family drama.

Well, I had another busy weekend. We had fun, but the fun was mixed with a bit of drama and sadness.

We took a trip to Houston with some good friends. We all got rooms at the Holiday Inn Express and attended a huge food show Sunday at the convention center there. Denise and I hooked up last year when we both went to a similar food show in Dallas with these same friends of ours, so it was a special trip this time. An anniversary of sorts.

These friends are the same pool playin', chili cook-off folks you've seen in the pictures from Terlingua and Seguin. They teach cooking and restaurant management here on base, so for them the show was a professional gig. We were just taggin' along for the fun, and there was much fun to be had. Before all that though, I've got to do some venting. You'll forgive me if I rant a bit.

Mom dropped a bomb of sorts last week. Ever since dad died I've been standing by watching my family fall apart. My mother, whose income has been cut in half, is at odds with my jobless, deadbeat, useless, hippy princess of a sister. Up until dad died they were givin' her about $3500 a month to live on. Now mom has been tellin' sis that she's got to get a job and sis has been in a panic. They both use me as a sounding board, telling me the latest crap that's gone down. My sympathies lay with mom, but I also know that mom is mostly reaping the crop she's sown. It's just the sort of drama that makes me want to spend every weekend I can out of town.

I called mom about mid week to see how she was feelin' and found out that she'd decided after yet another $500 repair bill on the jeep to go ahead and buy sis a new car. After all the screamin' fights, after all the tough talk since dad died, sayin' she was done bailin' sis out, that sis would have to go out and get a job, she turns around and decides to do this. I couldn't fuckin' believe it!

Dad gave sis a nice, used red 4-door Jeep Cherokee back about ten years ago. He'd gone out and gotten it for himself after I got my own black 2-door Cherokee. He didn't want me to get it, but when I did and he saw what a great car it was he went out and got himself one. A few years later, when the car she was drivin' started to have trouble (from neglected repairs and oil changes and the like), he just signed his car over to her. He'd given her his mid-80s Cougar to drive years before, and I think he just wanted it back. He was always a Cougar guy. Owned several in his life.

She's been drivin' that jeep into the ground ever since. Burned out one engine just a few years after he gave it to her. Turned out she'd never changed the oil. Dad just paid to have a new engine put into it and bitched about it whenever she wasn't around to hear it.

That's the sort of thing dad always did. He was the man with the big pockets. He derived a HUGE amount of pride at being Mr.moneybags, and felt like he could always show us how much he loved us by makin' sure we all had nice cars to drive. The other side of that was that we grew up havin' things given to us, spoiled as hell, unable to do for ourselves when the time came to be on our own because we didn't ever get the chance to learn that we could do for ourselves.

Mom was the same way. Everything was always done for her. She never talked to a car dealer in her life until last year when she went out to get her new Buick. I was so proud of her. I can't tell you how scared I was the first time I went out to buy my own car! I was ignorant as hell and wishin' dad was there to bail me out, but he couldn't be. he wasn't really "dad" any more. So I did it myself and did a damned good job, deriving a HUGE amount of confidence and wisdom from the experience.

So mom decided that the three of us would meet at the car dealership there in Temple and see what we could do. Mom had seen the ads for the Volkswagen Jetta, offering payments like $198 a month for a new '08 model. She was thinkin' she wouldn't be able to afford anything more. The deal was called off though when mom got up Friday feelin' puny. I was thinkin' maybe it was stress, but she said not.

Anyway, the appointment was moved to this morning. I got up and drove over there to be the big guy behind the little women, only to find my sister really running things, the way she always does. She just keeps talking, chattering away about stupid shit, eventually driving everyone around her to distraction and embarrassment. I glared at her a few times and told her to shut up, but that never works. Just sets her off even more.

I leaned over to her once when the salesman was out of the room and told her that this guys JOB is to fuck us out of as much money as he can, and that she should shut the hell up and let mom do that talking. She just glared at me and said something about how I was just jealous that she was getting a new car.

After about an hour of sitting around while the salesperson fidgeted and shuffled papers I told them I had to go. I had to get to work by 11:30. So I left the two of them there in the office, praying that mom would be strong. I wanted her to get up and walk out of there and let me take the time to look around for a good deal. I told sis that if it was up to me she'd be gettin' a friggin' used Hyundai. In the end I just drove off, turnin' the music up LOUD and lit a cigar.

After my lunch time classes were over I called mom to see what had finally gone down and found out that she'd eventually given in to my sisters squealing and bought her a brand new Pontiac. Red two door Vibe with a sun roof and automatic everything. Turns out in the end mom's gonna have to pay $270 a month. She said something about docking sis the money from what she gives her for rent a kibbles each month, but I don't believe it. One good thing... Mom talked the dude into giving her $2000 for trading in that old Jeep. Nice work there.

It's all a mess, but there's nothin' I can do about it now. I'm just ashamed of my deadbeat sister, and I wish my dad had done a better job preparing her, and me, for the real world. I wish we'd been poor. Poor folks have no choice but to learn about the way the world works. Hell, that's how dad learned about things. I guess he wanted us to have a better, easier life than he'd had. I guess that's backfired a bit.

Anyway, I'll tell ya about the booze up/Food Show later. it was fun. Take care. Cheers.