We are surviving.
Barely.
My mother-in-law and sister-in-law, a.k.a. the uninvited house guests, have successfully occupied our home, the Brown Compound, for nearly two weeks. We are still awaiting their departure. I’m starting to doubt that it will ever happen. I need to look up when squatters rights take effect.
The option of moving remains up for discussion between Larisa and me.
Pessimistic Doug remembers a line in the movie “Groundhog Day” where Bill Murray’s character, Phil Connor, is delivering the weather forecast. “It’s gonna be cold, it’s gonna be grey, and it’s gonna last you for the rest of your life.”
Dark, yet it sums up our mental state perfectly.
Our jobs have been challenging recently. We both had normal catch-up work waiting for us when we got back from vacation. Meanwhile, I had another vacation to help cover last week and the retirement of a long-time employee this week.
Each night Larisa and I arrived home completely exhausted.
Our uninvited house guests have waited on us for dinner every night. More accurately, they waited on us to prepare dinner each night. On a good night, we’re home around 6:00. Lately we’ve had nights where we haven’t been home until nearly 8:00.
And still, they wait.
Having just been on vacation, we had minimal groceries in the Brown Compound, most of which were vegetarian. My wife and I don’t share the same philosophy on diet. I am a vegetarian, she is a carnivore. On one of the late evenings, the only thing we could come up with is pizza. Unfortunately, our entire selection of frozen pizza consisted of roasted vegetables on cauliflower crust.
My sister-in-law looked at the prepared pizzas. “Eew, what is that?”
“Vegetarian pizza,” I replied.
“I’m a meat lover kind of girl,” she said. “I’ll pass.”
And so it has gone. Our uninvited house guests have made it clear that we’ve been disappointing hosts.
Yet they remain planted in our home.
My mother-in-law has been joyfully exhausting. She has a bright outlook on the world and asks a lot of questions. Repeatedly. She has Alzheimer’s and asks the same questions over and over. She requires a level of patience that we have struggling with. Lack of experience, stressful days and hectic careers haven’t helped.
We are hopeful for a return to normalcy soon. There is no evidence indicating it will happen, but we are keeping the faith. Our sanity is depending on it.
Optimistic Doug points to another weather forecast, albeit slightly modified, from Phil Connor to sum up this adventure.
“When Chekhov saw the long winter, he saw a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope. Yet we know that winter is just another step in the cycle of life. But standing here among the people of (the Brown Compound) and basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts, I couldn’t imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter. From (the Brown Compound), it’s (Doug Brown). So long.”
dougb@news-banner.com
