Family matters?

So tonight I finally gave in to my parents' invitation (read: order) to come home and have dinner with them and my sister Rachel. They're only about 10 or so miles away from where I live but amazingly I seem to see very little of them these days, since work takes up most of my days and dealing with the complicated stuff of getting Julian a visa to come to America seems to take up the rest. I hadn't really meant to not see them for a month ("Jesus, Melissa, a month!" is what my mom said to me over the weekend), but with my upcoming dress hunt this weekend I thought it would be better to see everyone before I ask my mom to give me her time on the weekend. She's a doctor, and sometimes it is really difficult for her to get time off, even on the weekends if she's doing rounds at the hospital.

I missed Mother's Day with her -- we were supposed to have brunch with Rachel, and then we were going gown shopping -- because of an emergency. But I grew up with this, so I am used to last-minute changes of plan. Dad keeps asking her to start slowing down, but she says, "Jesus, Sam, I'm only 55! I'm in the prime of my life!" And then she'll turn to me and say, "Melissa, if Julian EVER tells you to stop doing something, remember what I told you about self-defense: go straight for the balls." (Then she'll give my dad a wink -- it's their joke.) My mom is a little more... direct than me. I'm more like my dad, who is more laid-back and forgetful. Rachel, my older sister, is more like my mom, outgoing, bossy, loud and opinionated. This is great in mom, who raised two kids while she was still doing her residency and my dad was working his way up to being partner in a law firm. Because my mom doesn't take no for an answer, she just did (and does) whatever she wants to and makes the world bend to what she wants. In Rachel, well, imagine all that loudness but with nothing to steer it into.

Rachel is living at home right now, in her old lilac and cream bedroom with the four poster bed. Until six months ago, she had a job working in her friend Lila's lingerie store. I loved that, because Lila has the most beautiful little things, mostly French but a few Elle Macpherson lines too, which I love. I'm getting my bridal lingerie there tomorrow -- Lila's ordered a few pieces in for me, and we'll see what I like best. Anyway, Rachel decided after two years that working in a lingerie store was holding her back -- from what, I still don't know -- and she quit. Why Lila is still her friend, I have no idea, but she understood somehow and let Rachel go.

My sister soon found out she couldn't keep her lifestyle of partying up if she also had to pay rent, so she did two things: she moved home, and then she got a job tending bar three times a week at Lila's boyfriend's bar in Studio City. The summer after she graduated from college, she had done the bartending certification course and amazingly passed on the first attempt. I said to her after she started at Tim's bar, "Isn't it funny that after all that money mom and dad spent on your college education, all you needed was a bartending course?" (I thought she was going to punch me.) During the days, I think Rachel goes to the gym, Starbucks on Pass Ave near the Warner lot or down to the Barnes & Noble on San Fernando, because she said she has picked up some smart and hot guys there. At night, she's either out somewhere in West Hollywood with some idiot she's scamming into paying for her, or at Tim's bar, using her boobs to get her tips. It's gross all round, and why my parents put up with it I have no idea.

My mom calls Rachel a free spirit, and has told me that Rachel is working on a script, which is what she is apparently doing at the Starbucks, and why my dad bought her a new MacBook. I call bullshit. Rachel walks all over my parents, always has. We had the same rules and expectations, and while I always strove to meet them and even do better than was expected, Rachel would do a half-assed effort and then get angry and walk away from things, claiming that she was beyond all of this, it was too boring and she needed something more creative to do. (The most creative I have ever seen my sister get was the summer she got into nail art.) And my parents buy it every. single. time.

During the time I was split up from Julian, Rachel did try to cheer me up, I'll admit. She told me I was way better off without his "stuck-up ass" and that she was going to help me get over him by introducing me to new guys. This was a disaster, not only because I didn't WANT to see anyone except Julian, but going out with my sister leading the way is like trying to look shiny because you're flashing a square of tin foil when you've got the sun standing next to you. I'm not ugly, and I know that. Rachel looks like me with the volume turned all the way up. She's taller (5'7"), blonder (hers is bright blonde and fake; I'm a natural strawberry blonde), curvier and just way more sexy. Men just can't stop looking at her, and I totally understand it. When she met Julian, I thought I was going to have to manually close his jaw for him. "She looks like you, Melissa, but just... more..." Yeah, I thought. I know. I've had a lifetime of being number 2 to her in every way except school. So anyway, yeah, going out with her usually ended up with me getting stuck with the ugly and/or stupid wing man while she wrapped some hot guy around her finger. Boring. At some point I told her I appreciated the effort, but I just wanted to spend some time working on myself. She told me that one day I would realize what an awesome sister she was for all she had done for me, and that it was my choice if I wanted to die alone.

Ugh. So the idea of a meal with my whole family was NOT something I was looking forward to, but Mom had made tuna noodle casserole because she knows that's my favorite, and Dad said he missed me and would I please move home to protect him from these two crazy women? I laughed and said I would. Somehow someone somewhere took pity on me after what I have been through in the past few weeks and Rachel flaked on us at the last moment to go to a friend's friend's gig somewhere on Fairfax in WeHo. I gave an extra thanks to God when we said grace for being saved from my sister for the evening.

The dinner went great -- I told them all about my Dutch clients, and since they were seeing the Porsche for the first time, what it was like to drive something like that after my Sentra. (I also didn't tell them about my fight with Julian about choosing the Porsche.  No need for them to worry.) They asked about Julian, and how the visa process was going, and if Dad needed to call someone to get things to hurry along. I told them all about VJ, and how I had found a lot of great info on it, and that I had been told it was way too early to get worried about anything. I even managed to eat quite a bit of casserole, even though I am trying to lose weight, because my mom was watching and she thinks I'm too thin. "I'm a size 6, Melissa, and I look great. Julian won't stop loving you because you're a 2 or a 4, and if he does, tell him you know where the knives are kept."

Dad asked if I'd see Sean recently. I guess I hesitated a moment too long, because he asked me if everything was all right with Sean. I said yes, Sean was great, and that he had a new girlfriend and seemed happy. "You're happy for him, I hope?" my dad asked. "Oh yeah, definitely. I just worry that sometimes my friendship with him could look like something else." My mom asked if Julian was giving me a hard time about Sean, and I said, well, only a little. That Julian was just being cautious given my past with Sean, and that it was totally understandable. I swore I heard my mom whisper "pompous little shit" under her breath but I said nothing. Mom and I made plans to meet at 11am on Saturday for shopping; Jenn will be there too. I can't wait! I have practically no limit on how much I can spend on the dress, but I hate wasting Julian's money so I don't really want to go above $2,000 if I can help it.

Apple pie for dessert, and headed home to Pasadena after. If I could only be sure Rachel wouldn't be there, I would do this every week!