Be Like Water...Be Like Water...

I love Bruce Lee movies! He was so graceful, so lean and fluid. Poetry in motion. I also admire his saying, "Be like the water," meaning (in part) that by being flexible, you will achieve your goals. Change to fit your environment. I also take this saying to mean a modified, "go with the flow".

My in-laws are visiting.
I am trying to BE LIKE THE WATER.
It's not working very well.

It started this morning when I returned from finishing up my Thanksgiving food shopping to find a message on my answering machine: "We decided that the weather was bad in Raleigh...we'll be coming right to your house instead of sightseeing." This was left on the machine at 8:45 a.m.. I listened to the machine at 10:45 a.m.. That meant that I had less than 1 hour to get the bathrooms cleaned, the spare bedroom made up and the kitchen cleaned up from the morning rush out the door. AAAUGH! NOTE: They had previously assured me that they wouldn't be arriving until 4:30 p.m. I had planned on having 6 hours of time to do these jobs. Now I had less than one PLUS I had to shower and get dressed.

Picture this: I'm racing through the house in my underwear/bra, scrubbing toilets and ripping sheets off the my son's bed to replace them with clean sheets for my mother-in-law. [For those of you who read my blog, you'll remember from past rants that my father-in-law refuses to SLEEP in the same room as my mother in law, he wants to sleep on the couch in the living room. This means that when he wants to go to bed, there are no more rooms to be awake in and EVERYONE goes to bed. (OLD BASTARD!)] I finally get done 40 minutes later and fling myself into the shower. Thank goodness for Teletubbies; my daughter was mesmerized by the inane babblings of Po and friends, so I was able to get my jobs done.

No sooner had I left the shower then 'DING DONG' and the doorbell is ringing. I am forced to admit them...wearing my bathrobe. It was not a glowingly warm welcome. I was a mite bit pissed. I kept thinking, BE LIKE THE WATER, BE LIKE THE WATER. It wasn't working.

The evening has been strained. My father-in-law keeps fucking up the remotes and messing up the cable/tv connections. He keeps saying, "It's cutting out on me!" Uh...maybe you shouldn't be pushing the CABLE OFF button? Of course, he's the kind of guy who knows everything about everything, so there's no telling him, "DUH, stop pushing the wrong buttons!" I am hoping that things will improve.

Wish me luck.