The Joy and Pain of Netflix

Sometimes I think Netflix is the best thing that has happened to us since the invention of the smart phone and other times? Well, other times, I curse the person who invented it. (Netflix – not the smart phone.)

Vince and I love watching Netflix because there are no commercials. He gets annoyed over commercial breaks on network television and we have to fast forward through them. And woe to the remote control operator if she is not quick on the draw and remembers to hit the button once the commercial has begun.

I can see my darling husband out of the corner of my eye as he starts doing this imaginary button pressing thing, which gets more pronounced if the commercial actually starts airing. And if I’m still focused on something else (like my smart phone, for instance), he makes noises indicating his frustration and even starts poking me in the side with his elbow.

Only once has he had to pointedly ask, “And why are we watching this commercial?” So I had to pretend like I was completely engrossed in the local ad featuring the lawyer with the horrible comb-over. Side note to my fellow Columbus-ites: does that guy really think he’s fooling anyone?! (I’d show you a picture of him, but, well, he IS a lawyer, after all, and I’m not completely familiar with libel laws.)

So, yeah. In our house, we are not big fans of the advertising commercial. Mental note to self: Hand him the remote on Sunday and let him decide if he wants to be able to discuss Super Bowl commercials on Monday around the proverbial water cooler.

Anyway, the lack of commercials is one big benefit of Netflix. Another benefit is that we can watch an entire series without waiting a week for the next “live” episode to air or months before the next season begins.

Consequently, we are in the know about where the phrase “Better call Saul” comes from. And we now know who got lost on Lost and why (sort of), and how Dexter could be such a good bad guy.

So we’re watching shows that were critically acclaimed – even if the acclaiming was going on a few years ago.

However, I have recently realized that there are other long-running series that are featured on Netflix and I’ve started becoming addicted to reruns and repeats that I already saw the first time around.

Like, for instance, I’m currently re-watching the entire series of Friends.  Did I watch Friends when it initially aired on NBC? Sure, I did. I even taped it on my VCR if I had to miss an episode. (That’s how long ago Friends premiered.)

My justification is that sometimes the videotape messed up and I missed certain pivotal episodes. Like the one where Ross cheats on Rachel because they were “on a break.” I needed to see it to piece together the entire Ross and Rachel thing.  Plus, I had no idea how the duck and the chicken came to live with Joey and Chandler. These are important questions that needed to be answered.

I know. Could I BE any more lame?!

But reliving those moments on that show puts me in a happy place. And there was some really funny stuff on Friends.  I have laughed so loudly I’ve even scared the cats a few times.

Fortunately, Friends is only a half hour show and without commercials, we’re looking at 22 minutes, tops. Thus, I can get through them pretty quickly.

So maybe it’s okay if I indulge myself this time. But I really, really need to stop after Friends.

…except that I think I saw that Netflix is replaying Cheers. And I’m thinking I should probably relive all those Sam and Diane moments.

Uh oh.

Gotta Go...Gotta Go...Gotta Go Right Now!

I’ve noticed something as I’ve gotten older. Well, yeah, there are a whole lot of somethings I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten older. I can’t see as well. I can’t hear as well. I can’t remember stuff anymore. And my body creaks a whole lot more. But, I mean, besides all that.

What I’ve noticed is that I don’t like to be too far away from a restroom at any given time. I may not even have to go, but when I can’t go, I seem to develop the urge. Weird.

Put me in the OSU football stadium to watch the Buckeyes and the first thing I want to do after I’ve climbed all those cement steps is to head back down them so I can use the ladies room.

Get me on a plane and settled in my seat with my seatbelt securely fastened across my lap – and I immediately wonder if I should make a quick run to the loo before the flight takes off.

Now, you should know that I don’t actually GO to the bathroom once I arrive in my stadium or airplane seat. I just think I probably need to – even if I don’t.

I’ve also noticed that my driving habits have changed. I used to be able to drive for a minimum of 4.75 hours before a potty break was required. Nowadays, I can’t even make it to my parents’ home in Alliance – which is about a 2 hour and 20 minute drive – without making a pit stop along the way.

Sometimes getting older ain’t all that much fun is it?

So today was definitely a challenge for me. See, I didn’t have easy access to a bathroom while I was at work – and I felt like I had to go. All. Day. Long.

We had a couple of little old Italian masons in our German Village office all day repairing the brick wall that is located in the room next to my office. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a brick wall repaired, but red brick dust flies everywhere! We had plastic sheeting taped up all over the place to try to keep the dust to a minimum. And the door to my office was closed all day. Which meant I was practically hermetically sealed inside…and there are no, uh, “facilities” inside my office either.

I stopped drinking water at 8:35AM, which was hard to do because I normally drink water all day long to get in my requisite 8 glasses a day. Yep, I’m a veritable H20 drinking machine while at work.

So all morning I wanted to emerge from my cave to hit the john, even though I hadn’t had a drop to drink and was probably even slightly dehydrated. The thought of a powder room break crossed my mind approximately once every 45 seconds. This, as you can imagine, made it difficult to concentrate on any actual work.

Lunchtime was a blessing and I figured I would just spend the entire hour in the WC. Except…ewwww. So I didn’t, of course.

Normally at lunchtime, I suck down a whole can of Diet Dr. Pepper or another glass of water, but today I took a few miniscule sips from my water bottle fearing the need would hit me just as the afternoon brick repair session began.

This is all probably payback, you know. When I was younger and had the constitution of a, well, a younger person, I didn’t need to go to the restroom as often. But I had friends whose bladders must be the size of a teaspoon. Not only that, but they’d had children, which in female language apparently means they have to use the latrine infinitely more times as often as the rest of us. Like every 60 seconds.

One time a girlfriend and I drove to Cape Cod to spend a week at the beach. I’d made the drive a number of times previously, so I knew how long the trip should take given the usual potty breaks, which were timed with gasoline fill-ups to minimize stops. Ha. Little did I know that we’d have to stop every hour on the hour so she could make a pit stop. Just as we’d get a good driving rhythm going, she’d tell me she needed to stop. Arrrgghh! I thought we’d NEVER get there!

If she’d been a guy, I would’ve handed her a Big Gulp cup. But, nooooo. Couldn’t do that.

Sigh. You know what they say about paybacks, right? So I guess I should apologize to my friend for my superior attitude back then. Maybe I should hope that I get older quick. That way, I won’t remember all the things I used to give people a hard time about, and then won’t have to apologize. Or at least won’t remember that I should!

By the way…you ever notice how many euphemisms there are for “bathroom”?

The Birthday Celebration That Almost Wasn't

We had a great weekend celebrating Vince’s birthday with friends on Friday night and with family and friends on Saturday evening. Only it didn’t start out quite so promising.

When I spoke to Vince at lunchtime on Friday, I told him that I had to make one stop after work and wasn’t sure when I’d be home. I knew I wasn’t going on a major shopping spree, so I assumed it would be within a half hour or so of my normal arrival time.

You know what they say when you assume – right? Yeah, well, that’s pretty much true.

Vince, on the other hand, assumed that when he heard “shopping” and “Jane” in the same sentence that it would be several hours before I arrived home tired, flushed and loaded down with enough shopping bags that required his brute strength assistance to carry them all in from the car.

Sure, if I’d uttered the words “retail therapy,” he may have been correct in assuming that I was going on a mall hopping frenzy – but I was only planning a quick run to the store to pick up his birthday cake.

And then, as life is wont to do, plans changed.

During the afternoon, some friends told me they were going to Bob’s Bar after work. Neither of them, by the way, is named “Bob.” But I asked if we could join them – and then perhaps we could all head to the movie theater afterwards to see Due Date, which I’d heard was pretty funny. They agreed and we made plans to meet up around 6PM.

And then, because I like complications, I sent out a last-second invite to some of our other friends to see if any of them might be available to meet us at Bob’s Bar for a drink in honor of Vince’s birthday. Normally, I’m the Queen of Preparation and Special Events, but because I’d been sick earlier in the week, I hadn’t done any advance planning. My bad.

At 4PM I sent a quick text to Vince to alert him to our change of plans.

At 5PM on my commute home, I called him and left him a voicemail reiterating our change of plans.

At 5:45PM, coiffed and ready for our evening out, I sat at the dining room table semi-patiently waiting for the birthday boy.

At 6:20PM, I sent him a text in capital letters, “WHERE ARE YOU?” (For the sake of decorum, I won’t tell you what I was doing/thinking/saying/cursing between 5:45 and 6:20!)

And, finally, at 7PM, he showed up. You should know that I was standing in the open doorway with my purse in one hand, tapping my foot so vigorously I got a cramp in my toes. In my other hand, I held a fresh shirt for Vince to change into, along with his deodorant (in case he’d had a sweaty day at work). He wasn’t even allowed in past the kitchen – he had to change in the doorway, swipe on a little Rite Guard and immediately head back out.

What a GREAT way to start a birthday weekend, eh?! Poor Vince.

Turns out that he hadn’t checked his phone for messages and, figuring that I wasn’t t going to be home immediately after work, he offered to fill in for an absent coworker after his regular shift had ended.

By the time we arrived at Bob’s Bar, the original couple we’d agreed to meet up with had already left for the movie. Another couple had stopped in at the bar and when they didn’t see any of us firmly planted on Bob’s barstools, headed back out to their car. We were only able to catch them because they’d flipped on the interior dome light to peruse the movie section of the newspaper to find out what else was playing.

We convinced them to head back to Bob’s with us. And then another couple of friends joined us shortly thereafter. Once I’d had a beer and settled down a bit, we all enjoyed ourselves and toasted both the start of the weekend and Vince’s birthday.

We were having so much fun together that we left Bob’s and headed to our friends’ house where we got the fire pit going and we sat around laughing and telling stories, some perhaps a little more long-winded than others. But it was all good.

On Saturday (Vince’s actual birthday), we decided to go shopping together – so nobody had to assume nothin’! We picked up Vince’s birthday cake. And then we came home to get ready for a fun dinner out with Vince’s family and a couple friends. It was another great evening and we laughed and told more stories.

Vince’s dad had also gone shopping and bought birthday cake. Not one – but two birthday cakes – one for Vince and one for Vince’s brother who had celebrated his birthday earlier in the week. Egad. We had three flippin’ birthday cakes and there were only five of us gathered together after dinner to eat them!

Despite sending cake home with everyone, and despite having cake for breakfast yesterday morning (hey, it’s got eggs in it), we still have plenty of leftovers. If cake doesn’t freeze well, I may be eating cake for breakfast for the next month!

But I think the Birthday Boy had a good birthday weekend, the questionable start notwithstanding.

And next year? Well, I think I’ll send out engraved invitations at least six weeks prior to Vince’s birthday. That way, we’ll both be prepared and in-the-know about our plans. Even if it’s just to head to Bob’s Bar for a quick birthday drink!

Hmmm…I don’t have any engraved invitations sitting around at home. Maybe I should go shopping?

Annual "Camping" Weekend - 2010

We just returned from our Annual “Camping” Weekend. Quote marks around the word camping are necessary because, well, there is no actual camping involved. There never is, yet we persist in calling it our Annual “Camping” Weekend.

I think in the beginning, a little hiking might have been involved, but that was before my time. And some years we stayed in a cabin at Mohican, which was maybe a little more “rustic”…but still. There was a hot tub at the cabin, so that’s not exactly roughing it.

This year we returned for the second year to Indian Lake and there were eleven of us overnighters with several day trippers visiting on Saturday. We stayed in two connecting condos with six bedrooms altogether so no one even had to sleep on the floor in sleeping bags or on air mattresses.

Plus, there were curtains on the windows – doesn’t exactly scream camping, now does it? And we had cable TV. So we were only roughing it if you consider that it was basic cable with no premium channels. Some of us were probably going through ESPN withdrawal, but the rest of us were busy playing cards and drinking beer and weren’t paying a whole lot of attention.

So it was a great weekend. Our Friday night theme this year was “The 60s” so we all wore our best tie-dye, love beads and headbands to hold back our long, scraggly hair. (And if we no longer have long, scraggly hair we supplemented our follicles with groovy wigs, man.)

We ate chili and talked and laughed and made inappropriate comments, which ended up in our Quote Book. I usually have more than my fair share of quotes in that book, but this year I must have been exceptionally quiet and/or polite as I wasn’t quoted even once. Most of the quotes usually start out innocently enough, but this crowd jumps on anything that smacks of double-entendre. Thus, the need for a Quote Book. It is kept from year to year, too, so there is no escaping past embarrassments.

My food responsibility this year was a breakfast egg bake for Saturday morning. Since I wanted to have fun Friday night, we were proactive. The night before we left Vince and I premeasured and cut up anything that needed to be measured or cut up. All I needed to do Friday night was plop everything in the baking dish and then get up Saturday morning to pop it in the oven. No problem. Plus, I make these egg stratas all the time, so I figured it was a piece of cake. Piece of egg? Something like that.

After my partner Ellen and I finally lost a game of Euchre (after hours and hours of beating the boys), I decided it was time to put the strata together. I pulled all the ingredients out of the fridge…and only then realized I’d forgotten to bring the container of eggs. O.M.G. That’s the MAIN ingredient of this stupid dish! How could I have forgotten the eggs??

Deciding that 1AM and several beers later was a little too late and a lot too risky to go out in search of eggs, I put the dish together sans eggs and set my alarm for early AM to get up and find a store.

Vince woke up when my alarm went off and he asked, “Do you want me to go with you?” I answered his question with a question: “Do you want to see me again anytime today?!” To which he replied, “I’ll get dressed.”

We left and I said “Don’t we want to turn right?” Which, naturally, was the wrong direction. Vince just laughed and said, “Janie – why don’t you let me do the driving?”

So we found an IGA a couple miles up the road, purchased our eggs and made it back to the condo in time to get the strata in the oven before all the campers stumbled downstairs in search of sustenance and a little caffeine. Or, depending upon how many beers they’d imbibed the night before, a LOT of caffeine.

Fortunately, we had the coffee pot on perpetual perk and, while we waited for the breakfast bake to bake, we also had some tasty treats like powdered sugar donuts, peanut butter cookies and Twizzlers to snack on.

Clearly, healthy eating is not part of the equation on these camping weekends. Someone did take a stab at it and brought a bag of apples, but I’m not sure if anyone actually ate one since the bag still looked full by the end of the weekend.

The only downer the whole weekend was watching the Buckeyes lose Saturday night. We all wore our best OSU gear and walked over to Froggy’s to watch the game where Buckeye nuts abounded. There was so much scarlet and gray in the place it was enough to make your eyes water. Alas, the loss to Wisconsin was the real reason eyes were watering, but we sucked it up and finished our evening trying not to think about it by watching cheesy – yet funny – movies like Hot Tub Time Machine and playing more card games.

The saying on Sunday is: “Get up. Clean up. Giddy up.” So that’s what we did. We took the obligatory group photo, settled up the tab, split up any leftover food, said our goodbyes and hit the road.

And thus ended this year's Annual "Camping" Weekend. Great friends. Great times.

The Long Arm of the Law...

I had dinner with one of my oldest and dearest friends last night. (Well, she’s not technically my “oldest” friend – but you get the idea.) It was so good to get together and catch up on each other’s lives, but we realized that it had been nearly a year since just the two of us got together. How do I know this? Well, because the last text message I sent her was almost exactly a year ago.

With my amazing ability to string words together into pearls of wisdom I had texted: “I am here.” And, no, I am not usually so succinct when texting, calling, writing, or smoke signaling people as I tend to think messages are better when the reader knows what color socks I’m wearing and what I had for breakfast a week ago.

However, I was simply letting her know last October that I was parked in the alley behind her office building waiting to pick her up so we could go to dinner and talk until the server gave us seriously dirty looks indicating that we should probably leave.

My succinctness was due to the fact that I had my eyes peeled for cops as there were big signs all over the alley that read “NO STOPPING EITHER SIDE OF THE ALLEY.” I think they were serious. Yet there I was breaking the law – along with a half dozen other people who were also stopped in the alley awaiting their party.

Last night I left her – word for word – the exact same text message. Wow. And here I thought that with all these blogs I’ve written in the past year that I’d improved my writing skills. Guess not.

Nevertheless, those three little words were clear enough to let her know that she should leave her desk on the second-to-highest floor of her skyscraper office building, get on the two elevators, escalator and set of stairs needed to reach the ground floor and hustle on out to my car before a cop decided to turn an eagle eye down the alley and zero in on my license plate.

This is unlike my office, where I spy my ride out the window, walk three steps to the door, and then walk 10 steps to their car. By the time someone has had the chance to text “I am…” I’d be at their car door ready to hop in. Cops usually don’t patrol the street near my office anyway. What’s the point? There is a 2-hour parking limit and no sticker is required, so they’re not liable to catch anyone loitering.

Anyway, my friend reached my car, hopped in and we sped away like Thelma and Louise before any Boys in Blue decided to exercise their ticket-writing authority.

Even though the cops would’ve had to write an awful lot of tickets to drivers besides just me, I was relieved to move along as I’m just not comfortable breaking the law whether it’s of the minor variety or not. This wouldn’t bother Vince as one of his many mottos is: “I’d rather ask for forgiveness than ask for permission.” He obviously did not grow up Catholic.

I, on the other hand, grew up asking for forgiveness before I even did anything bad. Oh, c’mon. I never did anything bad – I was just funnin’ you! If I ever even thought about doing anything bad, I’d break out in hives and then the heart palpitations would begin. I’d have a guilty look on my face – just for thinking about misbehaving. Probably I wasn’t too much fun to be around.

I’d be the ‘narc’ without ever opening my mouth. A parent or a teacher would take one look at the guilt written all over my face and start searching for the real perpetrators. Man, it’s a miracle I grew up with any friends at all, isn’t it?!

Anyway, once my heart rate returned to normal last night and we were well beyond the alley, we headed toward our destination and then had a lovely meal together. We talked in code only familiar to long-time friends and laughed about silly things we did in our (relative) youth. We asked each other about our families and mutual friends and just had a grand old time.

Well, at least until the bill had been paid and our water glasses were sucked completely dry and the waitress (who pointedly did not come back to refill our water glasses) shot us a dirty look for the umpteenth time. We sort of took that as a hint that we should probably be moving on.

Wow. Someone thought I was doing something wrong – and there wasn’t a single hive or a heart palpitation to be had. Maybe I'm finally getting over the guilt thing, eh? Hey, maybe I should do something reckless - like jaywalk or something?

Nah. Baby steps… I wouldn't want to get all crazy and somehow end up on America's Most Wanted. I wouldn't want to get that John Walsh after me - he is one scary dude!

Ready…Set…GO! Oh, Wait...STOP!

This has been one of the busiest weeks I’ve had in quite a while. On Tuesday night Vince and I spent a pleasant evening visiting with some of his “long-time” friends. (This is, you know, a better way of saying it at our age than calling anyone “old” friends!) On Wednesday I met some of my former Ross coworkers for dinner and lots of laughs. And last night I had a girls’ night out that included a chick flick with a good friend I’ve known since we were 18 and freshmen together at Ohio State. And tomorrow evening we have invited another couple over to partake in some of Vince’s yummy barbecue ribs.

Oh, and tonight? Well, I’m so hoping that tonight is a stay-at-home-and-relax sort of evening. Guess I truly am getting old and can’t hack the constant on-the-go schedule I used to enjoy only a few short years ago.

My schedule used to be: Bowling on Mondays, Trivia on Tuesdays, dinner with one female friend or another on Wednesdays, Euchre on Thursdays and the inevitable parties and get-togethers that were scheduled for Fridays and Saturdays. Oh, and somewhere in there I fit in three workouts every week.

These days, just reading that schedule makes me tired!

When Vince and I first met he said he wondered how he could possibly fit into my busy social life. Ah, but he discounted true love. He and I started spending so much time together that my regularly scheduled activities started lessening – but so slowly I barely noticed. It certainly wasn’t due to Vince because he was more than willing to join in on most of these gatherings.

Well, except maybe for the “girls’ night out” thing. He was sort of barred from those as he possessed a decided lack of estrogen. I’m sure he wasn’t heartbroken about missing the chick flicks we were intent upon seeing anyway!

The first change to the schedule was that I started missing Trivia at BW3s with the Trivia Gang. At first it was an occasional miss here and there if I needed to catch up on my sleep because I’d had a particularly hectic schedule the weekend before.

But then I noticed it was getting harder to play Trivia because I couldn’t really see the TV monitors as clearly when I wore my glasses (yeah, the whole 20/20 vision correction thing is sort of a joke for me…). And if I wore contacts, I couldn’t see my player box very clearly because my contacts didn’t have the evil-but-necessary bifocal correction.

Oh, and let’s throw in “half deaf” too, just for fun! I couldn’t hear the answers called out by members of our group unless the “smart one” happened to be sitting to my right. It was frustrating scoring thousands of points less than my cohorts when we were playing the same game! (Not that I’m competitive or anything!)

Eventually, I stopped attending entirely. Were I to show up now, the gang would probably fall off their stools in shock. I do sometimes miss those evenings, however. Does the gang miss me? Oh sure, I suppose whenever the odd “TV/Movie” or “Best-selling Novel” question arises, but on the whole I think they’re probably managing to figure out most of the answers just fine without my added, uh, expertise.

The next scheduling change was Monday night bowling. I’d been on a league that didn’t even start until 9:30 at night – so I didn’t get home until nearly midnight. Being an affirmed night owl this late schedule didn’t particularly bother me. And then suddenly it did. So, after I sadly turned in my membership card to the International Night Owl organization, I opted out of my late night bowling league and switched to a more reasonable Sunday bowling league that was finished by 9PM.

And then Euchre went by the wayside. Started out as “I’m just taking a break this session” but I’ve never re-upped for the next session. That was over a year ago.

Sigh. What has happened to me?!

When I was single, I used to wonder how my married friends could be so busy that they couldn’t get together for one measly dinner with me every coupla months…but I have to admit that, well, now I sort of understand it a little better. It’s not that Vince and I jam-pack our evenings with all sorts of busy activities, but it is nice to be able to spend quiet evenings at home having dinner together and talking about our day. Guess that makes me an old married lady now?

Oh well. I don’t really mind. There is a time and a place for everything in this life, and I certainly can’t complain that I’ve missed out on much. I’ve just moved on to a new stage in life. And tonight – that new stage is called “stay-at-home-and-relax.” No membership card required.

As for you, well, I hope you have a great weekend – whatever you do and however you spend it!

His, Mine and Ours

Being married for the first time at such a late stage in life is sort of interesting. Okay, really interesting. I swear, I could write a book. There are so many changes in my heretofore single life that I don’t know where to begin.

But let’s talk about friends for a minute. See, I have a whole lot of friends and Vince has a whole lot of friends. Now, before you say “Well, Miss Social Butterfly – you're awfully full of yourself, aren’t you?” in a rather snippy tone of voice (if you don't mind my saying so), let me explain. Having a lot of friends is more a result of us simply being alive for so damn long. Unless someone is a real jerk, they’re probably going to have more friends at 50 than they did at 25.

It occurs to me that when people get married at a younger age, they tend to grow “couple friendships.” While they probably still have individual friends they made while growing up or through school, a newly married younger couple focuses more on forming friendships with other couples. And when they start procreating, they become friends with other couples who are in the same boat. Or at least the same daycare. They want to be able to do things like make “play-dates” for their newborns. Like their newborns really understand the social aspect of a play-date. Heck, those kids are busy trying to locate their toes and are mostly concerned about their next diaper change.

On the other hand, when a couple breaks up, many of their friendships break up, too. Usually one member of the former couple wins the friends in the divorce settlement. I think it's one of the first assets the lawyers split up. But what usually happens is that the non-divorced couple picks one of the ex-es (usually the one who isn't as snippy). But they gravitate toward either the ex-wife or the ex-husband – not usually both. If by some weird cosmic accident a couple is able to maintain friendships with both the ex-wife and the ex-husband, it isn't easy. At the very least, planning a dinner party becomes significantly more complicated.

As for me, well, I was one of those “third-wheeler” sorts of friends. Even when I was in a relationship, I still had a lot of free time. Fortunately, my married girlfriends were able to carve out a little time for me. Mostly, we'd meet up for dinner and go see a chick flick while their grateful husbands stayed home watching ESPN and probably burping and farting without having to apologize to anyone or blame the dog.

But sometimes they’d invite me over to their house and the three of us would hang out together. I'm guessing my friend's husband didn't like it as much when we did that because then he would have to blame the dog for any gaseous emissions that inadvertently occurred.

I always wondered if my friends’ husbands merely put up with me as the third wheel – or if they actually considered me a friend? Who knows – maybe they were simply grateful because I was the reason they didn’t get dragged to as many chick flicks. I never really asked the question because I didn’t really want to know the answer. I was just happy to spend time with my friends.

About 5 years ago I became more active building friendships with other singles. Eventually, I joined the Columbus Ski Club for the social aspect of the club. So I developed lots of friendships with both singles and couples alike.

Vince, meanwhile, was doing the thing where he was inheriting some friendships after his marriage broke up. He also developed friendships in his newly single life. And in the past few years, he has re-connected with many friends from high school, college and previous work situations.

So as we’ve merged our lives, we’ve been merging our friends. While there are still some “mine” and some “his” – we’re not doing too badly with the “ours” and Vince is now usually included on invites from my friends. I don't hear from his friends much. Probably they're a little scared I'll call them snippy - or will edit their e-mails or something.

Anyway, sometimes having this “his-mine-and-ours” situation complicates matters. Like when a holiday weekend comes up and we have invites from both sets of friends. It takes some juggling to make sure we aren’t short-changing one group over another. So for example, on this 4th of July holiday weekend, we have three gatherings to attend Friday night, and four gatherings to attend on Saturday. Egads! Seven events in two days? Ain't no way we can be that good at juggling.

I dunno. Maybe we should just go out and buy a box of Sparklers and throw a coupla burgers on the grill and call it a day? Nah. But...seven events? Even if we manage only half of them, I think I should still get to be called "Miss Social Butterfly."

Just don't call me snippy!