Surviving Thanksgiving

Okay so Thanksgiving is never super duper fun for me because in the back of my mind there is always but this is about the massacre of an indigenous culture not happy Euro Americans stuffing their faces and it bugs me that other people don't really get that.  But.  This year we decided to go to Donald's aunt and uncle's house for the dreaded Turkey feast.  Cuz it would be less stressful and junk.  For the love of any God somebody please remind me that going somewhere for Thanksgiving is never EVER a good a idea.  Yeah that didn't work so much.

So....it took us six bloody hours to get to the bloody location of the Turkey feast.  Traffic out of Hampton Roads was never this bad when we were hurri-vacing, but it was awful for Thanksgiving.  By the time we finally arrived at our destination we were all too tired to do more than mumble a few words at the relatives and head off to bed.  The next day was the feast itself and we knew that Donald's mother the Sideline Narcissist for anyone who doesn't ever look at all this crap I write  would be there that day.  What we didn't know was that she was staying.  The Entire.  Time.  Really I should have just run into traffic at that point.  The fam would have the insureance money and I'd be out of my holiday misery.  But I digress.  What we also didn't know was that ten other people would be crowding into the house for the roast beast.  Now, anyone who knows anything about Introverts realizes what a problem this is.  We're basically talking Introvert Hell here people.  It was terrible.  Went down into the basement to hide out and breathe for as long as I felt I could without being rude as all get out.  Managed to choke down some of the roast beast and other food type things.  Two hours later when all the extra people had gone away oh look the air really did clear out because I could breathe again I think someone mentioned the N was staying.  This was when I really wanted to walk out into traffic.  I didn't, obviously.  But....the dread and anxiety of the whole visit made the traffic on Sunday really not that bad.

So anyway I did all I could to not be miserable.  Used the SAD light, took the Vitamin D3, and tried to be as social as I could.  Then Bess and I got sick.  Yep.  Stomach bugs are the Devil.

And it was all very uncomfortable as the N would do her passive aggressive thing always when Donald wasn't around and there I was in a house not my own thinking well shit.  If I call her on this crap then I'm going to be starting something with her in their house and they think of her as their sister and aren't I just fucked right now?  So.  Again.  For future reference journeying to a family member's home for celebrating the end of indigenous culture day is just the worst idea ever.

There was an incident with Bess and the N that I didn't realize had happened until later.  Bess found out the N had recorded her after telling her that she wasn't recording her.  So...the N violated her personal boundaries by doing this without her permission.  Bess was very worried that the N would post said video taken very much without consent on Facebook.  So as she's freaking out about that at home she asks if Donald or I should address the issue.  My answer ended up being well she cares more about her relationship with you than with me, and Dad's asleep right now so why don't you just text her?  Tell her what you told me.

So Bess did that and stood up for herself and got the whole mess sorted.  But.  She also now knows that her Grandmother will willingly lie to her.  And I expect will probably lie to her again.  So that relationship is now in the N's hands because Bess won't put up with tactics such as those.  I've taught her over the years that manipulations such as those only hurt her and they're not worth her time.  It will be very interesting to see how that all plays out.

Now if I can just get through this coming weekend when the N is coming out to give the kids their Christmas gifts.  Thankfully I'll have lots of studying to do.  At Starbucks.