9/16: What I Accomplished Today

1. Won Puzzle Day. 'Bout friggin' time.

2. Level 33 Night Elf Priest. (I don't remember where I left off yesterday.) Racetrack. Dinged 34. Stranglethorn. Was hoping to ding 35, but didn't quite.

3. Television and Pogo badges.

4. Now here's the drama that was underlying the day: As I mentioned before, Co-Vivant's birthday is coming up in a few weeks. When I let her sister & brother know what her plan was, they basically said, "No, let's do this instead." And I thought about it and sort of acquiesced, but when I got home and suggested that maybe she wouldn't have a birthday dinner, or one with so many people, she was disappointed. At that point, I knew a) she's only going to have one 50th birthday, and if she's disappointed with it, I did a piss-poor job. That will not be happening if I can help it; b) I was played. This is humiliating and embarrassing; I know her siblings' tendency to do this, and I still let it happen. Stupid, stupid, stupid. (They also said some rather offensive things about not wanting to buy food for some of Co-Vivant's friends. I thought that was right up there on the List of Rude, Jerky Things I Have Heard People Say.)

Since they didn't want to participate in the birthday dinner she wishes to have, I just sort of mentally wrote them out of the planning picture. The party they wanted to have would have been very nice, I'm sure, but it contained Surprise Party elements. Surprise. Party. Two of her least favorite things. In this Surprise Party scenario, while we're eating her birthday dinner, she's either thinking that we're cheap-ass or that nobody cared about her and wanted to come; either way, her dinner is spoiled. That doesn't strike me as a fun birthday dinner.

So as I announced this morning, as breezily and non-judgmentally as I could, that we're back to the original plan, but they won't have to buy anyone food but themselves, Co-Vivant's mother said, "But parties are usually planned by the family."

I didn't really let this register because I was focusing on trying to keep the conversation light at the time, but as I thought about it over the course of the day, this made me...well, furious. Humiliated. Frustrated. Co-Vivant and I have been together for ten years. I've been to all major and nearly all minor family events in those ten years. What am I, chopped liver? Things I wanted to ask: So while your husband was alive, if he had a birthday party, did you plan it, or did his mother?

Further resistance was coming from Co-Vivant's sister, who seemed stunned that a) I might have relevant input to this party and b) I wasn't just going to quietly accept what she came up with, whether or not it's what Co-Vivant would enjoy. What I wanted to ask: her husband is within a few years of his 60th birthday. Should we be checking with his brothers to see what they plan?

She also mentioned that she and her mother had been batting this about for months. How very nice. So have Co-Vivant and I. The way I look at it, half of those conversations are irrelevant if the other people aren't informed of the conclusions.

I'm left with two choices: a) It didn't occur to them I might plan her party because we are a lesbian couple. b) It didn't occur to them I might plan her party because of some personality trait of mine. I have news for them: I am a highly trained, highly educated professional, and I have planned bigger, harder events than this. I am very good logistically. I am more than capable of planning a birthday dinner party, thank you very much.

Co-Vivant had been out of the room when her mother made the comment about plans usually being made by the family. The implications of that comment really didn't hit me for about four or five hours. Then I was really upset and told her what had happened. She was just furious. I think she's been sort of taking this whole ridiculous, stupid drama in stride, hoping it would all blow over as most ridiculous, stupid dramas do, but she's just realized that this situation isn't okay.

Blech.