…and while my family may consider me to be useless, by and large, I come in handy sometimes. Tonight, my success was as negotiator (or arm-twister, depending on how you stand on the matter), protector of younger sisters and quick cook/Hausfrau.

Of course, my family being my family, all packing was left until the very very last minute. As in, 45 minutes after they were supposed to leave for the airport. I was talking with my friend at lunch today and I mentioned that they were planning on leaving for the airport at 7:30, which translates into 8:30 “Family Standard Time”. They left at 8:20, so I wasn’t far off.

On my way home (6:30), I got a call from my sister asking me if I would prepare some sort of dinner for them so they could eat before leaving for the airport. They were on their way back from the store (an hour before their planned departure) so I said fine and whipped up one of my old stand-by quick-but-delicious meals: Thai-style peanut chicken (recipe is on the site, actually). I defrosted chicken breast, chopped it up, sauteed it, let it cook-through for a bit, added peanut butter, salsa, lime juice, cilantro and some water… then let it simmer. Meanwhile, I had some instant Spanish rice going (because there wasn’t much I could with real rice in the time I had) and I served up the lot in a total of 20 minutes. And that’s a damn tasty meal for that amount of time. If I’d been able to find some frozen vegetables downstairs, I could’ve made some broccoli or sugar snap peas or something. Oh, well. I cooked and then had to fight to get them all to leave their suitcases for five minutes to eat. They fought me, but I told them that five minutes at this point would not make a difference and that they’d feel a lot better if they ate. As often happens, I was right.

Meanwhile, there was a huge “to-do” since my father asked my sister at the last minute (if nothing else, they are consistent) to bring something in her carry-on for him. This something was a new $1000 digital camera for a relative. In its original packaging. Which measured about 10″ high and wide and a foot and a half long, thereby taking up ALL the room in her carry-on and weighing about 15 pounds. My sister was freaking out since she couldn’t bring anything else in that bag as a result and my father would not hear of her NOT doing it (did I mention that it was a favor he was asking her to do?). She took it out of her bag and said she was NOT bringing it because she needed her carry-on for her stuff. My father promptly started going through her carry-on and throwing out items he felt were unnecessary for her to carry… her book, sketchpad, colored pencils, etc.

At this point, I stepped in and told him to stop rifling through her bag since that was her stuff and she was doing him a favor in agreeing to bring it, and to suggest that we unpacked the camera and packed up the smaller constituent boxes inside the main box (since all small electronics are victims of egregious over-packaging - except for the newer generations of iPods. That packaging is great).

Of course, this was unacceptable because he wanted the camera to be presented nicely. Now, if I was getting an expensive digital camera from a relative, I wouldn’t care whether they left it in the original box or put it in a paper lunch sack - it’s a friggin’ NICE camera. But he’s got stubbornness and pride and a need to play alpha dog (that coveted trifecta) so it’s out of the question to present an expensive gift in any fashion that would seem to cheapen it.

He flipped out and then got huffy and informed us that if they didn’t want to bring it, then fine. In the end, they were able to reorganize some things and place the ridiculously huge camera box in my brother’s carry on, my sister took some of his carry on items, and all was moderately well.

Now they’re off doing their thing for about a week and I’ll be here, stuck doing Hausfrau stuff… or not. I am planning on spending as little time at home as possible, even if that means I have to spend every night at the bookstore, reading. I don’t want to be subjected to constant needling and whining about housework that needs to be done (and which an adult male is completely capable of doing), getting bugged to make dinner, do dishes that aren’t mine, do laundry that’s not mine, etc. It’s one of the reasons I don’t see myself cut out for married or family life.

I can’t believe it’s already/only Wednesday. The week has been both never ending and speeding by. I feel like the two days left in this week are far too little time, but that the past three days have been interminable. I don’t think it’s work stress but a culmination and combination of everything going on.

Sigh. And shaking the head… and over it. I think I shall give myself a nice manicure tonight.