Saturday sleepiness

I slept well last night, which is good, considering that the night before, my husband was fighting monsters or something in his dreams and kept me awake for a couple of hours. The older he gets, the more active and vocal he gets in his sleep. I thought we were supposed to have some kind of automatic shut-off valve that keeps us from acting out our dreams, but apparently not everyone has it, and it only works partially for others. At any rate, he was thrashing and moaning and jerking and twitching and making all sorts of horrid noises. Just about the time I'd get relaxed enough to doze off again, he'd jerk or yelp, and my eyes would be wide open again. I never mind losing sleep in the summer or when I'm not teaching since I know I can always nap and make up the sleep if I need to. It's only during the semester that problems can occur. Now that I don't stay home during part of the week, I guess that problem is solved.

Today my older son and his wife are going to her grandmother's funeral. She lost her maternal grandmother a year or so ago, and now she's lost her dad's mother. I'm so sorry that she's had so much to endure this year. Her stepdad has been put into a nursing home now that his Alzheimer's has gotten so bad, and now her mom seems to be leaning heavily upon her. That wouldn't be so bad, but her mother is a religious fanatic who keeps trying to convert Heather and my son to her particular brand of off-the-wall faith.

I got another "friend" request from my younger brother's wife. I cannot for the life of me imagine why she thinks I want to have a closer relationship with her since I have made it clear that the way she and one of my nieces treated me not so long ago was just simply unacceptable. DC is NOT a good person. She has eroded my brother's natural honesty and good nature. On the other hand, yesterday was the birthday of my other brother's wife, a woman I admire and love. TC has made my brother into a better person, it seems, and she has at least raised kids who are intelligent and compassionate. Sad to say, my younger brother and his wife have not done a very good job parenting. I may be wrong, but I don't think even one of their three kids finished high school. The oldest lives with (and is not married to) some guy in Texas who doesn't treat her especially well. They have three (more?) kids. The son (blessed with the Holy Penis, as far as my brother is concerned) actually moved out of the house and lived with another relative to get away from home. The youngest, a girl I used to think might accidentally make something of herself, has turned out to be shallow, silly, and deceitful, much like her mother.

The niece to which I refer is my sister's daughter. I have a great relationship with my sister's son and his wife. They are wonderful people. But MF is not worth snot. She is a user and a faker and a two-faced person, and I don't have any respect for her at all. She is one of these people who will never grow up--just grow old.

Okay, now that I have analyzed all my relatives (well, many of them), I guess I ought to be ashamed of myself since I'm gossiping about family business. The problem is that I am so conflicted about going back to Louisiana in a couple of weeks. I just don't want to see or deal with some of my relatives, and it's like cancer. I can't cut some of them out without killing my relationship with the others. That's one of the problems with most of them living in a little cluster together in one small area. The ones I'd like to see more often and get closer to--they don't live there. They're in another state, and I hardly ever see them. We don't get to choose our relatives, unfortunately, but surely we should get to choose whether we have to endure spending time with them. Sigh.