The Holiday is Over

Yeah. It was a good holiday, but now things have gone sour. My sister's dog was not well behaved while here. To start with, I never should have agreed to let her leave him here while she stayed in the city with friends. She doesn't discipline her dog much. He's allowed on the furniture in her home - well now it's in my mother's home. We don't allow dogs on the furniture here. Try telling a little cocker spaniel that. He doesn't like that. In fact, if you try to remove him from the furniture, he'll try to bite you. Fun stuff. And he table surfs. Last year, at Thanksgiving at my mom's, he grabbed some really expensive pate that my cousin had brought. My sister didn't really take that behavior seriously. We had to put all the food in the center of the table on Thursday and then shove all the chairs in so that he couldn't get up on the table. He tried though. The topper came on Friday when she left his filled poopie bags on the concrete in front of the garbage bins. Did not put them in, left them in front. What's up with that? Did not call or leave a note to say "hey, didn't know where to put the poopie bags" just left them there. See - that's just a perfect picture of what my sister's life has been like - someone else is always there to pick up her mess.
So, I sent her a sarcastic e-mail asking if she just had bad aim or if she didn't think the garbage was the right place for poopie bags. First I get a "sorry, someone else left one of his poopie bags there, so I thought that was the right place" huh? Then I get an e-mail saying "why did you have to be so nasty about it?....Clearly you and A were annoyed to have him at your house." So - I responded. Well - we're now having a war of e-mails. The bottom line is that my sister is not a responsible dog owner. In fact, she's pretty much not responsible at all. She doesn't think things through. There is a reason, beyond the economy, why she is unemployed and living with her mother at age 39. She doesn't understand the concept of a budget. She doesn't plan period. Oh - and she blames that on the fact that when she was young, our father died and our mother "was dying". Okay - Mom had cancer, but was never told she was going to die, never was I ever told that my mother came close to dying. And - oh by the way - she's been clean for almost 30 years. I think it's time for little sister to get over it. And yes, daddy died when she was young. It happened. You can't undo it. You can only live with it, deal with it, cope with the reality you were dealt. You can't use it as a crutch for the rest of your life.
So - back to the e-mail war. I told my sister that she needed to get her dog to behave better, that it wasn't the responsibility of the hosts in any home she visits to keep her dog off the furniture and to keep him away from the food serving area. Well - how dare I! It is not my place to say anything about how he behaves when he is elsewhere - only in my home. Yup - not my problem - that's her problem and the problem of whoever she is visiting. Oh - and I shouldn't have dumped on her when she doesn't have a job, had to move in with mom, etc. Yup - should let her skate, let her make our frustrations with her dogs behavior not about him being a bad dog, it's all about A & I being mean people. Oh - and A& I are obsessed with Boomer's behavior. Uh - just trying to be responsible dog owners - like we don't want Boomer biting anyone or destroying their furniture.
It's always about someone else with her - never about her. Back to the bit about she just doesn't think - Thanksgiving weekend, she was moving from NYC to my mom's. My older sister agreed to front her the cost of moving. Well, first thing, she never discussed with older sister how exactly she was going to arrange to pay the movers. Not until the day of the move. It's not as though older sister was going to be only 5 minutes away and could just run over with a check. Last year around the same time, younger sister was unemployed and put off looking for cheaper apartments until it was too late for her to move, she had no choice but to renew her expensive mid-town Manhattan apartment. One of the issues that caused her to lose the job before this one was her desire for too much time off. She wanted to go to the Cape practically every weekend. It was her "respite" and she just had to go. New in a job, she took much more than 2 weeks vacation, which was what she was allotted, so some of it was unpaid. What does that say to the boss?
Okay - I should stop ranting. I'm just at a point where I'm really pissed. She is not responsible with her dog - with anything. I pointed out to her that she needed to be more responsible with the dog and she's turned it around to how horrible I am. I don't know where the end will be. Will it be the next time someone tries to get him off their furniture and he's successful with the biting attempt? Will she be responsible then? Will it be when he ruins a dinner party by getting on the table and eating the food? Will she be responsible then? And we're only talking about being responsible for the dog, not her life. Or will it be when she's letting him run around off his leash outside and he gets hit by a car? Will she start being responsible then? When do I stop being the ogre in her eyes? Will she still be in this mode over the summer when A & I go up to the Cape for vacation? When does she open her eyes and realize that it is really about her, no one else and it is up to her to make some changes?