Smell My Feet
At neck-breaking speed we have run head first into The Holidays way ahead of schedule.
My mother should consider running an airline.
But since we careened over the river and through the woods, and leapfrogged over Thanksgiving and straight into Christmas, we nearly skipped right over the pure entertainment that is Halloween.
Halloween is arguably the best holiday of all, and arguably the least appreciated.
It is a nearly pressure free holiday. No one gets rattled by the approach of Halloween. No one, with the possible exception of my neighbor, who throws an elaborate neighborhood party every year with outrageous decor, and a gourd hunt, and pinatas and contests, leaving no stone unturned and outdoing herself year over year. And maybe those folks who are so utterly without creativity that the notion of a costume gives them the vapors.
I love a holiday where the point of the decor is to be more scary than pretty, and where a little tackiness is perfectly acceptable if not desired, and dim lighting hides the fact that your house is a little dusty. And no one expects to walk into your house and breathe in familiar holiday scents courtesy of $18 candles. Rotting pumpkins on the front step suffice. Dollar store candles in 50 cent garage sale lanterns and ceramic pumpkins purchased at 70% off at last year's craft store blow out are the perfect touch.
No one actually cares what you give away at the door. Of course every kid knows the exact longitude and latitude of the neighbor who gives out full size candy bars. But no one feels the pressure to compete. I have given away everything from Blow Pops to Fun Sized whatevers to glow-in-the-dark vampire teeth and not a single kid has looked even slightly disappointed.
I don't rate the costume effort, they don't rate the loot. It is a pretty even deal.
And it gives me a chance to see neighbors I never see except when we blow by each other on the street on the way to work or other obligations. See new babies. Remark at how big everyone has gotten. Get up to speed on who is pregnant, divorced, on the verge of death, selling their house. Mrs. Kravitz's the world over LOVE Halloween.
But best of all, and I realize this is a personal opinion, is the absence of the pressure that is usually brought about by a holiday for which there is a traditional meal.
With no meal - and what would that be? Eye of Newt Stew? - there is no need to invite anyone - or be invited anywhere, and have to accept or decline or wonder why you weren't invited or who else might be invited and all that crap. So no one gets pressured into "having Halloween this year" and enduring all the nonsense that befalls all of my other family holidays.
It is truly a beautiful thing. Because in a small family like ours, there is nowhere to hide. There is just my sister and brother and me. It is a glaring omission if one of us decides not to invite one of the sibs. And the uninvited sib clearly knows, too. It is a pressure large families don't have. My mother was one of nearly a dozen kids. No one could possibly have been expected to invite all the sibs and their spouses and their kids. No one has that much furniture! So a few sibs would obviously do a portion of the inviting, and someone would draw the short straw and get stuck inviting the misfit sibling. But with crowds like that, his or her obtuseness would surely get drown out by all the other familial noise. Another beautiful thing.
So, I put my mother's latest harangue out of my mind, put on my Little Edie Beale Grey Gardens outfit, practice my "Mothuh Doorlings," light a few Dollar Store candles and enjoy the Trick or Treaters.
For once the cobwebs have been cleared and the pumpkins eaten by squirrels and the fun-size candies all consumed, the games begin.
My mother should consider running an airline.
But since we careened over the river and through the woods, and leapfrogged over Thanksgiving and straight into Christmas, we nearly skipped right over the pure entertainment that is Halloween.
Halloween is arguably the best holiday of all, and arguably the least appreciated.
It is a nearly pressure free holiday. No one gets rattled by the approach of Halloween. No one, with the possible exception of my neighbor, who throws an elaborate neighborhood party every year with outrageous decor, and a gourd hunt, and pinatas and contests, leaving no stone unturned and outdoing herself year over year. And maybe those folks who are so utterly without creativity that the notion of a costume gives them the vapors.
I love a holiday where the point of the decor is to be more scary than pretty, and where a little tackiness is perfectly acceptable if not desired, and dim lighting hides the fact that your house is a little dusty. And no one expects to walk into your house and breathe in familiar holiday scents courtesy of $18 candles. Rotting pumpkins on the front step suffice. Dollar store candles in 50 cent garage sale lanterns and ceramic pumpkins purchased at 70% off at last year's craft store blow out are the perfect touch.
No one actually cares what you give away at the door. Of course every kid knows the exact longitude and latitude of the neighbor who gives out full size candy bars. But no one feels the pressure to compete. I have given away everything from Blow Pops to Fun Sized whatevers to glow-in-the-dark vampire teeth and not a single kid has looked even slightly disappointed.
I don't rate the costume effort, they don't rate the loot. It is a pretty even deal.
And it gives me a chance to see neighbors I never see except when we blow by each other on the street on the way to work or other obligations. See new babies. Remark at how big everyone has gotten. Get up to speed on who is pregnant, divorced, on the verge of death, selling their house. Mrs. Kravitz's the world over LOVE Halloween.
But best of all, and I realize this is a personal opinion, is the absence of the pressure that is usually brought about by a holiday for which there is a traditional meal.
With no meal - and what would that be? Eye of Newt Stew? - there is no need to invite anyone - or be invited anywhere, and have to accept or decline or wonder why you weren't invited or who else might be invited and all that crap. So no one gets pressured into "having Halloween this year" and enduring all the nonsense that befalls all of my other family holidays.
It is truly a beautiful thing. Because in a small family like ours, there is nowhere to hide. There is just my sister and brother and me. It is a glaring omission if one of us decides not to invite one of the sibs. And the uninvited sib clearly knows, too. It is a pressure large families don't have. My mother was one of nearly a dozen kids. No one could possibly have been expected to invite all the sibs and their spouses and their kids. No one has that much furniture! So a few sibs would obviously do a portion of the inviting, and someone would draw the short straw and get stuck inviting the misfit sibling. But with crowds like that, his or her obtuseness would surely get drown out by all the other familial noise. Another beautiful thing.
So, I put my mother's latest harangue out of my mind, put on my Little Edie Beale Grey Gardens outfit, practice my "Mothuh Doorlings," light a few Dollar Store candles and enjoy the Trick or Treaters.
For once the cobwebs have been cleared and the pumpkins eaten by squirrels and the fun-size candies all consumed, the games begin.
Friday, November 12, 2010
It's A Wonderful Life, I Think
And thus begins the months long gyration we go through each year to make pretend that everything is hunky dory at the holidays.
When it is abundantly clear we aren't. We all know it and so will everyone else, because once the backdoor slams shut on Christmas, we'll go back to ignoring each other for the better part of the next 365 days plus one for Leap Year.
And so the scheme - as hatched by the ever-plotting master of deception that is my mother is this:
My life is more or less my own on the morning of Christmas Eve - Wake up - squeal with joy - tear open truck loads of loot - squeal some more - nosh on cinnamon rolls and hot cross buns - (washed down with a bucket of coffee if you are me...) until about 10 am.
At 10 I will leave the warm and fuzzy comfort of my cashmere bathrobe to shower and dress, and then bribe my children with caramels to get them to leave the mountain of gifts to do the same.
All so we can make Happy Happy Joy Joy faces when my brother and his ill mannered children infiltrate.
I am not referring them as "ill-mannered" with my nose in the air like the queen would describe the stable boy. I am saying it because I am trying to avoid calling them names.
They come by this oddly out of step behavior honestly so I am trying not to be too harsh. Or at least not misdirect my harshness. It belongs to Joe (and his WhatEverHappenedToBabyJane wife.) Not only do they have shining examples of respect and manners like the Open Door/XBox/Cat Poop debacle, they have everyday examples that would set most people's hair aflame.
The R-rated mouth on their mother (giving Mom's pal Ozzie a run for his money...)
The weird entitlement with which Joe and then, of course, his progeny, open all of your cabinets and refrigerators, and after examining the contents help themselves to whatever calls to them.
The trail of debris that follows each member of the family as they explore every nook and cranny of one's home.
Odd social behavior. Like the time I appeared in my backyard with a tray of lemonade to find that my brother had found the golf clubs I'd borrowed from Charlotte and was chipping golf balls over the heads of our children, the balls clearing the hedges and landing on my neighbor's yard.
And perhaps the worst:
He does not leave. At least not voluntarily.
And I have told my mother this: I will physically eject him from my dwelling with brute force before I let my sister and her family drive around the block even once trying to avoid a nasty haranguing confrontation on the holidays. Whether he arrives at 11 or at 12:45, at 1 pm he turns into a pumpkin and must vaporize so I can welcome the family that truly fills my family's holidays with joy. I can only accommodate to a point.
I get it. I am not generally the finest example of maturity in the room, but when it comes to this holiday situation, if I am the only one who can stomach pulling off this feat of social tap dancing, I will do what I can.
But understand that I have my limits, and despite my demeanor, they are not as far flung as you'd think.
When it is abundantly clear we aren't. We all know it and so will everyone else, because once the backdoor slams shut on Christmas, we'll go back to ignoring each other for the better part of the next 365 days plus one for Leap Year.
And so the scheme - as hatched by the ever-plotting master of deception that is my mother is this:
My life is more or less my own on the morning of Christmas Eve - Wake up - squeal with joy - tear open truck loads of loot - squeal some more - nosh on cinnamon rolls and hot cross buns - (washed down with a bucket of coffee if you are me...) until about 10 am.
At 10 I will leave the warm and fuzzy comfort of my cashmere bathrobe to shower and dress, and then bribe my children with caramels to get them to leave the mountain of gifts to do the same.
All so we can make Happy Happy Joy Joy faces when my brother and his ill mannered children infiltrate.
I am not referring them as "ill-mannered" with my nose in the air like the queen would describe the stable boy. I am saying it because I am trying to avoid calling them names.
They come by this oddly out of step behavior honestly so I am trying not to be too harsh. Or at least not misdirect my harshness. It belongs to Joe (and his WhatEverHappenedToBabyJane wife.) Not only do they have shining examples of respect and manners like the Open Door/XBox/Cat Poop debacle, they have everyday examples that would set most people's hair aflame.
The R-rated mouth on their mother (giving Mom's pal Ozzie a run for his money...)
The weird entitlement with which Joe and then, of course, his progeny, open all of your cabinets and refrigerators, and after examining the contents help themselves to whatever calls to them.
The trail of debris that follows each member of the family as they explore every nook and cranny of one's home.
Odd social behavior. Like the time I appeared in my backyard with a tray of lemonade to find that my brother had found the golf clubs I'd borrowed from Charlotte and was chipping golf balls over the heads of our children, the balls clearing the hedges and landing on my neighbor's yard.
And perhaps the worst:
He does not leave. At least not voluntarily.
And I have told my mother this: I will physically eject him from my dwelling with brute force before I let my sister and her family drive around the block even once trying to avoid a nasty haranguing confrontation on the holidays. Whether he arrives at 11 or at 12:45, at 1 pm he turns into a pumpkin and must vaporize so I can welcome the family that truly fills my family's holidays with joy. I can only accommodate to a point.
I get it. I am not generally the finest example of maturity in the room, but when it comes to this holiday situation, if I am the only one who can stomach pulling off this feat of social tap dancing, I will do what I can.
But understand that I have my limits, and despite my demeanor, they are not as far flung as you'd think.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
The Ghost of Christmas Past
Mom's tone is different now.
She's abandoned the Joy Behar-hating, decorum-demanding, table-pounding tone she'd had earlier. She's trying to cajole. She's buttery and smooth and even bargaining by offering me antiques from her house.
Really? Has it come to that?
We've tread this path before. About two years ago. The first time I was facing Christmas morning without my kids. And to make matters worse, without J. because his custody agreement stipulates the opposite of mine. Nice.
I forget what the last subplot was, but I do remember that Joe and Charlotte were Hatfield and McCoying it through another holiday season and my mother was trying to shoehorn in a visit with my brother, again, at my house.
I told her I would welcome him (making a mental note to invite my friend Kate who will roll her eyes and drink chardonnay with me so that I do not shrivel up and die) but that I intended to go to Charlotte's exactly at 1 pm, as that is when her Open House began, and I wanted the kids and I to spend time celebrating with her family and her wonderful eclectic collection of friends.
Joe could come, but on my terms. He could come at 11. And even if he is late, and he always is, he has to be actively leaving my house no later than 1 pm. Coat on, car started.
Joe, I may have mentioned, is a crappy guest. Eats and drinks everything that isn't nailed down, lets his kids whirl through your house leaving chaos and destruction and goo in their wakes, and then never takes a hint to leave, even as you are buttoning your coat to leave yourself.
Mom suggested that, "as a help to me" she'd stay behind with Joe and his kids when I went off to Charlotte's and she'd straighten up a bit, visit a little more. It would be a shame to give Joe "the bum's rush."
A shame? Excuse me?
And when I went flying into a diatribe of my own about Joe always being accommodated at someone else's expense, and his taking liberties with my home, and for God's sake, often taking my things, and no, he could not park his fat ass on my sofa all day while I am trying to salvage some semblance of a holiday with my children, she told me I was selfish. Told me that she'd skip the visit to my house, didn't need to see the kids. Could return the gifts. Thanks for nothing.
That situation eventually worked itself out. But only because I held my ground in spite of her tearful phone call campaign to all manner of people. I insisted that I get to celebrate with my kids in a way that preserves all that is good about our holiday traditions as a family, and if it was so important for her to spend quality time with Joe and his kids, she could be a grown up and go visit him at his house, and her husband could too. It was simply not my job and not my priority to choreograph the dance she had to do to keep the peace. I had much more important priorities, and just because I was putting on a brave face did not mean I was not dying inside.
And this holiday season is shaping up to be just as fraught with the potential for disaster. It was coming like the dawn, looking like a blizzard.
She's abandoned the Joy Behar-hating, decorum-demanding, table-pounding tone she'd had earlier. She's trying to cajole. She's buttery and smooth and even bargaining by offering me antiques from her house.
Really? Has it come to that?
We've tread this path before. About two years ago. The first time I was facing Christmas morning without my kids. And to make matters worse, without J. because his custody agreement stipulates the opposite of mine. Nice.
I forget what the last subplot was, but I do remember that Joe and Charlotte were Hatfield and McCoying it through another holiday season and my mother was trying to shoehorn in a visit with my brother, again, at my house.
I told her I would welcome him (making a mental note to invite my friend Kate who will roll her eyes and drink chardonnay with me so that I do not shrivel up and die) but that I intended to go to Charlotte's exactly at 1 pm, as that is when her Open House began, and I wanted the kids and I to spend time celebrating with her family and her wonderful eclectic collection of friends.
Joe could come, but on my terms. He could come at 11. And even if he is late, and he always is, he has to be actively leaving my house no later than 1 pm. Coat on, car started.
Joe, I may have mentioned, is a crappy guest. Eats and drinks everything that isn't nailed down, lets his kids whirl through your house leaving chaos and destruction and goo in their wakes, and then never takes a hint to leave, even as you are buttoning your coat to leave yourself.
Mom suggested that, "as a help to me" she'd stay behind with Joe and his kids when I went off to Charlotte's and she'd straighten up a bit, visit a little more. It would be a shame to give Joe "the bum's rush."
A shame? Excuse me?
And when I went flying into a diatribe of my own about Joe always being accommodated at someone else's expense, and his taking liberties with my home, and for God's sake, often taking my things, and no, he could not park his fat ass on my sofa all day while I am trying to salvage some semblance of a holiday with my children, she told me I was selfish. Told me that she'd skip the visit to my house, didn't need to see the kids. Could return the gifts. Thanks for nothing.
That situation eventually worked itself out. But only because I held my ground in spite of her tearful phone call campaign to all manner of people. I insisted that I get to celebrate with my kids in a way that preserves all that is good about our holiday traditions as a family, and if it was so important for her to spend quality time with Joe and his kids, she could be a grown up and go visit him at his house, and her husband could too. It was simply not my job and not my priority to choreograph the dance she had to do to keep the peace. I had much more important priorities, and just because I was putting on a brave face did not mean I was not dying inside.
And this holiday season is shaping up to be just as fraught with the potential for disaster. It was coming like the dawn, looking like a blizzard.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
The Family Circus
She's plotting. My mother is plotting.
Do all matriarch's do this?
I realize it is terribly inconvenient to have some kind of family rift when the holidays arrive. But the horse has left the barn with that in its saddlebag and she's not coming back.
It is what it is. And so what? It could be worse. None of the three of us could be speaking to each other. What would she do then? Aside from the regular garden variety heartache that would cause any mother, logistically speaking it is not exactly a Houston-we've-got-a-problem SNAFU.
Had my mother more patience, or even more time, she could simply visit each of us in our own homes. Breakfast with this one. Cocktails and dinner with that one. Catch up with the third for dessert and bring a nice pie.
The plot is thickening like a nice pudding...
Turns out Bill, bless his little Jack Daniels soaked heart, will not, under any circumstances, for any reason, even to retrieve my mother from their burning residence, set foot in my brother's house.
My mother says it is because he can not stand my sister in law.
Easy to understand, for sure. And well documented! There have been more than a few dinner table scenes where I have squirmed through his diatribe about his loathing for her even as she sits two seats away at the same table.
But I have it on good authority that he's not exactly keeping up a thriving pen pal relationship with my brother either.
However, Mom can't exactly admit that to anyone out loud.
And therein lies the dilemma.
Joe, and at least his kids (as far as my mother is concerned the shrew can sit at home in her bathrobe doing her last minute whatever it is that she actually does all day) have to go somewhere to see my mother.
And since my sister's foot is firmly planted in the stance she has taken about Joe ever setting foot into her home again after the Open Door/X-Box/Cat Poop Debacle, there are scant few remaining options.
In fact there is only one.
And the little cloud of doom has positioned itself squarely over my head.
Do all matriarch's do this?
I realize it is terribly inconvenient to have some kind of family rift when the holidays arrive. But the horse has left the barn with that in its saddlebag and she's not coming back.
It is what it is. And so what? It could be worse. None of the three of us could be speaking to each other. What would she do then? Aside from the regular garden variety heartache that would cause any mother, logistically speaking it is not exactly a Houston-we've-got-a-problem SNAFU.
Had my mother more patience, or even more time, she could simply visit each of us in our own homes. Breakfast with this one. Cocktails and dinner with that one. Catch up with the third for dessert and bring a nice pie.
The plot is thickening like a nice pudding...
Turns out Bill, bless his little Jack Daniels soaked heart, will not, under any circumstances, for any reason, even to retrieve my mother from their burning residence, set foot in my brother's house.
My mother says it is because he can not stand my sister in law.
Easy to understand, for sure. And well documented! There have been more than a few dinner table scenes where I have squirmed through his diatribe about his loathing for her even as she sits two seats away at the same table.
But I have it on good authority that he's not exactly keeping up a thriving pen pal relationship with my brother either.
However, Mom can't exactly admit that to anyone out loud.
And therein lies the dilemma.
Joe, and at least his kids (as far as my mother is concerned the shrew can sit at home in her bathrobe doing her last minute whatever it is that she actually does all day) have to go somewhere to see my mother.
And since my sister's foot is firmly planted in the stance she has taken about Joe ever setting foot into her home again after the Open Door/X-Box/Cat Poop Debacle, there are scant few remaining options.
In fact there is only one.
And the little cloud of doom has positioned itself squarely over my head.
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