Sucking It Up

There are very few people that I actually hate in this world. To whom I cautiously but truthfully apply that word. In fact, now that I'm wracking my brain, I can only think of one. Today, merry merry, I will be spending the afternoon with her.

She feels the same way about me, so far as I can tell. So at least we're even.

Someone gave me the advice to "just ignore her." Impossible. I think she and I tried to have a couple of conversations in the early days of her being part of my extended family, but quickly settled into mutual dislike and avoidance. On a micro level, we're already very good at ignorning each other.

Part of the reason I hate her is that I've never been at a function where she hasn't had a tantrum of some sort. She seems incapable of getting through an event without picking some invisible nit and getting on her high horse, all injured and hard done by, focussing all the energy in the room on her, where, of course, she feels it belongs. Why she started the scene in the first place.

Normally I grumble a lot beforehand and suck it up while she's around. This year, I'm already feeling fractious and upset, and my reserve of patience for self-aggrandizing bullshit is pretty damn low.

And so, I am taking my knitting and I will hope the yarn wicks my under-breath curses into silence. Otherwise I might end up being the one who causes the scene.