Well I spent the weekend being lazy. Or half of it anyway. I got a call Friday morning from my dad to tell me that my grandparents were here visiting from Michigan. They are in their 80’s so I always worry about these trips they make, but I was glad to get a chance to see them since the likelihood of us getting to go up there is slim to nil right now. Anyway so later that evening after dealing with the little diva all day and having the mother of all headaches I got a call from my little brother who was trying to be go between without asking my grandma what they wanted to do until I finally snapped at him and he gave the phone to her.
Grandma wanted to get together and I suggested our house as the preferred point of rendezvous because I knew my dad’s house was unlikely to be up to visitors. She said that would be fine and we talked a bit more before saying goodnight. Then I panicked a bit. Our house is usually fairly clean by my standards and imaculate compared to some, but all of a sudden I remembered that our bathroom was a bit on the grungy side and the guest bath is used primarily by teenagers and mostly boys at that. This may sound strange, but since I don’t use that bathroom, and its family who does, I believe they should maintain it. I told my husband that if we were going to be the restroom source for all the guys up at the shop, there was no way I was cleaning up after them. So they do it themselves but it doesn’t happen very often and so it can be a bit scary at times. How can I live with it like that you might ask? Well its either that or spend my days cleaning bathrooms and I haven’t quite gotten past my aversion to cleaning that part of the house.
Well I was remembering how frightening these bathrooms in our house can sometimes be and I knew that come morning I’d have to go on the cleaning offensive if I was going to feel comfortable having my grandma over. She is old fashioned and her idea of a mess is carpets that haven’t been vacuumed in 2 weeks. Sadly my stepmom isn’t much of a housekeeper anymore due to her long hours at work and long commute home so when I was younger and still living at home I always dreaded visits at home from my grandparents because of the mess and knowing they were coming here started all sorts of flashbacks.
I had washed all the dishes and we put J12 to work cleaning up his mess and the guest bathroom and started to tackle our bathroom the next morning when I had an epiphany. My grandma never thought any woman my dad was married to was good enough for him. If I remember correctly, my mom wasn’t good enough until she was gone and my stepmom is only starting to get kind remarks behind her back after all these years. Early on my grandma made some rather disparaging remarks about my stepmom’s ancestry (she’s part blackfoot) and its been all downhill from there so of course her housekeeping skills would be a prime attack point. Since my mom always kept the house fairly clean, my grandma could insinuate that my mom never would have let the house get that messy. (In all fairness, its true, but not something that should be mentioned in polite conversation) Anyway back to the epiphany. I realized that I am not a daughter in law, I am a grand daughter and therefore a coveted and much loved member of the family. In our family, all three grand daughters are the oldest in their families and nobody -girls or boys- has ever disagreed that we’re the favorites. So I guit messing with trying to get everything straight and just worked on getting rid of the things that you don’t want family to see. We don’t want to dash their hopes for more great grandchildren by letting them see all the empty condom wrappers or for that matter even think about them knowing anything about our sex lives. Its just not right.
As it turned out, the get together was a huge success. I really enjoy getting to know my grandparents as an adult because there is so much to learn from them. The bathrooms that I was so worried about never got used, and after a nice long visit, they headed on back to their hotel. Whew! That was a close one. But I don’t think I will ever worry so much about them or other similar family members visiting again because there are many who think I can do no wrong. Hooray for family members who’ve given up on impartiality!
After all that, Sunday was spent being lazy for the most part. We did go get the younger J’s and I got some more gravestone pictures. Then yesterday I went and mailed off Dana’s package finally and did some portaits of J14
Altered faux vintage picture
again at the graveyard. Not sure where I’m going with this, but its cheap entertainment. And now this is getting long and I have several other things I should be doing right now so I shall let you all go.
Au revoir!
Oh! You can check out my flickr account for some more pictures including the ones of the semi finished altered book I mentioned a while back.
