kethrai's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bridezilla Rides Again! OR…Crimes Against Hospitality Oh, my, I am not coping well. Screw the Creative Life. I’m writing about life with my inlaws this week. It seems that my tolerance has run out completely. But even if I weren’t already bondo-ing the bottle of Milk of Human Kindness that I need to contain the four drops of the stuff that I have left, this woulda tapped the supply down to nil. The latest drama involves Little Shiny Princess Sister-In-Law’s wedding. Little Shiny Princess Sister In Law is getting married in August, and the HEAT IS ON..... And it’s gonna be a long hot summer. Little Shiny Princess and I actually have very little history together, being diametrically opposite personalities. We don’t even have her brother in common—I adore the Darling Husband, and she has oft expressed the opinion that her parents made a mistake in adopting him, because it diverted resources away from the care and nurturance of the Most Important Person on the Planet—her. Her opinion of our (dating) relationship was that he ought to double-bag if he was going to be sleeping with someone like me. On a superficial, family-gathering level, she and I are civil enough. But I don’t forgive or forget—although I rarely act on it—and she is not my favorite person. I find her superficial and shallow; while she seems to be a relatively intelligent young woman, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone more self-involved with the possible exception of my cat. And, y’know, he at least has EVIDENCE that the world spins around him. I even weathered the Grand Matriarch’s pronouncement that my wedding to the Darling Husband was the Satanic union of the Antichrist and the Whore of Babylon in relative good graces—after a while, these sorts of domestic tempests are revealed to be teapot-sized after all, and I figured that anything Little Shiny Princess Girl in her self-absorbed way could dish out would be minor. So: she announces her engagement last year, and I felt the first stirrings in the cauldron. Most of the preparations and general tizziness I could simply ignore or be amused by. By the bye, does anyone really require 20 hours of intensive work to choose a wedding invitation design? Yikes. But it fell under my radar, being part of the “Not My Problem” heading. Some of the general foreboding is harder to ignore. In a moment of rashness, I offered to make a headpiece for the bride. The notion was discussed eagerly, and then dropped. It’s been several months, and it hasn’t been mentioned again. I’m hoping I’m off the hook—after all, Shiny Princess Girl is the sort of chick who wouldn’t want anything “homemade” about her wedding –but I have the depressing sensation that the suggestion will surface again right about the time I’m in full swing with the summer shows, and won’t have a moment to breathe, let alone copy Diana’s coronet. At the last few family gatherings, MIL was cornering me about the cost of my jewelry supplies, with that shifty look she gets when she’s volunteered me for something and doesn’t want to fess up, so I suspect I’ve been “offered” to make the bridal-party jewelry, but no one has informed me yet. They will undoubtedly want it for cost of supplies. This, by the way, is their usual tactic—if they want something, if they want to criticize, it’s said behind my back, on the assumption that the news will eventually get to me. It usually does, but by then, hunting down and stomping out the guts of the original perp is mostly useless. The shower invitation I politely declined—it conflicted with the first week of a three-week show contract. I will also decline to participate on the list of “suggested gifts” that was sent to me. Not much gets said to my face, you see. I suspect because they’ve noted that I don’t play the same passive-aggressive game, and will go for the throat of the person involved. But all of this pussyfooting makes me vaguely uneasy. These folks have a tendency to spring little surprises on people that have everything to do with what they want or need, and are highly inconvenient or uncomfortable to the surprise-ee. I was hoping that having made it through most of the Engagement Year relatively unscathed, that this happy if nervewracking state of affairs might continue. But I should have known we wouldn’t make it through Wedding Fever Season without someone losing every last remnant of potential neural activity to the four winds and ranting and screaming at the largely uninvolved parties of the Darling Husband and I. On Sunday, we went to HIS family's Mother's Day gathering (mind you, not mine…big of me, I thought) ....and I got cornered by MIL who has quietly planned, without informing us, that we are to stay in MIL City (one hour from home) the whole weekend, because the Royal Progress is lined up like so: --Rehearsal and dinner Friday night --The Event--Saturday --Family brunch on Sunday. Bride and groom WILL be present, they're not going on honeymoon ‘til Monday, and if you want to spend your wedding morning not rolling around in the sack you're a sad, sick person, but I also reserved this judgement to myself.... I am NOT (naturally, being, y'know, the huge cow that I am, not "visually appropriate") part of the wedding party so my thinking was: --Send Darling Husband for ghastly rehearsal and dinner Friday night --drive out and Attend the Event with a ball gag on Saturday, and go HOME afterward --Put my feet up and consider ads for hitpersons on Sunday, but at HOME. Since it's, like, our one free weekend day in 8 weeks of shows. We have a heavy show schedule this summer, I don't sleep well away from home and will be doing a lot of it already, so we were doing this as a commuter deal, so as to not put anyone out.... No biggie, right? After all, we live just an hour away... When I was small, we would spend sometimes 2-3 hours in the car and come back the same day for this sort of event. My family is big on hospitality. Both extending it themselves, and not stretching anyone else’s to the breaking point. “Not putting anyone out” is practically a religion in my Fam Trad. SO— Sunday, obviously feeling that she is protected by the Sacred Aura of Mother’s Day, MIL informs (not asks) that we will spend Friday night with my sister who (hello! is moving out of MIL City the month before) because she has a houseful, and Saturday night under the MIL roof...so we can attend the Family Brunch on Sunday. Which is the first I've heard of a brunch. I politely decline. I had not heard of this Brunch, and I was reserving that Sunday to do things around home after a round of shows. Not mentioning, naturally, that as I hold hospitality rather sacred, I would sooner find a nice comfy medieval RACK than sleep under her roof. Since I found out their original suspicions of me—including my taking multiple persons into my bed alongside their son (which, fundamentally, I don’t feel insults ME per se, but offends my sense of privacy that says if I were, it would be none of their business) and then later suspicions of my Whoredom of Babylonian proportions, segueing nicely into (because I am not and have not been pregnant) rumors of my sterility because of my previous gender (all of which was news to me—Mom says I’ve always been a girl….) I don’t feel I could be a Good Guest, much less that they could be Good Hosts. Since either of those things being out of kilter is an Offense against Hospitality, I have declined their roof, although I have occasionally eaten their food in the spirit of truce. Five minutes later, she corners the Darling Husband, who also declines the brunch. The very next day, Darling Husband got a hysterical call from Little Shiny Princess Sister-In-Law screaming "You're just trying to ruin my fucking wedding! Well, the world doesn't spin around you!" At that point, I believe the conversation degenerated into the Darling Husband's suggestions on what SHE could spin on. Not nice. On either side. I suspect they are not speaking again until the wedding. Gosh, what a shame. So the Darling Husband went off fishing with his father a night later. Dad has been used as a go-between before, to pull up the reins on his psychotic wife and daughter. Dad was rather disturbed to learn of the recent treatment, and promised to “have a chat” when he got home from fishing…… Darling Husband thinks it’s done, at least until the next time. But I am not satisfied. You see, I did not grow up in a gender-role-defined household. Dad’s long tours of sea-duty meant that Mom was de facto head of household, and took on the weight and did the job with her effortless grace. As noted before, she is an excellent role model, something that I can only aspire to….and take copious notes. However reluctantly I’ve taken on the role, the Darling Husband’s job situation has made me titular as well as de facto head of household, anointed by the IRS itself. As head of household, extender of Hospitality under my roof, and acceptor of Hospitality under the roofs of others, I am the person that you come to about scheduling, insulting, and challenge to combat. I am the person to address if you so desire to offend against members of my household. Take on the darling Husband, take on my cat, take on an invited guest to my home….and you will have ME to deal with FIRST…,and by god you’d better not fuck with anyone under my roof, have they fur, whiskers, or hands. If you’ve ever studied the Celtic notion of Hospitality—yes, with a capital letter, and sacred, at that—you may recognize some of the offenses listed in this entry. And even if you haven’t, by now, dear NonScheduled Reader, you may have some sense of exactly what warpath I intend to tread. An open warning to the Darling Husband’s clan: root, branch, and twig: I do not intend to stand for your petty-minded bickering and neuronless attempts to upset and dismay anyone in your path. You will not invade my home, nor disturb anyone therein, with unkindness or harassment, be it by means of foot and mouth or electronic messaging, be it phone or computer or letter or any other means. I will not permit that you torment my husband, your son and brother. You may not speak disparagingly to him. You will accept my word on invitations as final, as it is my work and show schedule that often dictates our movements. In return: I will not lie to you. I have not, nor will I, restrict the Darling Husband’s acceptance or denial of invitations from you. He does not visit by himself because you treat him better when I am there to watch you. And I promise you, if you ever dump my cat on the floor again, for any reason, startling and frightening him when he was trying to be friendly---I will break your neck over the edge of my knee. SONS OF THE HOUNDS, COME AND GET MEAT! 5:21 p.m. - 2002-05-15 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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