irritated

So I am updating this thing from work, which may or may not be a big deal. But I don't care cause I need a break for a little bit. I just feel guilty because we work on projects by billing them and currently I am billing the federal government for my blogging, if that makes any sense. The weekend home was an absolute nightmare. My mom is so fucking nuts I can't even take it. I seriously, after last weekend, may never talk to her again. I find it horribly ironic that going to the funeral of someone's father would make you not appreciate your own parents, but somehow my grandfather's funeral brought out the worst in her and I've had it. I was able to get both my brother and sister home using frequent flier miles for around $80 each. My mom argued with me for an hour on the phone telling me I hadn't booked my sister's ticket when I had, in fact, already done so. My brother's ticket was tricky because it required more miles (37,500 to be exact) and we only had 19,700. I called my mom and asked her if she still used a corporate Am Ex for business travel. She says yes. And I tell her to call AmEx and convert her points to One Pass miles to make up for the difference between the 19,700 and the 37,500. She starts asking all sorts of questions like, well what if we fly him into a different airport and pick him up; or what if we call Continental and see if they'll let us merge miles from different One Pass accounts; or (and this one was my favorite) why don't we call Continental because Grandpa was supposed to fly to Florida yesterday but since he died he didn't get on the plane, so maybe they'll credit us with his flight and we can use that to get Bobby home. At this point I kind of lost it. I was like Mom, are you trying to protect your AmEx points? And she had the balls to say YES! I almost shit my pants. Seriously?! I just got the Red Cross to relieve my brother from active duty in the military. I got him into a US Port. I got him a ticket cross country for $82, and you are splitting hairs over less than 20,000 American Express Rewards Points?! She was like well I could use them for a vacation or something fun. What could possibly be more important than getting your son home for your father's funeral! That was day one. Day two starts off with me getting into an explosive fight with my husband who asks me if it is okay to go on to a business meeting that morning even though it is the day that we are supposed to pick up my sister from the airport and drive to NJ for my grandfather's wake. I lost my shit completely. Why, on Earth, would work be more important than my family that you would even THINK to ask me that? So, he cancels the meeting and we pick up Vicki (my sister) from the airport. We immediately get on the road to get to my mother’s house worried that she’s been all alone for two days while dealing with her father’s death. We planned on driving in to my mom’s and resting there for a few hours before the wake. When we are 45 minutes into the ride I call my mom to tell her that we’d be there by 3:30 at the latest. I tell her this only to find out that she’s volunteered to host my 2nd cousin Lois for the weekend, which now means that there will be 6 people sleeping in my mom’s house which only has two bedrooms and 2 beds. I also find out that we are driving to my mom’s house only to apparently pick her up and drive 1 ½ hours to Newark Airport to pick up Lois and then to drive to the wake and then to drive the hour back to my mom’s house from the wake. So basically my mom volunteered us to drive all goddamned day without ever even mentioning it to us, and to boot we now have no place to even sleep. I suggest to my mom that with all of the luggage from my sister, joe and myself that we would not have enough room to fit 5 people in the car and Lois’ luggage as well. I suggest that we just meet her at the wake. I also suggest that Joe and I and my sister just get a hotel so that everyone can be comfortable. She proceeds to yell at me that she told me that Lois was coming and staying with us. She tells me that I am the only one that has a problem with this arrangement, to which I reply that she is wrong because she is the only one that doesn’t have a problem with this arrangement. And she tells me to go fuck myself and hangs up on me. We drive straight to NJ and get there with 4 hours to spare before the wake. We spend 3 sitting in a chain restaurant to kill time. Then the last hour we drive to my aunt’s house and stay there. My aunt and uncle suggest we stay with them. My mom throws a shit fit at the wake and we leave and go back to her house to sleep. Day three. My mom volunteers Joe and I to drive all 6 of us all around NJ. We tell her that we can’t because we have to pick my brother up at the airport. My inconsiderate cousin draws herself a bath and sits in the only bathroom in the house for over an hour. My brother’s flight gets cancelled because of the weather and I spend 2 hours on hold with Continental trying to get him into NJ in time for the funeral which was to take place the next day. My mother gets a ride to the wake with my aunt and uncle, taking Lois with her. I go to take a shower only to be greeted by ice cold water. We get to the 2nd wake and convince my mom to get a hotel for the night. We pick up my brother from the airport stay at the hotel and go to bed early. For some reason my mom is pissed off when we get to the hotel and isn’t talking to anyone. No one knows why. But she starts smoking again. Which is her way of saying she’s pissed off. Nobody cares. Day four. We wake up meet in the lobby for “breakfast” and go to the funeral parlor. The car is packed between 6 people and their respective luggage. The funeral ends and we go to a family lunch. Then we agree to go back to my mom ‘s house to spend time as a family before Vicki, Joe and I leave that night. My mom instead volunteers Joe and I to drive my sister to my grandpa’s to see if she wants his car. We take my brother with us. Now it is important to say that the airport is 20 minutes from where the funeral was held and the restaurant we went to lunch. However, my cousin Lois decides on the ride back to my mom’s house (over an hour away) that she’d like to go home that day. She changes her flight arrangements and gets to my mom’s house only to have her turn around and drive her BACK to where they just were. My mom sees no issue with this. Although I think it’s incredibly rude. You didn’t pay for a thing all weekend, and you were chauffeured around as well. This woman just buried her father and you are going to make her drive an extra 2 hours to further convenience you? My mom calls and tells me to stay at my aunt’s and she’d come pick up my brother so we didn’t have to drive back to her house before getting on the road. We stay at my aunt’s house for 2 hours. It is now 6:30 p.m. My sister’s flight leaves Albany at 6 a.m. the next day and it’s a 4 hour drive home. My aunt volunteers to drive Lois to the airport so my mom can rest. My mom asks if we all want to go out to dinner but none of us do because we just ate a 4 course lunch 2 hours before (my mom is fat and eats all the time and is pissed that we don’t want to go out to eat). We decide we should get on the road because it is getting late. We all get up and leave my aunt’s house and my mom won’t say goodbye to any of us. She got in the car with my brother and apparently bitched at how we all exclude her (um, when ? We drove to see you, we offered to come back to your house, you changed plans on us, it got late and we drove home? How is that being exclusive?!) She said we are the most ungrateful, miserable children ever. She says this all the time. And she wonders why we never want to go see her. Day five. I woke up at 4:30 a.m. to take my sister to the airport. Came home and slept all day. It’s Tuesday and I feel like my body still hasn’t recovered. Joe ended up having to go to work in Atlanta Sunday night. He literally came home and unpacked and repacked the suitcase. He got to Atlanta, went to his meeting and was supposed to come home tonight. Ends up they had a bunch of surgeries scheduled for today and Joe had to fly from Atlanta back home. The best they could do was get him to Boston (at midnight) and he drove to Albany getting home at 4 a.m. He slept four hours before going to work today. Because I am so new at my job, I have no vacation time so I have to work 47 hours this week to make my 130 for the month or I lose part of my first paycheck which I’ll have waited 6 weeks for. Oh and we got 6 inches of snow so far today, so now I have to leave work and go home and shovel. I hate this week. I hate my mom. I hate winter. And now I have to go back to work.