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Dealing with People

Over the weekend, I spent some time with G-lady. I hadn’t seen her in a while and she wanted to go to Sunday brunch at this place where we normally go to dinner. We were expecting regular brunch fare but instead were handed regular dinner menus.

She’s getting hard to deal with these days. Almost every sentence out of her mouth begins with “I Want…” and there’s almost an expectation for me to deliver it.

- I want a new pair of sunglasses
- I want to have an iPod player in the back of my apartment
- I want more songs in iTunes

I’m thinking to myself “then just DO IT and shut up about it”. She asks my advice on this stuff, I tell her what I think, then she does what she wants anyway.

At brunch she was talking about clothes she bought for an upcoming trip and what she’s describing sounds totally inappropriate for a woman her age and size. If she was a 6-foot blond who was 20-something then maybe. I tried to relay the idea that, like fragrances, clothes don’t work on women ‘of a certain age’. She just shrugged it off. Like I said, she’s getting tough to deal with.

In the meantime, one of my nieces is turning 21 and I find out about the get-together THE DAY OF the event.

First my mother calls Sunday morning (when I know I’ve already got plans) and tells me that they’re getting together for my nieces birthday in about an hour – a lunch with the family. Well, at the time I was on my way out the door to church, so I knew I wasn’t going to make that. As mentioned previously, I was having brunch with G-lady in the afternoon.

When I get home from all of that, I had a voicemail from my sister Dee (who is NOT the mother of the niece who is having the birthday) saying they’re getting together for drinks at a local pub. Again, this is the day of and about an hour before.

Well, I had other things to catch up on so I didn’t even get in touch with her because I knew I wasn’t going to be able to make it. It just irks me that they call at – literally – the last hour and expect me to drop everything to attend.

This is in direct contrast to my mother who plans everything years in advance. “Remember we’re having lunch on Thursday June 17th – 2010”. “Okay, Mom… whatever”.

Both these situations are starting to pluck my last nerve.

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