HEY! ANYONE DRIVING NEAR FREMONT!!! Apparently, the police are out in major force today. Don’t break any traffic laws even slightly.
Now on to the rest of my fussing..
We are about as ready as we are going to get and I’m pretty ok with that level of ready. Yay for ready.
My pissiness this morning centers around Anna. She’s here visiting for a while. I haven’t spent serious time with her in 3+ years. I’ve been uhm, busy.
Backstory: Anna had back surgery about 6 months ago and is in serioius pain a lot of the time. She can’t lift much and she often needs to go rest. I’m fine with this. However, I’ve been running around like a chicken with my head cut off. The only thing I have asked her to do was to iron the curtains. There were 6 panels. It took her about 9 hours over two days because she kept complaining about how much she hates to iron. Uhm, well, there isn’t much else you are capable of doing. And I have this awful Puritan work ethic that means I get bitchy about people sitting around doing nothing while I work. It really bugs me. However, I know she can’t do much so I don’t have that high of expectations. Even with really low expectations the fact that she was whining about doing the one small task I gave her really pissed me off.
Oh, and she has been fussing for two days that she had to go buy the Harry Potter book at 9am. Uhm, Anna–do you recognize that we are kind of busy? She gave me this long story basically repeating for me what I know about the fact that her life is really pathetic and she has nothing to look forward to except for this book. I have some sympathy for this, but I also have 100 people coming to my house today.
I didn’t kill her. She has her fucking book. She carried 10 bottles of wine and washed a few bowls. I think that is all I am going to get from her…
But we are done. This rocks. Now I can calm down! Now I get to breathe and chill out and stop stressing. I can do this.
It can be hard having disabled folk around when you’re feeling busy and overwhelmed and put-upon.
Speaking as someone who lives with that most of the time, my suggestion is to let go of all your expectations. If she can help, that’s a bonus, but don’t expect it; that way you don’t get all frustrated when your expectations aren’t met.
OTOH, her asking you to take care of her errand when you’re busy and crazy is plain old out of line. Her need for that book (with which I’m entirely sympathetic; I’m sitting here at the mechanic’s jitteriing because I know mine is waiting on my front porch at home) is not your problem. She could have pre-ordered it, she could have taken a taxi to the bookstore, she could have asked another friend, or she could have just plain waited until a better time. I’ve dealt too much in my life with that kind of narcissism and I have no patience with it at all. Sorry, Anna, whoever you are.
In the meantime: glad to hear you’re ready and that everything’s going smoothly. Congratulations!
I woke up feeling really icky today, so I am probably going to miss the party. Mazel tov and I’m sorry not to be there! If I feel miraculously better in a few hours I’ll reconsider. (Nothing contagious or anything.)
should have just left me in the house to finish all the panels 🙂
T.