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       Stardate: 20250710.1835
       Location: The Lab
       Input Device: tetsujin28
       Audio: Fan
       Visual: FocusWriter
       Emotional: OK
       
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       The Occupation of 2025 has begun!  The in-laws and the out-laws.  
       My house will be occupied territory for 60 days.  This is the First 
       wave.  They arrived yesterday afternoon.  Second wave is in about 
       two weeks from now.  Hope I survive without incident.
       
       I have been preparing myself for these times, since I found out a 
       month or so ago.  Initially, I was like hell no!  This did not go 
       well with those affected, which pushed me further back into the 
       dawg haus.  I talked it over with some friends and eventually came 
       to the realization that this was not a battle for me to fight.  As 
       much as I did not want this, my reasoning was all selfish and 
       self-centered.  So I have surrendered to this situation and the 
       plane is now in flight.
       
       House guests were not really a thing in the household I grew up in.  
       My folks did not really have any relatives that lived close by and 
       on rare occassions when they visited, they were from out of state 
       and only stayed a couple days, a week tops.
       
       The family I married into (not from here) are used to having 
       frequent house guests and stays for extended periods of time 
       (months.)  This brings about the other out-laws out of the woodwork 
       which includes long, loud parties and people getting drunk. They 
       also just say that they are showing up and it is assumed that we 
       will house them.  It took some time for me to understand this 
       assumption and for my wife to understand that I did not grow up 
       with this.  “Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.”  
       This quote resonates with me.  
       
       Since there is awareness of both perspectives between me and my 
       wife, we try to be cognizent of each other and work with the 
       situations accordingly.  Unfortunately, this is not one of those 
       situations.  Anything that deals with her family of origin leaves 
       me as an outsider that has no place to say anything disagreeable, 
       even in my own house.  I have tried to fight it in the past and it 
       just gets really messy.  A mob of in-laws and out-laws with 
       group-think versus myself, who doesn’t even speak their language.  
       Unfair, yes.  Am I still bitter about it, yes.  Am I a victim, hell 
       no!
       
       So I have been preparing myself for these days and formulating some 
       self-care and exit strategies to deal with this.  My people have 
       been activated and are aware of the situation.  These days 
       and these people will be my teachers.  Hopefully it doesn’t get too 
       bad and I can keep myself out of the way of the work that needs to 
       be done.  Today is day 02of60.
       
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