Cathy Classics by Cathy Guisewite for May 08, 2020

Activities? Well for one, helping you pack.

The first activity will be for you to make dinner for the working people who you suddenly decided to invade their lives and home. The second activity will be for you to clean up. The third will be for you to be quiet in the room that we allowed you to stay in. Tomorrow will be the same schedule.

Hello Cathy friends! Happy Friday! Have a great and healthy day, all!

Sorry, dear, but you seem to have mistaken me for a cruise director!

How about, “Serving dinner? Nah, I’m eating dinner out. Fix your own. Evening activities? Well, since I work, when I get home after dinner, I’m going to bed early. Have fun.”

Repeat back to MIL, her little speech before you left for the day. Then, tell her what you want her to fix for dinner for the four of us, and what she and her hubby are doing after dinner, that does not include the tired bread winners.

That was so my mom and my grandmother. Gave constant lip service to not being a bother when visiting. But them being there became a second full-time job. And my grandmother was aghast when I said, “I will pick up pizza or chinese on the way home from work!” She couldn’t believe dinner wasn’t being made for houseguests. Says the woman who usually had a live in housekeeper who did the cooking most of her life.

Of course they are a burden. All visitors are a burden to the people who live there. The hosts have to change their routine for the visitors.

I love all the suggested replies today. Especially those that involve the MIL cooking and serving. We did this scenario in reverse – my family including our two small daughters, moved in with my parents – at their invitation of course. We were there for 4 months until our house was built. My wife was upset a lot of the time because my mother would not let her help with the cooking and cleaning. We did insist on doing the dishes though.

I just wish my mother and mother-in-law were still alive – I miss them both.

Is it Friday already? Where are the days going so fast? I hope you are all having a warmer day that we are – possible snow flurries forecast for tonight. It has been a good week though – the ice is gone from the lake, our dock is lowered, and the retaining wall has been rebuilt. Just have to wait until the ground settles before we can landscape. The water level in the lake is up by about a metre (3 feet) since Monday but still about the same distance below normal summer levels. Compared to last year where it was over the retaining wall this is a good year.

I just typed a long rant about this arc being way too close to reality and the parents being inconsiderate about just barging in. However, when I look at it all as a comic (rather than real life), it could be kinda funny. Gotta learn how to turn off this brain once in a while …

HI, MOM. Hello, “Cathy” Clan.

I like basically what was said above…dinner is whatever you choose to fix and your entertainment is whatever you choose to do.