Mom went off and scheduled me an appointment for Saturday morning to get examined for everything that's wrong with me. No matter how much I yelled at her in public not to, however, she insisted on going on about my teeth. At a doctor's office?

The doctor I got was really nice. Really nice. Such a change from the twit-ass they assigned me at home. The verdicts:

(a) The teeth: "Eh, that's probably from drinking soda. Go see a dentist. Not that bad though to me." (yeah, big surprise there.)

(b) The limping: "Probably sprained a ligament, go pop some anti-inflammatories." I loathe Advil, etc., but it does seem to be improving the injury- I barely walk funny now.

(c) The cough. "It's either a minor case of asthma or postnasal drip. Does her voice always sound like that?" Mom: "Oh yes! And she never smells anything!" "It's probably that, then." I'm back on an inhaler again (sigh) and huffing nasal stuff, both of which can cause headaches, and yes, I've got one. Argh.

(d) The hair. Much to my dismay, Mom pulled out a picture of me from high school and flashed it. "Oh, geez, that's really bad. Get her thyroid tested and come back in two weeks."

The disturbing part was that they're testing me for seven things, including two glucose things. (Lucky for her that I don't eat breakfast and thus had fasted for 12 hours.) Given the diabetes running rampant in the family, it worries me that she's testing for that, even though I don't have any signs of that. The doctor will hear by Monday, I won't for ten days. Then I spend the day after Thanksgiving at the doctor's.

I am not allowed to dye my hair any more, not allowed to wash it with even warm water, and to use nasty shampoo. Waaaah.

I look like shit with my hair down now.

Interesting developments with Mom on the whole engagement thing. No, the holiday thing didn't come up, but I nearly said something. Didn't though.

The first thing she said about it was, "So, have you and Dave discussed this whole engagement thing yet, or are you just letting it lie for awhile?" I tried to reassure her that yes, we were working things out. You know, I get the feeling she doesn't take this seriously. She insisted that I had a "promise ring," (What the hell is a promise ring, anyway?) until I critiqued that. She did mention that she saw a ring in a catalog that she thought would be perfect for us, but she seems to have lost the catalog. Argh.

Mom has only told one person about it- her boss Ken. Who promptly said good for me about it. When Mom said "But what about this, and this, and this, and this?" (I'm sure you can guess all the this's), Ken said he was unemployed when he proposed to his wife and his dad asked if he could support her, and they worked it all out. "They'll be fine." Ken is definitely getting invited to the wedding.

Oh yeah, and Mom got asked by D&B the last time she saw them if things were getting pretty serious between us. Mom hedged and hawed and looked down at the floor and said "pretty serious." Of course they asked, "Will she be getting a ring for Christmas?" Mom said, "Well, I hope not, I'd rather he get a job first."

I am soooooo glad we won't see them at Christmas. Hell, I'm not even sure if we'll see them at Thanksgiving- Mom said they know we're alone but haven't actually asked us yet. But she doesn't care-"if they don't ask us, we'll do it ourselves." Good for her. I hope they don't.

Dave started in on me again about just asking Mom Saturday night- as his grandma was asking what he'd be coming to. I tried it Sunday, just mentioning the grandma remark. Mom said, "I think the two of you should spend Christmas with your own families this year." Then a pause, then "I'm not ready to share you yet." She also made a remark about how "I bet Dave is wondering why we're not asking him for Christmas." Well, yeah... she never said anything after that.

Completely not a surprise to me, mind you.

I snuck out to the garage and called Dave while I was still there. Boy, was he not happy about that. Rather ticked at Mom, not to mention grumbling that he wished that I didn't have quite as close of a relationship with my parents... He got off the phone soon after that, and I was relieved. I was pretty damn afraid to discuss this with him again.

After my parents left and I called him again, well, it's been hell.

He will not let it go. He REALLY wants me to tell her to piss off and go with him and let her deal with it, and if I won't, he's more than ready to hop into the fray. If I won't do that, he's ready to tell Mom off, or he's ready to get the car running and go kidnap me on the day. He wants to go to my family gathering- of course, he's pissed that he's not invited, and I can't even explain why not, because I don't even know why not beyond "strangers aren't invited." Not to mention the whole mom-won't-tell thing. Or can't I just have them come to me for Christmas while he comes here too?

It was a torturous conversation.

Either way I choose, I'm making myself and at least half of the people involved here miserable. I'm not going to be happy any way because I'm making someone else upset. I don't want to have to pick one and tell the other to go to hell- I just don't somehow think Dave's gonna bitch me out for the next 30 years if I don't pick him. Of course, he doesn't understand that.

"You're stubborn in your passiveness," he said.

I am so tired of constantly fighting with my parents. I can't withstand them. I always give in. I do not have infinite anger or willpower. Me standing up to them and winning isn't going to happen in this lifetime. I give up. I'll let them run me over. It's not worth the fight. I just wish I hadn't bloody well dragged him into this right along with me. He doesn't deserve to deal with it.

The conversation involved a lot of dead silence at times, "I'm sorry's", me saying that he deserved someone better that could actually stand up to people and manage it, me crying for ten minutes at a stretch while Dave apologized and begged me to cuss him out for making me cry... Yeah, it was pleasant.

As usual, nothing gets resolved with me, because I can't just pick one person and be happy with it, or be heartless about it, and I can't stand up for my man. I'm like frigging Baby in Dirty Dancing, "you won't stand up to Daddy and tell him I'm your guy."

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