A Tale of Two Cities - Part 1

It's been an interesting coupla years in Ladyland. We live about an hour from the Gulf of Mexico now, which has been an adjustment, to say the least. In Dallas we lived in a dry, moisture sucking, pizza oven, where we live now has moisture, vegetation, and steady tropical rains that are more akin to a sousvide water oven (look it up, kids). 

In other words, my skin looks amazing and hydrated, but my hair is a bit on the unruly side, and I'm in a constant battle with swamp ass. These days most of my outfits could easily be mistaken for swim suit cover ups, and I do not for the life of me, honest to John, remember the last time I wore socks.

This past year has dealt our family serious blows in the form of the deaths of two of my brothers in law. The good* ones too, Las Vegas and Syracuse. So I'm left with the two scarier ones, Miami and Knucklehead. Obviously this has been extremely stressful for MDH, who in the case of Las Vegas was left responsible for cleaning up after his god damned mess.

Last October, when my DH was in Austin with friends getting together and preparing to attend a music festival he got a call from someone from the Las Vegas police, to tell him that his oldest (and most seemingly normal) brother had taken an upscale suite with comped points from one of the swankier hotel casinos, where he stayed for 2 weeks before carefully laying out plastic lawn and garden bags on the sumptuous, king sized bed and blowing his brains out with a pistol.

Apparently his body laid there for 5 full days before the cleaning staff alerted hotel management. Apparently his head was, for lack of a better way to describe it, gone.

MDH upon getting the call immediately alerted Miami and Syracuse and it was decided that Miami would get on the next flight to Las Vegas to be with MDH and do things like identify the body, and sort out whatever needed to be sorted out, which turned out to be a fucking lot, and Syracuse would drive immediately to Boston so that the news of Las Vegas' death could be given to my MIL in person by someone she trusts.

So that happened.

Fast forward to November. Thanksgiving weekend to be exact, when I never wanted to run away and join the circus more in my life because Miami demanded that the absolute best time ever to have a memorial service for Las Vegas would be THE FRIDAY AFTER THANKSGIVING. Of course the absolute worst time of year for traveling. Of course the absolute worst time for someone who lives in the tropics and doesn't even own a coat anymore to travel to FUCKING BOSTON, where it's freezing fucking cold. Not to mention that frankly I really didn't feel like memorializing Las Vegas. I went because it was important to MDH, and that was the end of it. 

Syracuse had pneumonia and couldn't make it, which made me jealous, (why can't I get pneumonia and skip this stupid thing?) and infuriated Miami so deeply that he declared it unforgivable and that Syracuse was "dead to me", and refused to take his calls anymore.

Anyhoo... somehow I survived that ordeal, and it WAS an ordeal, because anything involving MDH's family is never without dramas, death threats, ridiculous unnecessary complications and drunken brawls. Somehow we also always end up footing the bill for all of this shit, which only makes me more angry. If anything, I was glad to get to spend some time with my MIL, and hug her, and cry together, and reassure her that she didn't have to ever do anything that she didn't want to do, like go to this insane memorial service.

Fast forward to late December, when we learn that Syracuse does not only not have pneumonia, he as been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and has about 6 months to live. He died** the 2nd week in March.

In between the 2 deaths, MIL came down and spent almost 8 weeks with us in Texas. She had been home for just slightly more than a week when Syracuse died. MDH was with Syracuse when he died, and had been there for about a week and a half prior. He had flown home with his mother from Texas, because she can no longer fly by herself, and then rented a car and drove to Syracuse to be with his brother in his final days.

Then he drove back to Boston. Knucklehead had been given the responsibility this time of telling my MIL about the death of her son, but when he arrived at her apartment he found her barely conscious on the floor next to the couch. Apparently she'd had a stroke the previous day, but just chose to lay there, her cell phone in her robe pocket, because she, "didn't want to bother anybody". 

This is the part where I scream.

And I've pretty much been screaming ever since. Starting with finding out that she had out right LIED to me while she was visiting about what medications she was supposed to be taking. Medications which included pills to lower her cholesterol, which she told her doctor in the hospital after the stroke that SHE decided she didn't need anymore.

It's now almost August, and she's still in a rehab facility in Boston. We're not sure what is going to happen next.

In Part 2 of this story, which I will try and write tomorrow, I will explain to you the evil, conniving nature of Knucklehead, and the various ways that he has been nothing but a piece of shit since all of this has gone down.


*Tolerable and mostly polite to me, but still misogynistic and unpleasant to be around for longer than a few hours.

*People die. They are dead. They don't pass, pass away, cease to exist, or whatever other sugar coated phrases people like to use. They die and they are fucking dead.

Miami Facts

Miami does have a certain mystique about him, I'll give him that.  But that's it.  I'm not going to give him anything else.  He's been here as a house guest for eleven days as of this morning and I feel as though I have nothing left to give.  And yet... he's got that certain something...
He's not quite like that guy from the Dos Equis ads, The Most Interesting Man In the World, about whom Miami said, with not just a little disdain in his tone, and I quote, "Didja know dat guy is in actualities a Jew?", even though MDH and I tried several times to explain to him that The Most Interesting Man In the World is fact not a real person, and that perhaps the actor portraying him in the ads may in fact be of Jewish persuasion, but regardless of the actors religion or ethnic origins it is not important because IT'S A FUCKING BEER CAMPAIGN!!

Anyhoo... in order to turn this shit sack of a situation into a bowl of rose petals, I've decided to once again post my observations about my most intriguing brother in law here on my blog (i.e.. free therapy) in the hopes that my pain will become humor. As some of you may already know, all four of my brothers in law are crass and comically misogynistic in their own ways, but Miami wears the crown... or takes off his shirt.  So below are some things randomly observed and experienced during Miami's still happening recent home invasion visit.

Fact:  About 5 minutes after arriving in our home, 11 long, long days ago, he made a cell phone call and it went down something like this:

Miami:  Yeh.  I made it.  I'm here.  I'm calling you to tell you.  You happy now?
Muffled Girly Female Voice: (Gushing from Miami's Phone)  AWWEEE Mwhah Mwah Goo Mwah
Miami:  So dats it.  I'm here.  I'm gonna hang up now and visit with my family.  I'll maybe call you later. (Non committal).
Muffled Girly Female Voice: (Pouty) AWWright.  AWWlove you!
Miami:  Yeh.  Gotta go.  Bye.
Miami:  (To MDH and me) Bagh!  Married chicks, so needy.

Fact:  Miami remembers everyone's birthday and anniversary that he knows and will call them promptly at 6:30am on the big day.  Tuesday was the birthday of my brother in law Las Vegas's ex-wife Geena.

Miami:  Bagh!* I called Geena dis mornin' to wish hers a happy birthday, but she mustnawta been home.
Me:  At 6:30?
Miami:  Yeh, dats when I call everyone.

Fact:  Miami is one of the reasons we don't have a home phone anymore.

Fact:  I went into the guest room, which is also MDH's office and closet, to retrieve a copy of a bill the day after Miami's arrival, while MDH and Miami were out a nearby bar watching the Patriots game, and discovered snapshots of two very different slutty looking women boldly scotch taped to the wall over the desk.  My first reaction was to assume that one of them was Muffled Girly Female Voice, but with Miami one does not assume anything.

Fact:  I have never to this moment asked who these women are, but did ask MDH to please explain to Miami why we don't scotch tape, or otherwise semi-permanently affix anything, including snap shots of strange, slutty women to the walls of other people's homes, no matter how long one intends to stay.

Fact:  One afternoon last week Miami doused himself in baby oil and went down to the pool for about 2 and a half hours using a moth eaten, weather beaten, pilly old blanket instead of one of the plush and generously portioned beach towels I laid out for him to use for the pool.

Fact:  I was not offended that he didn't use our beach towels, but did find his preference odd.

Fact:  Yesterday morning as Miami was passing through the living room he stopped, chugged two Coors Tall Boys within the span of 10 minutes as told me all about the new Ken Burns series on PBS called "Prohibition" and wondered if I'd had a chance to catch any of it while I was visiting my parents in Florida over the weekend.  Apparently it's a great series.

Fact:  It was 8:30 am.

Fact:  Also yesterday morning Miami called me out to the balcony and introduced me to a fifty-ish looking neighborlady that I have sometimes seen walking her adorable little toy terrier around the apartment complex. Jackie has an expensive looking haircut, nails that look professionally done and even though she is usually wearing a velour warm up suit (designer label) or some outfit of a similar nature, she is always fully made up, bedecked in sparkly jewelry and pink flip-flops with a little kitten heel.  Miami had somehow struck up a conversation with her from our 2nd floor balcony during a smoke break and discovered that she's an IT recruiter for a large healthcare company who works from her home and discussed with her in graphic detail, well... me... and the fact that I'm "a real smart cookie" and am looking for a job in healthcare IT.

Fact:  She took her dog back to her apartment and came by again a few minutes later and gave me her card and asked me to email her a copy of my resume.

Fact:  I'd no sooner walked upstairs after she gave me her card and Miami came over and took it from me, mumbling something about how he was going to email her his resume too.  He's an out of work construction foreman and in no way looking for a job in healthcare IT.

Fact:  He'd apparently emailed back and forth with Jackie all day and when I came downstairs at around 3pm I noticed he was gone and he didn't come back until MDH came home from work, well after 5pm.  When he came home MDH asked him where he'd been and he said hanging out over at Jackie's place with a couple of the other neighbors trying to network to find a job. 
MDH:  Wearing that?
Miami:  Yeh.  It was casual.
MDH:  Were other people wearing shirts?
Miami:  I dunno.  I do not pay attention to such trivial details.

Fact:  I scoured the guest room bathroom including the bathtub and shower the day prior to Miami's arrival.  It was spotless.  And white.  Very white.  I haven't cleaned it since because MDH won't let me, and it's driving me crazy because for some reason the bottom of the tub is black.  Serious Black.  Rimmed with gray streaks.  How does this happen when the only person currently bathing in it lays around my guest room all day?

Fact:  I realize that that last sentence is in fact a question and not a fact.

Fact:  Six months ago Miami called MDH and asked him to loan him $8000 because he found a 3 bedroom, 2 bath condo in Coral Gables being advertised in the paper for $8000.  It never occurred to him that it was a misprint or a rip off.  We didn't loan him the money.

Fact:  Two years ago when Miami was also out of work he called MDH and asked him to buy him a plane ticket to Costa Rica because he had found construction work there.  The company would pay for his room and board while he worked, but he had to pay to fly himself there.  MDH bought him the ticket.

Fact:  The day after Miami was supposed to arrive in Costa Rica he called MDH and asked him to wire him some money because he hadn't counted on the airline charging him to bring all his stuff with him (4 Rubbermaid totes filled with all of Miami's worldly possessions, such as coffee brewer, toaster, blankets, pillows, etc..).  He'd missed his original flight over the totes, so MDH rebooked it for him, with a fee and loaned him the money to pay for all of the totes.

Fact:  Miami called MDH 2 days after arriving in Costa Rica upon realizing the whole thing was a scam** and begged MDH to buy him a ticket home.  And all of his totes.

Fact:  Miami seems to really have taken a shine to our cat Turtle.  He clicks and tuts at him and Turtle piles onto his lap without waiting to be invited and proudly allows Miami to pet him behind the ears.  The other night Miami asked MDH if he could brush the cat.  MDH told him no, but could not explain why.

Fact:  I would have let Miami brush the cat, but stayed out of it and didn't press the issue.

Fact:  The day I left for Florida Miami wasted no time making himself more at home in my absence by helping himself to our collection of red wines (only the Italian ones) and whipping up 2 pounds of baked ziti in my kitchen.

Fact:  Two pounds is a buttload of pasta so I fully expected some leftover baked ziti when I returned home, but the only traces of it were a missing ball of prova, a significant dent in my chunk of 18 month aged parm and the cemented bips of carbon and char that won't seem to budge from my good lasagna pan.  Oh yes let's not forget the rust spots on my good knives that were run through the dishwasher.

New Fact:  MDH paid Miami a few hundred bucks to leave today and he is now gone.  He left during the course of my writing this post.  I heard them early this morning in the guest room quietly mumbling out a negotiation so that I wouldn't hear, and then mere seconds after the mumbling stopped Miami came out of the room with a stack of beat up cardboard boxes and blankets (which I can only assume were his belongings) and began trekking them out to his car.

*"Bagh!"  Is the noise that Miami and also MDH's brother Knucklehead often make when starting a conversation or reacting to new information.

**Miami told a tale of being placed into a room with 4 other men who explained to him that they were slave labor and had never been paid because the company charged them exorbitant rent and took it out of their paychecks so none of them had been able to feed themselves and be able to afford a ticket home.  It was like something stolen from a Charles Dickens nightmare.  So basically Miami sold himself into slavery, but is lucky enough to have a brother who is able to bail him out of this constant, ridiculous bullshit.  My hand to God this shit is true, or at least it's true that this is the story that Miami told us.  With Miami you never can be sure.  It's that mystique.

There Will Be Rum

I'm leaving very early tomorrow morning to visit my parents in Florida.  Alone.  MDH will be busy here with work and keeping Miami out of trouble, which as you will read below shouldn't be too difficult as the man doesn't appear to be up to much.

So yes, Miami is still here.  The real mystery is will he be here when I get home next week. 

Although I don't have much to complain about*, it has been a little weird being home all day while he's here all day also.  Except it's like he's not really here, except that he is.  He mostly has been staying in the guest room and I've mostly been doing what I normally do.  I ask him if he wants to join me when I go out to run errands and he usually says no.  I ask him if he wants something to eat when I eat and he says no.  I keep trying to engage him to join us in whatever it is we are doing, but he always says no.

When he first arrived I noticed that he didn't eat anything for breakfast or lunch, but he would have dinner with us if I cooked something, and not only eat everything I put in front of him, but also rave about how great it tasted.  Then he stopped having dinner with us too - so I wondered, is he eating anything??  Then Tuesday afternoon I opened up the microwave to defrost some meat for dinner and, much to my surprise, there was a 12" meatball sub in there.  I have no idea where it came from, when Miami might have left the apartment to go out and get it, or how long it had been lurking in my microwave.  I defrosted the meat and put the sub back where I found it.

So... yeah... there's a tiny, furtive, half naked brown man who has taken over a section of our apartment like a little chainsmoking vole**.  He comes out of his room (Wait.  See what I did there?  I called it his room.  It's not his room.  It's my guest room... anyhoo) and goes immediately to the balcony to smoke, occasionally he'll mumble something that I don't understand, but then he's gone so quickly that I don't have time to ask him to repeat what he said and frankly I don't really give a shit.

*Now instead of washing the paper plates he's apparently just putting the ones he uses back on the stack of unused paper plates.  The other day I grabbed a paper plate off the top of the stack and it was dotted with olive oil and bread crumbs from what appeared to be yet another submarine sandwich.

**MDH apparently told Miami to "stay outta her way", referring to me, while he was here with me and MDH was at work all day.  Miami was apparently also told that he was not allowed to consume any alcoholic beverages while MDH is not at home.***

***Ugh.  It explains a lot and makes me feel queasy and all the more happy to be skee-daddling off to my folks house in Florida for a few days.

You Complete(ly Annoy) Me

I don't know why I insist on watching any romantic comedies made after whatever year When Harry Met Sally came out*.  Don't they all mostly suck?  They meet cute, one or both parties carry out some ridiculous lie  or humiliating bet and most of the story and supposed-to-be-hilarious stunts are all based on support and cover up of the ridiculous lie or humiliating bet.  There's usually some kind of lip synced into a hair brush dance number performed in pajamas or underpants and a convoluted "hey I was only lying to you all this time and making both of us look like idiots because I really, really love you and isn't that the most important message in this movie?" 

The pivotal moment of the modern American romantic comedy says, "Hey, I'm not a jackass, you're the jackass if you can't forgive me for loving you so much.  Aren't we both douchbags who deserve each other?" 

As often as not there's a separation period where they show the guy disheveled and living amongst pizza boxes and beer can pyramids, and the girl is doing her best to carry on with her life amongst vignettes of her in pajama pants (again with the pajama pant shame), shoveling ice cream into her sad mouth, or of her wistfully eyeing the PDA's of other couples while moping around Central Park.

I know the drill and yet whenever MDH is out of town damn if I'm not getting my fill of horrible romantic comedies on cable.  It's like a disease.  They always make me mad and yet here I am again bitching this time about the drivel I just watched called "Something Borrowed".  Maybe I should just avoid any movie with Kate Hudson in it (except she was so freaking awesome in Nine!).

I indulged in a desperately needed cleanse of my psyche afterwards by watching a fine documentary film called Bill Cunningham New York.  You should watch it if you get the chance.

In other news:

• Apartment life kind of rocks.  If something breaks I make a call and someone comes to fix it.  Like, that same day!  Not even that - if a light bulb goes out someone will come and change it.  To take it one step further I called maintenance to have them remove the dark freckly pool of dead bugs at the bottom of one our ceiling light fixtures - and they actually came and took care of it!!  Schweet.
• As cool as it is to have an entire fleet of maintenance workers and grounds keepers at my beck and call there is a downside to apartment living in the form of annoying neighbors.  In particular some douchbag with the noisiest truck I've ever heard that he seemingly rumbles around the apartment complex in wide circles (puffed with pride at the sound of his loud, loud big man machine, no doubt massaging his very tiny cock the whole while ) stopping periodically under our dining  room window (because it's near the security gate) and then revving the engine several times before peeling out to terrorize the larger world with his horrible tranportation choice.  We literally have to pause the TV and stop all conversation and then peel the cat off the ceiling after the inevitable engine rev.  We know his schedule as if we lived next to a train station.  I loathe this person.
• A week or so ago some of my family came to visit in form of my crazy aunt Libby, her daughter (who is my cousin, but I refer to her as "my sister" quite a bit on this blog) and her daughter (who is my second cousin but I refer to always as my niece and she has always called me Aunt Lady).  Aunt Libby is the one that came down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast in her housecoat (she called it a "dressing gown". I don't care what you call it, housecoat, dressing gown... inappropriate.) and no dentures in.  Anyhoo... we had a lovely visit.  We worked out when would be the best time for their visit and planned fun things to do while they were here.  It was glorious and I couldn't have asked for a better visit.
• In two days my brother in law Miami is coming to stay with us "for awhile".  I don't know much more than that.  It's all news to me because I just found out a few days ago that he's coming.  I don't know exactly when he will arrive and he has not been forthcoming with the exact date of his departure.  "For awhile" is all I've been told.  I'm frightened.  MDH is frightened.  Miami is a goodfella type who will ruin my life for the duration of his stay.  He got angry when MDH told him he had to smoke outside and I consider this a bad start.  Best case scenario - he'll dominate the TV and I'll miss the last few episodes of Project Runway.  Worst case scenario - he will be here for weeks and weeks and bring well dressed criminals and prostitutes into my home and they will smoke cigarettes together in my guest room and I will have to burn my 600 thread count Egyptian cotton bedsheets.  Worst-worst case scenario - someone will get stabbed and I will have to burn my fancy guest towels and somehow I will end up in prison because nothing, nothing is ever Miami's fault.

Please note that this post does not contain the word "fuck" or many other of my most favorite swear words and swear word combinations.  It was not intentional, which makes the absence of these words all the more intriguing, no?

*There are some that I really like, like for instance Fever Pitch with Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore.  I don't know that it's technically a good movie necessarily, but that doesn't stop me from watching it every time it's on.  I also loved 500 Days of Summer.