Just gotta say something... in Packrat

even though I have nothing to say.

The Bachelors. We are related to three men of the same family who are all single - Language Director and his uncle who have both never married and their first cousin who had been married but divorced. LD used to live with us for years, and his uncle is currently living in my little brother’s house (and turned it into a nice home; my brother lived in a cave). First Cousin works with our language department in my building.

Uncle has been a great help in many ways to my mom. LD thinks he might be autistic as he talks A LOT, but he’s considerate, artistic, sensitive, and gentle. He had said if we cook beans and frybread, we had to let him know. My mom made beans last week (Baby loves beans), so he had his beans. I thought if we made a special supper of beans, we should invite the other two - we have to get together every so often; we live close to each other but hardly get to see each other. So I invited all of them to come over “to eat beans and to fart”. I’m not usually so inelegant. I made stew instead - I’ve never cooked beans - and told them I had to rethink the meal since I’d included farts.

I’m not known for cooking. LD said he knew I could make a good stew and other soups, but he refused to eat my baking (I joked that I’d labored for the store bought strawberry cake) because he hasn’t seen that I can pull that off successfully.

In our traditional funeral ceremonies, the family gets a head cook, who then gets three helpers, and a head gravedigger who does the same. On the “fourth day feast”, the family cooks a meal for the cooks, gravediggers, and speaker to say thank you.

In the bachelor family my mom and I have been the family cooks. When First Cousin’s dad passed away I had been either getting or coming out of a bad illness, but I got out of my sick bed to cook - and found my sisters (Indian way) already at the cook shack with supper already started. I was soooooo grateful!!! I could help if I could sit. LD said, “I told everybody Eriu’s in charge, so they all came out to cook!”

At the time of the funeral, I had to sit and had no coordination or balance. To view the body, I had to have LD help me out of my chair. He walked me over to the casket and left me. Two of my cousins are our frequent head gravediggers (and singers at the adoption), so were standing there; one escorted me halfway around to the other, who helped me around the other way. I was so grateful for that as well and told their mother, my aunt, so; she smiled and said, “I kind of like them, too.”

One of them just passed away. He had always been making people laugh; his burial was the first time he ever made me cry.

Freak Out. Being on my last nerve means everything seems meant to drive me over the edge. A lady has been feeding my outside dogs while I battle a bug, and one got out of the fence. His mother showed him how to get out and has sprung him from jail herself, but he’s always ready to get right back in - inside the fence, he’s a Big Dog (although his brother begs to differ, and they always want to argue around my legs), but outside the fence he’s Mama’s little boy, and that embarrasses him in front of his son. Getting him back in the fence was no problem.

As I fed my little old lady dog who lives inside, I heard my babies making a ruckus and looked out the window to see Big Dog OUTSIDE THE FENCE with his Mama. I lost it, screaming, crying, and cussing - their elders getting out had once been an almost daily occurrence (these guys don’t try it, except Big Dog only recently because of his mother), so we had a new fence built by a bum who thinks his work is worth more than it is and who took so long to do the work (it had to be completed by someone else) that Little Old Lady’s twin got hit by a car.

That usually happened at night, and it did this time as well. It’s not just getting them back in and finding where they get out, but that spot has to be repaired and with what? It was also dark already with a cold wind.

All in all, I overreacted, causing great dismay to Uncle Bachelor, who just wanted to help. I’m just sick of always putting out fires; I’d had a day of constant activity in a week of constantly needing to do something because I needed to be somewhere at a certain time.

I told Uncle Bachelor that dinner would be screaming, crying, and cussing-free.

Smart Man is part of the pressure, although he doesn’t mean to be. It seems we have meetings every other day about stuff we already talked about. I understand why, though - we mention whatever he wants to talk about, but then I’m a sounding board - I’ve been here forever so can speculate about people’s motives and their behavior or I can remember why we did that and when.

I also have an honest face. :)

Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff. The attorney whose law firm I worked for lived by that, and he was a jovial, fun-loving person. He had that saying on a plaque in his office, while his daughter, also an attorney in the firm, was Type A. He had once said, “Don’t sweat the small stuff, and it’s all small stuff. Daughter hasn’t learned that.”

It works - he’s 90 years old, still a practicing lawyer, and still having fun!

Everything that’s been getting on the last nerve isn’t worth the freak out I give it, and nothing can stick there if I don’t let it. I’m a control freak because, y’know, nothing can get done unless I do it and no one else can do it as well as I can, so I have to take on the world’s problems myself (except Trump - not touching that one; that one is a lost cause and irritating as hell).

I’ve been kind of mellow and Zen today as I listed all the things that seemed so terrible and found they really aren’t major problems and some things happen because someone believes in me.

And tomorrow’s activity has been rescheduled so I’m not working on Saturday and there’s peppermint ice cream at home! :)

Okay, the real reason for my sad mood and bad temper is that the Bay City Rollers broke up before coming to America!!!! Waaahhhh!!!!!!!