The Sister – KN
KN is four years younger than I. She waited a long time to marry, but as soon as she did she was gone. Now she and her husband (Rk) both work the for same company; he’s the District Manager and she runs the office.
I often wonder how they could spend so much time together. They are not very social with family at all. They live 20 minutes from me and the last time we got an invitation to their house was for Christmas 2006. The first and only time they hosted Christmas. They like the world they’ve created and they don’t like intruders to enter that world.
My husband works for this same company with Rk as his boss. So Poor Scotty gets the shit end of the deal all the time. Everything is his fault. But now Rk’s brother started working for the company and that has taken some pressure off of Poor Scotty. The brother is being blamed for everything.
Rk’s not a good manager and in the real world would have been fired a long time ago. There’s a little note about him at the bottom of this post.
The Sister – KM
Km is two years younger than I. She’s divorced, has three kids, and one grandson. She recently quit her job of 22 years and moved out here to be a District Manager for a major company. I told her she could live with me because we’ve always gotten along very well, I consider her my best friend. Her daughter wants to stay back in ND and finish high school So she’s living with dad.
She and I couldn’t be more opposite. I love to cook and try new foods; she eats M&M’s for dinner. Everything in my house has a place and everything is in its place. I’m never late, I never lose my keys, phone, etc. She’s more ‘casual’ in her housekeeping and organization. I always plan ahead; she doesn’t. I always think of the other person; her not so much.
She’s been here since January and is now looking for her own place. It will be too quite here when she’s gone. We have some great conversations.
Dinner and Grease
What I expected: good show, bad food. What I got: decent show, amazing food.
Six of us got all dressed up last night and went to the Riverside Dinner Theater in Fredericksburg Virginia. It was my first dinner theater and I was excited to go. We learned that we could have shown up an hour later than we did. They said to show up at 6 for dinner and the show will start at 8. Both were true, but the food arrived pretty quickly and we had an hour between dinner and the show. We had a pretty good time in that hour, we can get pretty stupid. I love that about us. One of our party is going to a drama college in North Carolina. He’s a good friend of my oldest daughter and they drove down together. She said that they listened to the Grease soundtrack on the way. She let it slip that they even sang Summer Nights. I asked if they sang the male and female parts, she smiled and said yes, we laughed. I can just picture it.
It was very nice to watch these acting hopefuls (kids) sing their hearts out. Some were good, some weren’t so good. It was cute to watch ‘Sandy’ try to stay in her spot-light during Hopelessly Devoted to You. You could almost see them counting as they moved around the stage. They have a long way to go, but I salute their ambition.
These kids earned their pay last night. Not only did they work the show-acting, singing, technical; they were also our servers. And they do this five days a week. Our waiter Monty is the Senior Lighting Technician. So during intermission, we have Danny Zuko and the rest of the Rydell High seniors running around trying to finish up the meal.
Again, this is a first for me, so I expect the show to be exactly like the movie; the talent’s voices to hit all the right notes; the dialog to match what’s in my head (my all-time favorite show). And of course it’s live theater, so it took a little used to. It was similar to going to rock concerts in my teens (and a little older) and expecting a live show to sound exactly like the *record.* I always hated when the lead singer would change the lyrics during the show. I know it one way and that’s the only way I want to hear it [stomping my foot like a baby].
I’ve attended many a conference dinner and it’s always the same thing…cold bad food. This is exactly what I expected. I was shocked that they even offer New York Steak Strip. Half of our table ordered the steak, the other half ordered the salmon. What a shock it was to received one of the best meals I’d been served in a long time. The steak eaters said it was really good, and my family does a mean NY Strip on our grill. It’s the only time I’ll eat a steak. The salmon fillet was half the size of the plate and delicious. The beans were fresh and the potatoes were to die for. Then there was desert. Between the six of us we had a sampling of all four that they offered. Two people ordered the Chocolate “Nemesis” Cake and both couldn’t finish it because it was too chocolaty. The two most delicious were the Strawberry Amaretto Almond Torte and the Pumpkin Cranberry Cheesecake. Everyone got a taste of them all, there were forks flying.
Good time.
We all need someone to talk to
Well, I’ve calmed down. I’m not all twisted up about the extra work around here. I was able to vent to my youngest daughter Bd, and feel so much better. She made me promise to call her before I get myself into a tizzy.
Thank you Bd. Now I can look forward to the dinner theater we are attending tomorrow night. It’s my first and I’ll let you know how it was.
The countdown begins
Before I go into my rant, I’ll give you a little background. My sister moved in with me on January 1, she relocated from ND and has a great job. Her 14 year old daughter didn’t want to move here and is now living with her dad back in ND. She has two friends (twins) that she doesn’t want to leave.
I work from home, running two businesses and I babysit for my granddaughter. My husband, Poor Scotty, works in NC all week and is only home on the weekends.
You should also know that I get really pissed if something you do creates more work for me. Remember those hand-wash only glasses? If you use one and don’t wash it…more work for me. Got rid of them at the garage sale. Not sure if they sold or went to goodwill.
So, you can imagine the extra work (not to mention the higher utility bills) for me when my sister is here. Now add her daughter for two months (this is the countdown) and I’m ready to go off the deep end. When I first learned that Kd was coming for two months I was excited. I imagined her playing with Ly (granddaughter) during the day, going for walks around the block, being in the backyard, you know, normal stuff. My thoughts were ‘wow am I going to be able to get a lot done in those two months.’ What a fool I was.
This girl has no social skills that I’m aware of other than following her mom around like a puppy. When her mom isn’t here she is in her room with the door closed. She spends all her time on her laptop. I’ve told her to not be a stranger, bring your stuff out. But no, she’d prefer to be a hermit.
She appears when her mom gets home and acts as though she’s been out and about all day. Oh, and she’s always there when it comes to shopping or eating. When she first got here I asked her if she was hoping to make a friend…NO. She was almost appalled at the idea.
I find out yesterday that before Kd goes home, my sister is planning on flying her son, daughter-in-law, and grandson out here so Kd can fly back with them. Oh joy. Where are you going to put them all? I have a small three bedroom house. My room, Kd’s room (I could use the space), and my office. Sister is currently living in my unfinished basement. It’s probably about 500 square feet and is packed with all the furniture from her house. Ugh… don’t get me started on the mess she has down there. So again, I ask you where are you going to put the extra family.
She thinks nothing of ‘oh they can sleep on your couch.’ Really? What about during the day? Will you take those days off and get them out of here? Or will I have to put up with them on top of babysitting and trying to run my businesses?
The extra work created for me from just two other people living there 1) twice as much garbage I have to take out every day, 2) I swear I run the dishwasher twice a day 3) I’m spending more time trying to explain to Ly ‘where’s Kd?’ 4) they let the dog out then forget, so I’m jumping up from working to let him in when he’s barking at the back door 5) they let the dog upstairs and then forget about it, so I’m putting him back down stairs because he’s in the safe place I’ve created for Ly 6) the baby gate isn’t always closed, so instead of being confident that she’s safe when she goes into the living room, I go make sure its closed 7) and it’s costing me more money to have you here.
I feel that if you are living here for any extended period of time, you are not a guest. You live here, therefore you help clean, you pay attention to what is going on in or around the house. If something needs to be done…DO IT!
What I’d love to say is "Get your selfish ass out of that bedroom and get a life." "Just cleaning your room and your bathroom doesn’t help, you do ‘live’ in the whole house." "The little bit of rent you pay doesn’t cover it." But I keep my mouth shut.
And I’m The Bitch?
You’re really not helping
Just this morning I told you that my cooktop was clean. No longer true. We are having a garage sale tomorrow so my plan was to cook up some sloppy joes today and just put them in the slow cooker tomorrow.
In her effort ‘help me out’ and to keep her daughter busy, my sister said they would fry up the ground beef. Great, I always welcome a little help.
I have to tell you I cringed when I saw the grease splattering on my freshly cleaned cooktop. And I admit a little noise from me made her question what was wrong. I said ‘oh I worked so hard getting that clean last night.’ She says ‘oh sorry.’
They do a great job cooking, cleaning…not so much. So, here it is again.
I couldn’t get the pictures to capture how really dirty it is.
Yes, we were raised by the same mother.
Update on the dirty stove
As you may recall, I’ve been waiting to see how long it takes my sister to clean up a mess she made. We will really never know. Last night she made dinner. And in my house the person who cooks for the rest of the house (as opposed to just for themselves) does not have to clean up the dinner mess. Well, you know that I’m not going to clean everything and not that stove. So, with my glass top cleaner and my handy dandy Scotch Brite pad (yes this really works), and a razor blade I was able to get it pretty clean. If you look hard you can still see some stains. I swear the worst thing that can happen to these glass tops it boiling water. It’s the biggest mess I’ve ever seen. Geez!!
Oy
I can’t believe my day has been like this, I swear I’m jinxed. My web host had an explosion in one of their buildings over the weekend, so two of my sites were down (Yes I’m making it about me). My sister called Verizon to install an additional TV box in the basement, so the most logical thing they thought to do was shut down my internet. It was down until about 10 this morning when the cute service guy (even with an earing in each ear) fixed it for me.
My Adobe program decided to take a crap. I couldn’t get it to work at all or reinstall. They don’t sell Adobe 8 online any more, so I have to head out to purchase one at Staples. Taking my granddaughter and niece along with.
I get out to the garage and find that someone has not put the trash cans where they belong, so I move one out of the way so I can open the back door. I put the baby in her car seat, jump in the front and I’m ready to go.
I start to back out of my garage and back into my lawn mower because someone pushed it behind my truck so they could put the trash cans in the wrong spot. Busted the front wheel of the mower pretty good, but thankfully nothing on the truck.
The trip was uneventful, so we swing by McD’s on the way home for a burger. I know better, but still did it and payed for it later.
Tried to vent to my daughter, but all I got was "not all of us can be as perfect as you mom."
This is a test – This is only a test
Everyone who know me, knows that I keep a clean house. If you make a mess – clean it up. It’s a pretty simple concept and really easy to do. Just take care of your shit. You are all adults and I’m not your fucking maid.
So why are these glasses still on the counter after a week? The blue cup is courtesy of Poor Scotty who can get to the sink, but somehow can’t reach the dishwasher that is right beside it. The glasses are ‘hand wash’ only and used by Poor Scotty and my sister. I expect both think it is not their responsibility to wash them. So I let them sit there to see how long it will take. 
After a week, my niece arrives for the summer and my sister suddenly kicks into ‘mom-mode’ and cleans up the kitchen (sans the range) after we eat. She washes the glasses. I later find out that she didn’t see them sitting there all week.
If you have a black glass-top range you know how much it sucks to keep clean. This is a mess she made from boiling pasta two weeks ago. The wait continues.
