Up, Down - All Around

That's been me today -and over the past few days too. I've been busy, running around, cooking a bit, more embroidery work on the current project and running around some more. And my emotions too have been running the gamut in the process as well.

Two weeks ago, I was so angry, frustrated, if I'd had the chance, maybe I would have jumped at it and strangled a certain male member of the household. SIL -thy name is moron! And boy, for almost that entire week, that's really the exact word I felt described him best!

I do lean very strongly on the sarcastic side -just saying in case you are misreading some of my posts so that is clarified now, ya know. Because a little over a year ago when the SIL (aka moron) decided he wanted to go into business for himself and operate his own auto repair business, he referred to himself then as being a "Self-employed, professional business man."

Okay, you want the name, then play the game, son!

It's pretty much a given that starting out in a business of your own, it's probably going to be some tough economic sledding for a good while until you get your footing, get a bit of a clientele established, etc. Right?

Well -in my opinion -one of the first things you do is establish a set routine -at least, of sorts. SIL apparently doesn't believe in that. Even though the sign on the door to the office at his garage says his hours there are from 8:30 a.m until 5 p.m., it is a rare day that he arrives there even close to 8:30 a.m. Even if he does manage to get up when his alarm clock goes off shortly before 7 a.m., and even if he doesn't park his scrawny butt IN MY RECLINER for only an hour, holding that one cup of coffee, taking maybe a sip of it every ten minutes (if that) and then gets dressed to leave, 8:45-9 a.m. is probably the earliest he's ever arrived at said garage. Usually it is more likely to be 10 a.m. or 11 a.m. before he is at the shop and ready to begin thinking about work.

The hours he sets up but doesn't keep, is but one of many irritants I have with this whole situation these days.

He has a friend who apparently started to hang out at the garage with him and apparently is capable of doing or helping with some easy mechanical-type tasks involved in automotitve work. And two weeks ago, SIL announced to Mandy and me that he thinks he has figured out a way to resolve this issue of opening the garage for business at 8:30 a.m.

Simple. He will have this friend come in at 8:30 and he can then work till oh, maybe as late as 4 p.m. and then, SIL will continue his timetable of arriving anywhere between 10 a.. and noonish -if he's lucky.

However, Mandy asked him well how are you going to reimburse this friend-guy anyway. To which is answer was "Well, he won't want much." Hmmm. Unless I were independently very wealthy and really, really, really absolutely LOVED doing a particular job, be damned if I would be willing to do anything for 30 hours or so every week for "not much money," would you? I didn't thnk so!

But what really sucks about this notion is the fact that SIL -aka the moron -hasn't had enough income after paying his rent and operating expenses at said garage for the past 2-3 months to bring home any "profit" to turn over to Mandy for household operating expenses.

And yet, here he is figuring he can operate this business by paying this guy "something" (but not much, of course) but he can't afford to pay himself and thus support his own upkeep much less also his family's! Incredible but true that he is, yes, this insane!

Frustrated, angry -FURIOUS -yeah, to name a few things that I am, have been, over this situation.

Last night, a little after 9 p.m. -kids were both in bed and asleep and SIL was here when Mandy asked if I'd like to go out for a bit, down to the establishment where she works two days a week for a cold beer. Sounded like a bit of a respite to me and quite a change of scenery, for sure, so away we went. SIL had to call to check on her, of course, at least twice while we were there. The last call she said he was ticked off. Oh well, too bad, so sad! We weren't doing anything out of line, just enjoying a brew, talking with her boss -the lady who owns the place -and my son's girlfriend was there with us too. And, after the boss closed the place, cleaned up, mopped the floors and such, we decided to stop at the local truckstop then for "breakfast" before coming home. Nothing bad in that -just more opportunity to talk, to joke, to laugh -to get away from the home frustrations at times is a good thing, isn't it?

We were home by a little after 1 a.m. so that wasn't all that late either and by then, the SIL was in bed, fast asleep too.

Mandy was up by 7:15 to get Maya ready for school and I was up then too. SIL -still sound asleep with that freaking alarm clock still blasting out every 10 minutes or sn with the stupid snooze alarm. Finally, about 9:30, the friend who is the garage opener, ya know, called to talk to SIL and Mandy took the phone up to him and woke him up. It was after that call that he finally meandered downstairs, got his cup of coffee and began the two-hour (at least) perching on the sofa, coffee in hand, sipping a teensy drop or two every 10 minutes uor so for at least the next two hours!

Mandy had to leave around 10:30 -taking Kurtis with her -as she had an appointment with his behavior specialist to do an eval for him and then, she had a doctor's appointment at 2 p.m. in State College, so was taking Kurtis (and his TSS) with her to that as I had to be out at church by 11 a.m. this morning to meet up with a lady from church (and very good friend too) so we could load her big old SUV up with frozen turkeys and bags and bags of groceries we had set up yesterday to deliver to folks in the area who were in need -for whatever reason -of a little hand-up for Thanksgiving.

Before Mandy left though, she gave SIL some last instructions and the very last thing she told hm was that he would have to put Sammy, the dog, in his crate while we were all going to be out of the house. Generally, Sammy is pretty well behaved -while we are all here -but this home is still fairly new to him and he still has the inclination of a puppy now and again to try to chew so to be on the safe side, when Mandy and I are both going to be out of the house for more than 15-20 minutes, we put him in the crate for safekeeping.

I left about 10:40 to meet the lady at church along with Pastor Carrie and a young man who was going to help with the delivery of these Thanksgiving care packages. We delivered 15 packages-my lady friend and I and Pastor Carrie and her driver delivered 7 or 8 packages. I got back home around 3 p.m. -so I could be here to get Maya off her bus -and when I pulled up in front of the house, the sight that awaited me really got my dander up even more, with respect to the MORON SIL!

There, sitting in front of the house, was the crate - out in the open with little Sammy penned up in it. No room to turn around, to get really comfortable, no snuggly little towell or blanket for him -no food, no water. No. NOTHING!

I was really infuriated then! Not that it was that cold-cold today that the dog would have frozen or anything but geez Louise, he is so cramped in that crate that he couldn't really curl up nicely to keep warm at all. As I said it wasn't freezing cold or anything but it was a bit on the nippy side and kind of dampish too. And the poor dog was shaking in the crate!

I got Sammy out of the crate and into the house and you have to know he was one very happy camper to see me, to have me rescue him from that little torture chamber there. I hate to put him in the crate and leave him in that inside the house when we have to go out and he crys and crys when we do that too cause he's a very social little fellow. But he's never been shaking like a leaf when we return home and let him loose like he was today!

Then, after talking to Mandy to figure out when -approximately -she'd be home and telling her about this, she called her stepson, who had spent the weekend here and who had to go to the garage with his dad today too so his grandmother could pick him up there and they were then heading down to Tennessee for the Holiday break. The stepson informed her that they had arrived at the garage at almost 1 p.m. -over two hours after I had left the house and over 3 hours after the "Self-employed, professional businessman" had managed to get his behind out of bed to park on the couch and sip his half-a-cup of coffee!

My dilemma in this is that if something doesn't happen soon to change all this stuff, for openers, I am afraid I will have a gaping hole in my tongue from biting clean through it to prevent my saying something totally, totally out of line to hime!

By change, I will concede that his living here and having to put up with me, my moods, my quirkiness too is no picnio for him either. But.... well, for his own well-being, for the hoped for success of having his own garage/business -as well as for his family -his wife, children and their well-being now and in the future, methinks it should be his move to do the bulk of the changing of the mode of operation here!

I don't want my daughter to have to deal with the pain and all the other junk that would come along if she were to totally put him out and go so far as to file for divorce. Really, I don't want to see things come to that. But again, if he's going to continue in such a lackadasical manner with the operation of his "busines" then for the sanity of all concerned, perhaps a separation/divorce even is a necessity.

Gee, I feel immeasurably better now -a lot calmer, quieter inside my being ya know, since I put these words out here, expressed my anger, vented. Whatever you care to call it.

I really would like to see him succeed as he is a very capable mechanic and his idea with his garage too was that he was going to work at "reasonable" rates, not try to charge the high fees most all other garages charge. A nice idea but to make it work, he has to be there to do the job first!

He isn't lazy -not really. But he is very, very disorganized. Doesn't grasp the concepts of many things -prioritizing things being just one. He has no comprehension of how to keep a set of books -a much needed commodity im a business, ya know. Mandy and I are both convinced that along with his being more than a bit of a hypochondriac, he is also ADD, so has difficulty concentrating on more than one thing at a time in most respects. And, if someone calls, or stops by, he is then easily distracted. He has no qualms about putting in later that the norm hours to get jobs done, but see -if he would get himself on a regular schedule, get to work at 8:30 a.m -as the sign on the door says -then he wouldn't need to be staying way, way late at work either, would he?

But the day, as a whole, although this stuff with the SIL was/is still a very upsetting factor here, all was not a total loss because of the people I met delivering these Thanksgiving dinner care packages, seeing the surprise on their faces as they saw how much we had packed into these packages and knowing at least these 20 some families would be having a darned good meal come Thursday to share with their family too then!

And for my friend and delivery companion, we had a great time -four hours spent together talking about everything and many things and reconnecting a bit there too!

And now -I'm relaxed, ready to go to bed, have (hopefully) pleasant dreams and to quote part of how my blogger buddy, Suldog, always signs off -"More later" but I'll add to that, "Hopefully with better stuff" to be considered.