Every summer, my step-son Joey leaves us to go live with his Dad in Louisville. We get to see him alternate weekends, and we get 1 week of “vacation” during that time. To give him a send-off this year, we took a mini vacation down to my Mom & Dad’s Friday through Sunday.
I had a very good time, though I did eat nonstop. Mom’s house is a little like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory–lots of omnipresent chocolate goodness. What’s not chocolate is sugary or sugar-free (Dad’s Type 2 diabetic).
Friday, we arrived late in the afternoon and just hung-out. Joe and I got to ride up to Jackson with dad in his pulling truck, which was a “man-time” treat for us. Three generations :D
Saturday was a fizzle, as we got up late and didn’t make it to the Red River Gorge to go hiking. Whitney came down with a bad case of allergies, so we amended our plans to hike in the 95 degree heat to going to watch a movie. We drove to Hazard (Yay, 80 mile roundtrip!) to see Kung Fu Panda, then drove back to find my mom and aunt caring for Maria, who seemed to love every minute of the attention.
Then…well…things got bizarro for about 15 minutes.
As we arrived back at my mom’s place, Maria seeemed tired, so I put her down for a nap. Sometimes she goes right to sleep, other times she fusses. I held her for 5 minutes, sang to her, and she seemed quiescent, so I laid her down in the paypen and she started to fuss. I backed out of the room into the Twilight Zone.
I entered the living room to into an atmosphere that felt like a freezer, to find my wife and my aunt having a conversation. Well, not so much. Basically, my aunt was baiting my wife to discuss parenting techniques, and as Whitney continued, my aunt was getting madder by the moment. At some point I just asked, “What the freak is going on here?” (background: Maria Crying)
Eventually, I told Whitney to stop, that L wasn’t really listening. That seemed to cause some dam to burst within my aunt.
L: “That’s your own FLESH AND BLOOD you’re treating like that. YOU were never treated like that…” and so on.
…which promptly caused some sort of a dam to burst inside me. Somewhere, somehow, L hit every button I had, simultaneously–personal honor, family honor, pride, shock, past transgressions, former-life repressed memories. I was done. I was on my feet, screaming right back at her, no-holds-barred. Ridiculously, the argument moved to the door to Maria’s room, where two grown people who’d probably take a bullet for each another postured in each other’s grill.
Yeah, I seem to be the idiot with no sense to leave well enough alone.
It ended up with L storming out and me struggling to understand what I’d done, who I’d been at that moment. Whitney said she’d never seen me that filled with rage (and that’s saying something, considering…)
And then, it was over…and somehow, through the screaming, cursing, and stomping, Maria fell asleep. And slept like a baby for 2 hours.
* * *
Sunday, we came back and said goodbye to Joe, and I worked as a crew leader at the Northside VBS. I don’t like it so far…we have a rambunctious group, and I had to handle all 6 by myself last night. Whitney will be with me tonight, so that should be better.