1243 SOS - Please, Someone, Save Me!

Saturday, May 12, 2007

I'm sitting in a hotel room in Rochester, NY, suffering an optical migraine, and wishing I could be anywhere else.

I arrived about 7 pm and went directly to the father-in-law's house. Jay's father. I guess he's technically not my FIL any more, I don't know, I sure can't call him my late FIL, and "my late husband's father" is so awkward. Well, anyway, most of the first and second level blood clan was there. Youngest sister (YS) and her husband (YSH) and two daughters, middle sister (MS) and her husband (MSH) and two daughters, and eldest sister (ES) and her husband (ESH).

Of them all, I like ESH best. He's smart and reasonable. ES is also nice, except when she gets insistent, and usually any unpleasantness blows over quickly. She's very like her father - figures that once she's thought something out, she's obviously right and any additional information is superfluous. She'll ride right over objections. Other than that we get along ok. She appreciates all I did for her little brother.

MS I don't know at all. Oddly, Jay didn't seem to know her well, either. It seems like they would have been close in age (ES and I are the same age), but I get the impression there may have been some odd family dynamics. MSH is nice, but I have had very rare opportunity to talk with him - I don't push in, and he's reticent in mixed male/female company. MS completely ignores me.

YS and YSH and their daughters seem to dislike me strongly. I do hold some very small animosity toward her from back when Jay was ill. They live only 30 minutes down the road from us, and several times when Jay fell during the night and I couldn't get him up, I called them to ask for help, and not only did they not answer the phone, but they didn't return the call. (That was before I invented my version of the fireman's lift and could get his 6'3" 245 pounds off the floor and onto the bed myself.)

Before Jay and I were married, when Jay's father came down our way to visit, he always stayed with them. After we were married I suggested that he could stay with us half the times. Pow! We got him 100%! YSH didn't like him, and grabbed the opportunity to pass him off entirely on us.

When I took Jay to the hospice wing when he was in the final stages, I called YS and said that if she wanted to see him before he died (she didn't visit him at home the whole last year) she should come now. Her response was "Oh, well, we've heard that before", and she didn't come.

Jay always said YS seemed to have no opinions of her own. She is in thrall to her husband, and likes or dislikes as he dictates. Jay and I found the two of them incredibly boring. Their only topics of conversation are their girls and not-so-amusing stories abut their animals - an iguana, somewhere between five and seven cats, and three greyhounds - and the three greyhounds go with them everywhere, regardless of their host's preferences.

I wonder if they've ever had an original idea between them.

Anyway, they weren't as polite in their ignoring of me as MS. MS simply didn't see me. YS and YSH, and their daughters, actively shut me out. They didn't look at me, literally turned their backs, ignored any comments I tried to contribute to conversation. It was a very obvious shunning.

Ok, I can see where there might be some old wounds that haven't healed. Jay and I did not initiate contact, back when, as much as maybe we should have (but good grief, they're so BORING!), and there were a few incidents. But nothing that should earn me this animosity.

There's only one thing I can think of, and it bothers me that I even think it, but it's there. I am in the old man's will to inherit Jay's share of his estate. I have not seen the will, so I don't know whether the estate is distributed among the four siblings (three sisters and me), or whether it's shared among the grandchildren, too, and I have no idea how much is involved (although I suspect it is considerable). Worse, ES and I are named as the executors.

I know enough about YSH to know that this galls him to the core. That I am in the will, set to inherit as much as his wife.

I really think that's it.

Happy 90th birthday, Dad. Please have many more.
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1193 The Uncomfortable Thing

Sunday, April 1, 2007
[4/6 Edit - fixed the date.]

I mentioned that something uncomfortable had happened last weekend, when I went to The Rabbi's 40th anniversary celebration.

Ever since he contacted me, almost two years ago, I'd been wanting to visit, to see him again and meet The Rebbetzin. (I had been searching for what to call her. Rabbess? Rabbette? Rabbit?! Turns out rebbetzin is the proper term for a rabbi's wife. Cool.)

I was happy to get the invitation. It was perfect for a visit. I wouldn't be "putting them out" at all.

He and I had started college in the same class, but I graduated a year early. I wasn't aware that he was dating anyone. When he said that they were married a little less than a year after he graduated, my thought was that he worked fast.

After they renewed their vows in the church, there was a communion. I was probably the only person who didn't get in line. I'm technically not Christian, so I didn't feel it would be right. The couple stood at the front, and spoke to everyone as they came through. I noticed that The Rabbi hugged every person, male and female, young and old. At the end of the service, the couple were at the back, again greeting and hugging everyone as they left. I tacked myself on the very end of the line. When I got up to them, The Rabbi took my hand in both of his, and we three chatted. Smiles, but no hug. I didn't really notice then. I'm not a hugger anyway.

During the reception, they made the rounds. Whenever I spoke with The Rebbetzin with people around, she was gracious and smiled.

I had stayed to help clean up. It also gave me a chance to talk with them a little more. I saw her sitting alone against the wall, looking a bit worn out. Given that she had cooked all the food (and it was all delicious), I wasn't surprised. I went over to chat, started by complimenting the cake, I think, and she didn't smile. I was getting a rather hard look. Finally she interrupted me, and said, "We HAVE met. I visited [The Rabbi] at college, a couple times, and we met then." Still no smile. I was confused, and admitted that I didn't remember. I sputtered some blather - her hard look was confusing - and excused myself to go clear up some more.

Later, I ran into The Rabbi in the kitchen. I told him what she'd said, and he confirmed it. We'd apparently met more than once. I wondered if I had offended her back then. It had to be more than my simply not remembering meeting her (although it does trouble me that I don't).

Well, turns out she was in high school when he was in college, and they had been dating during that whole time. I don't remember him dating anyone. In fact, his roommate was ...um... flamboyant (in the early '60s, that's as specific as anyone would get), and I sometimes wondered if The Rabbi was interested in girls at all. I mean, given that, you'd think I'd remember meeting a girlfriend!

After meeting me, he says she was absolutely convinced that he and I were carrying on a torrid campus affair, and there was nothing he could say to convince her otherwise. She absolutely believed it to her core. Apparently she "forgave" him, because she married him, but he thinks she still believes it.

A surprise to me, to say the least.

So now I feel bad that I went at all. Maybe it would have been better had I taken a date along. Had I known, I wouldn't have gone, and had I gone, I shouldn't have stayed to help clean up. The only thing I didn't do wrong - at least I wore a nice sedate ankle-length little old lady dress, and my hair was tied back.

I felt so bad. I wonder if I put a cloud on her day. I wonder what on earth possessed him to contact me through the college alumni website! That had to annoy her.

I wonder if she gave him a rough time later.

I feel guilty. But I didn't do anything wrong! It's not my fault!

Normally, I'd be writing a nice note thanking them for an enjoyable evening, and wishing them many more years of happiness.

Now I don't know how that would be received.

Phooey. I'm not sure what to do.

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This has been a recurring theme in my life. My best friend in college cut me off completely when she met the man she later married (and they're still married) because she decided I was "after him". I barely even met him. I sent her email after I found her in the college alumni data base, several, in fact, over the past two years, and she has not responded.

After college, my best friend in Gettysburg cut me off completely when she met the man she later married (and they're still married) because she decided I was "after him". I barely even met him.

Several married men have told me that their wives don't want me around, because I'm "after" their husbands.

I'm really really tired of it. I thought all that crap was all behind me, and here it is biting me again.

I mostly didn't date in college. There was Byron, the summer between first and second years. He dropped me because I wouldn't let him so much as open a button, and then he told the most outrageous stories about me. And that was it until my last year when I met Ex#1. And yet, I know definitely of several guys who swear they "scored" with me, that I was easy. To hear some of the stories, half the guys on campus slept with me. And no, it's not that I was too drunk to remember (although that's part of the claims), because I went to exactly two parties with alcohol - one at Penn State and one local - and I'm 100% certain nothing happened at either.

I'm half tempted to just go ahead and fulfill everyone's fantasies. I'd have a lot more fun! But it was that kind of thinking that put me into therapy thirty years ago, and I know now that the fantasies are not me.

Part of the problem is that guys talk about me to their wives/girlfriends, like "Silk says this", "Silk does that". A few guys have told me I'm sensible, and they wish their wives were more like me. Yeah, sure. Then how come I could get so many undeserved rumors all my life, and so few deserved dates?

I was talking with Piper yesterday about something like this, and I asked him if he ever mentions me to his lady, and he said yes, he talks about me all the time. I reacted with horror, and told him to stop immediately. Never never ever mention me to her again!

That way be dragons!
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