Family Time. Yay.

So yesterday was Sunday. A day when I go to church and have lunch with my parents and my grandmother. Sounds normal and happy and wonderful and stuff, yes?

No.

My grandmother drives me crazy. She's the most manipulative person I've ever met. If you've ever seen Everybody Loves Raymond, she's Marie, my dad is Ray, and my poor mom is Debra. That show is my life. Or at least my mother's life. Grandmother always finds a way to keep my dad not at home. She always has something for him to do, and guilt-trips him into doing it. And he's totally oblivious.

For example:

A few Christmases ago, the first Christmas after she moved from south Texas to Waco after my grandfather died in 2007, my dad bought Grandmother a birdhouse to hang on her back porch. And, like the good son he is, he hung it up for her. He hung it low enough to where she could reach it to fill it up with birdseed. She said it was too low and that no birds would come eat. So she had him hang it just high enough to where she couldn't reach it. When my mom pointed this out, Grandmother actually said that my dad would just come over every day to fill it for her.

So he did. He goes to see her ALL THE TIME. I mean, sometimes twice a day. Did I mention that she has another son that lives just as close as we do? And that he visits her all the time, too? It's just bizarre. And she calls him on the phone all the time. I mean, in the normal world, the adult child calls the parent, right? Well not in Grandmother's world.

Oh! And she hates my mom's cooking. One day, my mom had worked in the kitchen ALL DAY making dinner for that night. Grandmother said she wasn't hungry and asked my mom to make her a sandwich.

I'm not even kidding. She drives me nuts. And my poor mom has to deal with her criticisms and my dad's absence day in and day out. I can't even imagine how lonely she is...I'm out of the house, her parents just died, and my dad is always over at his mother's house.

Maybe I should call her.