Toxic Trio

An interesting topic came up Monday night whilst watching The Hills with VonSis and Sil1x. (Stop with The Hills snark. I love that freakin show. I'm team LC and not ashamed of it. Plus it's quality time with VonSis and Sil1x and has been for like EVER) Anyway. We were watching the cattiness between the roommates, LC, Lo, and Audrina. LC said "I wish it could go back to how it was." Dude, it can't. See, you decided to live with both of them. Sil1x said "Groups of three friends doesn't work. Me, P, and J are the exception." I pondered on this for a bit. She's right. Really right. Her friendships with P and J are awesome, and they work somehow. When I started to think of my own friendships, I was even more convinced that she was right. Once upon a time, I had Laura, and Ass(name changed to protect the heinous bitch). Ass was my oldest friend from forever, and Laura was my new friend. I thought the three of us would dominate the world! Or at least our small corner of the NW side of Chicago. It didn't take long for that to turn into a hot mess. Turns out Ass was actually one of Satan's minions. Ultimately Laura and I kicked Ass to the curb where she remains. See, two friends works. Four or more friends works too. Three is toxic. There's just something about three that does not work. I think it has to do with that odd man out thing. I don't know if it works for guys. I don't know of any of my guy friends that have a core group of three. Most of my guy friends have larger core groups. I think guys might be able to pull of the trio easier than girls. I think girls get jealous of the time that the other two might be spending, or paranoid that the other two are talking about her, or they may just prefer one friend over the other. I don't really know what's behind it.

First, and UPdate

Just got back from a lovely Peruvian BYOB with Shannon and TheMarty. I dig them the most. They are right up there on my short list of most favorite people to hang out with. ANYWHO Thought some of you might be curiuos about our poor Charlie. He's better. Not great, not 100%, but better. He was meh when we got up this morning. When I got home from work, he had improved. His tail was wagging, and I could tell that he wanted to jump up on my legs to say hello and get/give kisses, but he thought better of it. *He's so smart!* When I got back from dinner, he was even more peppy. I'm going to try to breathe again now, and stop with the worry wrinkles I'm giving myself. He's eating, and tail wagging, and he just looks a little better. Thanks to all for the well wishes.

Weekend in review

Nothing. Friday night: Kids' birthday party at 9pm. At a pool. It was cold. Almost hit a skunk. Was cranky. Saturday: Joined W2. Cleaned house. Tried to watch Netflix. This one broken too. Cable busted. Badly timed 2 hour nap. Charlie not acting like himself. Cranky/borderline worried about Charlie. Sunday: Upside: Lunch w/ K. Love her! Don't see enough of her! Downside: First day of W2 - points?!? WTF?!?!? I ate 23 points at lunch. Starved all evening, yep this is fun. Sat at a fest to promote DANK. Shitty fest. Hot. NO breeze. Saw some cool planes from the air and water show. Charlie's back really bothering him, pills not helping much. Cranky/worried/tired. Glad it's Monday, that's how meh my weekend was.

Friday Frivolity

This is TheMarty doing TheRobot the weekend AG and MenD were here: (he told me to post it, so here it is) Makes me giggle. A thought, an idea, a point for discussion: Though I am not one of those bloggers that throws things out to be discussed on my comments, (aside from the Name that Tune *which will be back next Friday! stay tuned!*) I was thinking that for my 100th post - which is approaching much faster than I thought it would! - that you all could give me topics, and I'll write about one of them. Submit as many topics as you like. If there's a lot of them, I'll pull the winner from a hat. If the suggestions are rockin' awesome, I might do this for post 100 and 101 (why is 100 so special, anyway? Why not 101?) So, that's my cheesy idea. Let me know what you think. It's Friday. I'm in a good mood, and I'm not leaving town this weekend! I'm going for intentionally low key.

A cheerful post

Tonight I will be going out with my kids. Yep. My. kids. I have somewhere between 8 and 12 kids. They are all between the ages of 19 and 22. No, I am not a teenage mother. Let me 'splain. For seven years I worked part time at a drop in center for teenagers. It was open weekend evenings and I was there often twice a weekend. There is a story behind why I started working there. I was at the mall and some stupid asswipe teenager said some stupid comment at my general direction. As I was driving home, I was pissed. I hated teenagers in that moment. I decided I could either add teenagers to the list of people I hate, or I could try to work with them to help them be a little more tolerable to the adult population. I opted for the latter. I knew about this teen center in a suburb close to my house. I called them up and they were hiring. I became staff, and quickly became a supervisor. I was responsible not only for the kids, but also for the other staff on nights that I worked. I loved working there. I have to admit it wasn't always easy. At times it was the hardest thing in the world. I found I have a knack for working with teenagers, something not everyone can do. I also had a soft spot for my "regulars". More than a few kids came in nearly every night. It was my job and also my privilege to get to know them. These kids were smart. Some cunningly so, others surprisingly so. I know that I tried to help them all, in some way. Sometimes just listening to their music and playing a game of pool was enough. Other times were harder, like the month I spent consoling the girl who's boyfriend (another one of "my" kids) had died in a stupid, avoidable car accident. I spent more than a few car rides home after a shift crying my eyes out because one of my kids had disappointed me, or pissed me off, or had died. Unfortunately more than one of them passed away. The kids I am having dinner with tonight are the ones that best define MyKids. They even call themselves that. They are sophomores, juniors, and seniors in college now. They go to different schools, all across the country. I had tried to keep up with them, but last winter I also decided to let them go. I didn't want them to have to carve time out of their precious winter and summer breaks to spend time with me. I was satisfied to have known them, and was going to be ok with it. Happily, they had a different opinion. The message I got a couple of weeks ago on my cell: "Von. It's V. We were thinking about you and would like to all get together for dinner before we head back to school. Everyone wants to go. Give me a call." It took me 1/2 second to call him back. I choked up a little, he sounds like a grown-up (almost) now. I guess he should, he's 19. I left the teen center almost two years ago. It was a personal and difficult decision, but I don't regret it. It's time for me to do other things. Someday I hope to work with teenagers again, but for now, I'll just look forward to that call every six months or so, when my kids think of me.

Picture Proof

I wasn't kidding:

The Bride wore RED

Back from Denver. Here's what I learned about Denver: Lots of tattoos Lots of dogs People are WAY too nice. They look you in the eye and stuff. It creeped me out. I wanted to punch someone in the face by about day two. Strangers just chattin you up like no one's business. Hated that. I had a fantastic time. It went something like this: Friday I checked in to my crappy hotel. You get what you pay for, so I knew it would be crappy. VonCousin picked me up and I got to have lunch with her and her adorable baby girl. She dropped me off at this fancy schmancy mall. I walked around and went to the movies. I was pretty tired so I went back to the hotel. Saturday was the wedding. The location was fantastic. It was in this really cute art gallery. Chris wore this fantastic zoot suit. It was black with red pinstripes. He looked great. His lovely bride Megan wore this incredible red dress. Hell yes, I said red. It was amazing. I had never met Megan before, but once I saw that dress I knew Chris had been right when he said that she and I would click. We really did. Chris' friends are all very cool, and I had a great time. I didn't get too drunk because we had to be up bright and early for Sunday's adventures. On Sunday about 35 of us went on this all day tour. First we went to Red Rocks and it was as cool as I had always imagined. I'd love to see a show there! After that we went up, and up, and up into the mountains. We went over Loveland (I think that's right?) pass at the Continental Divide. We got out of the bus there to take pictures. I felt a little queasy up there, but not bad. After that we went to Breckenridge. It was beautiful. We had lunch there. I sat with Chris' friends Rudy, Amy, and Rebecca. They are hilarious. After lunch we headed back down to Denver. We stopped at a real and actual gold mine and went on a tour and did a little panning for gold in the creek. We were all pretty tired when we got back so I just went back to the hotel and had dinner and packed. I am so glad that Chris and I have stayed friends. He's the best thing I got out of my last job. Megan is wonderful, and I feel that she and I will end up great friends. I will definitely go back to Denver to visit them. I'm really glad I went by myself, too. I now have my first solo vacation behind me. I feel confident I can and will do it again. It was pretty cool to do what I wanted when I wanted, and not have to worry about anyone else. I came home feeling really relaxed. Yet, still tired! Thankfully I am not going out of town this weekend!