And Then There Was The Family.

Welcome back. In keeping with my new-found desire to keep up with this blog and updating you all with what has been going on in my life in the last three years, I will now write about my family. Of course, no family post would be complete without Medea and, fortunately, she never disappoints. I will leave her many exploits til later in the post. First, I shall introduce my family.

Let's start with Dad. He's my dad. I think that's all that needs to be said about him. He does not create much drama as he is very easygoing and blends into the background of stories very easily. I will say this about him, though; he is one of the happiest people I know as I have never seen him stress about unimportant things. Unfortunately, my and my sister inherited my mom's personality so, except for him, we are all ticking time bombs waiting to go off.

This brings me to Sister. What can I say about my sister? She is 4 years older than me and has had three kids while I have yet to have any. To the casual observer, it may seem like she is trying to make me look bad. The joke is on her though because I don't like kids and don't plan on having any. She could have outdone me by just having one instead of tripling that burden for no sane reason. Yes, she says that she wanted three kids, but she is not fooling me. No, sir. I am no fool and will not be a victim to her lies about wanting children for reasons unrelated to me. Like I would believe that. She is obviously a crappy liar. As for my relationship with my sister, there is not much to say. We are civil to each other and we care about each other, but, we are not the closest siblings in the history of sibling-hood. We have different tastes in everything (mine are good and hers are tacky, fyi) and different viewpoints. I am convinced she may be a political conservative which makes no sense to me as a self-proclaimed liberal. I think the biggest reason why we are not close is the fact that I am gay. I don't fully understand her views on it. I know she is influenced by the hyper-religious upbringing we both had (mine more hyper than hers as she was not a huge church fan, btw). I also know that she does have gay friends and even had a gay roommate when she first moved out of the house. That being said, on one particular night when we were discussing Medea and during which I felt that we were bonding, I happened to mention that I was gay. I don't think I got the greatest reaction from her. I mean, she cried (as in sobbing not just a few tears) so we cut our chat short and I left. The next morning she did not mention it and has not mentioned it since. I feel fairly safe to assume that's not the greatest reaction though I do think it was not the worst by far. There was no calling my parents plus denial is a pretty sweet, if hurtful, package.

Moving on to Brother-in-law, or Bil as he shall henceforth be known. I debated on whether or not to give Bil his own paragraph. I didn't think he was important enough and the only reason he got his own paragraph is because my sister's paragraph was way too long already. Yes, I am glad he is alive and well since then I don't have to worry about Sister and her progeny being cared for. That's about it though. We don't see eye to eye on much. I was not really aware there were levels of how Mexican you can be, and then I met him. He is way, WAY, more Mexican than me. Think of a Mexican stereotype and he either fulfills it or has family that does. Is he Catholic? Yes. Does he like soccer? Yes. Has he ever gotten a buzz cut with designs on it? No, but his brother did once and I was not allowed to laugh, point, or make otherwise derisive comments. Has he ever worn those pointy boots that are, in my mind, the equivalent of a Mexican vasectomy? Once again, no. But his brother has. Did he have his last name or his hometown tinted in the back window of his vehicle? He wanted to but thankfully my sister was able to knock some sense into him.  Does he eat rat stew? Yes. Now I know that last one is not a Mexican stereotype but I thought it was worth mentioning because it is disgusting. Granted, they are mountain rats and not sewer rats that he is eating so they are supposed to be healthier. That didn't change the fact that when I lifted that pot lid there were rat whiskers, teeth and eyes staring back at me.  I think Bil's definitive story would be the one time I was riding in their Tahoe about eight or nine years ago. We were driving back to Denton from Dallas and it was close to X-mas. As we were driving going north on I-35E, an SUV with X-mas lights along its interior passed us. I was amused, in a condescending sort of way, until I looked over at Bil's face and my amusement quickly changed to terror. His face was lit-up like a child on X-mas morning who just opened one of his presents to find the one thing he had longed for the most. The child who found the one present he had made sure was in his letter to Santa and for which he had behaved and avoided having any fun in the slim chance that he might get it. Bil's smile was so intense even the Joker would have asked him to tone it down a bit. He turned to Sister and made a statement which my mind has luckily blocked out but which amounted to him wanting to place X-mas lights on his vehicle. Fortunately, Sister was not as enthusiastic about his idea as he was so it was never carried to fruition. Nevertheless, take it or leave it but that story encapsulates everything that is Bil.

Moving on to my nephews. I have two. For the sake of simplicity, I will call the older nephew Older and the younger nephew will be known as Younger. ( I must give credit where credit is due and I have to thank my Houston friend for such a clear method of pseudonym assignment.) I hope none of you are lost so far.

Older is about to finish elementary school and move to middle school. I must say that I am very protective of him. I feel a strong bond with him as I have lived with him and his parents during various periods of my life. I have always loved cartoons and I remember having a routine when I used to live with him around 2005. I would get home from work at the same time everyday and he would come into my room and we would watch The Fairly Oddparents and take a nap afterward. I feel it necessary to explain that my disdain for children does not extend to my nephews at all. Although, I am always very glad that I can send them home to their parents when I am done with them. I think the phrase to keep in mind here is, small doses.

Younger is either six or seven years old, depending on when I post this. He is a very interesting character that I often find myself at odds with. He has a very strong will and a very independent streak which are good qualities but can sometimes lead to trouble. On top of that, he is very spoiled. I don't do well with spoiled children. I guess it's because I myself am spoiled and I don't like the competition. He is just more of a handful than Older ever was. I have to say I am not proud of this, even though I secretly really am, in order to come across as more politically correct, but I used to have Older trained to look up and/or come to me when I snapped my fingers. Stop judging me. I know that sounds horrible but it was very practical.  Hear me out. If we were ever in a crowded and loud play area, as we often were, he would not hear us calling his name. However, he would hear the snapping of my fingers and come to us which turned yelling into an unnecessary task. I am only telling you this as an example of something that Younger would never go for.

Although she is the youngest, I think I will just call my niece Emily. That is, of course, not her real name. I don't feel free to divulge that kind of information without parental permission and I don't feel comfortable getting parental permission because then I would have to inform them that I have a blog and they may not like what I write in it. Back to my niece, Emily was the name that my nephews had picked for their sister while she was just an ethereal idea a couple of years ago. It was actually Younger's idea to call her Emily. He wanted her to be called Emily Elizabeth after the girl in the Clifford books. What I love about calling her Emily is that now everyone gets mad at me for calling her that and keep reminding me of her real name as if I had simply gotten confused or forgotten it. They don't know that it is their frustration that fuels my desire to call her Emily. Anyway, Emily is the newest addition to my sister's family. She is not even two months old yet. Her arrival has sure been bittersweet though. On the plus side, Medea can finally stop bugging me about having a granddaughter. She kept telling me how she wanted a granddaughter so that she could dress her up in a nice red dress. Don't ask me why the dress had to be red. Medea is the one responsible for that lunacy. On the negative side though, Emily now has the first birthday of the year. I used to have the first birthday of the year, being a March baby and all, but she had to be born in February and ruin it. On top of that, she doesn't really do anything. She just lays there. She really is kind of boring and I can't wait for her to get a personality because so far I don't think I like her. I am not a big baby person. I like kids more than I like babies and I really don't like kids so you should have an idea how I feel about babies. I have never had to and will, hopefully, never have to change a diaper in my life. I know what I like and I am pretty sure diaper changing is on the list of things I do not enjoy. That being said, I have already told Sister that, just as I did with Older and Younger, I will not babysit Emily until she is potty trained. And that's final.

The last member of what I consider my family would be my mother, or as I affectionately have dubbed her, Medea. I had meant to gloss over the other family members so I could focus on Medea's antics but, alas, brevity has never been my forte. Since this post already seems to be too long and, even if it is not, it has taken me most of the morning to write, I will probably just gloss over her antics and reserve the right to expand on them later. In a nutshell in the past two years I moved out of my parents' house after a specifically terrible fight. After six months, I moved back in with them so I could look after their house since five months later they moved to Mexico. A month after me and a very pregnant Sister (along with her family) visited them in Mexico. During the stay, Medea became very mad at me for talking to one of my aunts she had had an argument with and stopped talking to me. Two months after they came back for the birth of their granddaughter (remember Emily?) but she still refused to talk to me which came as a shock to nobody that ever knew her. Currently, they are staying at their house which coincidentally is where I am staying. They should be here for about another month but their stay is never free of drama. Unfortunately, this drama doesn't lend itself to crafty writing in order to be made bearable so them being here has only been more of an inconvenience and has provided less to write about than usual. I mean, it's not every year they leave me stranded in Odessa.  However, it is worthy of note that Medea has "divorced me" as she keeps repeating to me whenever she is talking to me. I am not necessarily sure what that entails but I shall keep you notified as the disenfranchisement develops.

I think I will stop this post for now. After all, I don't want to sound too bitter. I think I came off as bitter enough. Anyway, isn't life funny? I just realized that the person who I did not even want to write a paragraph about is the one that ended up with the longest paragraph. I was not aware that he could provide so much fodder although it seems obvious in retrospect since the whole family makes fun of him constantly.  I guess you live and you learn.