Insane Weekend….

So.

Where to begin?

On Saturday I….

managed to finish the touch-ups in the living room. Now I just have to make J do the chair rail in there and the room can officially be considered done.

started the touch-ups in the dining room – it’s now 1/3 done. SQUEEE !

had to run to the Stop & Shop to get the ingredients for the apple pie I was making for my step-father and the stuff for the spice cake I was making for my brother. Now, the only time I’ve ever been to the Stop & Shop I got TOTALLY lost trying to get home so I made J go with so I wouldn’t end up wandering around trying to find my way back home. The pie stuff was easily enough found. BUT ! There was no spice cake cake mix in sight ! EEK !

dropped J off back at the house where he started cooking dinner. I headed out to the handy dandy Shop Rite (more like Shop Wrong, but I figured maybe on some off chance THEY’D have the spice cake cake mix). Sure enough they DID ! SQUEEE ! ! ! ! As I approached the line I realized that J’s father was in front of me ringing out. “HI GLEN !” I say to him. He obviously doesn’t hear me (or at least I’d like to THINK it was that he didn’t hear me) as he looks very focused on punching in his password on the credit card pad. So I wait a minute or two until he’s done. “HI GLEN !” I say again, but this time a little louder. He seems stunned – a deer in headlights, really. “Oh. Hi” he grumbles and then immediately asked where J was. “At home” I tell him to which he launches into a nervous little explanation of how he didn’t have our new phone number in his cell yet and so he couldn’t call first but that he’d gone by the house and no one was there. I said “Yes. Well, we went to another grocery store together.” “But the white car was at the house” he responded. “That’s because we took MY car” I shoot back. He then went on to say he’d wanted to pick up the steam cleaner he’d lent us and I told him that I wasn’t sure if it was back because J had let Mark use it when he move into our old apartment, but that I could call the house to see if he wanted. He said that he wasn’t “aware” of J lending it out and that he didn’t want to get it now because he was going to go home (the whole 2 minute drive that it was !). I was like “o.k., whatever.” When I got into the car I called Jules to tell her about the little exchange and her first response was “Why was he so nervous?!?!” “Good Question !” I thought. I got home and relayed the exchange to J who was NOT happy because apparently he’d not TOLD Glen about letting Mark use the steam cleaner and, apparently in “Glen Talk” saying “I wasn’t aware of that” means he’s pissed off. I was like “Sorry. I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to say anything !” J then called Glen to try to do some damage control only to find that he wasn’t really ticked off but that he’s not been feeling well lately. Then, as I can hear J’s end of the conversation, it sounds like perhaps Glen had LET HIMELF INTO OUR HOUSE when no one answered the door. This alarmed me considerably. So, I asked J about it when he got off the phone. He said that Glen had NOT come into the house but did go around it and peer into the windows when no one answered the door because he wasn’t sure if anyone was home. Uh huh. I am SO not happy about that ! I’m sorry, but that’s just CREEPY ! TIME FOR ME TO MAKE THOSE CURTAINS ! ! ! ! ! ! Like, what if J and I were engaged in some “activity” and didn’t WANT to answer the door ! What? We have to worry about having Glen peeking in on us as a result?!?!?!?!? When I told mom about this on Sunday she was all scheeved out and thought that was really odd and creepy behavior from Glen.

On Sunday I…..

got up REALLY late and let J sleep in since he’d been up pretty late working on getting the Tivo, DVD player, VHS machine, etc. hooked back up to the t.v. Got a call from Glen who wanted to know the code for the garage so he could come by while we were out and pick up his steam cleaner – which I gave him though uncomfortable doing so. When J finally DID get up we didn’t have much time to do anything around the house so we just got ready to head out to Connecticut and headed out

took J to breakfast at IHOP on our way to Connecticut. VERY TASTY ! and VERY NECESSARY as having something nice and heavy in one’s stomach can be key when one knows one will be needing to drink large quantities of alcohol to get through dinner

stopped at Best Buy after breakfast to pick up birthday gifts for my brother and step-father. Matty got season 1 of Chappelle Show and I got Patrick some DVD set that had to do with the last days of WWII…it was a History Channel thing that I figured he’d dig on

Trudged to Connecticut – all 1 ½ hours of the way.

Got to Connecticut just after 3 and immediately got handed a large glass of white zin which was GREATLY appreciated. I lectured mom and Patrick on why NOT punishing Matt for totaling Patrick’s new car is a bad idea and tried my very best to convince them that he should have his driving privileges revoked – to no avail, of course, as he IS the crown prince of the family. Then THEY showed up. Thank god for the wine, that’s all I know. Now, apparently our new house is very near to one of Patrick’s niece’s house. She has cancer, has had it for years and years and years, and has never been particularly kind or cruel to me. She, like most of that family, tends to view me as non-existent (so I guess that being the case, they don’t really “view” me at all, huh?). Anyway, when mom and Patrick found out that I lived so close to her they got all excited as they thought I was “great” since I could be someone she could call if she had any problems. Uh. I think not. Why the hell am I going to help someone who acts as if I’m not part of the universe?!?!?! They’ve pretty much dropped it but I was waiting to hear one of THEM mention it. The barrage of “THEM” included Aggie, Patrick’s classy sister and, incidentally the ONLY one who acknowledges that I do, if fact, exist, Bob, her husband, Susan, one of Aggie & Bob’s daughters, Byron, Susan’s boyfriend (and, incidentally, the only man anyone’s EVER seen her with hence making us all question which team she was playing for), Nancy, another of Aggie & Bob’s daughters, Tom, her obnoxious slob of a husband, Little Asian Girl, Tom’s daughter from a previous marriage, Anna, Nancy & Tom’s 2 year old, Daniel, Nancy & Tom’s son which I never knew existed (I had no clue she’d even been pregnant again !), Mark, Patrick’s heinous son, Millie, Mark’s heinous wife, Grace, Mark & Millie’s bratty 4 year old daughter, Lily, Patrick’s freak of a sister who is the mother of the cancer-ridden niece. As soon as Lily saw me she said “hello” but didn’t bother to do what THEY do to people when they greet them which is the typical Italian kissing on the cheek. As I was talking with my brother she interrupts by loudly saying “BETH! BETH ! I hear you live near Roseanne !”

I stop my conversation with Matt to look over at her and say “That’s what I’m told.” She then launches into how that’s so great because that means Roseanne can ride in with US the next time we are coming to my mother’s house. I couldn’t help it. I gave her a dirty look and responded with a “Yeah. Um. Maybe.” After this point she obviously had no more use for me as she didn’t approach or speak to me for the remainder of the evening. BITCH. What the hell?! You’re going to be ugly for years and years and years and then the second I can be of service to YOU you deem me worth talking to. FUCK YOU. All in all, I pretty much got PLASTERED throughout the remainder of the evening…taking out 1 ½ - 2 bottles of wine. By dinner time I was full swing into my southern drawl (which I manage to mask on a daily basis and which only really comes out when I’ve had one too many) and J made sure to point it out to me. I think I may have gotten a little “loud” with my laughter a time or two but you know what? FUCK ‘EM ! I was at the kiddy table (as per usual) and had the audience of kids, my brother, his two friends and J. I did NOT care. I was at MY mother’s house and I DO exist there ! SCREW ‘EM ! We made our escape around 8:30 and I managed to not pass out the entire way home (I’m SO proud !) I do remember, however, that the trip home included me singing along to the Macy Gray album J had put into the CD player and me crying for that little Asian girl…because I saw me in her. I saw how they treated her – the same as they’ve always treated me…and it made me SO sad for her. She, like me, has done NOTHING to these people to deserve this treatment. She is a LITTLE GIRL who did not ASK to be born and did NOT ask her daddy to knock up his girlfriend and then marry her ! The whole thing just made me really sad. And J had to listen to that and then me babbling about how much I don’t like “THEM” and how, though they treat me badly, that I feel obligated on occasions such as these since it is, after all, for someone I’m ACTUALLY related to. I collapsed into bed as soon as we got back and woke up fresh as a daisy at 6 this morning (yeah, ya’ll can hate my guts right about now because I DON’T get hangovers ! ! ! ! BLAH HA HA HA HA ! ! ! ! !)

And that, my dears, was how MY weekend was !