Still surviving

The fever breaks…after a couple of days getting more and more riled up and fed up with Grandma’s glares and grumps (I even gave her a couple nasty looks), I think I have once again risen out of the ashes and hardened up again. Oh how healthy this must be for my emotional welfare, Heehee. Monday and Tuesday were more of the usual comments… “if we’d known you would be home early, we could have waited to eat.” (I know, actually, that is why I deliberately delayed…not that I get any peace- “what are you eating???”) And then for about the one hundred and seventy-seventh time “it’s too bad you couldn’t live at the school. They really ought to let you stay there.” I told her that I know it’s a shame, I wish it were different too, I do feel kicked out, but that’s just the way it is because of the number of students they have. And then of course she assures me that they’re happy to have me around, glad they could come in. Oh, and what am I doing right now? Why? Not that she’s being nosy…but she does an awfully tremendous job of being nosy when she’s trying not to. Oh brother. And then she keeps picking on Grandpa, how whatever he does just isn’t good enough. I was getting increasingly angry, and was more than happy to hide away at school Wednesday. I came home and to my delight she was off to another church meeting, which is quite a rich blessing from above and a time to sneak in some laundry and baking. But all too soon she was back again, sniffing the granola and apple crisp that I had been working on. “smells like cookies…did one of them get cooked too long? Oh, a glass pan, that needs less cooking time you know. You don’t cook it as long.” And that is when I gave her quite a glower. And I can certainly glower when I’ve got a mind to. It was to prevent me from screaming and whacking her. I told her I know a thing or two about baking, but I don’t think she believes it. Then I had my reward and revenge when I scuttled up to my lair to work and heard her down below sampling the dessert with a grunt of “good.” Hahaha…then she just couldn’t stop saying how angry she was that the debate eclipsed Jeopardy and it didn’t come on later. “I’m mad at them.” And then she had to once again lament that if they’d known I’d be living here, I could have picked the color of the room. I assured her (for the two hundred eighty-eighth time) that I like white quite nicely, and I have adorned things with posters. I also let her know that I was quite set on blankets and things, which is always a terrible concern. And I once again breathed deeply to keep from explosion.
Then today I once more let it go a bit more. It helps that she’s practically falling asleep from their doctors’ visit, but at least she isn’t quite as interrogating and staring. She did question my dinner again, naturally. I asked where they had gone with Keith and Caroline. “Polly’s. But mine wasn’t any good. It was late for me to eat.” So that reminded me that she’s just good old grumbling curmudgeon of a relative, and I can just escape as often as possible and laugh when that is not an option.
The trouble came today when I got an email asking me where I’ll be living next semester for my student teaching placement. Oh dear. I don’t know where I am going to live. I have been surviving this one day at a time but trying to comfort myself with the notion that it won’t last forever…but I can’t avoid figuring it out too long. Where will I be? What will I do? Alas and alack, I suppose eventually I must face it…
And then in the midst of it all comes Grandpa..."what would I do without you?" he asked after I took out the trash barrels at her grumbling urges. And my heart just warms :)