I can't stand her

It's been a year since I sat in the same room with her for more than 10 minutes and that was on Thanksgiving. Today was my FIL's 70th birthday but let me go back a little. Last January I had asked FIL a favor for the health and safety of our family and he outright disrespected me. So I stopped talking to them. Ignoring MIL was just the icing on the cake because I never liked her but FIL was tolerable and since I was raised to be a good, polite, person, I was never rude to them until this happened.

Ok, so I successfully avoided them for a year, well I guess the last time we were all in the same room was for Elle's birthday but since there were 80 other people, it wasn't hard to ignore them. A-man has always asked me to be nice to them and I tried, I really did but I just couldn't. But he really went out of his way to accommodate my parents needs last couple of months so I told him that I would TRY to be nicer to his parents and just try to forget what happened.

So back to today, it's FIL's 70th birthday. In Korea, 70th birthdays are celebrated as big as the first birthday which is as big as some weddings in the states. But FIL didn't want a party, he just wanted to go out to dinner. Ok, no problem. In my first attempt to be nice to the in laws, I cleaned out our house, bought fruits, ordered cake, and bought presents. We met them at the restaurant first and that's where it all went wrong.

We got there first. We were just waiting in the waiting area when I saw MIL pretty much stumble her way into the restaurant screaming out her son's name. We were less than 5 feet away, there was no need to scream. Although A-man has already checked us in (we had reservations), she told FIL to "Re-check us in!". We waited together in a very small space, it was uncomfortable. After about 15 minutes we still weren't seated so she told FIL to go talk to them again because "It's your birthday!" MIL has a way of projecting her voice and she shrieks when she laughs which sounds like a laugh and a scream at the same time. At one point, Elle did something cute and MIL was just close enough to me to literally take my hearing out for a few minutes.

I won't go into details of the absolutely embarrassing and annoying hour of my life but let me just go through the highlights.
Besides the shrieks and fondling of every one's dinner except for mine (Thank God because I was sitting across from her) she kept offering Elle ice water which I insisted that she stop offering because Elle already had a glass of water which she spilled most on her shirt and pour some down her pants and then drank a ton of through a straw and chomped on the ice. She didn't need more water. But MIL didn't think so even after telling her not to give her water 3 times!

When the waiter came to tell us our food was coming soon, she shrieked "Good, We want our dinner!!" You had to be there to understand just how embarrassing that was. Not only did we thoroughly hear that, I'm pretty sure half of the restaurant did also.
I also noticed that her words were a little slurred during dinner so to her CREDIT, I'm going to assume that she was completely wasted. But it wouldn't surprise me if she was totally sober.

When we were all done with dinner, she handed A-man a $100 bill and kept repeating, "Is that enough!" "Here's a hundred, is that enough?" "Is that enough?" Then when we all stood up, she came next to me and said, "I just gave A-man $100, is that enough?"

Lady, I fucking heard you tell your son, why do you need to tell me?

As if that wasn't enough, they were coming over to our house afterwards for cake and presents. What the fuck was I thinking???

As soon as we got to our car, A-man and I made a game plan to get the job done and send them off as soon as possible.

They got to our house just before we did, even though MIL insisted that they follow us home which like everything else, she repeated several times to both me and A-man.
Our house, my Korean house, my house with a baby, is a NO SHOE HOUSE! It has always been and it will always be. They know this, I always tell them.
MIL and FIL walks in and MIL continues to keep walking in and I ask her to talk off her shoes. "Please take your shoes off." This is a no shoes house.
A-man repeated my plea, 3 more times. And as I was helping Elle take off her jacket and shoes, MIL goes through Elle's room (there's 2 doors to each bedroom) and into the bathroom. We came in from the kitchen, the distance to the bathroom is the same because Elle's room is parallel to the kitchen but when I saw MIL come out of the bathroom WITH SHOES ON, I almost lost it. Not only did she cross half way into my house with her boots on in the middle of winter in CHICAGO, she went through Elle's room, straight on through. For those of you that have been following Elle's sleep issue, well, we've been sleeping with her on her floor because she falls out of her crib, which means that there are blankets covering 90% of her tiny little room. And she fucking walked through that room with boots on. God only knows where she stepped on and we all know she's not the type to watch where she's going.

Then after she's done, she starts looking for her cup of tea that A-man had made for her in the kitchen. She gets up and makes a bee line into my back room, my craft room, MY ROOM to look for her cup of tea. Why the fuck would your tea be in my craft room that is closed off to everyone, in fact all the rooms are closed off, why are you looking in any of the rooms if you've only been in the kitchen and dining room in the last 5 minutes since A-man made you that tea?

(deep, deep, breathe)

This is surprisingly therapeutic for me believe it or not.

During the eating of the cake, she asks me if she could give my daughter her tea. You want to give my 17 month old baby your HOT tea? Are you fucking kidding me?

Thank God Elle wanted to nurse at this point because I just whisked her into room and nursed her but not long enough and we came back out and A-man left to take FIL to the garage to show him his tools and left MIL alone with me for a few minutes which seemed like an eternity. Of course she already put her shoes on and walked back and forth in my kitchen looking at my calendar with Elle, telling her that "oh, you'll be coming to my house on this day and that day,etc" I don't think so lady!!

I just don't get it, I've ignored them for almost a year now and when the see me, it's like nothing happened. If I didn't love A-man so much, I would have told them off a long time ago. I don't hold back, I even asked her once if she was senile because she kept repeating everything. You see, she needs to keep talking so she'll talk in a loop and when she's done saying everything she possibly has to say, she'll repeat it all, word for fucking word!!

Ok, I'm calming down.

FIL had a great time, he's totally immune to her. He loved his gifts, a jacket and an ipod touch (which I soooo want for myself). and before we got together I really wanted to make an effort to be apart of his family again but I'm not sure I can after tonight. You're probably reading it thinking it's not bad, maybe a little annoying, but not too bad. But you're dead wrong, everything I went through times the fact that the woman's voice is a cross from a hyena and a dentist's drill makes it THAT much more worse because it just lingers and rings in your ear. and I'm going to have to go to bed soon with that in my head.

this is going to be a looooong holiday season..