My MIL informed us that she is sending Mike's brother out to visit -- the week before finals! I like the guy, but can't say I'm thrilled he's coming out so close to finals. As usual, we weren't asked. He's just arriving. Top that off with that Russell comes home the next day to say that his field trip is during the middle of Uncle's stay, and it got more special. Then I did something remarkably stupid -- I communicated directly with Mike's mother about it. I don't know what possessed me to do something that patently stupid, but I did it. Then, Mike's brother apparently sent her all the emails I sent him privately, the fuckhead.

Unfortunately, then she sent this martyred saint email ,"I thought you'd enjoy visiting with him too but if it is a hassel we can forfeit the ticket. " It is a hassle, but that's not what I said to you. :) There's a reason you didn't get that email. There's a reason I didn't discuss it with you. I DIDN'T WANT YOU TO PULL THE MARTYR CARD. Yeesh. I need a shower.

So then I had to write an explanatory email because I'm so fucking done with this crap.

Mike and I discussed this email and why I should or should not send it to you. Mike said you did not need to know all this stuff. I said that not telling you what was going on has been a source of frustration and anger to me over the years and is exactly why you do not always understand where I am coming from and why you make erroneous assumptions about my intentions.

What I would enjoy or not enjoy the week before finals is not the issue. I have finals and I will be studying and writing papers for them because I will not let the time that my family has sacrificed away from me for the past semester be for a "B." I am simply trying to make sure that my children and my husband, who will have time to spend with Mark, are able to. Certainly, he's not here to visit his sister-in-law, but rather his brother. My presence or the lack thereof, should not be a make or break point to his visit, and my husband and children are looking forward to having him visit. I am a grad student, therefore, I have no social life. My friends all miss me and bitch at me for not calling. Mark can bitch if he wants, but he'll have to take a number behind my husband, my children, my mother, my grandmother, LaDawn, Mel, Dan, Donna, Pauline, and others. June 5, I will be booking all available time to friends and family who would like to attend a bitchfest, wherein they may complain incessantly for as long as there is alcohol, about what a rotten so and so I am while I'm in school.

Unfortunately, your original message lacked specificity, and in order to schedule everyone, so we can make it work, we needed to clarify things, so that our family could plan accordingly. When Russell came home with the date of his field trip, a field trip that he really needs a parent to go with him on, I felt it was appropriate to inform you and M. and to let you know the limits of what we are able to do and what our time constraints are. Russell has waited all year for this trip, and while he said he'd ditch it to see his uncle, I think that would be unfortunate for him and unnecessary, so I was trying to get information about M.'s plans, so I could figure out what I could do to make it work out for everyone. Because I did not know M.'s schedule, I let you know about my night classes, which as it turns out, will not be a problem at all. In fact, picking him up at the airport will be no problem. For taking him to the airport at the buttcrack of dawn with a three year old in tow, I expect him to send me a physically fit personal masseuse (a gay eunuch - according to Mike will be acceptable) wearing nothing but a thong, a smile, and a bottle of warmed massage oil to arrive one hour after my last final ends. Or he may buy me an enormous caffe latte at starbucks.

Additionally, I am personally sensitive to communications from you, and, if you notice, I did not send that email to you. Unfortunately, K. did email it to you. Mike says that I should learn to ignore any inferences because that's what he does. I'm not as adept at it as he is, clearly. Perhaps I saw inferences where there were none, but I am also under an enormous amount of stress between now and the end of the semester with a paper or two due each week until Mid-May, so my interpretive skills may not be at their best because I am exhausted and stressed out. Unfortunately, I am the one most skilled at juggling schedules and keeping track of that stuff in our household, so while I should have had Mike handle the email, I was trying to be helpful to him because he's slammed at work. He's been made big engineer hunkybutt on a new project, so he's busy, too. Because he's the big engineer hunkybutt, he has to let them know if he won't be there with enough notice that they don't freak. They don't refer to him as hunkybutt, but I do, and it's my email, so big engineer hunkybutt it is.

If M. chooses to ditch the trip, that's his choice. Yes, M. is showing up at a difficult time for me personally. However, as far as I am concerned, you suggested a plan that will work for everyone and will serve to impact me little. If I have to work, I can simply drive up to the university office to work. I have no class the week of Russell's spring break, so I am hoping to get ahead a little bit then, so that I have time to spend. I'm caught up on my reading and assignments, so that extra week should serve me well, but it will also depend on the workload from the professors I work for, which I have no way to plan for.

As a friend's band says, "Show up or throw up, we don't care. We're going to party all night long."

The party is on whether he shows or not.

So she writes back that

The fact is it deeply hurts me not to have a better relationship with you and I think I how it must make Mike feel, caught in the middle. All I can say is I'm sorry and I will try harder.

Well, could you try harder by being real and not sending me all the crap email? Yuck.

Could you have tried harder a few years ago before all the shit hit the fan and splattered wildly all over our lives? With two kids there's enough of that to clean up, trust me.

Could you have tried harder to make my son feel welcome? Things like remembering his birthday would help.

And Mike doesn't feel in the middle. He feels protective of me. He feels protective of his kids. He feels protective of himself.

I just feel sick.