every other year

bullshit

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So my family has this thing, where every other year we get together for Christmas, and the off years are for those of us with in-laws to go see them.

Odd years are my with-family years, even are with Dude’s family.

And then we do Thanksgiving the opposite. So this is an odd year, so Thanksgiving is here in Buffalo, and Christmas is with my family.

And somehow this never fucking works.

So the year Dad died was an even year. I was to be here for Christmas. Dad died very suddenly on Dec 21st of 2020. Mom wouldn’t let me come home. I spent Christmas silent in a corner at Dude’s mom’s, because I was grief-stricken and in shock. I was not allowed to view his body, he was cremated before I could come home.

The next year was to be our first Christmas together without him. Last-minute, older sister called us all up– second week of November– and said “ah can we do Thanksgiving together instead? My in-laws are demanding we do Christmas with them!”

No, I said, because I can’t change my plans so suddenly. Everyone else could, so they did, and I got in my car and left the farm just after they all arrived, because I had already made promises and it was too late to cancel them. I drove home crying, cold and alone, and had a very quiet thanksgiving with dude’s mom and aunt. Because I had promised to. I spent Christmas with some friends in Rochester, because they had room for me.

Last year was a Christmas-here year. We had Thanksgiving at the farm, and we had a wonderful time, and then I came home and it snowed five feet and I spent Christmas shoveling snow to rescue Dude’s mom. We couldn’t get his aunt out but fortunately she had enough provisions to get through it.

This year in like October my older sister called me and asked to clarify what the plans were, and I told her, it’s an odd year, so it’s a Thanksgiving apart, Christmas together year. She said great, that’s fine, we’re on, let’s do it. So I made my plans.

November eighth her husband invited his mother to come up for Christmas, neatly locking them out of coming up here. So she called us all again and said “ah! switcheroonie! Thanksgiving together instead?”

And again I said, “I cannot change my plans so suddenly,” because Dude’s mom had already reviewed the menu with us, had already bought the ham she was going to make, had already begun her preparations, because that is the kind of person she is.

“Maybe we’ll come up right after Christmas,” older sister said, and I said “I can make arrangements to accommodate that, let me know as soon as you can”.

No, the answer was no, she couldn’t make that happen. She couldn’t drive up twice in two months. “Why don’t you guys come down here instead,” she asked, which is what we did in 2017, the last time we were all together, but that had been the plan from the beginning that year, we did Christmas together and it worked out. Another time we did New Year’s together as a make-up for Christmas but I can’t figure out which year that was. I did confirm just now looking back at my photos that they missed christmas 2019 and we did a make-up New Year’s event at the farm that year.

No, I said reluctantly, I can’t do that, because among other things I can’t leave my cat at the boarding kennel long enough to go to Baltimore after having spent the holiday near Troy NY. And like, it is a brutal drive back from Maryland to Buffalo and there is always snow somewhere along that route, we’ve had a miserable time of it both years we’ve gone down there.

Anyway. So now they’re coordinating Thanksgiving plans, and someone asked a question and I answered, and then said, “I will, as I said, not be able to attend”, and Farmsister wrote back with the most condescending bullshit I have ever encountered, saying that since she spends every Thanksgiving right there, and anyone is always free to join in, I’m not being excluded just because I choose to be somewhere else.

Did she think I felt like I hadn’t been invited??? Does she think I’m somehow letting the family down by honoring promises I had already made???? I promised to be somewhere else, that is not the same thing as declining to attend!

So that set me off and I’ve sent a bunch of unhinged shit to the family groupchat, but. Like. i’m not crazy. Am I????????

Older sister was like “well we can make plans for next year” and I said straight out to her, okay, so I go to my in-laws this year on Thanksgiving, and I say I want to reverse things, and do Christmas with my family next year, and this is enough notice so they’ll surely go along with it, and so mother-in-law buys her tickets for California and is confirmed and is going out there next Christmas, no problem. And then next November 1st or 8th or 16th my brother-in-law pitches another tantrum, and again plans are reversed, and I’m left out of Christmas, having already excluded myself from these other plans. What do I do then?

Maybe I’ll tell my dude to plan to go with his mother to California, I said, and the two of them can go and be out of the way, and then I can sit by the phone and be available, and if you have space to squeeze me in I can show up, and if not I can make last-minute plans with the friends I go to when this happens (every time) and I need last-minute plans, they’re always welcoming. I can’t do this to Dude, he needs things to be set, but I can scramble last-minute. So is that what I should do? Just leave myself open, so I can come if you have room for me, but I won’t know until the last minute.

I understand that this is my horrible brother-in-law’s fault (NOT farm-BIL, who is not involved in this; he also has a horrible dramatic family but unlike some he has put in a lot of work and tries to keep that from spilling over to affect other people too much) and my sister is in a stressful position trying to keep everything together. I get that. But it is literally always my problem that I cannot drop everything and scramble. And I’m blamed for it, that I’m inflexible and can’t just make the best of it. Everyone else is mad that I can’t just pretend this is okay. And, obviously, blames me. And I’m sort of over it.

So anyway I’m writing this down because I’m fucking terrible at planning and at remembering things, but my blog entries are a big part of how I have been able to piece together the truth in the face of literally the entire rest of my family claiming that it’s never been a problem before.

No, it’s been a problem every time, it’s just that it’s only my problem, so nobody else remembers or cares. But it has, in fact, been a problem. Every time. Just, only for me. (Your picture was not posted)

I was talking to a Virginia politician who thinks that Richmond should have a dc-style metro and/or

state, what the automobile monopoly has taken from us

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I think every city should have a DC style Metro

amtrak-official https://www.tumblr.com/amtrak-official/733214760092499968/i-was-talking-to-a-virginia-politician-who-thinks :

rhapsodybenny https://rhapsodybenny.tumblr.com/post/733214556037447680/i-was-talking-to-a-virginia-politician-who-thinks :

Okay, speaking as a DC local who hasn't lived in any other city, a question: How good do I have it? Have I been taking things for granted?

You have probably one of the top 5 best transit systems in the US. Some systems don't even have 5 minute frequency and only have 2 or 3 lines

This is the city of Buffalo's metro rail system. Yes. That's one track. It's just a line. It goes around a corner. This doesn't convey the scale: it goes from downtown to slightly less downtown. It does connect to Amtrak (the gray line in the graphic) but not all trains come through that station (the line that goes to Chicago from New York City bypasses this station). There are some buses. That's it.

It does not connect the two campuses of UB. It would make sense if it did. It does not. It starts at UB South and then goes south from there. UB North is ten miles off the map to the north, with only shuttle buses to connect.

Buffalo's metro rail system, by the sheer virtue of existing at all, is vastly superior to any other city in New York State except for the city of New York. That's how far down the step is from the first rung to the second. This is what we've got, and the rest of NYS has jack fucking shit. There are some buses. That's it. Some of the buses are usable! That's it.

There's a hare-brained scheme currently afoot where some madmen want to expand the rail to go to UB North, a truly wild notion. The first I heard of it was all these dipshits putting NO METRO signs on their lawns. HORRORS, a functional public transit system? We cannot have that!

For the record, before the advent of the automobile, Buffalo had a comprehensive street car system https://href.li/?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_routes_of_City_of_Buffalo_streetcars, which was electrified as soon as that was possible (Buffalo's proximity to Niagara Falls meant it was a very early adopter of electric power). But somehow the people who rant about tradition and heritage never want to bring back public transportation.

(I was born and raised in a very small town ten miles outside of the nearest city, a hundred miles north of New York City, and the idea seems insane now but in 1840 there were ten trains a day from Schaghticoke to Troy and you could get there in fifteen minutes. It takes half an hour to drive, now.) (Your picture was not posted)