We are family, right?? I can vent my anger and frustrations to you and you will listen, right?? This day has just turned out so far from what I had hoped. This is probably going to sound so stupid, but I have to talk to someone. This weekend was supposed to be wonderful. My family is out of town for the weekend. I love my family, but sometimes you just need a break. Well, I had today all planned out. I was planning on watching Monk all day long. A whole day with nothing but my DVD's. I haven't had much time of late to just sit and think about nothing but Monk. Although I have seen all of the episodes, I was looking forward to rewatching many of them. This morning when I put in the first DVD, the Federal Warning thing about not reproducing the DVD's came up. Then there was a knock at the door. It was a friend of mine. Now, you have to understand about my friend. She doesn't get into the types of shows I like, Monk for example. So, I realized while she was at my house there was no chance of me watching our favorite consultant for the San Francisco Police Department. I got this sinking feeling when I saw the bag she was carrying over her shoulder. I was determined to make the best of the situation in hopes at least half of my day would be spared. This was not to be. I came to Message Board many times today, giving myself moments of sanity. Now, by this time you are probably thinking that she is just this awful person and I probably should waste my time dealing with her. Later in the afternoon, we were talking about different things and she began to tell me how to deal with various situations in my own house. My house now... I listened to her ideas of how to deal with them. Knowing that the ultimate decision was up to me. When I didn't take her advice she started going off on tangents and telling me how I am just this awful person. Then she sets into other friends of mine and how they are awful people because of various decisions they have made in their lives. This friend, BTW, is no saint. Where does she get off thinking she has the right to make decisions for me...in my own house! To make the matter worse, my brother (who is 3 yrs younger than me) comes over and tells that he is locked out of the house (Mom and Dad are on vacation). He tells me he needs me to either take him to their house so he can get his key or let him stay at my house for the night. That meant I wasn't watching Monk tonight either. Keep in mind my friend is still here at this point. My friend continues to carry on about how I should make different choices in dealing with my household...my household, now. Well, we get into another argument about it. Long story short, she has just left, almost 1 am where I live. How has everyone elses weekend been so far?? All I wanted to do was watch Monk...

Kelly

I hate to say it but that's probably a friend that you're better off cutting loose. As soon as you said she's telling you how to handle your business and then she moved into talking about people behind their back, I damn near had a flashback. Now, everyone talks about people who don't happen to be there at the time but when they're ripping them apart, discussing their business, or abasing them, you've got a random a-hole on your hands. The rule of thumb is this, if they're talking about people with you, then when you're not in the room, they're talking about you. Never ever ever discuss any of your sensitive business around such a person. I tell people like this straight out--don't tell me any of that person's business because they didn't tell me anything about so I'm not someone who's supposed to have this information. Immediately, those people clam up around me--that's the desired effect.

I've met so many people like that, it's not even funny. The only way they've figured out how to function in social situations is to be the person who knows everybody's business, and unfortunately, that usually puts that kind of person on the A list. Everyone wants to know everybody else's business and they know just who to go to in order to get it. I've also had people try to tell me their own business and I always cut them off before they get into it. "Am I the only person you're telling this to? No? Then I'd rather be in the dark because if your business gets out, I don't want to be on the list of suspects." I had to use that same line on the same person at my last job at least four times over the course of a year. Never ever tell her any of your business or it will become fodder for her next conversation and you won't even be there when she twists and spins everything you tell her.

You have to realize that many many many people still function like this. Their social dynamics haven't progressed much beyond the high school level. When she tries to tell you about someone else, tell her it sounds like sensitive information and you'd rather not be privy to it. That's about as polite as you can be in telling her you don't want to be a stop on the gossip train. When she starts running other people down, tell her you don't know everything that's going on that person's life and there may be reasons that person is doing whatever she's saying they're doing or whatever's going on in that person's life. Tell her you'd rather discuss it when that person is there--they can defend themselves or explain whatever they want to explain. That always shuts them down--I've never had that not work. The last place I worked, you went out back to have a cigarette. Damn. This one woman always went out with me, with another two or three people and now I get to stand there and hear everyone else's business. I started waiting until I saw her and her crowd come back in from having a smoke. I'd give it another five minutes, and then I went out for mine. Alone. In peace. I don't want to be mired in that mess. Then I came back in every bit as clueless as I was when I went out. Bliss.

You can be polite with some and you have to be firm with others. If they walk away, let them go. There's just nothing going on in the world at any time to where you'd need to surround yourself with people like that. I find myself in a position frequently where people are telling me not someone else's business, but their business. Am I the only person you're telling this to? Okay then. Now, people who've worked with me or known me for ten years know that when they say something to me, that's as far as it goes. They know it doesn't get past me. It goes no further. There's one guy I worked for for eight years in PA. I'd help this guy hide a body. That's the degree of loyalty there. I won't even tell him anyone else's business. This woman you had in your house is just a gossip monger. She has no respect or consideration for anyone else and the only way she knows of to elevate herself is to place others in a very bad light.

Seek out people who know how to mind their own business and don't offer advice you didn't ask for or need. Telling you how to conduct your own household--"I have everything under control. Everything's going great." Tell her nothing more than that. Watch everything you say and pay attention--you may be saying something benign that a person like that will see as an invitation to start telling you how to do things.

And no one shuts down Monk in my house--not my friends, not my son's friends, not Jesus knocking on the door asking for directions. And everyone in my house and every visitor who's been here more than once knows if I'm staring at the TV and Monk is on, there is no such thing as conversation. No clanging pots, no barking dogs, no "what do we got to eat?"--nothing. And don't stub your toe unless you can muffle your own screams.

I never would have let her ramble on until one in the morning. I would have told her I was exhausted and wanted to relax alone for the rest of the day. I'm polite about it but if they can't understand that, don't let the door hit ya.... I wouldn't have left my brother hanging but had that been your only snag today, you still could have squeezed in a healthy dose of Monk. That chick needed to go. lol.

Anytime you want to talk about something like a really bad day or a clueless friend, feel free to email me. Just don't tell me anyone else's business or any of your own business that's in wide circulation. rofl. Keep your head up.

In the most jovial sense of each word - "Shoot first, plant weapons and invent a plausable story later. Dont move the body yourself. Too many people get caught like that. Just call the police and cry about how all you wanted to do was watch Monk and then 'this had to happen' - of course that's the simple answer."

In my life I have my mother and my aunt both of whom have run thier lives in to the ground - my mother completely and my aunt to the point where her "life-status" is hanging by a thread.

Neither of them can offer a valid opinion or piece of usefull information to save thier lives - but nothing stops them from talking like experts on ever topic known to man.

When my grandfather was dying of cancer, my aunt tried to convince the chemo therapy doctor to start treatment before the radiation treatments to my g-dad's brain were complete. The man actually said "No, there is a good chance this would melt his brain."

AND SHE PRESSED ON! "Well, if it's only a small chance why dont you get to work on that now anyway?"

ANd to this day she insists that she knows of 'secret cases' where it's possible to save a stage four cancer patient by doing the one surely fatal thing she can think of. Also insisting that she knows they could have given him chemo and radiation at the same time (somehting you can do but not when you're doing radiation right to the brain) and that there was a huge conspiracy to kill my grandfather - a medical conspiracy - by all the various and unrelated people involved in his treatment.

And she will insist that until she dies because in her mind it's better than being wrong. Plus, she's gets to tell it like she's the hero and people like me - who carried the man to and from the bathroom for the entire time he was sick and she sat on her but in Massachusettes - we are/ I am - the people who killed him.

Of course while her own husband was dying of cancer in the hospice house she had moved Billy Bohannan in for a weekend away from his wife 'to see if there was anything between us'. She even 'bought a diary to keep track of her secret affair'. Which never materialized, as he hadnt seen her since high school and she didnt age well.

But the truth is - some people think the know it all and can do no wrong. And they are the most dangerous people you can run across without finding someone looking to personally hurt or kill another.

The last time this aunt was in Florida and my g-dad was alive - he threw her out of the house and sent her home.

The last time she was here - 12 hours after he died - she threw such a fit that my g-mom had to throw her out.

And to this day - she signes her cards and letters to my g-mom "Your favorite, Nina!"

Her name isnt Nina either, she just thought - as a teen - that it sounded better than Nadeen.

By the way, she's 50+ and worships Paris Hilton.

-M

Good Evening! I wanted to thank you all for your kind words about my night last night. I wanted to let everyone know that since I didn't get to have my "Monk Day" yesterday, as I had planned, I was able to enjoy a day of Monk today. I stayed in the house in front of my big screen all day long. I took the phone off the hook, turned off my cell phone, and kept the garage doors closed so it looked like no one was home. Thank you for making me smile and laugh at some of the comments that were made. You guys are right I do need to wish her well, and let her go.

Yvette, I may take you up on the offer to talk. Don't worry, I won't tell you anyone elses business or to much of mine.

Thanks again, Everyone.

Kelly

Glad to help. If I did, at all.

...

Ummm...

And a little embarrased otherwise.

<smirk>

-M

Now how long did you expect to keep your identity secret from me 'Mandeville'? No matter how many false names you share it is obvious from these two paragraphs that you are indeed my brother, and that the mother you speak of is mine as well.

Isn't it great when long-separated siblings find each other?

History08, I've been where you are at -- it's interesting to note that sometimes God places people like this in our lives, who offer such advice, to give us clear direction to do the exact opposite. And it usually works great! Take Care.

Hope I was one of those that was able to cheer you up some. Glad you got some Monk in today. I've been running my DVDs through the box--then I took some Benadryl and that was the last thing I remember. I did the whole "lost consciousness" thing and it was wonderful. My allergies are kicking up pretty bad right now.

Yeah, you can talk anytime. It doesn't come through in here very well but I really am a pretty good listener.

lol. I knew they were keeping things from me. So, do you have the other half of this amulet or d I have a twin to hunt down too?

<sigh> I tell ya... It just never ends!

-M

LOL, there lil' bro.

You'll have to keep looking for the twin, for alas, I have no amulet. (But be leary if when you find him he is wearing an eyepatch)

Of course the amulet might have been taken by my half-sister whom I have never met. I found out about her after seeing her on a milk carton. (really - true story)

She looked like me, and had the same last name I was born with, so I called the 800 number. How's this for poetic justice? My father wasn't ready to be a father, so he ran out on me and my mother. No child support, no attempt to contact....nothing. Years later, he got remarried, had another kid, and the girl's mother ran off with her, leaving him alone.

And people wonder why I believe in God...

That's pretty good - but here's one to consider.

My Great Grandfather - who I never met - had 3 kids, my grandfather being one of them.

Then 'someone' killed my great grandfather in public, with a knife (very Hungarian, I'm told.) - married his wife - took his name - and had three more kids.

Try factoring that in to the family tree.

-M

I think you may be winning this...if such a thing were possible.

The only thing to offer that comes close is how half of my also hungarian family (maybe there is something to this brother thing) ended up in the Polish mafia.

And Grandma did some black market during the war.

Nope...you still 'win'.

Family trees are highly over-rated though, IMO. They matter little in the end. I've always considered it more important to consider what kind of person I am and would become, rather than how I got here.

Of course when you only have half a trunk and half a tree to work with, that line of thinking is very convenient, isn't it?

BfloGal,

You are exactly right. Thanks for the encouragement.

Have you spoken to this "friend" since this weekend? She definitely doesn't sound like much of a friend to me. No one is going to tell me what to do in my own house! And I don't think you should feel bad for having your day ruined! It's not like your friend or brother showed up with a serious, legitimate issue. I would have just screamed - leave me alone, this is MY day!! I am glad to hear though that you somewhat made up for it. I value my alone time so I know exactly how you feel.

No, I have not spoken with this friend since the weekend. I don't feel that I should be the one to go to her. Right or wrong about that, it is how I feel. I am planning on making completely up for it in a couple of weeks. I am going to get away sometime. Whether that means here, at my house, or somewhere else. It will happen!

I don't think you should contact her first either. I think the ball is in her court. Come over to my house we'll have a weekend long Monk marathon.

Sounds like fun!

History - I am empathize with you and the friend...I had a very good friend that I knew from grade school. Although I moved a lot, I kept in touch with her. I was so glad when I moved back to my home town and got to spend time with her. But I saw that I was not as important as I was when we were kids so I tried to make other friends. But after I graduated HS she thought less of me and stopped calling and stuff. I didn't care as much but whenever she didn't have someone to go to the movies with or spend "girl" time with she would call me. Even when I started dating my first husband she tried to break us up! I didn't know what she was thinking. She tried to support me we I got divorced but she didn't understand the amount of pain that time was like for me. Then I started dating my current husband and she did the same stuff. He isn't all that ...ya ya and it pissed me off. I decided that enough was enough. The straw that broke the camels back was her calling me up on a Sunday and telling me to go cash her paycheck (only 40 bucks)! I told her that my man was visiting and I would even come by her workplace and give her the money! She got peed off because I wasn't willing to leave him to go and have lunch with her. So we havent spoken since! I only wish her well but she was demanding! I heard she is doing ok and has a boyfriend but I just cant see her as a friend anymore. I call this time of my life "toxic". I had to have my meltdown to get rid of my contaminate. I chose my happiness first.

I though that letting you know that this does happen to a lot of good people sometimes change (even though Monk has problems with it) has to happen to make one happy.

LovethatMonk,

Thank you for sharing your story with me!! Over the past few days I am slowly coming to realize that my friend and I are just two different. It is almost like people like them feel that the world revolves around them, and no one but them. They think people should drop everything to do what they want or need, and to heck with anyone else. I, just like Monk, am not a fan of change at all. I do, however, think in this case change will be very good for me. Thanks again for sharing your story with me!! It really helped.

I am glad for you...change is ok...take it one step at a time. My husband and I discuss how friends we have known for a long time have changed..sometimes not for the better. Hang in there!

If this friend ever becomes a critic I know a thread with a creek where the body dumping's been good.

-M

We could pretend she is a critic...or initiate into the critic profession...

...

Eeeee.... I dont know. I think we need more, you know? Like maybe a job application as a critic, or something judgemental in print...

I know!!!

Let's get her a job and then... <low chuckle> "Blub, blub, blub!"

-M

You are bad...bad...bad Love ya!

Maybe I am not 100% over my anger....

Ok...Relax...put your feet up and close your eyes...and pretend you are throwing daggers at the Critic that Peed you off!

I am finding my happy place....almost....almost....there! I guess I need to go get my yo yo....

Sorry I mispoke earlier..not a critic but a old friend...

Anyway...just dont get too violent with that yo yo!

Good idea..

We could hit her in the head with the yo-yo, tie her up with the string, and then dump her into the creek.

It's okay, I knew how you were talking about

I will try not to break the yo yo....well there is no one here I can throw it at so I guess if I want to break it I will have to try something else. LOL

When I feel violent, I play video games...killing zombies or rabied rabbits..makes me feel much better. Got any good games you can beat on?

I think I have a few that will do.

As they say...go play your video games and kill a few brain cells!

That might be a good idea. Although, going back and forth has made me smile, and that always helps

Always available to make someone smile...

May need to get medicated for being silly...can anyone spare some non-happy pills...

I like making people smile as well. To me that is much easier than having someone make me smile. I am not good at being unhappy or in a bad mood, so I guess you could say the past few days I have been in unchartered territory.

<LovethatMonk dances and sings at the top of her voice around the room until she is sick!>

Well, sorry I'm in a silly mood today...maybe that lack of sleep is catching up with me! I could send my dog over to give you puppy kisses...just to warn you she does it like it's an olympic event!

I am feeling kind of silly, too. Then again, most of the time I act "Goofy." Puppy slobber....I think I need a wipe!!

LOL! My inner cynic went nutty on this statement. Lets listen, shall we?

...

"Well chart it baby, because you'll be back. You know what this world is full of? Hmm? PEOPLE! And trust me, they're the worst! Even the God who is alleged to have created them in his own image - got mad at them for acting like people. So what hope do we have? I dont know about you but if it's hard for GOD? I'm by no means claiming expert status, almost by default, you know?

So break out the sketch book, batten down the hatches, get used to riding out the waves, and here's tip I could have used back in the day - All the lighthouses are at least ten miles inland. I think they used to be churches. At any rate, the rocks come up WAY before the shore. And your only defense in the end is going to be that chart you make yourself."

...

We now return you to your regularly schedualed thread.

-M & His Inner Cynic

M-

You always make me laugh...Thanks!

M - I worry about you..I'm sending my dog over right now to address your inner cynic!

Sick him Val...he needs lots of puppy kisses, LOL

Don't forget the wipe, he will need a wipe to get rid of the puppy kisses. LOL...out loud

Three things, M.

1. I just love it when you do that sailor talk - its very um...um...attractive.

2. People ARE the worst - they really are. They are so human. And another thing - life. Why does life have to be so daily? We never get a break from it. We should take a vote to have life every OTHER day. It would be more manageable.

3. Finally, Somehow God loves us inspite of ourselves - He made the chart that we can follow back to safety- He is the anchor and the star that keeps the ship on course. I know for a fact that without Him I wouldn't be here.

PS Did you ever watch Master and Commander? Best sailing movie EVER!

Master and Commander is a great movie! Without God, I wouldn't be here either. I have gotten off course and he has always shown me the way back to the course I need to follow...ALWAYS!

Never saw that movie...wasn't it based on a book?? Still I think that M needs some serious puppy love...it is a sacrifice I am willing to make for my fellow Monk-a-File..and yes I will send over some wipes!

The wipes are greatly appreciated. When I was little I had a kissy dog that the kids in the neighborhood called "The dog with the ten foot tongue" she liked to give kisses a lot too. Her name was Baby Love (Yes, I was raised by Motown loving Hippies). My currnet dog Kawaii (Japanese for Super Cute) isn't a kissy dog, but I do have a cute little cat - long haired, black and white, with one blue and one green eye - about a year and a half old - named Spirit who loves to give me sandpaper kisses any time I play with her.

I know, my whole life is backwards.

-M

P.S. - Ummm.... Yar?

Master and Commander is based on the books by Patrick O'Brien. Its a 20 volume series about a Captain Jack Aubrey and his career back in the Napoleonic War era. He has a friend, Stephen Maturin, who is the ship's doctor and is in every book with him. Maturin never learns anything about the sea, but is a great natural scientist, linguist and also a spy! The dialogue and action are brilliant. The movie gets its title from the 10th book but its really a compilation of a couple books.

I am on my second reading of the series. The nautical language is very authentic - I have a companion glossary to it - A Sea of Words. I really love it. Also a cookbook - so I can find out what they are eating when they have "spotted dog"!

(okay, that's a kind of cake - nothing to do with puppies or puppy kisses! I read this and thought -ooops. No real doggies are harmed in the preparation of "spotted dog".)

Well, I can call off the dog...she is looking at me because she loves puppy rides...but your cat with the two color eyes is interesting. What breed is it? We had a cat named Madoka. She died back in December. We havent decided about getting another animal. My dog is an attention dog so a new kitten would be a bad for us. We will have to see.

I really dont know a breed. Her father was a stray I took in who eventually passed away, then she was born. Her Dad had baby blue eyes - and she has - one, same color. There's a few slight differences in the face but otherwise she's his little double.

She's got long, soft fur, and she's two toned, like in a camoflage pattern of white and black. And they tell me it's because of the way her blue eye is colorer - but it always looks round as opposed to slitted. I guess it's a blue eye rimmed in black that makes it look like a persons insted of a cats, but it's a pretty convincing illusion.

Poor thing fell asleep on a plastic shopping bag earlier and when she woke up she came walking, slow and careful, over to me for help because she had gotten her head through the handle of the (empty) bag and was dragging it with her.

lol. She's a sweetie.

-M

LOL out loud, Mandeville!

You have a way with three letter nautical words.