Queen of Rambles

I would totally be doing the Happy Dance of Guests Going Home, but Erik is so sad about the whole thing that it’s difficult to be overjoyed. Their flight left at 6 pm, so Erik was awake and aware when they loaded up into the car and left. He cried for a long time, then he packed up his little suitcase and suggested we go in the black car, since he knew they had the blue car. Sorry buddy, but the black car was returned to the rental agency.

This week was so much better. I don’t know if it was just because I took a chill pill, or what, but I think I was having fun. Once I decided to let things go and just be I could tolerate things a lot better.

I think a HUGE part of the problem is the bitter, cruel voice of my grandmother that lives in the back of my head. Every word out of her mouth is bitchy, bitchy, bitchy. Whenever we leave somewhere, she immediately fires up the old criticism cranker and starts lobbing bullets. They were too dirty, they were too clean, they were too quiet, they were too loud, did you SEE that color? Did you HEAR that noise? Did you LOOK at their toilet? What awful/rude/overly polite/oppressed/dirty/abnormally clean/smart-alecky/abused children! How could a mother feed them so much/starve them/dress them like that/buy so many toys/have a complete lack of toys/blah blah blah blah blah?

So when someone comes to my house I’m always trying to anticipate the litany of criticism that is sure to be spewed as soon as they are out the door and in the car. It makes me anxious, which magnifies everything and makes me look like a total bitch and it just makes all the more things for them to say about me behind my back. Only do people really do this? I mean, yes, of course, I know we all gossip. But are people really as mean as my grandmother? I don’t think so. I know that when I’ve been to someone’s house I don’t go into the litany of shame as soon as I’m out the door. Instead, I focus on the really fun thing we just did or the really cool doohicky they just bought, or whatever. Sure, there are some people that are total whack-a-doos and I have fun making fun of them, but that is not the norm. I think. I don’t know. You guys only hear the bitching and the weirdness here on this blog since it’s not as fun to tell about the totally normal stuff.

I think it also helped that my SIL started interacting with Erik this week. She has four children, so she must like kids, but she was definitely not into playing with him like my BIL and niece. She even read him a few stories today, which totally blew my mind because he certainly doesn’t sit still for me to read him a story.

Also, I think she got a new insight into me when I told her that I feel like I belong at the children’s table during big holiday gatherings. She seemed offended at first, but when I told her I am only five years older than the oldest nephew her jaw dropped and it seemed like she had a total perspective shift. This morning she told me she was awake all night thinking about it and about how different my life is from the life of that oldest nephew. It was a nice bonding moment.

I also had a good bonding moment with my 20 year old niece last night. She’s been talking about the peanut butter balls I brought for Christmas one year, so finally last night we had a chance to get into the kitchen and make a batch. She is pretty good at English, but much too afraid to say anything, but doing an activity like that forced us to talk to each other. I think I would really like her a lot if we spoke the same language. I’m not saying I don’t like her now, just that it is hard to know if you like someone if you can’t communicate with them.

So. . .

Now what am I going to do with all this freedom? I almost hate to drag out my quilting stuff again because we have our upstairs loft so clean that it is functioning as a little living room that Erik can run around in. The call of fabric is too much, I’m afraid. I am in a quilting round robin group and MUST get my center block in the mail this weekend. I haven’t even decided what block to make. At this point it is looking like I should print out a list of possibilities and throw a dart at it.

Plans for tomorrow are simple. I’ll hit the gym, then finish gathering things up for Grain_Damaged’s shoebox swap. Hopefully I’ll get it in the mail tomorrow afternoon!

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 21st, 2008 at 7:54 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.