I survived. Drove down to my mother's during daylight. My niece picked us up in her Ford 350 flatbed diesel, a truck best designed for hauling horse trailers (its primary use) and not people. Took A. and I to get my mother into the truck. I managed to get into it on my own only because it had a grab bar and foot rails.
We had our dinner, which was the usual overcooked turkey, and enough sides that I didn't have to eat the turkey. My mom was responsible for bringing pies, which were supposed to be pumpkin and cherry but turned out to be sweet potato and cherry. The cherry got hit hard. The sweet potato sat in all its lonely Southern Glory...untouched.
My newish brother in law (sister divorced and remarried a year ago August) was actually quite voluble and talkative, which rather novel. I suspect, since he kept running into their bedroom to top up his buzz, that he'd found the right strain for dealing with being around people and having to socialize.
My brother in law's brother spent the evening in his room drinking and never even came out for the meal. This man used to physically and emotionally torment me in highschool, he's now an end stage alcoholic that brother in law cares for, including buying his alcohol. I should feel some sense of schadenfreude, but all I feel is pity these days.
I found out today that their house, a tiny "cute" wooden house on a gorgeous, large lot, has NO heat beyond an ancient wood stove with jury-rigged ducting to a couple of rooms. It's not safe and not warm in the winter, either. They have no window AC either because the windows are all non-standard and they can't get ACs to fit them. So my sister, what price love? with her severe asthma, lives in this dump. Ugh!
Sister, whom I generally don't speak to, and I pretty much went through the motions during the dinner and the time my mother were there. When it came time to leave, my sister was to drive us back to my mother's, as my mother can not drive at night at all, and I can only drive well-lit roads, preferably major roads.
I cornered my sister and did what i could to verify she was sober, and off we went. We made it to my mother's, but it was a not a ride I care to repeat, especially as I was in the back seat and the seatbelts back there were non-functional. Better yet, my sister was driving with out her glasses...
Ugh...other than that, I slept on my mother's love seat, and mom got to see that my arthritis isn't an attention grab when I got up in the AM, as I could barely get off the couch.
Oh well. I'm off the hook until Channukah/mum's birthday this year. Hope you all had glorious Thanksgivings and at least something to be thankful for!