Domestic Antics, part 1

I name this part one because it seems that the following days must, inevitably, bring a part two. This because I'm spending part of this week visiting my sister and her family in VA. Things have always been a bit nuts here, particularly since their once smallish family has swelled to six (four kids, two parents--though the non-involvement of the father almost merits calling it five and a half). Furthermore, trip to VA always occasion a bit of nostalgia as I recall the little more than a year I once spent living here. It's a long story and one I won't repeat here, particularly since most of you undoubtedly know it. If you don't, you're not missing much. The point, here, is that there is always an element of the uncanny. Usually, it's fairly mild and I experience of few moments in which I sigh for the family experiences (as cool and loving aunt--not, repeat NOT, as mommy [or daddy for that matter]) that I'm missing living so far away and committing the unforgivable sin of having a life of my own so radically different from the one they live here in the Valley (pronounced Shen'n-doh). I've not been here, though, for about a year and a half, and things HAVE changed. My sister opened a small clothing shop downtown where she sells (you guessed it) clothing that she has not always made so much as embellished in her particular way. More time for this and away from the house has been really good for her and she loves her work. All good so far. That bad part is that the domestic chaos that used to greet me when I came for a visit has intensified ten-fold. I'll go into specifics a bit later, but the problem of it strikes me as quite troubling. I've before encountered these scenarios in which a married couple with subordinate whole areas of their home--if not their entire home--to the particular habits and tastes of children. You end up with big, empty spaces with some beaten up furniture lining the walls and toys scattered around the bare, hard floor--carpets no longer being realistic or desirable as things don't roll across them as satisfactorily and they're so much harder to clean. Plus, of course, rug burn. This is largely the case coupled with huge piles of laundry on the floor everywhere, mountains of plastic toys in the bathrooms, and no furniture capable of seating more than one adult at a time. What especially tweaks my 'mudgeon is that they've apparently abandoned (in despair no doubt) the whole project of washing glasses. Now an entire shelf in one cabinet in the kitchen is devoted to plastic cups. Single use brilliance. They use them once and throw them away. Routinely.
So anyway, I got into town yesterday evening, famished and ready to be done driving for a while. I met my sister at her shop because she had suggested we go out for a celebratory welcome drink at the Irish bar across the street. We ended up waiting for some of her friends who do some sort of zany birthday club thing. They were celebrating one of the lady's birthday by staging an episode of "What Not To Wear." You can imagine, perhaps, what happened earlier, but the evening culminated in them converging on my sister's shop where the birthday girl got to design a shirt that my sister will now make for her to her specifications. Unfortunately, they didn't show up for an hour and a half, by which time it was too late to do anything else. We went back to the house and I was told that I should prepare to bunk up with my youngest niece (13, a lovely girl) and my oldest nephew (5, very cute, and a total hellion). This in a tiny bedroom crammed with two twin beds and not even any room for my stuff. Instead, I recruited my nieces to help me set up a bed in an adjoining room containing only some piles of clothes and two chairs. The truly bizarre thing about this is that my sister was truly, deeply shocked (you should have seen the baffled look I got) when I said I didn't want to share the room with the kids. Am I fucking crazy or something? So I made my bed...sort of...and finally settled down to try to sleep when the kids' hamster got to work. Screeak Screeak Screeak Screeak Screeak. I tried to muffle the sound of his late-night aerobics with pillows, hoodies, concentration, exhaustion, and so forth. Finally, after about two hours, I got up and used some fishing line to tie the wheel in such a way that it wouldn't roll under his weight. Then I kept myself up for at least another hour worrying that the frustration might drive him to some desperate measures. I pictured my teary-eyed niece asking me why I drove her hamster crazy after he spent the night dive-bombing off the top of the wheel trying vainly to move it. What would a hamster do when pushed to the limits? I'm going to hell for sure.