Blaaaarrrrggghhhhhhhhhh.
Very long rant to follow...
When K's mother and his Aunty Rabbit tag-teamed to suggest we move to Hawai'i, certain things were said and certain things were suggested. Amongst the primary, were that we would stay at his mother's house until we'd found our feet and would help with chores instead of paying rent. Aunty Rabbit mentioned that she knew people who might be able to help with jobs or small houses to rent and such. We knew (or at least I certainly knew) that nothing is ever quite that easy, but I think we both believed it wouldn't be that far off the mark.
We were both extremely wrong.
Hawai'i is a lovely lovely place - I definitely recommend visiting. And depending on your circumstance I'd recommend living here too... But it has its downsides. The biggest of which, currently, is this house and the people in it. It's hurting my head: I feel like I've been transported back to the worst bit of my time at Kew with added housework, rage, gardening and stress. I actually find myself having to bite my tongue because I'm seconds away from having fights I've had with my own siblings 15ys ago - it's very depressing.
The House.
Hasn't been cleaned or dusted or sorted nor had things thrown out of it since everyone first moved in - whenever that bloody was. There are cupboards and wardrobes and boxes and more cupboards of utter rubbish and shit - with all the important stuff bundled in there as well. I've spent days sorting through (for example) boxes of good photos that share space with spiders, old shopping lists, nurf gun pellets, old children's clothes and random underwear, broken and un-fixable frames and ornaments and electrical stuff from a 1990's thing that the dog ate 10years ago. And this isn't just one room - this is every bloody room and every damn storage space.
The People / Problems.
Keri is away in CA currently and will be for the next 5weeks. This is fine, because whilst Keri is lovely, she's a noisy queen of the bluejays with certain magpie tendencies and this can make things difficult.
Bill (her husband) is still here, he'll be going in a week or so. He's a nice bloke, but he doesn't do housework or really anything at all once he gets off work.
On the property there are five horses (two geldings of good blood, two old female grumpy ponies, then one dear old man with a worryingly scanky yellow cock), three dogs (one is an idiot lapdog), four semi-wild chittens (plus one Captain Flint), three goats (two are meekle, one is a mad old bitch), two ducks (one rather mental) and various chickens - some of whom range far and wide and lay eggs.
Bodie is Keri's son and K's brother: he's 15. He's a baggage but whilst he'll argue with Keri he doesn't with K and I. I've no idea whether that's cos K threatens to beat him and I ask 'please' when trying to get him to do his chores or what. Anyway; for a 15y old boy he's pretty damn good - the only issue I have with him is that I wish he'd work more with his dog - train her and be with her because she needs the attention and something dies in me every time I have to shout at her out of the window to SIT and SHUSH because I'm cleaning the kitchen or clearing out trash and can't deal with her =(
Presley is K's sister. I first met her at the wedding: based on her demeanor I thought she was about 20. I also thought she was very naive but sweet and very generous of character. I have since - I am extremely sorry to say - revised my opinion. Presley's 27. She does have some mental/social issues due to being kicked in the head by horses (I think that was the cause, there may have been others.) But she has meds and has talked to and then refused to talk to many psychologists, psychiatrists, and any other headscanner you could name. And it seems that any time they told her she needed to grow up (ie, take responsibility and do her jobs, or cut ties and make her own way,) she said 'I don't like them,' and walked away.
Me having been the crazy difficult girl for a huge chunk of my life (and I can't say I've totally ditched that role no matter how I've tried) I had a lot of initial sympathy for Presley. When Keri or K (so it seemed to me) were making her out to be more difficult or crazy than she was, I disagreed. Her family seem to think she's borderline manic-psychotic commit-able everyday. I don't think she is. I know she has a mental history. I know she has issues. But from what I've seen that doesn't make her commit-able - that just makes her a pain in the arse. (I have a lot of very pokey issues too - and I know there's a difference between 'I can't' and 'I don't wanna' when we're talking about the every-day coping stakes.)
What really pisses me off though, is that she floofs through the house, living in it but not a part of it. She won't do any chores; telling her to empty a bin or the dishwasher is an exercise in pulling teeth. She thinks that wiping down a counter-top or rinsing her plate is above and beyond her household duties.
She is meant to be taking care of the five horses on this property instead of paying rent, but she need only buy feed for two of them. Despite having seen the evidence for myself, I still feel strange typing this because I cannot believe that someone who has cared for animals all their life could be so negligent or blind. The ponies have not been taken care of properly. They haven't been brushed regularly (very important if you don't want flies) and their hooves stink which means they haven't been picked often enough. Added to this, CountryBoy's dick is yellow and crusted in scank. I don't know anything about horses (although I'm bloody learning now) but even I think that's wrong and needs to be sorted.
Added to that there's the small issue of her stealing the horse feed that Keri buys... and really I just want to wallop her whenever I see her.
Lastly, in this enormous rant, is the fact that everyone shouts in this house and no one says please.
Would you like to speak to someone? Just yell their name in the vague direction you last saw them. Want a conversation? Have it across a room or through a closed door or as you're walking away or where-ever-the-fuck.
Need someone to do something? Don't bother asking politely, just tell them to do it and remind them they're rubbish for not doing it earlier. Maybe tell them six different things they need to do and when they do them keep interrupting and demanding to know why they're not doing the other 5 things.Whatever you do, don't for the love of all the gods ever use the words Please or Thank You. Best of all is if you can just tell someone what you're doing and in that statement hide the implication of what you want them to do - it sidesteps all common ideals of polite social interaction that way!
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee. So K and I are feeding and grooming the horses, sorting, cleaning and tidying the house, cooking supper (food budget $100 a week for 5 people), running errands, pulling up fireweed in the pasture, clearing the garage of junk, building chicken coops and goat pens and dealing with any other shit that turns up (like the range exploding. Which it tried to do last night. We now have no oven and no hob).
It's just a little bit stressful. No, no, I take it back.
K has a magic wand and I summon hordes of pixies to do my bidding. It's how we get all this shit done.
I need to go back on meds; I've started carving slices out of myself again.
There is another HUGE downside to Hawai'i.
All my friends are in a different time zone and a million miles away and I can't collar any of them for a pint and an epic grumble in a pub or anything else for that matter.
BLAH.
When K's mother and his Aunty Rabbit tag-teamed to suggest we move to Hawai'i, certain things were said and certain things were suggested. Amongst the primary, were that we would stay at his mother's house until we'd found our feet and would help with chores instead of paying rent. Aunty Rabbit mentioned that she knew people who might be able to help with jobs or small houses to rent and such. We knew (or at least I certainly knew) that nothing is ever quite that easy, but I think we both believed it wouldn't be that far off the mark.
We were both extremely wrong.
Hawai'i is a lovely lovely place - I definitely recommend visiting. And depending on your circumstance I'd recommend living here too... But it has its downsides. The biggest of which, currently, is this house and the people in it. It's hurting my head: I feel like I've been transported back to the worst bit of my time at Kew with added housework, rage, gardening and stress. I actually find myself having to bite my tongue because I'm seconds away from having fights I've had with my own siblings 15ys ago - it's very depressing.
The House.
Hasn't been cleaned or dusted or sorted nor had things thrown out of it since everyone first moved in - whenever that bloody was. There are cupboards and wardrobes and boxes and more cupboards of utter rubbish and shit - with all the important stuff bundled in there as well. I've spent days sorting through (for example) boxes of good photos that share space with spiders, old shopping lists, nurf gun pellets, old children's clothes and random underwear, broken and un-fixable frames and ornaments and electrical stuff from a 1990's thing that the dog ate 10years ago. And this isn't just one room - this is every bloody room and every damn storage space.
The People / Problems.
Keri is away in CA currently and will be for the next 5weeks. This is fine, because whilst Keri is lovely, she's a noisy queen of the bluejays with certain magpie tendencies and this can make things difficult.
Bill (her husband) is still here, he'll be going in a week or so. He's a nice bloke, but he doesn't do housework or really anything at all once he gets off work.
On the property there are five horses (two geldings of good blood, two old female grumpy ponies, then one dear old man with a worryingly scanky yellow cock), three dogs (one is an idiot lapdog), four semi-wild chittens (plus one Captain Flint), three goats (two are meekle, one is a mad old bitch), two ducks (one rather mental) and various chickens - some of whom range far and wide and lay eggs.
Bodie is Keri's son and K's brother: he's 15. He's a baggage but whilst he'll argue with Keri he doesn't with K and I. I've no idea whether that's cos K threatens to beat him and I ask 'please' when trying to get him to do his chores or what. Anyway; for a 15y old boy he's pretty damn good - the only issue I have with him is that I wish he'd work more with his dog - train her and be with her because she needs the attention and something dies in me every time I have to shout at her out of the window to SIT and SHUSH because I'm cleaning the kitchen or clearing out trash and can't deal with her =(
Presley is K's sister. I first met her at the wedding: based on her demeanor I thought she was about 20. I also thought she was very naive but sweet and very generous of character. I have since - I am extremely sorry to say - revised my opinion. Presley's 27. She does have some mental/social issues due to being kicked in the head by horses (I think that was the cause, there may have been others.) But she has meds and has talked to and then refused to talk to many psychologists, psychiatrists, and any other headscanner you could name. And it seems that any time they told her she needed to grow up (ie, take responsibility and do her jobs, or cut ties and make her own way,) she said 'I don't like them,' and walked away.
Me having been the crazy difficult girl for a huge chunk of my life (and I can't say I've totally ditched that role no matter how I've tried) I had a lot of initial sympathy for Presley. When Keri or K (so it seemed to me) were making her out to be more difficult or crazy than she was, I disagreed. Her family seem to think she's borderline manic-psychotic commit-able everyday. I don't think she is. I know she has a mental history. I know she has issues. But from what I've seen that doesn't make her commit-able - that just makes her a pain in the arse. (I have a lot of very pokey issues too - and I know there's a difference between 'I can't' and 'I don't wanna' when we're talking about the every-day coping stakes.)
What really pisses me off though, is that she floofs through the house, living in it but not a part of it. She won't do any chores; telling her to empty a bin or the dishwasher is an exercise in pulling teeth. She thinks that wiping down a counter-top or rinsing her plate is above and beyond her household duties.
She is meant to be taking care of the five horses on this property instead of paying rent, but she need only buy feed for two of them. Despite having seen the evidence for myself, I still feel strange typing this because I cannot believe that someone who has cared for animals all their life could be so negligent or blind. The ponies have not been taken care of properly. They haven't been brushed regularly (very important if you don't want flies) and their hooves stink which means they haven't been picked often enough. Added to this, CountryBoy's dick is yellow and crusted in scank. I don't know anything about horses (although I'm bloody learning now) but even I think that's wrong and needs to be sorted.
Added to that there's the small issue of her stealing the horse feed that Keri buys... and really I just want to wallop her whenever I see her.
Lastly, in this enormous rant, is the fact that everyone shouts in this house and no one says please.
Would you like to speak to someone? Just yell their name in the vague direction you last saw them. Want a conversation? Have it across a room or through a closed door or as you're walking away or where-ever-the-fuck.
Need someone to do something? Don't bother asking politely, just tell them to do it and remind them they're rubbish for not doing it earlier. Maybe tell them six different things they need to do and when they do them keep interrupting and demanding to know why they're not doing the other 5 things.Whatever you do, don't for the love of all the gods ever use the words Please or Thank You. Best of all is if you can just tell someone what you're doing and in that statement hide the implication of what you want them to do - it sidesteps all common ideals of polite social interaction that way!
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee. So K and I are feeding and grooming the horses, sorting, cleaning and tidying the house, cooking supper (food budget $100 a week for 5 people), running errands, pulling up fireweed in the pasture, clearing the garage of junk, building chicken coops and goat pens and dealing with any other shit that turns up (like the range exploding. Which it tried to do last night. We now have no oven and no hob).
It's just a little bit stressful. No, no, I take it back.
K has a magic wand and I summon hordes of pixies to do my bidding. It's how we get all this shit done.
I need to go back on meds; I've started carving slices out of myself again.
There is another HUGE downside to Hawai'i.
All my friends are in a different time zone and a million miles away and I can't collar any of them for a pint and an epic grumble in a pub or anything else for that matter.
BLAH.