Thirty One Year Tradition
In eight hours a thirty-one year tradition will commence. My hope is it will be the last one ever in this house! Every freaking year Mom and I get in to it over something really fucking stupid. Yesterday was no exception. She wanted me to vacuum the “Welcome mat outside on the porch. I was saying I was going to us the Oreck on the rug. She misunderstood me and thought I was talking about up in my room. We stood there for five god-damn minutes until she realized when I said outside. When she went on to say “I have too much to do to think about stuff….I told her she needs to listen next time. I also said she needs to not take her anxiety out on me. That’s when shit hit the fans.. I got so frustrated that I threatened to call off the event. She told me not to bother helping her that she can’t depend on me for anything. Gee I feel the same way about her. So let her do what she wanted. Do you know that a couple of hours later she was rude to me and tells me I don’t appreciate you just sitting around watching TV while I am getting ready for this thing? Ah Excuse you told not to bother!
So I went and vacuumed the rug outside and did the things she asked. The rest of the afternoon progressed with little or no problems we did more shopping and cleaning. Mom did more baking for this (I don’t know why she bothers if she is expecting 18 people).
Okay that rant is out now on to the tradition. For the last 31 years Mom has had a meet and greet for every candidate from municipal to state level and on occasion even on the federal level. She would gather residents from our district via a voters list and send out invitations and for most of the summer start preparing for this event. She would co-ordinate with the candidates what is the best date for them. Sometimes that would be a pain too.
When the time arrived we would have some extra help with any last minute preparations. The people would arrive and mingle and chat and then we would start with introductions and five minute speeches from the candidates and then question and answers. Some times there would be unnecessary arguments breaking out. I have been told you can’t control those things like that in meet and greets. I REALLY Beg to differ! You don’t go into a person’s home and start arguments and disrespect people in their homes. Every year that I have been involved I usually post or gripe how people who claimed they would show up and not (we have had that happen a few times) or they don’t respond to the written invitation. It really burns me when that happens. We have a neighbor who would complain to me if a discussion is going on too long or she was too hungry or if people brought their kids etc. I just would look at her and say something along the lines cut it out. If you haven’t guessed yet these things make me crazy at times. I think there have been a few times I missed them (I fled to Allentown one year).
This morning I have to get some chairs out from the cellar before going off to Bingo and on the way home I need to get soda (again we have cider and wine). I have to make my bed but I can do that later. My desk has literally a mound of stuff on it and it won’t be moved anytime soon.
I am sure Mom is going to ‘remind’ me that I need to help serve and not just hang around. Once things are done I will help as much as possible but usually Mom does the clean up stuff by herself but with her energy level barely there I may have to do it this time. She was already in pain yesterday.