i’m an orphan
I have just had The Sister on the phone, ranting away at me for over an hour. Pure rage. I haven’t heard her so furious in a good while. Of course, The Mother was the cause.
A few weeks ago, The Sister and I went to The Mother’s house late one Sunday night to lay down some ground rules. The Mother is the most self-absorbed, precious, spiteful and downright toxic person I have ever had the misfortune of meeting. And, as luck would have it, she gave birth to me. I cannot put into words how nasty she can be, how venemous, how driven by the need to hurt other people she is. It is truly shocking. Beyond shocking, actually frightening. I can’t see how she has gotten so far in life: she doesn’t even have charm to fall back on.
Anyway, that night, we sat down and spelt out in no uncertain terms that the way she behaved and the way she spoke to and about us was unacceptable. We were clear. Two hours’ later, The Sister and I left, believing The Mother’s promises that she would stop her destructive ways.
Tonight, The Sister went down her local with her fiance, The Fencer. There’s an old boy who lives in The Village and it is his birthday so a crowd had gathered down there to celebrate. The Mother decided that a busy village pub was the right setting to demand the details of our father’s inquest. Dad, as we had told her at our Ground Rules Meeting, was off limits. We had explained calmly that we are not prepared to ever discuss our Dad with her. Never again. She’s hellbent on ensuring that she’s central to his life story (she even claimed that his spirit has been following her around the garden, which I would have laughed out loud at had I not been so horrified that she even dared say it and had all my energy not had to be focused on not getting up and punching her in her fat Clinique-encrusted face). The Sister, I am told, said that it was ruled an accident and said no more. But The Mother then decided to announce to the pub that the verdict was rubbish and Dad was murdered.
Oh. My. God. My mouth just hung open like a gawping fish as The Sister recounted that.
The Sister LET RIP. She was standing in the middle of the pub at the bar SCREAMING at our mother. All the villagers sat there in silence, looking uncomfortably into their pint glasses. The Mother then went on to say that she wouldn’t be going to The Sister’s wedding as she didn’t think she was invited. The Sister walked off. The Mother FOLLOWED. She couldn’t just leave it. She said: “You only have to ask me to come, you know.” The Sister rounded on her again. The Mother then said that our stepfather also didn’t think he was invited, so The Sister marched over to him and asked him. He looked at The Mother with a look of: “sorry, I’m not backing you up on this one” and said that he had no doubts that he was invited.
She then decided to demand that The Sister have our uncle – Dad’s brother – walk her down the aisle. When The Sister protested that she doesn’t want our uncle to do it, that she’s thought long and hard and wants me to do it, The Mother then said: “Well, what about Old Boy?” (the old village chap whose birthday it was). Amazed, The Sister again said that I am doing it and nobody else.
The Mother then demanded that we return her wedding dress from her marriage to our Dad. This wedding dress has been screwed up in a ball under the bed in the front bedroom at my Dad’s house for over 20 years. The Sister and I used to use it for dressing up when we were little. If it meant so bloody much to her, why did she not take it with her? I’m going to throw it away just so she can’t have it.
She then went on to try and claim items from his house. There’s a mirror that has hung up in the hallway for as long as I can remember. It’s got the Southern Comfort motif on it in black. We always used to just check our reflections before leaving the house. As The Sister got Dad’s “Swans reflecting Elephants” Dali print, I bagsied this mirror. It’s one of those things I just want to remember my Dad by. The Mother claims that her friend Nancy gave it to her. So, why did she not take it with her when Dad bought the house off her then?
Guess what? She’s not getting it.
But, you want to know what she is getting? She’ll wake up to this email tomorrow:
What is your problem!? Seriously, is there something wrong with you? Why do you have to start trouble all the bloody time? Everything was fine, we were all getting along fine and then you had to go and ruin it, didn’t you? Did you enjoy it? Was there enough drama for you? Plenty for you to gossip about now, eh.
Did you not listen to a word that was said last time The Sister and I came over together and sat down and SPELT OUT how your behaviour is hurtful and unacceptable?
What part of “Dad is a no go subject” did you not get?
What part of “The Sister’s wedding day is THE SISTER’S wedding day and it’s about THE SISTER, not about you” could you not understand?
Who in their right mind goes up to their daughter in a the pub and claims that “other people” were involved in her father’s death and that there was foul play? WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND? Firstly, it’s NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. Secondly, you have NO IDEA. You haven’t read the coroner’s report. Thirdly, what a nasty thing to say anyway. Do you delight in hurting people?
Who in their right mind, having tried to shitstir about their daughter’s wedding on numerous occasions already, then goes all “woe is me” and claims to not be invited!? Did you expect The Sister would throw herself to the floor and beg you to come along? You had your wedding. Hell, you have had TWO of them. Let her have her wedding and let it be all about her because that is the way it should be. Stop making a fuss about YOU and your involvement. Just go to her wedding without making a scene. Try and be nice. Say she looks wonderful and try, for ONE TIME, to let someone else take centre stage.
And as far as walking The Sister down the aisle goes, why have you got such a problem with me doing it?! Why suggest EVERYONE ELSE UNDER THE SUN except me. The Sister doesn’t want Uncle to do it, or Old Boy to do it and, as much as she loves Stepdad, she doesn’t want Stepdad to do it. She wants me to do it. Nobody else is going to walk The Sister down the aisle. Do you understand that? I can type it again if it helps: Nobody else is going to walk The Sister down the aisle.
We won’t be coming over this weekend. I don’t know what else The Sister and I can do to make you realise that your behaviour is destructive and it has got to stop. When we came over last time, we pleaded with you to stop what you’re doing and we left thinking we had finally gotten through to you. You can sit there all hurt and say that you feel that your children don’t make the effort with you, but you never for a moment stop to consider that it’s the things you do and the spiteful things that you say that has got you where you are.
I’ve tried so hard with you these past few weeks. I’ve called you loads and made an effort. And then I have The Sister on the phone simultaneously furious and upset because you just can’t help yourself. I don’t know why I even bothered. You certainly didn’t take any notice of anything we said. And well done for taking the attention away from Old Boy on his birthday. Poor man.
I actually hate her.
Filed under: Blogging | 1 Comment
This blog has gotten a bit, well, shit of late as the blogging mojo decided that it’s turned jolly chilly and disappeared off somewhere more exotic. I hope it returns with a suntan.
I think we’re overdue a whiney post where I worry that everything is about to go to pot. I haven’t written a really self-indulgent post in a while, so here we go.
My latest favourite worry (for I have several at any given time) is that it’s all going to come out that I am actually a fraud and I’ve been bluffing for the past five years. I know next to nothing about PR. Public relations, eh? What’s that when it’s at home? (What’s that when it’s away?) I don’t know why my current manager seems to think that the communications sun shines out of my ever-expanding arse or has told more than one person that I’m the strongest PR Officer on the team (yes, I can boast while at the same time pouring out the insecurities, a bit like multitasking). I don’t know why my new manager sounded like she was going to burst with excitement when she called two weeks ago to offer me the job. You see, I think I’m about to come unstuck.
In less than a month, I’m going to be exposed as a bullshitter who has managed to hoodwink my managers into thinking that I have some kind of plan, when in reality I am just blindly picking up pieces, shaking them around a bit and relying on the theory behind that old saying: “hang in there, something will come up!” When that little bit of comms-related luck comes along, I manage to make them think I did it by myself and on purpose. The PR agency saw right through me and that was one reason why I hated it there.
This new Communications Manager job is, like, an adult job. As a PR Officer, I can come into the office and tell rude jokes. I can slouch over my desk at 3.30pm on a Thursday and wail: “I don’t want to do my wuuuurk” and the older people in the office laugh and pander to me. I can turn up with greasy hair and a hangover from time to time and get away with it. I can have a selection of rubber ducks balanced in height order along the top of my computer monitor and walk around the place without shoes so the world can see my stripey socks. Communications Managers don’t behave like that. I need to smarten up. I am not saying that I am a dirty, minging tramp, but I don’t necessarily do corporate without looking like a nine-year-old that has raided her mother’s wardrobe. And what the foof am I supposed to do with my hair?! Adults have proper adult haircuts, right? I can’t be turning up with a ponytail!
So, there we have it: I can’t do my new job and I don’t look the part. HELP! Does anyone want to give me a “Becoming A Real Adult” makeover?
Filed under: Blogging | 4 Comments
excited, nervous, sick
Don’t you HATE waiting???!!!
How do you cope? Tips please!
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pissy
I am in a royally bad mood.
There is no real reason. I am just in a shitty mood all the time at the moment.
I think it is the contraceptive implant (and the cause of the massive bruise on my arm). The sooner I get the blasted thing out, the better. Awful awful thing. More detailed post to follow, maybe. But I am in too crap a mood to bother right now.
And The Mechanic is pissing me off. Everything he does – or doesn’t – has me rolling my eyes and screaming inside: “FUCK OFF!!!!”
He is currently breathing too loud for my liking.
For fuck’s sake. Sometimes I hate myself.
Filed under: Blogging | 5 Comments
battered and bruised
This evening, after work, I am going to a local church for a blood donor session. I’ve never given blood before, although I am on the organ donor register (several times, as I fill out the application form every time I register with a new GP, which has been quite frequently in the past few years).
I got home the other day to find a letter from the The National Blood Service asking that I attend a session. There was a number to call to book an appointment and I decided I would do that, as if I didn’t, there’s a good chance I just wouldn’t bother to turn up. With an actual appointment, I will definitely go, because I would hate to waste their time and money.
So, I rang up on the spot. I now have an appointment, and no matter how sick I feel about it later (I really, really, really hate needles), I am going to go to the church hall. I’m going to hold out my arms, let them pick the least awful one and look away while they take a pint or whatever. I’m also going to get on the bone marrow register as well.
Apart from the cancer scare thing, and apart from being a bit wobbly and maybe not as fit as I ought to be, and apart from the aching back and permanent headache (related to the photo below), I’m a healthy 26-year-old. It’s not like they’re going to take it all and leave me without. That’s one of the amazing things about the human body. They might take a pint today, and my body will just replace it all by the same time tomorrow.
The donation of my blood will inflict upon me nothing more than a sore arm and a bit of light-headedness. They’ll give me a cup of tea and a biscuit. I can have a lie down. I can whinge to The Mechanic later that I feel a bit tired and he will have to look after me.
My blood may save the life of someone else.
And one day, I might be the person in a hospital theatre in need of that blood transfusion. And so might you.
Go here to find out where your nearest donation session is being held.
On the subject of blood. Check out this gruesome bruise that I am recovering from:
Filed under: Blogging | 6 Comments
passive voice: it got stuck
On Sunday, while I was on my rat rescuing mission, The Mechanic went out to play. Well, he’s a boy. He took is latest toy (a Landrover 78) to a “Pay and Play” off-roading day somewhere near the M4. I didn’t ask for detail.
He called me on Sunday night and I asked how his day went?
“It got stuck,” he said. “Had to be dragged out.
It got stuck? That doesn’t look like “it got stuck” to me. That looks like “I drove it into a massive, muddy puddle.” Nothing passive about it, darling.
Do you like the garish colour scheme? This is what happens when you leave a man unsupervised with two tins of leftover paint. This is what it used to look like:
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forced socialisation
I thought I’d detail the taming process with Lily, expecting that it would take a few weeks and I could turn it into a regular “weekly” feature. You know, we could watch how she gets on together as I log our progress and I’d be able to look back and read about how it developed later.
It seems that there might be a slight problem with this in that the taming has been going so well, I’m not sure this will be able to turn into a regular weekly feature.
When I first got her home on Sunday, I intended to leave her alone to settle in, as is always advised for a new pet in a new environment, regardless of whether it be from a reputable breeder, a pet shop or a rescue centre. Lily, however, as documented, seemed to transform before my very eyes as soon as we got into my lounge.
The rat baby that the RSPCA staff plopped into my carry case and the rat baby that I carefully moved from the same carry case into a cage decked out with all kinds of toys and fun stuff appeared to be two different creatures. I’m not saying that she wasn’t jumpy or skittish – she was – but she didn’t run away and hide, preferring instead to bound about the cage, only pausing to set up camp on the (very open) shelf. So I didn’t ignore her on Sunday night. I sat with her and put my hand in the cage and let her scamp about, leaping onto it, jumping immediately off again, scamping around a bit more.
Last night, I got home from work and she was at the cage door, starfishing away, running up the bars and sitting in the corner nearest to where I was standing. If I moved around the cage, she followed me. So I decided to start the taming there and then, using the forced socialisation method that I have read about.
“Forced Socialisation” works on the notion that a rat’s fear can’t sustain itself for 20 minutes and it just burns itself out. Every day, you take the rat out of the cage and spend one continuous 20-minute period handling it with no shortcuts. It is recommended you even time it! Let them sit on your lap/shoulder, let them walk on you, pet them, don’t pet them, hold them, scratch them, put them in your shirt. You can walk around, you can watch TV, just don’t let the rat
get away from you for 20 minutes. Just make sure you HANDLE them.
I rubbed my hands over the bedding (a bit like washing your hands in tissue paper) so that I smelt of Lily and sat with my hand in the cage. After some time playing the jump-on-jump-off the hand game, she ventured up my arm and I took hold of her and moved away from the cage. I stood tall in the middle of the room – so that all furniture and the floor were too far for her to leap to – and let her run around me for 20 minutes. She ran around my neck and shoulders, around under my jumper, through my hands. I just wouldn’t let her get away. No matter where she tried to go, she was met with a piece of me.
I know this may sound a bit mean, but it isn’t.
And it works.
Within 15 minutes, she was noticeably calmer. She was still squirmy and wriggly, because young rats are squirmy and wriggly by nature, but the fright was gone. She was happy playing about my person. At the end of the 20 minutes, I put her away and gave her some baby food on a spoon. This is also a really good way to tame nervous rats because they want the treat but they have to be with you to have it. If you give them an animal chocolate drop or something similar, the rat can grab it and scarper, enjoying their treat hidden away in their nesting box. A blob of baby food or scrambled egg or yoghurt on a spoon has to be eaten from the spoon. Rats are driven by food, and they quickly learn that you’re nothing to be afraid of – it doesn’t take long before their love of a treat masks their fear of the person holding the spoon.
Later in the evening, we did another 20 minutes and then she went off to monkey bar her way around the roof of the cage. I even put her and Polly together for five minutes and Polly wasn’t fussed by her. Lily bounded all around her and tried to establish herself as top rat, which looked quite funny as Polly is at least twice her size.
Given the progress, I think I am going to have to give up on the idea of establishing this as a regular feature as it were. I am so proud of both of us for doing so well in such a short space of time.
And tonight, Lily and Polly are going to be introduced properly while I clean out Polly’s cage and then I am bunging the pair of them in there. I am more worried about Polly than Lily to be honest. I know Polly won’t hurt her at all, but Lily might not give Polly any peace and quiet for a little while until she settles.
Filed under: Blogging | 9 Comments
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