Exhausted.

Hi Steve,

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your friends and family!  I hope you didn't eat too much!  I hope you had a lot of laughter, and fun, and relaxation.  And pie!  Lots of pie!!

My day however, was chaos.  I am glad it's over.  I have never once in my LIFE had 10 people sitting around a table for Thanksgiving dinner that I had to cook.  In fact, when I was single (40 years of my 43 on this planet), I would buy ONE turkey leg, (yes, I prefer dark meat), a small pouch of instant mashed potatoes, one jar of already-made gravy, one can of cranberry sauce, and a salad or some green beans.  That was IT.  A couple of pans to wash, a plate, a fork, a knife, and TAH DAH, Thanksgiving was over.  No big whoop.  I'd say my usual prayers of thanks, of course, and then I'd curl up in my pj's and watch an old movie.  All alone.  And I was very thankful to be alone.

IF, (and it wasn't often), IF I traveled from my little hole in the ground in DC to Michigan to have Thanksgiving with the family, THEY COOKED everything!  Sure, I helped here and there (mostly NON cooking things like setting the table, decorating, beverages, making a salad, etc)., but for the most part, I have never had to entertain, smile and nod, cook AND clean, supervise, delegate, and do EVERYTHING for 10 people.  That was just friggin' INSANITY, and I told Pete, "Next year, my love, we are all going OUT to eat, at the GOLDEN CORRAL, or you will find yourself without a single BALL left."  (Not my favorite restaurant at all, but it's got a lot of variety, and frankly I don't care to have to be the one to try and please a room full of picky eaters).

My mom, in fact, still tells the story to whomever cares to listen, about the time I tried to make macaroni and cheese, (around age 12 I guess), but I never would let the water boil first, and of course, I usually ended up with a big stuck mess of pasta in a pan of lukewarm water, and then I added the milk and butter and cheese powder all to it at one time, (thinking I could rescue it), but actually rendering it completely inedible.

Moral of the story for all involved:  "Becky can't cook worth a damn."

So, guess what?!  Becky didn't HAVE TO cook.  BIG GRIN!!!!

TAH DAH!  See the method in my madness there?!  (I did it on purpose).  I'm no fool.  Of course, my mother NEVER got that clue, and I never uttered a single word.  I just looked so damned innocent and sincere all the time, nobody ever questioned it.

Here's another good one that I pulled on occasion, "Grandma, I really don't know how to do this right, can you show me?" And she would take the vacuum cleaner out of my hands, and do it herself.  I would PRETEND to "learn" from her, though, as she showed me how...and I would always thank her afterwards.  She told me once that I was her favorite granddaughter.

INSERT ANGEL HALO HERE. (batting my eyelids rapidly, and slightly hiding the protruding red devil's horns with both hands covering my hair).

HA!!  Does that surprise you?!  Oh yes, Mr. Perry-my-favorite-singer-in-the-world, I am a devious little sneak sometimes.  Smarter than the average bear, my friend.  After a few times, though, ("show me how to mow the lawn," and "how do you know when it's a weed in the garden and not a flower?"), my grandma eventually figured it out. "You little SNEAK," she would laugh, "I fell for it hook, line and sinker, didn't I?" And I'd smile, put my finger inside my cheek like a hook and pull it like I had just caught a fish, and she would giggle.  She said it would be our little secret, and it always has been.

My mom STILL doesn't get it.  I'm too "GOOD" to do such a devious thing you know!!  Always got straight A's in school, always made sure I was the goody-goody!  If I smacked my sister, I made sure the mom and/or the dad never saw ME do it first, but they would definitely see my sister hit me BACK, and guess who got yelled at or spanked for it?!  NOT ME!!  MMMMMuuuuuhahahahaha!!

Oh yes, having the face of an innocent looking, mild-mannered and sweet, naive little girl really was great.  I milked it for all it was worth.  And boy, did I get away with some SHIT.

Ain't it GREAT?!!  I'm sure YOU have had some of those same exact moments in YOUR life too!!

But, fast forward a few years, to me NOW, at age 43, newly married and hating the whole Norman Rockwell, Martha Stewart, Hallmark bullshit that goes along with this holiday craziness.  Cynical, jaded, rather pessimistic, somewhat antisocial, and definitely NOT buying the BS of it all.  I was so close to just chugging the nearest bottle of wine and calling the whole thing "a dysfunctional fugging mess," and tossing the empty bottle through the nearest window in frustration.

My imagination did that yesterday, but of course, I didn't.  I just thought of a more devious plan instead.

So, add a smidgen of insanity with four 20-something's who all like to talk loudly, about stupid shit like cartoons they've watched on t.v. (Family Guy, Futurama, those anime cartoon things, and South Park), or movies I would never pay to see that are just plain idiotic....they can recite every line of "Scary Movie," in fact, or certain episodes of Beavis and Butthead, but they couldn't tell you the capitals of all the states in our country if their lives depended on it.  They wouldn't know how to list all the Presidents we've had since George Washington either.  (DISCLAIMER:  I am not saying that I can do those things either...I used to be able to, but probably not anymore...memory fails me a lot now that I'm over 40).  But, to sit and listen to their blithering idiocy all day, telling toilet jokes and crass humor that they've heard 50 other people say or write on Facebook or Twitter, is just mind-numbing torture.  Not ONE original thought among any of 'em.  They go on and on and on, but really they say nothing of substance.

And Pete's youngest son REALLY irritates me.  He parked his fat carcass on a chair in front of the kitchen sink, wearing his headphones but SINGING AT THE TOP OF HIS LUNGS (horribly), while removing the skins on these tiny pearl onions, while I am TRYING to cook, get to dishes, silverwear, utensils, etc., ---what a friggin' PAIN IN MY ASS.  I had to walk around the large island in the center of the kitchen every time, while sending him cold stares with daggers attached, so that he would "get the hint" of my aggravation.  But, he was completely oblivious to any social cues that I tried to send.

He could have done that job while sitting AT THE TABLE, but noooooo....he had to be the center of attention, (do you see the pattern? His grandmother is exactly the same way, and Pete has his moments of this too).  Needless to say, I was highly annoyed, but tried to count to 10 a few times, tried to bite my tongue and just get through the goddamned day without my head exploding, and frankly I was just about ready to kick his ass, actually, when someone else finally said, "Could you MOVE out of the WAY?"  I mean, it is COMMON SENSE!!  But the boy just doesn't have any.

So we spend the ENTIRE DAY cooking, with too many fingers in the pie, too many "helpers," who only hindered progress, and too much chaos for one non-domestic person like me.  I wanted to eat at 2:00 or so, but nooooo, Pete decided we would eat around 7 p.m.----so THAT means I gotta make something for LUNCH TOO?!  WTF?!  I nearly clawed his eyeballs out for doing that to me.  So I was on my feet the entire day, I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off, and by the time we sat the dinner on the table at 7:30 p.m., I was exhausted, emotionally drained, and FED UP.

It took less than 15 minutes for dinner to end.  Nobody said "grace," nobody said anything about being thankful for anything at all, nobody complimented any of the food, they just silently gobbled it all up, and walked away to go do other things.  I just stood there, blinking, feeling like I was just run over by a semi-truck, dazed and confused, looking at all the leftovers and dishes, and my brain suddenly just SHUT OFF.  It just went "Click." I had the fleeting thought of digging a gigantic hole in the backyard, and just bulldozing the entire kitchen right into it.  FUCK if I'm going to be the one doing all these dishes!! FUCK if I'm going to be the one putting all this food away!! YOU CAN ALL KISS MY LILY-WHITE ASS!!!  AAAAAUUUUUGGGGHHHHH!!!

I knew when I heard my brain click off, that I just needed to get the hell away from all of them for awhile. I couldn't think anymore.  I was so tired and very overwhelmed, so I retreated without saying one word to anybody, to my bedroom upstairs.  I felt like packing a suitcase and running away.  But instead, I just walked in to my bedroom, I put on my pajamas, calmly and silently, and I put my head down on my pillow for a short rest----which turned into nearly an hour's nap.

Surprisingly, I awoke to the noise of OTHER PEOPLE putting away the leftovers! Other people doing the dishes!  Clearing the table!  Doing all the work that I had THOUGHT they were just dumping on ME when they all walked away and left me there.  I couldn't believe it.  So I sat up in my bed, I listened for awhile---(we have a baby monitor in Florence's bedroom to hear if she needs us for anything, but we can hear every word of anybody pretty much anywhere in this house with it)---and I just sat there doing NOTHING, allowing THEM to pick up the slack and finish the day's work.

When it eventually grew quiet, I made my way downstairs, gathered some paper plates, whipped cream and some plastic forks, and I brought everybody a piece of pie as a way of saying 'thanks.'

Then I went to bed for the night.

And I lamented silently to God and all the world, "Sometimes I really wish I was still single."

That was MY Thanksgiving.

Today we all woke up at 5:30 a.m., we drove to Rogers Ohio, (an hour from here), and went shopping at the huge flea market they have every Friday.  We made it home by 1:30 p.m., and I've been chugging on caffeine fumes all day...which have now been depleted.  And hey, what a lucky break---my period has just started too, what a thrill.  Good times.

Then Pete's first ex-wife, the mother of these wonderful children, called AGAIN, on Black friggin' Friday no less, to ask Pete for more money.  Her alimony ENDED in September!!  She has called him every other month since then, to ask for more money.  She'll never pay any of it back.  She feels entitled, and I have been too nice, and gone along with it, because "who am I? She's your problem."  However, based upon my rather grumpy mood from being awake so early, I told him with my growling teeth barred under my breath so no one else could hear, "I have had it with her. Tell her NO this time, or she'll just KEEP DOING IT."  (which I did say many times before, but he just gave her money anyway).  Not to mention, he JUST forked over $2,200.00 to get his youngest son's car fixed this week.

I then softened like an idiot, and said, "It's Christmas, everybody's having a difficult time financially right now, tell her you'll give her the same amount that you're giving the kids as a Xmas gift, but as of December 25th, SHE IS DONE, she gets NO MORE, and that's IT."  So, that's what he did, with me standing right beside him.  That woman needs to get on with her own life, stand on her own two feet, and take care of HERSELF.  She's the one who left HIM.  He's just enabling her to remain a deadbeat loser, with no ambition, living her life in fear and wishing for someone else to take care of her.

I told Pete, my fear is that I may someday end up just like her, if and when he dies.  When it's my turn to go through that, I would hope that someone would help me out like we helped her.  But there comes a time when that has to stop, life goes on, things change, and ya gotta just learn to grow up and be AN ADULT.  Pete's daughter and I had a talk about how the youngest son hasn't learned how to grow up and be an adult yet, and he's 24 years old.  I said that I blamed that on her mother.  She said she did too. Her mother never learned how to live.  She did nothing---and I mean NOTHING----for those 24 years of marriage to Pete, than squeeze out 3 kids (and one from her first marriage that failed), and sit on her ass and QUILT all day long, every day.  She retreated into herself, avoided the kids, made THEM cook and clean, and had no passion for anything except her fabric and sewing machine.

Pete's youngest son is currently living with his daughter and her husband, but he's becoming a burden. He's not paying the full amount of rent they require, he's not doing any chores around the place, he's just making life more difficult and upsetting for them AND he's wasting his money on smoking weed.  So, they had a family meeting (without me which is fine, they aren't MY kids after all, and it's really not my problem), and they came up with a resolution of requiring the boy to keep track of a budget and report to his dad every month.   If it were up to me, I would kick the kid OUT, let him live on the street of hard knocks for awhile, choke on some tough love, and LEARN HOW TO LIVE the hard way.  He would have no choice but to grow up and be an adult, without anybody handing him anything or coming to his rescue, like his mother always seems to expect from Pete.

Why did I get married again????? Could you please remind me???  Because some days, I totally forget.

And now we move on to the REAL insanity of the whole year:

Christmas.

GAAAAA!!! You could not PAY ME enough to go shopping on Thanksgiving night, (which annoys the hell out of me for them doing that), and HELL NO would you ever get me out to the stores first thing in the morning on Black Friday.  A flea market? Sure, no problem, everybody ELSE is at the mall!!!  But it's ridiculous, the whole stupid holiday is a farce----it has been proven that Jesus was born May 5th. So WTF is this December 25th crap all about really??? Capitalism, greed, and bullshit.  That's what.

I love George Carlin, can you tell?!  Yep, we have similar ways of thinking, George and me.

The few things I'm really looking forward to in December are:  Going away to a bed and breakfast with Pete in a couple weeks, then having a nice QUIET 4-person Xmas dinner with the mom's, (Pete already bought the ham), and on New Years' Eve, we're going to Cleveland again, to a masquerade party at the dungeon.  Ohhhhh man I gotta put on my brand new pink and black corset, take a picture, and post it to you on this blog----you will love it.  I look fuggin' amazing in it, if I can be so conceited for a moment.

Other than that stuff though, the obligatory Xmas presents are all bought, wrapped, and waiting to be opened.  The Xmas cards will soon be mailed, the family newsletter is DONE and ready for printing and stuffing into the Xmas cards, and I'm gonna DO NEXT TO NOTHING for the next 3.5 weeks.  Oh sure, I'll redecorate some things in the house, set up a tree, and all that jazz......but that's IT.

I'd much rather be sitting on a beach in Hawaii right about now, with the man I love, sipping a Pina Colada, and doing NOTHING.

Well, I'm off to bed.  Goodnight.....oh, hey, I almost forgot....somebody posted a song of yours that I had never heard before on Facebook...the song was, "Makes No Difference."  Very cool!  I know absolutely NOTHING about it, I have no clue when it was sung, if it was a B-side to a 45, or what, I know absolutely NO details at all about it, I just know that it's all brand new to me, and THAT made my whole Thanksgiving fiasco have a much happier ending!!

God, I love it when you suddenly appear out of nowhere with a surprise like that!! You never cease to amaze me.

Thank you Stephen.  I give thanks to the heavens above for you.  For being awesome, for singing and making me melt for over 30 years of my life, for letting me VENT about my crazy life on this silly blog-o-mine, and for just being REAL.

I truly do love ya.

Love, Rebecca