Easter Dinner

We thought that we had a free pass for Easter dinner because Peter's mother said that she wasn't inviting anyone over this year. At the age of 83, she has decided to stop inviting people to Easter because of the annoying fact that for the two or three weeks leading up to it, the telephone conversations she has with her son and daughter detail every single niggly complaint they have about making that long journey from Albany and Long Island. And now she's tired of it.

So of course, we were all, "Good for you!"

Peter suggested that we spend Easter over at our place, because we're free! And we'll hang out!

And THEN Peter's sister Tina called her mother and told her that they, in fact, will be going over for Easter Sunday.

Now we're stuck. How bad will it look to make an excuse now?

It's kind of a bad situation since it's difficult to deal with a complete sociopath/narcissist woman who can't understand why I may be dealing with feelings of anger and resentment from the terrible way she has treated me in the past, which range from actually telling me that I am not part of the family and screaming at me at several family events (and not coming to my bridal shower and refusing to bring Peter's parents to our wedding one hour early)

Side note: At our wedding, after Peter introduced Tina to the twenty or so people who flew in from Taiwan and Japan to attend the wedding, she said to him, "Wow. They came all that way to be here? Her family must think we're all complete assholes." Her family? Try HER!! HER thinks you are an ASSHOLE! At least she is slightly slightly aware of her assholiness.

Sooooo. Regardless, I've been trying to come to terms with the fact that I should try to have a better outlook and be a nicer person. So I had this very long conversation with Peter about how we should be the better people and go to Easter Sunday. We should go and be civil -- that doesn't mean that we need to extend ourselves or be completely phony-nice, which is just as bad. But we can go to dinner because it would make Peter's mom happy. And I'll try to stay as far away from Tina. And if she tries to kiss me hello, I should just let her instead of shirking away like I did last time, as if her lips were the poisoned lips of Satan...Even though they are.

So we agreed that we're going to try to act like better people and not bitch and complain about things all the time. Because other people are not going to change, we can only change the way we behave. And then Peter asked:

"But what about Westchester? Does this mean that we can't complain about Westchester?"

I thought about it for a minute and said, "Well, as long as Westchester is rife with things to complain about...it's fair game."

So the verdict is: Don't complain about people. Complain about Westchester. This will make us happier people.