The Ties That Blind

Jul 08, 2024 15:28

It has been thankfully quiet today, though I am still feeling overwhelmed with all my non-work duties. I can't imagine how I'd feel if I had any pressure put on my from any clients. Sooner or later though I am going to have to dig up some tasks to do. It's time again for our yearly reviews and I am going on three years now with those two server projects still not done. Ugh.

After I fed cats and birds this morning I went out to the vegetable garden and cut some celery stalks. We haven't had much luck the past two years and I think it is obvious we are not watering it enough. The stalks are always super dense and fibrous. I thought maybe we could still juice them, as we'd juiced some store-bought celery once before and it really was not bad at all.

Well, while the store-bought celery juice was a lightish green, these stalks started squeezing out intensely dark green liquid. And that was only after about 3 or 4 stalks, as the initial ones seemed to produce no liquid at all. The final product was warm, so I put it in the fridge to chill and drink later in the morning. The inside of the juicer was stuffed full with the fibrous pulp, and the pulp was hot as the machine must have been working extra hard to crush the stalks. Not good.

After a few hours I went to drink it and the top of the container was covered in solid green sludge, as it seems the liquid settled to the bottom and not the top. I had to strain the liquid out. I took one sip after and had to throw it down the drain. It was so intensely flavored, and almost bitter. Nothing like the original juice we had made. Undrinkable.

I told the Sparrow we should probably just pull the plants and use the bed for something else. He'd wanted to keep trying, thinking more watering might produce proper stalks. I just don't know. I am not sure we can keep it as watered as it needs to be at this point.

I ran to Menards on lunch to stock up on birdseed, which I fear is becoming too expensive of a hobby. $30 for a 5 lb bag of shelled peanuts. Sunflower seed, which I didn't get this time, is $30 these days. Back in my first house I was paying $15 for the same, large bag. Safflower seed is around $25 I think it was. The birds are eating like crazy too, which I thought was *not* supposed to happen in summer because there's so much food in nature. But, every day the feeders are picked clean.

It doesn't help I am dumping huge amounts of seed out back to make sure our resident turkey and her twelve chicks keep returning, which they did this morning. We've also got a young groundhog coming around. My group of crows. And somewhere around 40 or 50 squirrels in front and back combined. Just the gray squirrels. Not counting the red squirrels and the chipmunks. Some of them know I am the food source now and don't run off in terror when I come out there.

I watered the vegetables and all the bushes on lunch. Something I want to keep in the habit of to get maximum growth. When I talked to my mom this morning she said it was going to rain all week. Maybe by her. I don't believe it here.

I called her earlier than normal because our work call was pushed to ten. She didn't answer and then called back at 10 when I was on said work call. She left a message saying that I shouldn't email her, because her email "wasn't working". Mind you, this is on the new laptop she didn't need that my sister blatantly bought for her on Christmas to "win" and I had no intentions of ever helping her with. Her message was so manipulative. Mentioning the email but not directly asking for help. Then when I called I just asked what the issue was, but she clearly didn't want to say because she assumed I wouldn't help because the fact my sister was the one that got her setup on the thing.

Frankly, I didn't want to help more so because she wouldn't just ask. Instead it has to be this game where she mentions the problem, as a bait for me to ask her if I can help her. Then she tries denying the need for help, even though after I did she went on this whole brief harangue about being disconnected from her world and needing to check email to follow up and this, that and the other thing.

I am still so sick of these stupid games.

She also mentioned in passing that my sister apparently has my mom text her everyone morning just to "make sure" she gets home from work. My mom has worked overnight at the grocery store for literally 25 years. Even after my dad died, my sister did not give a fuck about it. But, because of my cutting contact she's trying to make sure she digs her claws deeper into my mother. I would not be surprised if my mother changed her will to make my sister the executor. And if she did, well then my hands are clean. I'd try to get my dad's flag from his funeral and maybe one or two other small items from the house and leave her to deal with all of it. And if she did not give me what was legally required by the will, which I do believe she'd try to keep it all for herself, I'd hire a lawyer and fucking sue her ass.

In fact, I'd love if she tried it. I would get every entitled penny at that point on principle alone. I don't care about the money. This is about a lifetime of lessons my sister never learned and it being my job to give her a crash course.

Honestly, I could see her not even telling me if my mom went into the hospital. Then claiming to everyone else that *I* just didn't show up.

I hate that bitch so much. She is such a disgusting, lousy human being and I resent being related to her. I dream of the day I no longer have any obligation to be in contact with her.

My mother also mentioned that two of my cousins, of her sister's family who she always idolized and compared us to (saying we were failures because we were not like them)... anyway, these two cousins are apparently having issues right now. The one, my godmother, is apparently very outspoken and says whatever is on her mind even though it might be "hurtful". The other, who is just like my mother down to her irrational fear of leaving her house, has been confiding in my mother about it all and how upset it makes her.

I am sure my mother is giving some "sage" wisdom about how important family is. Which, as I've learned in my lifetime, it really isn't important at all and can be downright toxic and poisonous to one's life. My mother, who is still being verbally abused at work by her diversity hire, racist boss and won't do a thing about it. Her and my cousin are like the blind leading the blind as far as this goes I think.

I hadn't given much thought to my sister as of late, but at the mention of that this morning I felt the chain around my neck tightening with my family connections. I mentioned the thing about the morning texting to the Sicilian with no other comments and he replied back exactly what I'd been thinking. That she just wants to be the first to know so she can raid my mother's house if she dies. My sister is a psychopath. Yet, my mother wants to stay blind to it because "family".

I am still waiting for the prediction of that psychic my mom saw in the 1980s to come true. The part where the woman said her daughter would take all her money. Maybe she meant after death.

Such negativity. I hate thinking about my family. And to think I was feeling guilty the other day about never visiting my mom. I haven't been over there since Mother's Day. I don't mean to treat her differently and shun her. I still do my two calls a week. But, I think she's toxic. I've already written in length about the many realizations I've had with my family. And the fact she seems in complete support of my sister's narcissism is just a bridge too far for me. Especially considering less than a year ago she was fully aware of my sister's bad behavior and commenting to me on it.

I could go on and on. My brain is swimming with anxiety over that one simple mention of my sister and her latest tactic. I don't want to have these feelings or deal with that cunt. The sooner I can move on from that part of my life, the better for all. Sadly, my mother is the teether still keeping me tied to that sinking ship.

In other family drama, the Sparrow's deadbeat older brother, The Troglodyte, apparently texted their mother over the weekend asking to borrow money (again). This was after he was shitting on her a few months ago on social media for being a terrible mother for not saving his ass with money back then. I should say, "saving is 40+ year old ass", since he's old enough to deal with his own fucking issues himself as he is the age a grown man would be.

She deleted him and his cow wife from Facebook after he posted this ridiculous tribute to his father on Father's Day, which was basically one giant gaslight toward their mom (after also not acknowledging Mother's Day at all). I was very proud of her for responding back to his text and telling him "No", with no other info or excuses as to why.

He's a fucking deadbeat and an asshole like my sister. I was sad he didn't show up here on the Fourth like he'd wanted to at the beginning of the year. It would have been my greatest pleasure to tell him off and make him cry. Because he is a man-child and he would absolutely cry if anyone called him out on his shit.

Again, it seems in most cases, family is toxic and utterly dysfunctional.

birding, nature, sister, work, debt, family

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