Tension is rising in the house at the moment.
Priscilla hates that my room is cluttered, is having dreams about mice, and will be certainly convinced that my room is the center of the flea epidemic that's hitting our house once she finds out about it.
However, I am not the epicenter of the flea problem. Margaret works in Vrygrond and there's a good chance that she's brought them home with her from work where they have begun to nest in her bed.
Or it might be bedbugs (it's a very common host family problem here). I still lack the bites that she has - this morning there were 18 new ones on her, and zero on me. I've got three left over from the weekend, and they're all in exposed places like my feet or arm, and none of those can be traced to fleas or bed bugs. I'm calling mosquitos on those.
Either way, my clutter and her bites aside, there are problems at home.
Margaret and Priscilla are the same age. Margaret is a successful, wealthy (ish) woman from the Netherlands who shows no signs of slowing down in her professional career. Priscilla is ready to retire, constantly complaining about menopause and possibly realizing her socio-economic situation more and more as Margaret has been here.
She accuses Margaret of being a snob, an accusation that I wholeheartedly disagree with. And Margaret is upset about unfairly being singled out all the time
There are food issues. I have them too. Priscilla won't buy the food that we'll eat and won't listen to our suggestions - instead, buying things she thinks we want. It's been an issue, but I long ago learned to not worry about eating breakfast at home and to just buy lunch out. It's costly, but necessary.
There are space issues. When Margaret came in, she didn't have a door to her room. We put up a blanket, just to block out the light. She wasn't overly concerned about privacy, because there's really not any anyway. So Priscilla called it the Vrygrond door in her derogatory way and we went about our business. This weekend, she had Jared, her daughter's boyfriend, put a door in. It's a nice door and Margaret said thank you. But Priscilla has been calling it "Margaret's door" and constantly referring to it. Margaret doesn't care. She's happy to have a door but at the same time, she doesn't want it to be all about her - meaning that it's Priscilla's house and if she wanted a door, then it's fine.
Then there was the bathroom painting incident. I live in a cramped, narrow, all-too-pink room and there's a small bathroom (toilet, sink, shower all within arm's reach) behind it. The bathroom is a bit moldy due to climate and lack of ventilation, and Priscilla had decided to paint it. So after asking several (seven) times, Margaret and I volunteered to paint it. I couldn't get out of work, though, so Margaret spent Friday afternoon painting the bathroom purple. Priscilla didn't say thank you, and then began criticizing the painting.
It's a hot mess, really.
So while I am going to miss both of them (equally), I'm not going miss being caught in the crossfire.
Also, as an added plus for the week, Priscilla has offered to drive me to the laundry today. I don't leave my clothes in the drawers because they (the drawers) are strangely dirty and smell of mothballs, but since when have I ever put my clothes in drawers? So they are strewn around, spilling out of suitcases, etc.
Obviously, this is a ploy to get me to pack, but it also saves me from having to haul 10 kilos of laundry a mile or so.
I'll take that.
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