the burgh

wifely lesson learned @ in-laws' gathering in pittsburgh, memorial weekend: the 1 good thing about sorostitute pants (you know the tight black ones that every girl in a sorority owns and wears simultaneously) is they're not baby-pink denim shorts. thankfully, it wasn't the in-laws wearing said offensive almost-pants; the in-laws are considerably smarter.
so friday afternoon+night and saturday morning in the burgh were painless, except for my revulsion @ encountering a sleep-number bed (and as that fool brings up tempurpedic- how sweaty is a bed that dense?) so i was lulled into a false sense of security until discovering our hotel room had no water @ 1pm saturday with the family lunch @ 2pm. we called the front desk who said a water main busted and a water truck was on the way. after much more tension than is justifiable for such a short time, water was delivered and we were about 1hour late, with them having started food a half-hour into the shindig. but i should've known it was a sign.
my relief upon arrival without ruining anybody's big birthday/anniversary/reunion quickly dissipated as i was individually introduced to 20-odd-people who i mostly don't need to remember because they're old and live in america and when i go to trini i don't plan to come back much, who were already seated, each standing to hug/kiss me, who hates being touched by strangers so much that i won't get a massage or go chiropratic or even to a regular doctor and avoids her own family reunions @ all costs.
once i survived that, there was some amusement, like mary ann (crazy, but pleasantly so and occasionally sharp as nails) making bill (thinks he's funny) come all the way around 2tables to look @ the cake just so she could read him what the icing said, twice, but the meal and service were lame (tasteless white filth, anyone?) plus my glass of bad kir was never refilled. but i was just glad to see some alright people and avoid sharon. until momentarily feeling stranded...
trying to make a temporary escape to bathrooom, my reprieve was interrupted by sharon* cornering me outside the ladies' about a girls weekend in new york (she lives a half-hour away and we avoid her all year, every year). now, her teenage daughter katarina's fine, and the then-unknown cousin from p.a. she wanted to entertain would've been fine, but not on my life am i spending any time with sharon- grims hates her, his whole family hates her, she's not even their blood and they're not my blood, so that's a "no"- even if i have to tell her i hate her and hurt her feelings directly to make myslf clear, no weekend in n.y. but outside the ladies', flustered by being accosted, i pleaded no $ or time. "we fixing the house to sell, trying to lock one down in trini, have a wedding in barbados in october, moving to trini in december and have to go to vermont and arizona before we leave..."
i accidentally let arizona slip and she asked who was there and i couldn't come up with a functional lie fast enough and had to admit that conrad's there after nobody told her because she too damn nosy, then i had to warn ginni that sharon knows.
guilt had me thinking about how to fix the damage but when sharon suggested she, katarina and the cousin would all come to d.c. instead and kick grims out for this girls weekend, i ran. i was so distressed that after peeing i made 2 phone calls (in vain) to delay venturing back out. i left the bathroom begrudgingly and stepped out just in time to hear raised voices and glimpse what looked suspiciously like picture-take-outing, so i turned tail back to the bathroom and hid.
this is why i choose my family.
walk good.
*grims pointed out that sharon talks like the boss from office space ("...umm, yeah, i'm gonna need you to, umm, go on ahead and come on in this saturday, okay...") and this weekend validated my hatred of her- mary ann did seating cards to make sure she+hers didn't have to sit with sharon, at least 1person didn't show because he refuses to see her and every person i had a conversation with mentioned hatred and practised avoidance of her...sharon unites people the way the bush administration unites sunnis and shia.