Southern, real-life drama. Of course.

Half the summer is gone. Go figure. Here are a few highlights...

I helped organize a wedding reception for a friend of mine. It was amazing, and I had a blast. If I ever decide to give up the Training Coordinator job, I might just become a Wedding Planner.

The kids went off to, and came home from, camp. To try to describe some of the changes that camp wrought in them is just too complex. Suffice it to say that it was life-altering for my oldest two, and just plain fun for the middle two.

I took a few days off of work to spend with the wee ones, as they were too young to attend camp. My goodness, but they can be exhausting. There was not a single day that we didn't GO. We met Shane in DC one afternoon, walked around Chinatown, had dinner at Hard Rock, then saw the WWII Memorial. We went swimming. We had girl's day, complete with mani's and pedi's and lunch with our friend Hannah. They went to work with me for a few hours and got SPOILED by my staff. We went to DC and saw the fireworks on the National Mall on the 4th (totally spectacular, btw!). I felt like the Energizer bunny, going, and Going, and GOING!!!

I had a birthday.

Gret turned Sweet Sixteen. (please see THIS post for more info on that...)

I found out that my dear sweet Grams has lung cancer. This is where the 'Southern drama' comes in. She's had a surgery already, and there will probably be more to follow. She was taken from her home in Oklahoma to a hospital in Louisiana by my mother's sisters. I found out quite by accident. She evidently didn't want me to know anything about the cancer, or the surgery, or anything. If I hadn't called her home to find the number disconnected, I might not have known so fast. Of course, I call her every few weeks, so I was bound to find out eventually. But still, you'd think SOMEONE would have told me, at some point, right?

Not so in my family. And there's the drama. Like something straight out of a Southern fiction novel, my family has it's own version of a long-standing feud. It started oh so many years ago, between my own mother (the baby of three girls), and her two older sisters. I don't know how, or why, exactly, it began, but it did. And it lasted until the very day of my mother's death. And then it kept right on going. How does a feud last beyond the grave? Well, in some families, the hatred and animosity gets transferred straight to the oldest (or in this case - only) daughter.

So finding out that my Grams, who happens to have had more a hand in raising me than my own mother sometimes, is not only ill, but also being cared for by my mother's sisters, well, it was HARD. Because they just don't like me. At all. Because I happen to be the daughter of my mother. Not because of things that I've done, mind you. Just because of who I am. And the feeling has been pretty mutual since my mother's death, because of some really tactless and cruel things they said about my mother mere hours after she died. And things they have said about me in the years since then.

What am I doing about it? Well, I'm planning a few trips to see my Grams, of course.

And I'm writing.

Because honestly, I can't think of a single thing except how great of a story this would make. I mean, it's so freakin' crazy that nobody would ever believe it's true. But it is.

Of course, some names will be changed to protect the innocent.

But the guilty? Oh heck, let them try to protect themselves!


ps- In case you were wondering, this means NO NATS for me. I'm SO sad about this, as I was really looking forward to rooming with my friend Kristan and being her date at some really FAB parties, and cheering her on when she wins her RITA award. But she has been very understanding about everything. However, if any of you out there needs a roomie in SanFran, please get in touch with me quick and maybe I can hook you up!