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I managed to overload myself on all things Bollywood by around Saturday afternoon. Didn't touch any of it since then, although the songs are repeating in my head, which is OK. I'm such an obsessive type, and even if the obsession isn't a harmful one, it's still an obsession.
I felt sick on Saturday night and all day yesterday: queasy, as if there were a rock right under my diaphragm. And I was cranky as hell this morning -- mainly at Barry, who although he is doing the lion's share of the housework, doesn't seem to be looking for a job very hard, and has not taken care of some of the household projects he promised -- ranging from putting in a new towel rack to going through old clothes in the bedroom to prying a cap off a perfume bottle for me. I suspect he is napping a lot. In the meantime, I get up and go to work every day, just so we can more or less break even. I'm starting to think I need a way to calm myself down more: meditation, yoga, exercise.
Thanksgiving was mostly not too bad, although my father pulled a few weird tricks out of his hat. For instance, my dad gave Barry and me each an envelope for our birthdays. Each had a $20 Metrocard, plus $1.10 to make up the last fare (if you buy a $20 card, you get a $1.40 "bonus" which is less than a full fare). This is what Barry got from my dad for his 60th birthday. My folks are in no way poor people -- they are about to go on a Caribbean cruise for ten days. They are just wildly cheap when it comes to their kids.
Then Dad did another weird thing, usually reserved for my brother and me. He has always excluded us from anything like vacations, any contact with their friends, or family get-togethers and weddings of our Florida relatives. They never told us about any of these things until the very last minute; Dad actually told some of the Florida relatives not to invite us to weddings (his justification was that we couldn't afford to go, and might feel obligated to send a wedding gift we could not afford). My feeling was always that he was afraid we would ask to be included at his expense -- although this doesn't explain keeping us from their friends. When Barry and I offered to invite some of his friends to our wedding, he turned us down, and he wasn't even paying!
Anyway, he did something similar to his brother, my uncle Howard. Dad and Howard have a mess of first cousins, mostly in Florida, and they haven't all gotten together since a "cousins' cruise" 25 years ago. So when Dad announced that they were leaving for a cruise for Florida next weekend, he also said that they were leaving a day early to have a luncheon with all of the cousins in Florida. This was the first my uncle heard about it -- and he has plenty of money to pay his way. He started trying to figure out how to get there, since he was leaving for Mexico the next day. He said he had plenty of airline points to fly down there, and then could either get a flight back to Jersey that night, or fly directly to Mexico and meet Tina there. Dad said, "Oh no, what if you miss your flight?" It became really clear that Dad had purposely excluded Howard from this get-together, and was discouraging him from going once he had found out about it. This one I can't figure out at all, since there's absolutely no bad blood there and no chance that Howard would ask Dad for a dime.
My brother was not there, as he is not on good terms with either Dad or Howard, but I had to tell him about this. It was a real head-scratcher for both of us. I felt terrible for my uncle. I'm almost used to this shit by now, but I'm not sure Howard's ever come up against it.
I mostly refrain from going on about family stuff here, bu my family can be very weird.
And P.S. -- Howard gave Barry and me each $150 for our birthdays, which he does every year. At our wedding, someone said to me -- it was either V. or his wife -- that my dad should have been my uncle, and my uncle should have been my dad.
I felt sick on Saturday night and all day yesterday: queasy, as if there were a rock right under my diaphragm. And I was cranky as hell this morning -- mainly at Barry, who although he is doing the lion's share of the housework, doesn't seem to be looking for a job very hard, and has not taken care of some of the household projects he promised -- ranging from putting in a new towel rack to going through old clothes in the bedroom to prying a cap off a perfume bottle for me. I suspect he is napping a lot. In the meantime, I get up and go to work every day, just so we can more or less break even. I'm starting to think I need a way to calm myself down more: meditation, yoga, exercise.
Thanksgiving was mostly not too bad, although my father pulled a few weird tricks out of his hat. For instance, my dad gave Barry and me each an envelope for our birthdays. Each had a $20 Metrocard, plus $1.10 to make up the last fare (if you buy a $20 card, you get a $1.40 "bonus" which is less than a full fare). This is what Barry got from my dad for his 60th birthday. My folks are in no way poor people -- they are about to go on a Caribbean cruise for ten days. They are just wildly cheap when it comes to their kids.
Then Dad did another weird thing, usually reserved for my brother and me. He has always excluded us from anything like vacations, any contact with their friends, or family get-togethers and weddings of our Florida relatives. They never told us about any of these things until the very last minute; Dad actually told some of the Florida relatives not to invite us to weddings (his justification was that we couldn't afford to go, and might feel obligated to send a wedding gift we could not afford). My feeling was always that he was afraid we would ask to be included at his expense -- although this doesn't explain keeping us from their friends. When Barry and I offered to invite some of his friends to our wedding, he turned us down, and he wasn't even paying!
Anyway, he did something similar to his brother, my uncle Howard. Dad and Howard have a mess of first cousins, mostly in Florida, and they haven't all gotten together since a "cousins' cruise" 25 years ago. So when Dad announced that they were leaving for a cruise for Florida next weekend, he also said that they were leaving a day early to have a luncheon with all of the cousins in Florida. This was the first my uncle heard about it -- and he has plenty of money to pay his way. He started trying to figure out how to get there, since he was leaving for Mexico the next day. He said he had plenty of airline points to fly down there, and then could either get a flight back to Jersey that night, or fly directly to Mexico and meet Tina there. Dad said, "Oh no, what if you miss your flight?" It became really clear that Dad had purposely excluded Howard from this get-together, and was discouraging him from going once he had found out about it. This one I can't figure out at all, since there's absolutely no bad blood there and no chance that Howard would ask Dad for a dime.
My brother was not there, as he is not on good terms with either Dad or Howard, but I had to tell him about this. It was a real head-scratcher for both of us. I felt terrible for my uncle. I'm almost used to this shit by now, but I'm not sure Howard's ever come up against it.
I mostly refrain from going on about family stuff here, bu my family can be very weird.
And P.S. -- Howard gave Barry and me each $150 for our birthdays, which he does every year. At our wedding, someone said to me -- it was either V. or his wife -- that my dad should have been my uncle, and my uncle should have been my dad.
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