Okay, I'm Done Now

Up and down aaand Up and Down...yeah, yeah. I'm done with the sulky bummer of a mood I had yesterday. The sheer absurdity of life has taken over for 'Life sucks, then you die around the holidays'.

As all 8 of you regular fearless readers might recall, I don't have the swellest relationship with my maternal unit. Not as bad as some, but certainly not great.

Up until yesterday, the only communication I have had with her since Thanksgiving were some unanswered emails. I have been sending chatty emails weekly, and have been waiting for responses. The responses came in the form of forwarded cutesy emails about Christmas, but no message attached. I figured that at some point during Thanksgiving, I pissed her off. (Mind you, she was spoiling for a fight from the time she pulled in my driveway. She's good at dropping little digs here and there, and I'm dumb enough to rise to the bait every blessed time.)

Anyway.

Since I haven't heard from her, I figured it was time to make a phone call. Using my best concerned voice, "Is everything okay? I haven't heard from you in weeks!" She was very cool and replied that she had been sending me emails, but was waiting for me to make a decision about Christmas. My mind started racing "Christmas? Decisons? Whot?" She further explained that she TOLD me at Thanksgiving that Sue was coming to our house for Christmas. At this point, I'm flipping madly thru the mental rolodex trying to remember this conversation...AH HA! Sue is the daughter of a friend of my mothers. The friend's husband died earlier in the year, and the friend has Altzheimer's and is now in an assisted care facility because her whole life revolved around taking care of her husband, who in turn took care of her. Anyway, Sue is flying out here from California to visit with her mom and my mother offered to let her stay at her house. She DID tell me all this at Thanksgiving, but I forgot.

Sue is coming over Christmas, and will be sleeping in my room. Okay, thats fine. Mom has this elaborate movement going on her head: "Sue will sleep in your room, you can take my bed, and I'll sleep on the couch." "But Mom, Obbie is coming to Christmas this year." "He can't! He can't spend the night! That won't work at all!! I don't have the facilities! There aren't enough bathrooms! We'll have privacy problems!! He's got a son! Why isn't he going there?! He can't stay overnight here, he can't! I'm sorry, he's going to have to go home after Christmas Eve, but he's welcome here on Christmas Day!!" and then proceeded to go spinning off into the stratosphere like Darth Vader's Tie Fighter in the end of Star Wars.

"This has gotten completely out of hand!! Shirley isn't in the office, and I'm having to be here all the time, and I haven't gotten to shop, and no cookies baked and I can't find the right Christmas tree! We're probably going to have a fake tree for the first time ever! Aunt Dot wants me to take her to the candlelight service at church on Christmas Eve, but it starts at 7:30 and theres no way everyone will be gone by then!!" I could hear her rising up the hysteria scale as the conversation went along.

"Mom, mom, slow down. It's going to be fine. Saturday will be fine for the party, no problem. 2:30 in the afternoon is great. Whatever you need me to do, let me know, and I'll help in any way I can. I'll bring a ham or something."

"Ham? I told you I got one of those countertop ovens, and that'll keep the food warm while the other stuff cooks and and and....." at this point I stopped listening. All she was doing was working herself into a major snit for no good reason. The cookies will be baked, the right tree found, Sue will have a place to stay, 10 people will come for the Christmas Eve party/dinner, and be well fed, Obbie and I will have a place to stay, and all will be right with the world.

Except it won't be how she made it out to be in her mind, and she'll be upset. NO MATTER WHAT.

So what am I going to do about all this? Not a bloody thing. I'm going to shop, wrap gifts, make cookies, finish up a couple orders for jewelry and do the whole Christmas thing. Period. She will not make me nuts. She will not make me feel guilty. I have offered to help, if she chooses NOT to take my help, that is NOT my problem. Obbie and I will either come back to my house on Christmas Eve, or stay in a hotel close by (not many to pick from but oh well) And that, my friends, is all I can do, and all I'm going to do.