How Dirty The House Was: Warning: Gross

It was beyond cluttered. yes, very cluttered. A dirty place is generally cluttered, isn't it. The room that you walked into was the one she used for the dining room. She had to scrape the piles of whatever off of the table to use it.

The whatever included papers, dirty dishes from the previous meal, dirty and/or clean laundry and whatever else happened to need to be dropped on the table.

Most meals were eaten off of this table. It had a ceiling fan over it. The fan and lights looked like they had never been cleaned. A thick layer of dust on the blades and she would run the fan while eating at the table. Of course, dust and cobwebs on the light fixture part of it as well.

In the kitchen, it was gross. There was so much stuff in there that I never saw the kitchen counter while she was alive. Stuff was stacked all the way from the counter to the bottom of the cabinet.

Like in many dirty places, everything had a yellow film of grease over it. Her garbage "can" was actually an open bag hanging on a metal frame (like you sometimes see used for leaf bags). It was not taken outside until full -- and it was a large bag. There were tiny little bugs flying all around it -- like maggots. And of course it smelled bad.

I will probably do a separate post later about food safety. But for now I'll say there was none. She would leave food out an uncovered for hours (recall she has bugst.). People would go by and pick pieces of the food with their hands.

There were roaches all over the house. You would expect that with all the open food and garbage container, wouldn't you? She actually had a fly swatter on her coffee table in the living room. She used that to swat the roaches that walked across the coffee table.

Dishes were only washed occasionally. She would not use the dishwasher that hubbie bought and installed for her because she did not want to hear the noise (after guilting him into getting and installing it). When she did wash dishes, she used cold water because hot water hurt her hands.

She had a chair where she perched herself. It was surrounded by stacks of magazines, containers of snack food, the remote control, etc. (It was a lift type chair. Heaven forbid she exert energy getting her fat a$$ up herself.)

There was something growing in the shower the last time I was there and was brave enough to look in. First time I was there too. That mold was probably the base for the later mold!

The place had its own unique smell.

Somehow reading this, my words do not sound as gross as the house really was.

One of my birthdays

I posted this on the MIL board. I said it was my 30^th birthday, but actually, I think it was my 35^th.

My hubbie did invite everyone he knew over to our house for my 30th birthday. As I am pushing 50 in a couple years, that's a long time ago.

Guess who was first to show up and last to leave?

JB brought with her: 8 yo niece, an Aunt and a friend who I never met. When hubbie got the cake out, the friend said "I didn't know it was FIL-less's birthday, I just thought we were coming to see JB's SON's House."

JB seated herself at the head of the dining room table and took over the dining room as her personal party place all day. She got the phone at the table and started making phone calls and inviting all of her friends and relatives in the area over to our house to see her. Then offering them food and cake when they came over.

Oh, and she was on a diet, so she could not eat the food that hubbie had gotten. He had to go back out to Wendy's and get the particular type of Wendy's salad she wanted. Didn't keep her from pigging out on cake!

My family came as well. It was my birthday, but I was huddled in a corner of the kitchen with my family, eating standing up, while JB was having her own impromptu craptacular in honor of herself in the dining room/party room.

And my Mother is all about appearances. She in her usual fashion kept telling me to be nice, to be a good hostess, etc. But none of the people at the "other party", JB's personal party even knew me or cared that I was there. JB had the place, her son provided the food and phone and she was having fun.

I don't remember her bringing me a gift. That's ok. She always brought cr@p anyway, so it would have been something that I had to get rid of! I got rid of everything she ever gave me, because I did not want her energy or the reminders.

Stories of Various ones of Hubbie's Birthdays

She used his birthday as an excuse to get his attention and get things from him.

This is a post that I made on the support board about some of his birthdays:

She was in the hospital once on his birthday. Do we think it's a coincidence?

One year, I invited SIL for a visit so that DH and SIL could have some brother-sister bonding time. It turned in to a visit from the whole clan -- MIL, FIL, SIL, SIL's DH, SIL's three kids. I silently figured out where I would sleep everyone and bought food for eight people. Then MIL and two nieces showed -- I had cooked a dinner for ten and only had three of the expected six guests show up -- the ones missing were the ADULTS and an almost grown boy. I was so furious that I fed them leftovers the rest of the weekend and froze the rest of the food that I had bought. They stayed several days.

A few years later, I had made the mistake of inviting MIL and FIL over for lunch when DH's birthday happened to fall on a Saturday. I was very specific it was lunch and not a weekend. They complied with that part. She tried to trump me by bringing "the cake." I had already told her when I invited her that I had special ordered a theme cake that DH would like. DH called her that morning that she was coming. When he got off the phone, he said "you don't need to get a cake when you go to the store, M is bringing the cake." The cake was a surprise ordered from a friend who had a business making cakes. She dropped in and delivered the day before and it was well-hidden. I did not tell DH that MIL knew about the other cake. At the party, DH, trying to keep me from looking bad to mommy said "friend made me a cake too....", no mention of me. MIL's cake was a Bundt cake mix cooked in the microwave. Then she had the nerve to bring leftover of the friend's cake home and left the nasty one at our house!

After that year, the ILs started inviting themselves over for lunch the closest Saturday to DH's birthday every year. One year, they had SIL with them. MIL and SIL walked around the house looking at every knick-knack and everything picking it up examining it like they were on a shopping spree. I felt violated that time.

After that, I felt like I had to essentially "child-proof" when they were coming to visit. The next birthday, I put a lot of stuff on the bed in the spare room and locked the door. MIL opened the door with her fingernail I guess. I tried to laugh it off, saying "you're not supposed to be in here, this room hasn't been cleaned." She replied "That's OK, I just wanted to see what you have."

The following birthday, I put everything on the bed again, put a blanket over it and put a box in the room that was in the way of entering the room more than a couple feet -- (because there is a closet next to the door, it's almost like that room has a door-length, closet depth entry way into it. The box was just beyond that. That finally kept her out.

Two years after I cut MIL out of my life, and a year after FIL died, DH said that MIL and SIL wanted to come up on the weekend closest birthday. I told him that it was his birthday, his choice, but I wasn't going to be there. He frowned and said "Why can't they come visit?" I said "They can come visit. I won't be here." I did make plans for a place to be and places to hide the breakables and valuables -- this time under lock and key -- if they came over. But they did not. A visit from them was never mentioned again.

Best I can remember, there were no gifts brought to DH at any of those visits, other than the dry microwaved bundt cake. Oh, we were told we could keep the cake plate. I donated it to some group that was having a yard sale.

The Beginning

Most of the posts here will not be chronological. Many will be of the topics listed in the ideas section. Others will be stuff that I have shared over and over with the MIL support group I was involved in for the last ten or so years.

Hubbie's parents were both high school dropouts. FIL worked doing deliveries until he decided that he wanted to "own" his own store, so he ran a little store for a while.

Hubbie said that they didn't even have indoor plumbing for most of his childhood.

A person who knew Hubbie's family when Hubbie was young said that hubbie was there running the store on his own since he was "just a little thing."

When hubbie was finishing high school, he got recruited into the Air Force to learn Avionics. His parents did not like that. His father even said to him "Why do you want to do that when you can stay here and work at the store.

He went on to the Air Force. But he didn't get to stay long. Before his first term was up, the store was close to "going under". His Dad "wrote" a hardship letter to Hubbie's CO to get him an early release. (The letter was in a woman's handwriting, I have seen it.)

So hubbie left the Air Force and returned "home" to help with the store. He completed his obligation with some reserve duty. After his enlistment was over, he used his GI bill funds to get a technical school degree. (What's now community college). He was not able to find a good job in his home town so he once again moved away. To the city where we both now live which is about three hours away.

Less than six months later, the business went under again.

This time, hubbie went back and took out a consumer loan (high interest, Carter/Reagan error) to pay their way out of debt. As collateral for the loan, his father "sold" him the piece of property he had bought to put a second store on.

At this point, we are up to almost where I came into the picture.

His parents never worked after selling off the store and getting money from hubbie to pay the rest of their debts. His father actually said "I don't see why I should have to work if I can't work for myself as long as I have a rich son."

His son may have been rich by FIL's standards. He was a high school dropout in a family of high school dropouts living in a poor part of the state. But hubbie had a two year degree and moved to one of the areas where there are more PhD's per capita than most of the rest of the country. So he was pretty much average, or maybe a little below here.

Hubbie bought a mobile home to live in. Not a nice one, either. The smallest single wide they make. Cheapest appliances --fridge didn't even have a freezer, just a little ice compartment. Tub but no shower. No AC, no place for washer/dryer. 1 tiny bathroom and 2 tiny bedrooms. He had his clothes on metal shelves. He didn't have a car that would run, either. He got transferred to a job doing service work so he had a company vehicle and he used that for personal travel, too. He did not even have a TV in his trailer (not that it matters about the TV, but the car, AC, washer/dryer are a big deal.) No, he was not rich, but he was making enough money to be living better than that.

He gave his Mom signing privileges on his checkbook. He was paying a lot of their monthly bills. His Mom regularly called with needs and he would say "OK, two hundred dollars", which he meant for her to transfer to her part of the balance in his checking account. We are talking 1986 here, so that would be a lot more money in today's economy!

These demands continued the first five years of our marriage, and were pretty much the only point of contention (other than some housekeeping stuff) between us.

When we got engaged, FIL did tell hubbie "I am going to get a job so that you can have babies." He died 19 years later and that job never came about.

Things That I will Post here

This post is copied from my other blog, freeofJB.blogspot.com.

I wanted to leave that one to have stuff on it about how I am dealing with the death and loss of JB. I created this one so I can talk about the past instead of the present and issues related to JB's moving on to (yet) another dimension
I started this because I wanted to get all out. The following are some subjects that I will touch on.

• Going out to eat (in public - gasp!)
  
• Them visiting my home
• Disrespect of plans that we already had
  
• Condition of their kitchen
• Setups
• Medical Crying Wolf
• Her total envy of me
  
• Seven deadly sins
• Mis-Treatment of niece-in-law (she obviously hates both women who married into the family)
  
• Their blatant and unashamed racism - they are proud to be racist
  
• Them attending a KKK meeting
• Using racial slurs against their own biracial great grandchildren (and they got the race wrong on top of it)
  
• "Robbing" my Hubbie to pay my SIL
• Lifestyles after I lost my job in the 1990s - theirs and ours
  
• A couple positives
• Family reunions
• Late night phone calls
• What it was like attending the funeral
• What it was like when she was sick
• JB flipping me the bird
• JB making sideways comments about other people which were really comments about me.