Sad and bitter

...

I've had a couple of personal interactions this week that make me reflect on my own life all the more positively.

I spent the afternoon yesterday with my best local friend. She is such a great person, but she is so emotionally damaged that there is next to nothing I can do to help her. She is also morbidly obese, and has been struggling with her weight since she was an adolescent. At one point she had lost a lot on LC, but then she went off and gained it all back, and more. I know she is depressed, and she's in an ill-advised marriage -- she has always wanted to have children but somehow convinced herself it was OK to marry someone who had had a vasectomy -- and her health is shot on so many levels, mostly because of her weight. At the root of all this is a real self-esteem problem, not a fake one, or a pop-psychology bs "syndrome".

I constantly see her making decisions to put everyone else's feelings before her own, and denigrating herself, and it's always, "Next week or next month" she'll get back on track to taking care of herself. I can't help her with this stuff, she has to want to do it for herself... it just makes me sad. I try to be there for her but I have no idea what good it does if any.

Then, there's the former leader of DD's cheerleading squad. I had to call her again today because we have rescheduled the team photo shoot, and I wanted to get one of the girl's pompoms. She gave me an earful about how badly organized this whole thing is, not realizing (for the nth time), that she was the one who was supposed to be doing the organizing! And she had mailed everything back to NYS, so I couldn't even go over to her house to pick up the pompoms. I offered to bring her daughter to practices and games if that was a problem, and she just got more irritated with me. Finally I said, "Well, I just think it's too bad, because it seemed to me that your daughter really enjoyed it when she was there." That woman's priorities are just screwed up. Who cares about the uniform? I know, she paid for it, but the point of this exercise is to teach the girls about teamwork, etc. It seems to me that what she is teaching her daughter is that if it's not what you expected, quit.

Once again, I just don't understand people like that.

I have an appointment at 3 for a hair cut, and I honestly have no idea what I'll do with it. It could get either way -- just a maintenance trim, or a wholesale chop. I trust Elizabeth, so I'm putting my unruly mop in her good hands! It's just hair, after all. If I hate it, it'll grow out again, anyway.

I managed to schedule the kids' swimming lessons yesterday, although I think it took me over half-hour to get through. Fortunately this will be the last time we have to use this goofy system, because the teachers are setting up a year-round business at a pool near Chandler Fashion Center. That will be great, because it will be much closer to us. As it is, I'm very happy to have DS2 taking his lessons with the teachers he will have this year, because they are absolutely wonderful, DS1 and DD had them their first year, too. The older two kids are having a private lesson (30 minutes for the 2 of them) in the evenings. All of this will be M-F, the last 2 weeks before we leave on vacation. Man, we are going to be busy.

DS2 wore his underpants overnight last night without incident. I think this is truly the End of the Diaper Era, here. Whoo-hoo!