Oh god, please help me
or
Captive in Buffalo: Day 3
Well my initial assessment was correct. my Dad is too weak and pliable to be the irascible racist I've come to know and dread. So in that, at least, this trip hasn't had me visibly wincing at the dinner time conversation. Apparently, both my parents have now developed that older persons habit of not being able to sleep at night except for short half hour bursts. I can relate, the same thing happened to me when I was weaning myself off the 3/4 of a bottle of vodka a night. The voices of the demons trying to possess my soul that were walking around my bedroom kept waking me. But the difference is that eventually my night time sleep returned. They have now acquired that old persons habit of falling asleep several times every afternoon. Like whenever one of them stops talking or moving it's lights out/shades drawn. You can have a conversation, watch ten minutes of One Life to Live and turn around to say something else and d'oh! see you in a half hour. Maybe I'll just accept it as normal when I get to be that age but I would truly prefer to sleep six or seven hours when it's dark out. We'll see.
Beyond that I am bored, bored, bored! As expected. I was hoping it would be different but my father's health prevents us from doing much as a group. It's not like he's deteriorating or anything he just needs time to heal. The doctors say six to eight weeks and it's only been two. Also, you need to factor in the wishes of She Who Must Be Served. Apparently, there has been a coup d'etat in my absence and the Child Queen has taken over. All plans by the adults must be filtered through the schedule and wishes of her Majesty and when she is displeased she calls her Daddy and packs her bags and then climbs under one of the beds until her foot soldiers (my mother and father) coax her out ever so preciously so they can "comfort" her. Oh my god. You know why I would never have tried that on them when I was eight? Because I knew even then no one would look for me. Not as in poor me, but as in, "get out from under the bed you dipshit". But there they were going please come out honey, please, come on baby, please. Please, indeed. And all because I dared to try to make plans with my own sister tonight to get the hell out of this little suburban box before I start to scrawl Amityville messages on the walls! We had just had two and a half days of quality time together and I thought I had earned a furlough from the warden but it seems that even a four or five hour separation before we all got together for breakfast tomorrow was enough to traumatize her under the bed. I tried to reason with her from there with her under the bed and me on top, but curiously, I found myself tapping into my own inner child and things were coming out of my mouth like "well, if this is how it's going to be that I have to spend every minute of my visit with you maybe I just won't come anymore" NO! Wrong way to phrase it I knew it when I said it try again. "You know, Caitlin if this is going to be such a big deal for you maybe I should be the one that leaves. I can just go home tonight. How would that be?" NICE WORK! Threaten an eight year old AND make her feel like she's to blame. I'd make a fabulous parent. I let the grandparents do their thing while I took a few moments to regroup. C'mon, Helen, you can figure out how to do this. What I needed was some common ground to meet on.........DING!
THE MALL.
Girl, you are toast now. Auntie Helen is taking you to her natural environment and while you show potential as an eight year old, what with your Barbie Castle the size of my childhood bedroom to your Barbie Gyno and Go one stop stirrup table. We on my turf now you little bitch and I will get the the upper hand. OK I didn't go that far but I did invite the little actress to walk with me to the mall and talk this out. Basically what I managed to get out of her was that because we had had a little tiff this afternoon while working in the yard and then I proceeded to make plans without her, she was feeling all rejected all of the sudden and didn't know how to take it. So I explained that you can't spend all your time with the same person without one or the other of you turning into an eight year old little pain in the ass (I'm talking about her) but that didn't mean I didn't love her. And I also tried to explain that sometimes I need to spend time with other people in my family that I love and don't get to see either and that doesn't mean I don't still love her either. I also explained that if we were alone and she had pulled that stupid under the bed temper tantrum that I would have left her there for as long as she was silly enough to stay under it. And I don't like to be threatened and I was going to see my sister today and she would just have to accept it. Message sent and received obviously because we had a great time at the mall we went to this new age candle, crystal, hemp purse, celtic necklace and essential oil store store. Her 1st stop I swear, I haven't said a word. Then to the toy store then the book store. She tried to steer a couple of purchases my way but I resisted lest she think they were guilt purchases of some sort. I finally gave in at the book store when she picked out a little under $10 pocket book from some Nickelodeon show. Last stop was the Disney store. Oddly, those are all the stores I would have hit had I been alone.
Walked home, and I installed new printer cartridges on mom's PC. The printer has been down for almost a year. All I did was uninstall/reinstall the software and when I confirmed that everything else was fine the only thing left to replace was the ink. I guess no one here knows that if you don't use the printer periodically the ink will dry up and not work anymore. All better now. Then dinner at a Greek diner cause her Majesty was hungry NOW! (sigh) It all wrapped up with a night of Must See TV. They were reruns but new to me thank the spirits. So here I am at 12:50am taking a look at my badly chewed up cuticles and contemplating how I somehow (Dad) got committed to being awake and dressed and ready to go out for breakfast at 9:45am (or as he put it, quarter to 10) with the child Queen and her consorts. Before anyone thinks I've forgotten my pledge to relax and enjoy being with my family while I can, I haven't. Which Is why I'll be dressed and ready to go out for breakfast tomorrow at 9:45am (I mean quarter to 10). But I want to come home. To my home.
