My mother-in-law’s (MIL) apartment is being painted. Time to remove unwanted shelves and screws from the wall so the whole wall looks nice and smooth. Some new holes were also drilled in the wall to move things to a better spot. Ana/MIL also wanted two paintings on the wall in one of the bedrooms. These had once been brought from Madrid by my MIL and had been lying neatly and safely in the closet all this time. They were made by one of Ana’s aunts, and they were two paintings with Chinese text/symbols on them.
The drilling went well. Plastic plug in the wall and a hook screwed on. Then I temporarily hung up the paintings so we could verify that everything was correct and I noticed something. Huh, the first painting had ‘ana maria’ written on the back. Funny. Then I saw the other one… ‘antonio’? That’s Ana’s ex. What?! Sometimes a story is just too good to let it rest. This was one of those stories.
Hey Ana, I finished hanging the two painting in your mothers bedroom, the ones with the chinese text for Ana Maria and Antonio.
When I told Ana, she immediately became defensive. It was a piece made by her aunt, the Chinese characters were unreadable, it didn’t mean anything, she never expected I would notice, blah blah. My MIL also claimed she never though about it. The whole story seemed completely normal to Ana and my MIL. That my MIL kept a relic from 20 years ago from one of Ana’s exes, brought it along on a trip from Madrid to Las Palmas, kept it in a closet for years, and then hung it prominently in the bedroom, apparently that wasn’t strange at all. Ana also thought it was perfectly normal. It was the artistic value of the work, and nothing else. Yeah sure.
Ofcourse I talked about the Antonio painting/situation a couple of times. When I mentioned it while we were meeting with a friend, it immediately became clear that I wasn’t the only one who found it odd. Even when I asked the AI the reply indicated it was just plain weird.
Now the whole situation has become tense. Removing them isn’t an option, because it was all so innocent and not strange at all, so why would you do anything about it. Leaving them hanging… well, if the family wants to have Ana’s name and the name of her ex on the wall, in Chinese characters, then sure, that’s possible. Apparently only the artistic value matters, and these paintings are apparently the only artistic value we have available. For me, all the typical MIL stereotypes start bubbling up.
The mother-in-law is stereotyped as bossy, unfriendly, hostile, nosy, overbearing and generally unpleasant. They are often depicted as the bane of the husband, who is married to the mother-in-law’s daughter.
After my recent 
It does work. I had rushed the initial version of Mushroom Mayhem into the store, with quite a few bugs still in it and really only the bare minimum features needed to make it playable. I strongly suspected that doing this would prevent the project from stalling again and me not looking at it for years. And it worked. Even though there are only around 20 people that installed the game, I’m motivated, and many evenings I find myself improving and fine-tuning the app.
I also did some things myself and updated all the apps graphics, so everything looks a little bit cleaner, the app has a brand new icon and there are a number of bigger changes:
A simple costume can create a surprising amount of magic, especially when it’s worn by an incredibly charismatic and photogenic little character. Add a few finishing touches, and you’ve got pure spectacle.
I ran into my upstairs neighbor in the elevator. The usual small talk unfolded: he asked how I was doing, and I asked how he was doing. Normally you get the standard replies, ‘everything’s fine’ or ‘same old, same old’, the autopilot of everyday politeness.
Grandma Nel also came for a lovely visit. She had escaped the Dutch cold for a few weeks and arrived with a suitcase full of gifts, sausage, cheese, eel, and alcohol. She came to enjoy some time with the grandchildren and the Spanish sun. First, a week with friends in the south, where sunshine is guaranteed, and then a week with us, with pleasant temperatures but also the occasional shower.
I’ve shifted the work I do on MM to the evenings. Before going to sleep. Rather than enjoying part of a movie or an episode of a series I now spend the last hour of my day talking and experimenting with my programming assistant. Over the past few days, I’ve made some improvements, so you can now get the new version.