One last thing...

I can see lots of hits on my site meter that are from people I know, so I know you are still reading.

I am only going to ask one favor...and obviously it isn't for me.

My grandpa may be coming to visit you all in the fall, and he knows nothing about any of this. I haven't told him because I don't want to put him in the position of having to chose between his daughter and granddaughter, and his nieces and nephews. I know which choice he would make, but I am not selfish enough to ask him to. I have no desire to take away his illusions of you.

This may very well be his last visit. I hope you can find it in your hearts to treat him kindly and fairly...even if this isn't a courtesy you can extend to the rest of us.

I hope in this one thing you can prove to be the people I thought you were.

Housekeeping

I wrote the post below this morning, only to discover that people I thought had long ago abandoned this blog were actually still lurking about.

It's fine. I learned the hard way not to post anything you wouldn't say to someone directly. I promised to never do it again, and I haven't. This post is no exception.

But the purpose of moving to this blog was to be able to write without the fear of repercussion. I trusted only a handful of individuals I know in real life with that information...only those I thought the very most trustworthy. I made a huge error in judgment by placing that trust in them.

So soon I will be moving...AGAIN. And this time NO one I know in real life will be invited.

But my invisible blog friends will.

It will probably be a few weeks before I have time to get this move accomplished. I will be in touch.

Thanks to all of you who have been such good friends to me. It is sad when you can trust people you don't even know more than you can trust those you thought you did know.

Anyway, that horse is dead dead dead, and buried. No more of that.

If I DON'T know you in real life, and you want to keep up with the new location of the blog, e-mail me at awiseassoncesaid@yahoo.com. That e-mail will be in existence for a few more weeks.

Hard Lessons

I have been quiet this summer. There has been so much happening, I have hardly had time to write things down. Also, I have been fairly introspective lately. Some things happened awhile back that started with the blog, but ended off of it...and ended badly, which have made writing anything significant a bit difficult for me. But I have some lingering feelings that need to be worked through, and there is no better forum. Here goes.

I know a person, let's call him Zipper, that I do not care for. I have many things I could say about Zipper...things I have said to him directly, so to enumerate them here would not be talking behind his back. However, while he is at the start of this, this isn't really about him, so I will leave it at the basics...he exists and I don't like him.

Back in the spring, I posted something eluding to Zipper and my displeasure over some comments he made. My effort was intended to stick up for a guy named Biff, who I believed Zipper had wronged. Biff's brother (BB) was a regular reader of my blog at that time, but Biff was not. BB posted that he was concerned about the content of the post, and asked me to take it down. He was afraid that the post might cause trouble for Biff, who definitely did NOT need it. I took the post down, as I would never want to hurt Biff, or BB for that matter. Later I had a phone conversation with BB, a person whom I truly adored and trusted completely. In that conversation, BB shared with me some negative feelings and frustrations he had towards several other people. I understood he needed to get some of those feelings off his chest, and I tried to be a good friend to him by listening and empathizing where possible. He also asked me to tell him why I felt so negatively towards Zipper. I was reluctant to share for many reasons, but after BB assured me the information would go no further, I told BB why I felt the way I did about Zipper. The conversation ended with BB saying he hoped that Zipper was not guilty of some of the things I thought he was, but he now understood why I felt the way I do. I remember thinking how nice it was to have people to lean on.

A few weeks later, I received an e-mail from BB's wife (we'll call her Nancy). Nancy told me she had "done something that may or may not make [me] really mad at [her]." She had spoken to Zipper about the things I had told BB in confidence. She felt she needed to try and mend fences. Of course Zipper denied everything, and Nancy hoped that I would be able to just accept his word and we could all live happily ever after the end.

So many emotions followed, that I could not accurately catalog them here. At first, I was not angry, just stunned. See, I thought Nancy, bless her, was just being incredibly naive. While I did not spell this out above, suffice it to say things between Zipper and I had gone far beyond mending, and any simple denial on his part would never have been sufficient to convince me of his innocence in the face of my suspicions. I was surprised that Nancy couldn't see this.

A few hours later, I was hurt. I was hurt by what seemed to me was a betrayal of a confidence. As the days wore on, this feeling increased. I reread all of the correspondence from Nancy, and I was troubled by the absolute lack of the words "I'm sorry." They were no where. Her e-mails were full of defenses for her choice to divulge my confidence to Zipper, but no apologies for doing so.

Of course it wasn't long before Zipper weighed in with me, and I retaliated. Eventually Zipper's wife, Taboo, and my mom jumped in the fray, as they were peripherally involved all along. The mud was slung thick and fast.

And during all of this, nary a word from BB, in whom I had placed my confidence in the first place. So finally, I called him. So much of the damage had been done via e-mail, I thought we needed a direct conversation. I also thought maybe it was hard for him to reach out, seeing as how he was the one who ultimately had betrayed my trust. I asked him if he was aware of what was going on. I told him I was devastated by this betrayal. His response? "Nancy and I want to stay out of it."

That is all.

No apology for repeating something he promised not to repeat. Nothing even along the lines of "maybe I could have handled this differently" (which I find is a handy thing to say when I have to smooth things over, but don't feel an apology is in order).

Just, "[We] want to stay out of it."

Oh really? You want to stay out of it? Don't you mean NOW you want to stay out of it? NOW that you have disclosed something you promised would remain private you want to stay out of it? NOW that you have people waging war against one another, you want to stay out of it?

Oh. Okay.

And I remember THIS emotion quite clearly. It is called being PISSED OFF.

I have known this man since I was born, and although we have lived apart our entire lives, I thought the time we did spend together had a forged a bond. I loved him. I trusted him. I believed he was a good, solid man. I believed he was my friend. I have never so badly misjudged someone's character in my entire life.

I haven't spoken to BB, Nancy, Zipper or Taboo since that day. As far as I am concerned, everyone had ample opportunity to say all they had to say...and some stuff they probably shouldn't have. There is no point in continuing. Nothing can be resolved.

So why am I writing about this today, you ask?

Well, I thought only the players directly involved in this little drama knew about it. I purposely did NOT post this blog months ago, because despite my broken heartedness over it, I did not want anyone else to know. Despite my ill will towards Zipper, I had no intention of trashing him to others. I never have, and I never will. I confided in one person only, and I had no intention of trumpeting HIS betrayal to everyone either. It was between us, and it would remain between us.

But just this weekend I learned that this courtesy was not reciprocated. Apparently several others have been lobbied by Nancy's tall tales, which strangely enough paints her as the victim. Apparently, my little branch of the family is being vilified for not accepting Nancy's apology...an apology that was never tendered, by the way, but I guess that is besides the point. Not a single person has reached out and asked to hear our side of the story. They have basically said they don't care.

One would think that nothing could surprise me now, and yet it does. One would think my armor would be up, and that these people could no longer cause me pain, but yet they can. One would think that some people can't sink any lower, and yet they do.

Now it occurs to me that I could retaliate. First of all, I have saved all of the e-mail exchanges between Nancy and I. I could forward those to everyone so they could see for themselves that she never apologized. They would also see some of the things she said about others to me. I could go even further and disclose the things BB said on the phone to people who would have a vested interest in that information. I could tell Zipper some things he might be surprised to learn about others' involvement in things for which my family has taken the heat.

Oh I CAN do all of those things. But I won't. Even though I never expressly promised to keep BB's secrets between us like he did, I know when something is told to me in confidence. Besides, to reveal them would hurt other people I care about, and I would never want to do that on purpose, even under the guise of mending rifts. And I have seen Zipper's wrath first hand. I would never try to get back in his good graces (as if I could) by throwing someone else under the bus.

It might make me look better to all those people out there who are judging me when they don't have all of the facts, but it wouldn't make me look better to that reflection in the mirror, and at the end of the day, that is all you have. I guess I was wrong to depend on anyone BUT that girl in the mirror. Hard lessons, but well learned.

Goodbye My Sweet Girl

We finally did what we needed to do and it sucked hard. We are heartbroken. Rest in peace my sweet girl. You were the best dog ever, and we loved you. We miss you already.

Happy 1st Birthday, Grandson

Not that he reads this blog. Or, uhm at ALL as far as that goes, but the sentiment is there.

This picture is a few months old, but I lost my camera case which contained the cable that allows me to upload from my camera to the computer, so this is all I've got right now. Deal. He's still adorable, of course...not that I'm biased or anything. No, not me. He's just bigger now and has less hair since his first official hair cut last week.

Anyway. There it is. Happy birthday, Little Man. Coma loves you.

That Old Black Magic

We have three dogs, the oldest of whom is a black cocker spaniel named Magic. We got her from the pound about 6 months after I moved in with CO and the boys. She was little over a year old at the time, was the vets best guess, so she grew up with the boys.

Oh and she was awesome with them...patience beyond measure.

Once, while I was making dinner, I noticed Yute, who was the only one at home with me at the time, was awfully quiet. He was right behind me, watching a video, but there were no sounds of toy trucks crashing or toy trains chugging or balls bouncing. When I looked back over my shoulder, he was cuddled up to Magic, quietly putting stickers all over her, while she gave me this long suffering, but exceedingly patient look that said, "You're going to do something about this, right?" She sat still and quiet while I tried to get the stickers out of her fur with a little pain as possible.

And through all of life's trials, she has been just as quiet, calm and patient. A few years later, we added a second dog, who grew to twice Magic's size, but Magic remained unconcerned. She survived three boys and their teenage angst. We moved a few times, added grandbabies who pulled at her hair when we weren't looking and even a third dog who is a whirlwind of energy, and through it all, she just looks at us like, "Oh okay. So this is what we're doing now. That's cool."

She was never the most affectionate of the dogs, nor the most playful. But she is simply the most "chill" being I have ever known...dog, human, whatever. No one rolls with the punches like this dog.

In May, she got an injury on her back that became infected, and she had to have surgery to drain the abscess. The vet insisted I take the cone home to keep her from biting at the stitches and the drains that were stuck in her, but I never needed to use it. She just dealt with it, like every other thing in her life, without worry or complaint.

I asked the vet then if we should even have the surgery done. Magic is estimated to be around 14 years old in people years, after all, and completely deaf. She has trouble with the function in her back legs. But her appetite is still in tact, and she is still happy to see us when we come home. The vet assured us we would know when it was time.

Now, a few months later, her back legs have only gotten stiffer and her movement more difficult. She still does not seem unhappy, but then again, she never did. Her personality is a constant.

So how will we know when we are being selfish by keeping her here? How will we know when she has had enough?

Dogs are so awesome. They bring so much joy. But this single moment in a pet parent's life...this one single, horrible moment is so completely awful, that I cannot stand to think of it. But think of it we must. She trusts us and believes in us to do what is best for her. But how do we know what that is?

HELP?

Question of the Day

Is it hypocritical to judge someone for being judgmental?

Just wondering.