Love Them or Love Them

My parents leave today and with them my daughter. It’s always a day filled with much ambivalence. I love the freedom of being virtually on my own, but god, how I will miss my girl’s beautiful smiling face. Although now at thirteen there are equal amounts of scowling, door slamming, exasperated sighs and eye rolls to go along with all those glorious smiles.

The following, however, are a recounting of the things I won’t miss.

A beach towel is spread over the sofa cushions the moment my cousin comes to lunch with her 6 year old twins.

The TV is on sixteen hours a day and at maximum volume. It’s so peaceful once they go to bed.

It’s blazingly hot in here though they claim to be cold and would freeze if we turned on the a/c. New York weather has been totally tropical these last few weeks. All I can do to survive is retreat to the cool and quiet of my bedroom. It doesn’t hurt that my Wahl is always plugged in and at the ready.

Negativity. My mom cannot stand certain things. When at my daughter’s cheer show, the owner points out his granddaughters’ achievements, it burns my mother’s ass. “Hmmph,” she mocks, “look how tight Gina is. She has to be so strong to hold that position. And what about the other girls? Huh. It’s so annoying every time, my granddaughter this and my granddaughter that.” Um, no mom, what is annoying to me is how you harp on the fact that he finds his grandkids special. You’d probably be doing the same thing in his position.

Nested garbage bags. If you open my garbage can at any given time during the parental visit you will find several plastic grocery bags slung across the actual Hefty bag. This is so my mother can get minute amounts of trash out of the house immediately. My dad swears she’s equally garbage obsessed at home. This morning she actually had him chase the truck with a small bag no doubt containing one banana peel and a cherry pit.

Yellow, blue, and pink packets of nasty sugar substitutes popping up when I get an onion or banana out of the fruit and veggie baskets. She seems to be hiding them there. Of course nasty brown napkins, mainly from Panera Bread, rest on top of my basket of pretty colorful napkins. And next to the paper towel roll are c-fold paper towels purloined from various restrooms.

Restaurant size trays of “croissants“from BJ’s on the counter. My daughter wanted a croissant, which those things in the tray only claim to be but most certainly are not, a croissant doesn’t contain thirty-nine ingredients most of which have thirty-nine syllable names. She’s a small girl and she really doesn’t need to eat croissants for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. And neither do my parents. Me, I won’t touch those things. Unfortunately the mini pies I bought at the farmers market that contained only flour, sugar, eggs, butter, salt, blueberries and raspberries, those I did eat.

And just for giggles, let me tell you about last Sunday when my brother finally showed up to put in his obligatory visit. I told them one o’clock. Apparently the youngest had a birthday party to attend at one thirty which could not be missed despite the fact that they see my parents basically twice a year. I got a call at three thirty saying they were on their way, a good hour away mind you, and not to wait for them to eat. Ha. We’d already eaten. I planned a meal in stages knowing how these things work. We grilled the skirt steaks marinated in soy, whiskey, and garlic after they arrived.

They have acquired a dog, just what that family was missing, since we last saw them and I said they could bring it, mostly because my daughter loves dogs. It’s a Chihuahua. Cute, I guess. As my sister-in-law approached I went over to pet the beast she cradled protectively in her arms and was warned that he was nervous. New people, you know, new environment. M’okay. I walked away seeing just where this was heading. The dog has been sublimated for another child. Visiting my brother after he had each of his kids was a trial. If they thought they could have gotten away with making you don surgical masks and scrubs they would have. You were not allowed to touch the babies, something I could excuse in the first child (kind of) but not by the third. And now you can’t pet the freaking dog.

The dog was never allowed off his leash even while inside; someone always had to be holding the leash. When I asked my nephew if I could hold the leash, he first looked terrified and then instructed me in how to wrap the leash around my hand three times and always hold the loop. Um, we are not talking Pit-bull or Rottweiler here; we are talking a tiny freaking baby Chihuahua. The only one she actually let hold the dog was my husband. I guess she figures if he can fly a plane he’s responsible enough to hold that mongrel. Oh wait, I lie. She let my daughter hold him for a moment but made her sit down to do it.

No one has ever seen my sister-in-law eat anything at any event. She is beyond weird. What breaks my mother’s heart is seeing my niece always looking so scruffy. Her hair is long, stringy and perpetually unwashed. My sister, who is very sensitive to smell, can sniff out her head as soon as she walks through the door. I have a feeling my sister-in-law thinks it’s harmful to wash your hair too much.

Before they left, my brother reached into a bag and pulled out a wee-wee pad. Placing it on the floor in my living room, they induced the dog to pee and praised him heartily when he did. I live in the suburbs, there is ample opportunity and space to walk the dog, but apparently peeing in my living room is the preferred method.

“You’re taking that with you,” I said to my sister-in-law.

“Oh, but it doesn’t even smell,” she replied.

“I smell it from here,” said my sister, wrinkling her sensitive nose and scowling.

“Perhaps it’s like baby pee. You know they say that can cure acne. And it’s already on an absorbent pad. You could just cut it into little squares and dab on your face. Sell it even,” I said, not being able to control my snark. Who could blame me?

Before they were about to take off, a thunderstorm started in earnest. My sister-in-law, dog in her arms as usual, took him to the screen door to view the rain.

“I’m getting him used to the rain,” she said. Because watching the rain is really going to make him familiar with it. How about you get him wet, maybe that would be more familiarizing.

I bent my head to the beast, “Can you say RAIN, Pablo, R-A-I-N.”

She laughed but she probably wanted to strangle me.

Ah, family, love them or, well, love them.