One bad apple can spoil the bunch

I know I blogged earlier about how I was going to let it all go at the lake -- that I wasn't going to let the people or circumstances get to me -- that I was just going to enjoy myself.

But unfortunately, I am only human.  And I am also finding that this whole raw thing has made me highly intolerant of a lot of things.   I have meditated over this, I have tried to understand why I am not feeling serene and floating about on a cloud of raw energy ... but instead my entire body is just boiling with incomprehension of why things are so ridiculous.

Let me explain.

Peter's sister's husband is one of those know-it-all types who has an anecdote, explanation or personal experience that keeps him as the center of conversation in ANY setting.  Hell, if you say that your tampon is giving you trouble, never fear, he will have a good ten stories that are tampon-related.  My point being is that there is no subject that he isn't an expert on.  Even when others try to talk over him (and believe me, they try) he will just keep going, the little engine that could, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.  I refer to it as verbal diarrhea-- and it's pretty nasty.

Peter just says he ignores him, and can sit there for hours without it bothering him.  And for the past 20-plus years, that is pretty much what I have done.  But when you feel good and you fill yourself up with vibrational food that makes you feel alive, every fiber of your being screams EMERGENCY EMERGENCY EMERGENCY when this toothless, lumbering, cigarette-hauling, droning fricking know-it-all is in your presence.  I can't stuff it down.  I can't eat it.  I had to keep myself away or I was going to let it all go.  It was coming out of me, and no part of me wanted anything to do with ignoring the big, fat elephant on the dock.  And while others simmered within and took it out on others (that's a whole 'nother story), I couldn't do it.  I couldn't look at him, listen to him, or even be around him.  It made my whole body feel as though nasties were crawling all over me.  I could feel my body rejecting the negative aura.

Peter then said he could use our boat.  He smashed it into the engine of another boat while trying to dock it.  Did he mention it to Peter?  No.  No big deal.  He broke one of the chairs we provided on the dock.  Did he mention it?  No, he just sat in another chair.  He drinks everyone's beer, he eats everyone's food, his negative energy permeates every fiber of his surroundings -- he is toxicity on wheels.  He is a living example of what taking drugs and smoking and drinking and wallowing in his own sad circumstances is like.  Intolerable to be around if you are someone who doesn't even like to take an aspirin in order to avoid toxicity issues.

So while he sits on the dock, his wife is at home working.  You see, she supports the family and has a big job that needs to get done.  I am sure that it is a vacation for her -- to not have him around.  So the way it is is that Peter's parents welcome him with open arms for HER!  But isn't this co-dependence, or enabling?  Just because she has a miserable life, does it mean that it has to trickle down?  Because she has chosen this as her lifestyle, do I truly need to be a part of it?  Well, then don't go, you are saying.  Hey, I am with you there.  But then Peter won't go.   So I guess I support his two-year-old behavior by going!  Oh, it's all so ridiculous.

I spent maybe less than an hour all together over the course of three days in his presence.  Believe me, I am good at avoiding him -- but it's not relaxing, and then Grampa starts yelling at Charlie because he's taking it all in, he's sucking it up, he's eating it until he can't anymore and takes it out on my son because why not?   We're tough.  You don't have to protect anyone in my family -- we live a good life.

How torqued is that?

So anyway, I'm down on the dock and I am trying to sort through all these feelings, and noting that my skin truly feels as though something is poring out of it -- intolerance as a skin condition -- and over on the public dock this older man starts yelling at this little boy.  I can hear the tone in the boy's voice that I've heard many a time before ... the kid is sorry, the kid is scared because this adult is going off on him.  I listen closer, and the older man is getting warmed up now.  He is leaning over on the dock, the child is in the water, and he is yelling at him, asking the kid if it makes him feel good, does it make him feel good to push someone smaller than him, does that make him feel good?  Does that make him feel like a big strong boy, because that's not what he is, the man starts yelling now, YOU ARE A SISSY, he screams at him, YOU HEAR ME, YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A SISSY BOY, ONLY SISSY BOYS PICK ON KIDS SMALLER THAN THEM,

And without any thought or contemplation I screamed over OKAY, ENOUGH, I THINK HE GETS IT,

And then Peter says, Lisa, stay out of it, it's none of your business,

And I say, I don't care!  I am not going to let some old man yell at some kid that he is a sissy and not do anything about it.  It's inappropriate, the kid is scared and obviously has no parents around to watch out for him.   The man stopped, as he should, because even if he was a relation to the kid, it was inappropriate (he wasn't, he was yelling at the kid because he pushed one of his grandkids), but I realized then and there I wasn't going to stand for stupid crap anymore!  Not in my own life and not in others either!  I looked at my husband and father-in-law, who sit there day after day and listen to the droning of someone they can't stand, but they do it because they are "good people," and I no longer had a question about Nazi Germany anymore.  It just all made sense.

You don't say anything because it's none of your business.  And you don't say anything because it's the right thing to do -- for your daughter or sister of whomever -- you just take it, and take it, and even though you know it is wrong, you keep taking it because that is what you do.

I know it seems insane to flash to such an extreme, but I have always wondered HOW it happened.  The holocaust, as I have mentioned in other blogs, is something that I just don't get. And now I know.  Because it is easier to say nothing.  It is easier to avoid confrontation, easier to just sit still and shut up and not get involved.  You can't help your daughter or sister because she has dug her own hole, so you just suck it all in and take some of her misery for a bit.  Maybe hide a few Jews in your attic -- but don't get too involved.

And that's not me.  There were others like me back then ... what happened to them?  Did they get shot?  Were there so few of us?  Maybe in a past life that is where I was ... and it was THAT coming out of my pores yesterday.  I don't know.  All I know is that it was real, the way I felt, and I realized that this place, this small lakeside community is just alive in negativity.  And I feel it when all the negative souls are convened.  

During the week it is fine ... enjoyable, serene.  A haven.  But it started last Saturday night when we went over for flare night, and Peter lit off a firecracker.  And within moments two people from a party on the street above were there asking who shot it off.  Peter said he did, and the one guy (negative Ned we'll call him) was a little shocked that he admitted it.  The other guy told Peter just to tell the police that he didn't know who did it.

And sure enough, a policeman showed up (obviously he was called, as Negative Ned ran to his window),  and when the cop, who had obviously been told by Neddy boy that Peter had done it, asked Peter if he had, he said nope.  Well, what was the cop to do?  He didn't catch anyone in the act, there was no evidence, and Neddy hadn't actually seen Peter do it either.  So the cop took on an attitude and started yelling, and telling Peter you needed a permit to light off fireworks and that it was a $100 fine for every one that went up.  Peter said he'd tell the guy if he saw him.  Then when he picked up a flare, the cop started yelling, "I SAID NO FIREWORKS," Peter pointed out it was a flare and that it was flare night.  And the cop was such an idiot, so I asked him if he had any idea what flare night was, which seemed odd if he was a Newbury cop, as lighting flares on the lake on the first Saturday of July had been going on for over 50 years.

Anyway, that was the start of the summer.  Then we had Uncle Blabbermouth and THEN ... the place where we keep our boat (and pay for it) had their association meeting on Saturday and came up with a whole new slew of new rules.  Like kids can't fish off the dock because once a dead fish was found on the beach and so therefore all fun was to be banned, and that if you lived on the Landing you couldn't use their parking area, and so the guy who owns our slip came up to tell us that we couldn't park there all day.  And here we thought we were the perfect renters!  We didn't use their facilities other than to walk over the dock to get to our boat.  We didn't set up camp there all day with chairs and coolers ... instead we used our own dock.  But now we were being told that since we lived on the Landing, we couldn't park there.  But you see, we DO NOT live on the Landing.

This just goes back to two women who have nothing better to do than to make up rules and somehow get the others to go along with them!   I mean, WHY DO PEOPLE FOLLOW THESE RULES?  They own their boat slips, they pay, just because there are more fogies than fun people doesn't mean they have to do it.   Take a stand.  Does NO ONE IN THIS WORLD TAKE A STAND ON ANYTHING?

In a bit of a twist on logic I have decided that the universe is providing me with a shelter from blabbermouth, and so I am going to go hang out on the dock with the bitchy women and become him and ruin their lives.  And explain to them that the only way we can park there is to use the dock.  HA.

No, no, I don't think I was Hitler.

Well ....