Friday, but a crabby day
Today is the day of the visit of the Mighty Tom. MT is my younger brother, the one who bought the house from Mom. I'm not really looking forward to his visit but am sort of trapped, since I live here (with Mom) and have nowhere else to go.
MT, like many youngest children, has been the pampered, spoiled and celebrated child in the family. My Mom has tunnel vision when he's around and after he leaves it's Tom Tom Tom. She used to interrupt my conversation about my son to mention (again) a noteworthy thing about Tom's kids (who are the most wonderful children there could ever be). Just recently Mom was complaining about my son (who also lives with us) and then began talking about MT's boys, "Now those are kids I can be proud of." Ouch, Mom! I defended him of course, as he is a good boy and does a lot of things for me and his grandmother.
SLA and Vegetable Man have both noticed for years about how much she continually talks about Mighty Tom, about all the wonderful accomplishments of their family, how sweet and helpful his wife is, the same things over and over. It's sickening, but better if we (older brother and I) just plain agree with her.
The realy ironic thing is that Mom had a younger brother in her (large) family who supplanted her as the youngest child. For all of my childhood and beyond I can remember her talking bitterly and jealously about him. She had little good to say about him until he died about two years ago. Now he's a saint in her eyes. My older brother and I feel the same way about Tom as she felt about her younger brother. I've tried to compare the two (like) situations to her but she doesn't see it.
It's almost needless to say that I don't get along that well with MT. Older brother avoids him when possible. Normally when MT come to visit, I would go out to Mom's and see him for a couple of hours--which was about as much as I could bear without getting into an argument with him over politics, child raising, a news story--you name it. Now I'm trapped for a weekend-long visit, yikes!
As long as I'm ranting about annoying people: Last night we had a knock on the door. It was the upstairs neighbor whom I've never even met. Her first words to me after telling me who she was were a smirking, "Are you missing something?" I just sort of stared at her blankly, while thinking about the stuff we put in the little storage place in the back hallway.
"Not that I know of." I said, finally. She still has an unpleasant smirk on her face when my little dog came up to her.
"Oh, there's the little dog who barks all the time." she says. While my Mom and I just stare at her. My dog barks a couple of woofs when someone comes, and then is quiet. She's the quietest dog I've ever owned or seen (heard!). She doesn't bark at the contantly barking (many) dogs in the neighborhood area, doesn't bark at the loud thumping and bumping on the ceilings. My Mom and I had never met this neighbor, but already we were not liking her one bit.
The neighbor woman then asks, "So you aren't missing any of your animals, like your ferrets or anything? I was packing up my boyfriend's things--I should say my EX-boyfriend and I heard something in the walls. It sounded large, bigger than a mouse."
And I am wondering how she knows we have ferrets, she's never been in our apartment and we've never talked to her before. And I'm getting quite annoyed. Did the landlady tell her about our ferrets (they are supposed to be locked in their cage at all times) so she could check up on us or something?
"No," I say quite coldly, "Our animals are never running about loose."
And so ended our first conversation with our upstairs neighbor. To be honest, I was inclined to not like her much anyway. She's so noisy that it wakes me up sometimes. Maybe now that the boyfriend, no EX-boyfriend is gone, things will be more quiet. But I doubt it. This morning it sounds like he's still up there.
Gee, I feel crabby today. Having to deal with MT does that for me! Hope you have a quick Friday and a great weekend! I'm not really looking forward much to mine....
MT, like many youngest children, has been the pampered, spoiled and celebrated child in the family. My Mom has tunnel vision when he's around and after he leaves it's Tom Tom Tom. She used to interrupt my conversation about my son to mention (again) a noteworthy thing about Tom's kids (who are the most wonderful children there could ever be). Just recently Mom was complaining about my son (who also lives with us) and then began talking about MT's boys, "Now those are kids I can be proud of." Ouch, Mom! I defended him of course, as he is a good boy and does a lot of things for me and his grandmother.
SLA and Vegetable Man have both noticed for years about how much she continually talks about Mighty Tom, about all the wonderful accomplishments of their family, how sweet and helpful his wife is, the same things over and over. It's sickening, but better if we (older brother and I) just plain agree with her.
The realy ironic thing is that Mom had a younger brother in her (large) family who supplanted her as the youngest child. For all of my childhood and beyond I can remember her talking bitterly and jealously about him. She had little good to say about him until he died about two years ago. Now he's a saint in her eyes. My older brother and I feel the same way about Tom as she felt about her younger brother. I've tried to compare the two (like) situations to her but she doesn't see it.
It's almost needless to say that I don't get along that well with MT. Older brother avoids him when possible. Normally when MT come to visit, I would go out to Mom's and see him for a couple of hours--which was about as much as I could bear without getting into an argument with him over politics, child raising, a news story--you name it. Now I'm trapped for a weekend-long visit, yikes!
As long as I'm ranting about annoying people: Last night we had a knock on the door. It was the upstairs neighbor whom I've never even met. Her first words to me after telling me who she was were a smirking, "Are you missing something?" I just sort of stared at her blankly, while thinking about the stuff we put in the little storage place in the back hallway.
"Not that I know of." I said, finally. She still has an unpleasant smirk on her face when my little dog came up to her.
"Oh, there's the little dog who barks all the time." she says. While my Mom and I just stare at her. My dog barks a couple of woofs when someone comes, and then is quiet. She's the quietest dog I've ever owned or seen (heard!). She doesn't bark at the contantly barking (many) dogs in the neighborhood area, doesn't bark at the loud thumping and bumping on the ceilings. My Mom and I had never met this neighbor, but already we were not liking her one bit.
The neighbor woman then asks, "So you aren't missing any of your animals, like your ferrets or anything? I was packing up my boyfriend's things--I should say my EX-boyfriend and I heard something in the walls. It sounded large, bigger than a mouse."
And I am wondering how she knows we have ferrets, she's never been in our apartment and we've never talked to her before. And I'm getting quite annoyed. Did the landlady tell her about our ferrets (they are supposed to be locked in their cage at all times) so she could check up on us or something?
"No," I say quite coldly, "Our animals are never running about loose."
And so ended our first conversation with our upstairs neighbor. To be honest, I was inclined to not like her much anyway. She's so noisy that it wakes me up sometimes. Maybe now that the boyfriend, no EX-boyfriend is gone, things will be more quiet. But I doubt it. This morning it sounds like he's still up there.
Gee, I feel crabby today. Having to deal with MT does that for me! Hope you have a quick Friday and a great weekend! I'm not really looking forward much to mine....
13 Comments:
That is SO NOT RIGHT of your mom to go on about MT and his kids like that! I'd be pissed about it!
And I have a neighbor I CANNOT stand....my dogs got out of our fence ONCE and growled at her, so she called the pound and had them come out (almost had them picked up!!!) But yet she has a little Jack Russell she lets run the neighborhood, tease my dog thru the fence and actually chase people down the road! I told The PK if I see her dog out again, I'm calling the pound on her!!!
Here's hoping your Friday goes by fast too! :)
Consider quaffing some green beer after work.
I hope your day gets better!!
Firstly, congrats on the new gifts!
That neighbor needs to pull her head in and mind her own damn business, if it were me i'd shove a ferret in her bed LOL!
Ahhh, i can sympathise, my brother is the best thing in the world according to him and my mother!
A weekend is a long time to spend with someone who you feel uncomfortable with. I am sorry that you have to go through this. You can be as crabby as you like. WIll you be able to sneak off to the Scone club or a bookshop fora bit of peace and retail therapy?
I was crabby today too, but I didn't have as good a reason as you.
Hmm you know what... my mom always talk about my cousin who is good at this, at that, blah this, blah that... so one fine day, when she was comparing him to me... i said
"You know what, if i hear you say that again, I swear I will start drinking, take drugs, smoke till mad, stay out till late and be a bad son to suit THAT image you are telling me that i am. And yes, you will be a LONELY woman."
I won. Sometimes, mom ain't right. And obviously, i do it jokingly cos moms are sensitive creatures. LOL. You got to learn from them.. reverse psychology.
my mother in law is the same with my hubby and his brother, but no matter how much you say she can't see it, she told us she wouldn't look after a dog for us, but is looking after his brothers puppy...!!! and she has actually said she won't look after our child...it upset me for a while, then you just get bitter and cynical...lol
hope you have a great weekend, and as long as you are allowed the ferrets and your landlord knows its none of your neighbours business...
:0)
Hope it went well.
That child in my family is Mighty Tim, my 17-year-old brother who I absolutely adore (I was 11 when he was born), but it is comical how he can get away with ANYTHING.
He will be graduating from, truly, the crappiest imagineable high school with a GPA not good enough to get into the very very very worst college in Minnesota. He and my parents live in a part of Minnesota where there are absolutely no good jobs, much less good jobs for someone with a 1.8 GPA from a horrible high school.
I freaked out on my mom one day, remidning her that his entire future is at stake, that not going to college will affect him for the rest of his life, every choice he makes from now on will be limited by the fact that somehow he couldn't manage to pass his math and science and spanish classes in high school.
If this had been me or my sister I think we'd have been sent off to a convent by now.
Regarding Mighty Tim: "I'm not going to punish him for getting bad grades. Unlike his friends who've taken the easy way out in order to gradauate with 4.0s, your brother has signed up for the most challenging classes his high school offers."
Did I mention that there are 23 kids in his graduating class and ZERO "choices" when it comes to class selection.
Grrr........
Yeah I know about the youngest little turd in my family.
He cn do NOTHING wrong even when he is caught red handed.
When will parents learn that what you actually see is what you get, PFFFFFFFFT
I hope you get by this but then again from what I have read between the lines about you I know you will. :)
Wow, rough time PBS. I'm the baby of the brood in my family but I was not pampered. Well, they did let me get away with eating Cherrios for Thanksgiving dinner when I was like 4 and I STILL hear about it. I think it sucks though if a a family has to walk on eggshells around any of the kids (or parents for that matter) or if anyone gets very special treatment. My Mom always said she can tell us our good points and tell us our faults too.
We got a house 3 years ago and said goodbye to sharing a house with others. I hated being in a house with other people, there were always conflicts. I hope your situation gets better...
Oh dear, I'm sorry to hear that. My younger brother was in town this week, and I loved catching up with him. He's the baby of the family and yes he can do no wrong in my mother's eyes, but she doesn't go on about him like your mum does. I hope your mother opens her eyes soon and see the other wonderful children/grandchildren she's got. From what I've read plenty of here, you deserve heaps of acknowledgement and respect for all you do for her.
I take my hat off to you PBS, I love my mother to bits, but I doubt I'd cope living with her for very long lol
As for the know-it-all neighbour upstairs, let's hope it IS a nasty big rat in her walls that munches through to scare the living daylights out of her so badly she moves lol
Oh no that's bad with your mum & MT. Hope the weekend went well & fast for you!
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