sight isn’t always necessary

So, I haven’t posted in a while (a week?), because it’s been a really busy week. Or two. Or more. I’ve been crazy at school and at home, with the deck and having dad at our house for a week and the warm weather and the pool opening – it’s been nuts! Our deck is finally finished though, and it’s pretty awesome. Now we need to buy some furniture to stick out there – I was thinking that maybe Connor and I would go to some garage sales on Saturday after soccer practice and look for cool strange pieces of furniture to stick out there. We need to find a cooler weekend, very soon, to actually water treat the deck, and after that, all we have to do is enjoy it. Thanks Dad, Craig, and (ahem) Neil!

Speaking of Neil, I once again have good reason to completely despise Craig’s parents. When Craig’s dad was here briefly to help out with the deck, I think I may have gone a little overboard with my hatred of him. I try as hard as I can to keep that kind of stuff from leaking onto the outside of me; I have been pretty good in the past at keeping up appearances while silently wishing plague on certain people.

On the first night Craig’s dad was in our house, I came home feeling feisty, so after hearing and seeing the way he was treating his own son, I addressed both him and my father on the couch about the situation. My dad wasn’t really doing anything wrong at all; he designed, planned, and built our deck – much of it single-handedly. So anything he was doing that could have normally bugged me was not bothering me at all, and I was happy to clean up after him, cook for him, get him water or tea or whatever. Craig’s dad, on the other hand, was asked to come to our house to help with CONNOR, not with the deck, and instead of doing what was requested of him, he went outside and chatted with my dad, acting like he was helping out. Craig ended up taking care of Connor, cooking food for all of the men, and once in a while being asked outside to do some heavy lifting or something that his own father couldn’t handle because he’s old and has had a stroke. In general, Craig was given little chance to do anything with the building of his own deck (initially, at least, but he made up for it later). I think his dad has little regard for his own son’s pride, only his own, so the old man let a young man feel like crap without thought of the consequences. AND Neil was leaving his shit around, not taking his shoes off, leaving his plate on the table and walking away, and making sexist and/or racist remarks about whatever he was seeing on the TV. I got fed up, and I told them that they better not treat Craig like he’s a little woman of the house (I tried as hard as I could to mostly direct this at Craig’s dad), and I expect that each “man” take care of his own crap; nobody was in our house for a vacation from doing what is required of them normally. Neil defended himself, acted like he’s such a good helper boy, and really ignored me. I hated him from that minute on, but I kept my mouth shut (to him, at least). I then started talking to my sisters – Carole especially, and started realizing that Neil’s not only shitty to his own son, but he’s really icky around me and my sisters! Long lingering kisses, and icky squeezy hugs that are inappropriate for a man to give a woman that is not intimately involved with him, so ESPECIALLY inappropriate for a man to give to his daughter-in-law or her sisters. ICK! So toward the end of his stay, his sexist comments, disgusting looks, comments about pregnancy or childrearing, and idiot remarks about building as if he knows anything about construction at all, really got to me. So, I told him! He said Ann wanted him to stay at our house to help build the deck, and I told him that I wanted him to go home! GEEZ! My dad didn’t even notice that my comment may have been rude, so I don’t think it was. I tried to say it in a joking manner, like Neil likes to say everything, and I felt a lot better after saying it. Then, two hours later, he actually did leave. I invited him and Ann over for Ashley’s birthday dinner, and he said they’d discuss it. Then he was gone. Whew!

Now I come to find out that he was really offended by my treatment of him, and he felt “unwelcome” in my house. Well he was unwelcome, but I had no choice but to let him come over because like I’ve said before, I couldn’t take an entire week off so that I could watch Connor while Craig and Dad built the deck. I was stuck with him being at my house, and he’s always been a jerk I didn’t really enjoy being around, but I have a knack for dealing with things that I don’t like. I do! I mean, look what I’ve been through in my life (ok, it’s generally been really pretty good, but not *easy*), and then tell me that you think I’m not a resilient person.

Then I find out that Ann is mad too, that we would be so callous and rude to her wonderful husband. WhatEVER. It’s so ridiculous how quickly she changes her mind about something just to bother me and Craig. She hates Neil. She says it all the time – in fact, I hate having the two of them over at the same time, because it’s all you can do to STOP from hearing her tell of her hatred for her husband. Now I have to feel badly for being a bitch to her asshole fucker of a husband? NO THANKS. I’m not apologizing, nor am I backing down. I’m fucking pregnant, and anything to set me off WILL set me off, and in this particular circumstance, it’s set me off for good. When Connor was born, and before he was born too in fact (I was reading an old journal entry the other day full of fury and hatred for them, and it was from about a month before Connor arrived), I bit my tongue and coped with having crappy in-laws. I prevented them from coming in the delivery room and for the most part got my way, and I enforced the “we’re not going to have you around 24/7″ rule when we finally got home. I actually upset them pretty good at that time too, because Ann was (of course) being pushy and bitchy and just GOT THE BEST OF ME, so I blew up at her. And I’ll do it again, I swear I will, they better just TEST me so that I get the chance to. UGH. Ranting ranting ranting.

I know they’re Craig’s parents, but I really would not be very upset if they didn’t exist in the human form anymore. I’d show my condolences for a loss of a human life, but I wouldn’t miss them much. It’s so EVIL, but it’s so true. I don’t even know HOW to stop myself from feeling this way toward them.

So the reason I’m writing this huge long ranting post is that now, apparently, Craig’s parents are insisting that we bring Connor out to some sure-to-be-backwards campground in mid-June, because they’re doing their first camp thing of the summer and they just NEED to have us there. No apologies, no recognition of the fact that I’m angry and frustrated and it’s THEM that’s causing this feeling. Or maybe it’s caused by them and pregnancy, but either way, fucking RECOGNIZE IT and try to do something about it! Not them. Not those fucking pride-filled assholes. And Craig wants me to GO! What they really want is for me to drop off my 3.5 year old beautiful son to be in the presence of their dangerous shit – every fucking time he’s left alone with them something happens that clearly would not have happened if he were with me. I’m not a protective parent, either – I let him climb stuff, jump off tall stairs, try hanging upside down, jump in the pool and go underwater – but I make sure he doesn’t touch the stove or play with knives or near fire. They don’t – they’re retarded, Ann’s often drunk, and Neil’s oblivious to EVERYTHING if it doesn’t directly affect him or what he’s doing.

So no, I’m not dropping off my kid. And no, I don’t want to go. And no, I don’t want to say “maybe”, because it’s not like between now and then they’re going to suddenly come to their senses and realize they’re selfish pricks that I don’t want to have anything to do with, ever. Ann’s the type of woman that I hate anyway, always concerned with the gossip in someone else’s life, too little concern with intelligence, politics, or world events. Too into jewelry and makeup and “products”, too little care with anything real, anything emotional, anything based in reality without the extras. Neil’s a pervert, and a sexist racist pig pervert at that. The world could do well with a lot less men like him in it.

I read today that a little stress in pregnancy is actually good for the growing fetus, but I’m not so sure a LOT of stress is any good for anyone.