Ma Famille Est Folle
2003-09-08, 9:24 a.m.

A man walked through our house on Friday.

This man was sent by 'the lawyer' to work up an appraisal of the house in which we live, my grandmother's house (we've been renting with the option to buy for 3 years).

Please take note that the aforementioned 'lawyer' also happens to be my uncle. That's right. Part of my family now considers me The Party of the Second Part rather than a nephew.

This all revolves, of course, around the house and its representative value in cash money dollars, the level of which The Lawyer and his wife (who is co-trustee of her mother's - my grandmother's - finances) are attempting to maximize in lieu of family cooperation and loving support. Oh, how it warms the heart, no? I vacillate between blind fury and pity that they feel a need to be so petty about money with family, especially since they are so well off and we continue to struggle like others of us who have chosen not to sell our souls to The System for cash.

During the appraisal, the man made some interesting comments, like, "alot of this house seems to be... original [read: old and needs work]," and "looks like there's alot of work to be done in the front yard," and "you should probably get some estimates for the work that needs to be done in the house," giving me some faint hope that this might all work out after all and might even work to our advantage. I fully expect The Lawyer, should he be presented with a figure lower than even we and my grandmother came up with pre-meddling, will try and play some kind of numbers shell game with us, which is his job as The Lawyer of course, and making his existence all the more pathetic. Let us hope that this will not be the case, however, and might even concede to playing 'family' and working things out amicably. Of course that will make irrevocably disowning them all the harder.

So B-day #33 is coming up on Tuesday for yours truly, and the weekend held some festivities in that vein. Saturday brought me a couple of gifts from the wife and kids: A) a copy of Time Bandits on DVD; and B) a lovingly hand-painted teapot. Yes, a teapot. Should I be concerned that I like to play Scrabble and get happy over teapots? Am I one step away from 'having a little Chamomile before bed'? I think not. I choose to be not old yet like these things. I will blaze a new trail for casual existence. After all, it's only in America (that I know of) where tea has a stigma. In pretty much every other country, tea's the shit.

I think I'll go do a crossword puzzle now.

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