snarky saturday

Oh. My. Hell.*

Let me share a few choice moments from the weekend.

Hello Crazy!

I invited my brother's family to join us at our city's Fourth of July Parade. His imminently-ex-wife ("Iew") decided that she wanted to do the parade with the kids and not have him around. (Mind you, they are still living together and their kids don't know they are separating yet.) So my brother bowed out and said he'd do something else. I decided to play nice, even if Iew was banning him. I e-mailed her and asked her if she wanted to meet. I also told her that if she didn't want to sit with us, it would be fine. Iew responded via e-mail asking me the route and said something like, "The kids and I are going to attend." I e-mailed her the route, told where we usually sit and asked her to text me in the morning so we could connect, if she wanted. I never heard back from her. So I figured she'd decided not to join us and go sit somewhere OTHER than where I said we'd be. Right? Ok assumption?

Nope. We eventually saw her, when she walked right past us and sat 1/2 block away in the blazing sun. (There was space by us.) I knew she'd seen us but Car-man couldn't believe it so he walked down to tell her where we were. She barely mumbled hello at him and then resolutely ignored him. Later, I tried to stop and say, "Hi" on my way to the restrooms. She wouldn't look at me or even really acknowledge me. I can see this divorce is going to be wonderful on everyone.

My girls were pretty shocked and couldn't understand her behavior (mind you, THEY don't know about the divorce yet because Bro didn't want me to tell them until after all the family get-togethers this weekend). I couldn't really understand her either. If she didn't want to sit with us, fine. But why traipse right by us and ignore us and our KIDS, with HER KIDS? It's a big damn parade. There was no need for this. Younger said, "I don't know what's going on with them because no one will tell us. But Iew's STILL our Aunt!! Why did she do that?" I responded with something about how Iew was hurting and upset and she didn't know how to act. But the truth? She's an adult. She can do better than this around the kids. I'm pretty irritated.

Hello Joy!

I can't wait for my niece's birthday party tomorrow. It should be wonderful. My brother, Iew , her divorced parents, my parents (including my vehemently anti-divorce mother) . . . and a gazillion giggling six year old hula girls. Give me the six-year-olds and some tequila (the tequila is just for me). We'll be the mature ones.

Hello Yummy!

Before the weekend, I told my mom that we'd do burgers on the grill Friday night before we went to watch fireworks. She offered to bring fresh corn, which was a great idea. When she showed up she also had homemade pineapple salsa. It sounded "interesting" and potentially yummy, but knowing my mom, probably horrendous.

The first issue? What were we supposed to eat it with? I didn't have chips or anything like that in the house. She said we were just to eat it like a side-dish. Ok then.

I put some on my plate and ate a bite or two. I didn't really like it. I do like adventurous food. But this was made with canned pineapple and an anemic looking green bell pepper. (I'm betting the recipe called for fresh pineapple and an Anaheim chile.) It wasn't yummy. So I left most of it on my plate. She was sitting across from me and could see it was left on my plate. Yet she asked, "Did you like the salsa? Isn't it great?" I kind of looked at her thinking, "Do you really want my opinion? Can't you see it sitting, uneaten on my plate?" I mumbled something like, "It was pretty good." But NOOO she had to push the fact it was uneaten. So I looked her straight in the eyes and said, "It's really not my favorite thing."

She then pouted for 45 minutes.

Hello Nosey!

During fireworks, Mom was popping off with little tid-bits on my brother's divorce:

"Iew seems really, really angry at Bro and I'm not sure she's got any reason to be."

"So Iew filed first. Didn't you say it would be better if he filed first? I bet she got advice from her Mom to do that."

Um, what the hell am I supposed to do with that? I sat there mute. This is not MY stuff to tell. God Bless Car-man. He overheard her and stepped in. He told her that she had to remember that I was caught in the middle and she needed to not ask me for information about the divorce. (I cannot tell you how UNLIKE Car-man this is. He is very non-confrontational with my family. I'll give him a big thank you later. :o>)

Unbelievably, she then said, "Oh, I wasn't trying to get information at all. I don't want to make Laggin feel bad."

If this was high school? She'd get an "F" in not making Laggin feel bad.

Hello Guilt!

So this morning, I was taking Mom out for a delayed Mother's Day celebration. (We had to cancel it when it was originally planned in June because Iew kicked my brother out for a few days. She also endeared herself to me by asking me to call my parents and tell them not to come that weekend when they were supposed to stay at her place. Nice. It was really fun. Especially when I couldn't tell my Mom WHY Bro was getting kicked out.)

Anyhoo, I knew Mom would spend our time together this morning trying to talk over the divorce situation. I had myself braced and ready. I do understand that she needs to talk. I just really can't deal with listening to her because it's all so full of her snobbery and judgmentalism. Eventually I ended up telling her that I disagreed with her views and I really couldn't take listening to her. There were tears. Ugh.

Oh, and in case you care, she's an adult and I don't have to hide things from her. She can handle bad news. (Now remember, she's not TRYING to get information from me. Right?)

But NOOOO, we weren't done yet. She needed to make sure that I would tell Car-man that she wasn't "trying" to make me feel bad or get information about the divorce the evening before. She was just making statements. I needed to assure him that she wasn't "asking" anything. She told me she had carefully crafted what she was saying as statements.

OMG. I'm the spawn of friggin' female Bill Clinton. And anyone who doesn't believe that she was digging for information? You don't know my mom.

When we got to our destination, we had a nice time and I was able to avoid all further discussion of the travails of Bro.

Hello Reprieve!

Now I'm at the office, in hiding. She's taking all the granddaughters to see the Kit: An American Girl movie. Even my teens secretly want to see this movie. They were huge American Girl groupies. Eldest still has the dolls in her room! But much to Eldest's horror, Nana is making her bring the Kit doll out to lunch. (Tee hee. When Mom tortures the girls, I laugh a little.)

I'll reconnect with them when we all meet for dinner tonight.

I'll give you a patriotic house today.

*Thanks, Tonkelu. I love that phrase.