Quiet house

And you cannot believe how Good a Thing that can be, after two days of enduring my brother.  C has a number of conditions, but the one I find hardest to cope with is that he’s unmedicated (by his choice) ADHD, and that means if his eyes are open, he’s talking nineteen to the dozen.  He never shuts up.  He’s also so fidgety that peas on a hot shovel are nothing to it.  Being in the same house with him, never mind the same room, exhausts me.

He and Mother were here from Saturday evening until mid-morning today.  Fortunately, I had a reason to be Somewhere Else (the Land of Færie) all day Sunday, but L had to endure him without much rest.  I’m thankful he thought up a project to keep himself busy:  rewiring several of the wall outlets in the house to change them from two-prong to three-prong sockets, and arranging them to be properly grounded.  It was something he could do easily, we could use to have done, and didn’t have money to hire anyone to do.  Having that for a project kept him from being completely insufferable, but it was a near thing at times.

C insisted he had to drive back to the Metroplex Christmas morning so he could be ready to go back to work on Tuesday, and he simply could not rest with the idea that we’d open presents at eight (the soonest we were likely to get T awake and over here, given she had to close the store last night) and have breakfast afterward.  No, he was going to have to leave right away; otherwise he wouldn’t get home in time to do laundry and things.  I decided mostly to ignore this hoopdedo.  I picked up Terri, and we got to the house just as Mother and C pulled up.  A few minutes later T came in, and M started handing round the presents (in L’s family, by tradition the youngest member of the family able to read is the one who hands round presents).  That took about twenty minutes, then I had T start the pancakes, which she does better than I do, while I started the bacon and sausage and got the eggs ready.  T finished the pancakes and handed over the range to me, then made some toast while I scrambled the eggs and experimented with the microwave, which is capricious about bacon.  For a wonder, I found a combination that works (fresh pack of bacon—not an older one that’s begun to dry out—thirty seconds per rasher at 50% power, then turn the tray one-eighty and give it another thirty at 50%) and none of it scorched.  We all sat down to eat at nine; L had to insist that C, who has stomach problems and had had his morning yogurt earlier, come sit at table with the rest of us “to be sociable, if nothing else.” Ever since JP died C has had a bee in his bonnet about “continuing family traditions” and “getting to see one another,” but he won’t stay still long enough for it to happen.  This figures.

Breakfast was over before ten, and C got to leave when he’d intended to before he started creating such a commotion about not enough time.  Terri wasn’t feeling quite well left a short time later, and L and M lay down for late-morning naps.  The only noises in the house right now are the wind outside blowing the wind chimes around on the front porch—the rain we had for the last three days stopped this morning, the sky faired off, and a twenty-five-mile north wind is trying to blow away all the city’s hats, leaves, and chimneys.

Will the fnord be unbroken?