so glad to be home

We went to NY yesterday and returned today. The memorial dinner was a huge success. My great uncle's neighbor, Jenny, held court, telling jokes, showing off how she navigates the curbs when she goes out, reassuring us that her new neighbors are kind and attentive, telling us that her nephews constantly fret about her and threaten to put her in an assisted living center, but she's not going (she's only 94), and doling out hot stock tips. We had some good memories about my great uncle and heard great stories.

But my family. My god. It's best not to look for validation from my mother, cause it just ain't coming. Last time I talked to her on the phone, well, that's not really what happened. She talked to me, I said uh-huh uh-huh, and when she ran out of things to say, she needed to go. Didn't even get to cut me off after asking how I was because she never asked. Last night, she made weird little unfunny and irrelevant interjections into conversations, cornered Robert and me after he returned to the apartment and talked to us, then finally, at 11:30, asked if we wanted to see the layout of her new place. I declined out of exhaustion, and we made our way to bed.

And this morning, my uncle snapped at me. He usually does when we come to visit, but today was over something particularly weird. My aunt had asked me to pour water into glasses for breakfast and said we didn't need a pitcher on the table. Just as I was about to fill the glasses, my uncle came into the kitchen and laid me out in lavender for not using a pitcher. When I repeated what my aunt had said, he yelled at me for not considering the man of the house and what *he* wanted. I apologized profusely, but felt intensely resentful over it all. I'm not making this up even though it sounds fairly incredible. I think my uncle likes the *idea* of having guests and being surrounded by family, but he's terribly resentful and unpleasant when we're there.

Oh, and this was an unusually low-stress (low snappage) visit, too.

If I was wavering in the least about going to NY for Thanksgiving, I've stopped. Good; that's settled.