what's cooking?

Family, you gotta love them. Okay, not really-but in order for all of us to survive in the world of our own makings, you at least have to put up with most of them. Especially as the year comes to a close. Lots of family gatherings for us to muddle through.

Now most of our clan is pretty good. But we all know about that unwritten law-you know the one I’m speaking of-the one that says you MUST have a personality that no one wants to really deal with in the fold. Some families have more than their fair share and others, well; the good ones seem to be in the minority. But we all relate to having that the less than great relative.

In our family, it seems to be the daughter’s mother-in-laws. My mother had to deal with a woman who was so nasty and certifiably insane that my sister and I wondered how our dad survived and developed into such a dear man. This woman made Medusa seem kind. Truly. She wasn’t physically abusive-her “talent” was emotional and psychological abuse. Finally, one day when she accused my parents of making up a story about being held up at gunpoint outside of her apartment we cut off contact with her. Then when she almost burned her apartment building down while smoking in bed, the manager called and told my dad that he had to put her in a home. It seemed that this was the MINOR offense! She had been behaving even more erratically than anyone could imagine. So in a home she went. In fact, she was kicked out of 2-the third one seemed to be able to handle her.

My husband’s mother is just so narcissistic that in her mind-EVERYONE LOVES HER! The reality is my sister-in-law’s first marriage went bust because of her mother’s interference. Her present husband gave her a choice: either be his wife and a mother to their son, or her daughter. My sister fled this half of the state and left the “care and feeding” of this said mother to her brother, my husband. My family also wondered how my husband turned out so well.

I can tell you-he spent most of his youth at a neighbor’s home or at his aunt’s house. Both his parents were only concerned with themselves. In fact, that’s the reason the marriage lasted so long-they were both so self-involved they didn’t realize what a pain the other one was.

And now my daughter-we tried to warn her, but let’s face it, when you’re in love, even a woman who blatantly hates your guts because you’re taking her baby boy away seems like a minor inconvenience.

Back to my husband and our cross to bear. It’s her birthday. My sister-in-law is about an hour away at a business seminar and has no car, so we’re taking a drive out to her and taking the woman out to dinner.

Guess what?

We didn’t know this was the plan. Nope. Dear mother-in-law is so narcissistic that she just assumed we’d be glad to leave during traffic hour (even Saturday is a pain when going to Los Angeles) to take her into town, meet my sister-in-law and take her out to dinner. How’d we find out? She left a voice mail on our son’s phone, telling him she expected him and his fiancée to make arrangements to take off work and come with us and pay for their own meals-“after all Adam, it is your Bubbie’s birthday and you have to be there to celebrate the occasion”!

Our daughter disowned her two years ago. She no longer has to endure any visits-lucky woman. One of the perks of this is that we MAKE her daughter endure a visit for Thanksgiving and Mother’s Day. She SO owes her brother that bit of peace.

Needless to say, Adam and Sam left a “regrets” message on her cell phone.

Imagine finding out via a message on someone else’s cell phone that we were a limousine service and a credit card?

I could go on, but my rant is just that, a rant. Right now, playing in my head is a song from my favorite musical, A Chorus Line-What I did For Love. After all, I am still in love with this wonderful man who just happens to be the caretaker of the family member than no one really wants to deal with-Bless him please, he deserves it.