Wednesday, Jun. 22, 2011 - 12:45 p.m.

In-laws are here for a couple days more. They've been a big help. It's their apparent need to oversee the minutae of our lives that gets to me. J's dealings with the moving company? Have they emailed him back yet? Each one asks in turn. They inspect the work the guy is doing on our deck as if to make sure they approve, as if it isn't our house and our decision, as if we aren't almost 40 years old and capable of deciding for ourselves if something is worth our money or not.

Advice? Fine, they have a lot of good advice to give. And I've met people who are worse about keeping it to themselves. But.

And I am such a secret nitpicker myself.

I hate being told things I already know. I find it almost impossible to be told something I already know without pointing out that yeah, _I know_. Telling me about wildfires they experienced long ago in California, how the flakes fell from the sky just like snow. Should I mention that when I moved here, the first time I saw snow I told J it looked just like ash falling? I didn't. I just said, yeah, we have fires in FL too. And felt like an asshole for not being able to resist that one-upsmanship I always have the urge to do in conversation with them. It's just that they tell me so much as if it were new to me, as if I've lived 15 years, not 38. "You don't want to lay mulch! That's hard work!". And? Is that supposed to mean you think I can't handle hard work, or shouldn't have to? As if I didn't do lawn work for a living for years, in the brutal summer heat of FL? Don't tell me. I have lived. You don't know the half of me.

So, yeah, they've been a big help. Funny how they can be a big help, which I appreciate, and yet I still plod onward to my limit at the same pace.

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