This week is fair weather friends week. We all have those stories about people we thought were friends but then saw their other side.

Friendships are different for adults. When we're children, our best friend is the kid with the best box of crayons and who shares their Oreo cookies at lunch time.

As an adult, our best friend has seen the very worst of us and loves us anyway. They've held us as we cried, plugged their ears as we screamed, and picked us up from the side of the road after we've been abandoned.

They are the ones who ask "which one" when you tell them an organ is failing and you need a replacement.

You go on vacations together. Cook together. Sometimes you even live together. Their children are like your own children, because you'd give anything for them to be happy. You punish them when they do wrong. You kiss their hurts. (I'm talking about the kids, not the adults)

You have inside jokes, and inside looks, and you finally feel like here is someone who gets you.

You had called her when your husband raped you the last time, and she came and got you and took you home and you laid in bed with her and cried everything out on her shoulder.

She got you blistering drunk when you finally realized your marriage was shit and you needed to get out.

You took the children so she could have a date night with her husband.

You put off two weeks of work to help her move.

You think they'll be there forever and a day, because you know you'll be there for them for forever and a day.

Then you get that phone call in the middle of the night, the one where she is screaming accusations at you that you've fucked her husband and lied to her about it. That you're trying to steal her family from her.

You don't bother reminding her that you've been her shoulder to lean on with him. You've been the one to hold her hand when she freaked out over the amount of porn her husband watches. Who told her she was crazy when she pointed out his profiles on "dating" and "looking for sex" websites. You told her that he loves only her, and that him having cybersex with strangers is just a way of blowing off steam.

She tells you that you're a dictator when you ask a simple question. But she doesn't tell you she's angry until you call a few days later and she is rude and short with you and when you ask what's wrong, she says "you know what's wrong".

When you call her crying that someone who is supposed to love you and be honest with you turns out to be a pathological liar, she says "well, you are just upset that your security blanket isn't working anymore, grow up". When you tell her that you feel like you're going crazy because someone is pushing you towards that cliff, she hangs up on you.

I'd love to say that I bit my thumb at her and told her where to go. But I didn't.

Instead, I've stopped calling. Stopped texting. Stopped emailing. And this withdraw makes me feel better. I hope she realizes one day that I slipped out of her life quietly, easily, without fanfare and didn't leave my shoe laying on the front steps for her to find me with later.

I wonder if her husband knows she thinks he's a cheating bastard, and a liar to boot, but I don't tell him. Let her fester in her paranoia and anger, I've got enough drama in my life, I don't need to borrow from their life.

Oh, I've got a chore bitch. I have a chore chart on the fridge carefully outlined Mon. - Thurs. and then a separate list for my son for Friday and then a list for both of them for Saturday mornings.

It would be easier if I could complain that my kids ignore the chart, don't get things done, etc. But, no... the main problem lies in the fact that my daughter is involved with a school play and mock trial which, at least 2 nights a week, keep her at school until 8pm and at least two other days it keeps here in school until 5pm. On one hand I'm proud of her being involved like that and certainly mock trial is nothing to scoff at. But, the fact remains that I end up doing her chores on those days because she barely has the time to finish her homework.

Throw in extra things like spring or fall cleaning or attempting to de-clutter for Christmas and it's all I can do to cover the bare minimum so my house isn't a pig sty.

Last week's editions covered our biggest pet peeves. Turns out we share a lot of pet peeves. This week I'm starting off with my bitch of the week which, as it turns out, is something that has really rubbed me the wrong way for years. Only, now I have a venue to bitch and complain about it.

Maybe I'm strange, maybe I have an odd definition of the term "conversation" - I'm willing to give that certainly men and women communicate differently. But, I can't stand it when you are having a conversation with someone (and maybe, it's just MY husband who does this) and they just stop talking. For example...


Husband: What time is it?
Me: It's almost 2 o'clock.
Husband: Okay, I need to make that phone call so I can go take care of that [whatever it was].
Me: Did you want [kid #3] and I to go with you?
Husband: If you want.
Me: Well, I can't help you with [activity at place] if [kid #3] goes...

*crickets*

Me: Also, [kid #3] still has lessons to finish up today...

*crickets*

We weren't on the phone, we were on our back patio. Standing there and he just stopped talking. I'm looking at him, he's not choking, he didn't lapse into some catatonic state, he's not drooling on himself he's just not talking.

Me: Helloooo?

Him: Why did you say that?

Me: Because you aren't talking.

Him: You didn't ask a question. What was I supposed to say?

Me: Uh, well, obviously we are discussing if I should just go on about my business and let you get on with yours or if we should combine our business here.

Him: There's no need to act like that about it.

Me: *blink* *blink*

Is this just me? Am I expecting too much attention here? Now, I've had this happen on the phone with people, usually they have gotten distracted or they are, you know, in traffic or something. I don't know what it says about a man standing there less than 5 feet from his wife who can't continue a conversation.




Why am I in charge of finding things that A) Aren’t mine and B) Aren’t mine?

If I had a nickel for every time my husband has woken me to look for his belt or his cell phone? I’d have a giant sack of nickels.

I spent 15 minutes scouring the house for his belt the other day as he growled around the house. He found it! Where was it? In the pants he’d worn to work the day before. Silly me, I did not look in the most obvious of places because I’d assumed that he would check the last place he had it before enlisting my help in The Hunt.

I cringe every time he asks where something is because he’s going to be grouchy until it’s found. I want to scream, “Why is it my problem to find something that I’ve never even touched?!” But I don’t. I smile and quickly look to find whatever it is that I’m supposed to magically keep track of.

And now I must go to look for a checkbook. To a checking account I do not use.





Why am I the one who is made to straddle the middle lane? To juggle everything and make sure it all stays up in the air? Especially when I'm not the one renegging on things?

That doubletalking something that makes my entire body break out in a cold sweat and my hands clench and my teeth grind. When someone tells me one thing, and then tap dances backwards out of it while I'm left holding the bag.

It doesn't happen often, mainly because I'm really damn picky about who I trust enough to put in that position. But lately, it's happened a lot. And I'm getting more and more aggravated, and they're (the ones who are just tapping away) just aren't getting it.


I don't get angry or up in their face.


I withdraw; it's the way I've always done.

I pull away, until they can't remember the last time we talked in person, the last time they heard me laugh, or the last time I smiled at them.

Pulling away, shutting them out, it's cleaner, neater, and saves on the drama of a huge blow out fight. I don't like big blow outs. It's like blowing up a building to take out a target, when a knife in the dark will do the job just as well.




My bitch for the week has got to be right up there with Charlotte and conversations. It pisses me off to no end when I am trying to talk to someone (and by someone, I mean the husband!) and they just stop listening or responding. I'm not talking to hear the sound of my own voice; I'm not talking because I just want to talk. No, I'm trying to tell him information that he needs to know and will be important later on.
Prime example was last night. We have relatives coming into town tonight, and we will go meet them at their hotel when they get in. I have made Husband aware of this plan on more than one occasion, including the time that they fly in. Last night he was amazed to hear of this plan. How could I not have told it to him before? And don't I know that the way I planned it doesn't work for him, because it means he would have to spend time in the car to get there?????? *gasp - the horror of it all!*


And he wonders why I mutter under my breath so much?