Lydia Aswolf

It really WAS a dark and stormy day when I decided I’d best check up on my teen boys bathroom.

I had told them since it was THEIR bathroom, they had to clean it, which makes sense, right?

I had also taught them how to properly clean a bathroom, and supervised them to make sure they did it right.

So it was, I found myself wandering downstairs on that dark and rainy day, wondering what I would find, and confident that their bathroom would be okay, if a little lacking in basic hygiene.

Words can hardly convey how wrong I was, though I’m going to endeavor to try.

As I entered the bathroom, my nose immediately detected foul odors I had formerly believed were only found in those really nasty truck stops. Following my noses lead, I glanced around and froze in my tracks.

I gazed, eyes bulging out, upon the shower walls.

There were dirt stick figures drawn there.

I’m not kidding.

One of my sons had taken the time…had been so bored, that he had literally made caveman dirt drawings upon the shower walls. I tried to make out what exact story was being told, but my brain was still trying to cope with the fact there were dirt stick figures prancing around the shower walls.

Eventually I discerned what the stick figures were doing. It seemed they were having a little skateboard competition on the wall, which made it difficult for me to figure out who the culprit was, as all the kids were into skateboarding.

I forced my unwilling eyes to look down into the shower bottom.

There was still bath water in there.

Some joker from the previous night had decided not to JUST shower, but to also bathe? I could come to no other conclusion, and take my word for it, not one of my boys wanted to admit who had left the water in there.

I leaped back at some point, as between the odor and the murk in the water, I honestly had believed something moved in there, and looking back? I wouldn’t be surprised if some weird life form had been resurrected from what I was seeing so far.

Until that moment I had been rooted in place.

When I leaped backward, I used the sink to hold myself up from the shock I’d thus far sustained. It was then I realized that the sink was so full of dried toothpaste leavings, that a butter knife would be needed to scrape it all out.

That wasn’t the grossest thing I found in the vicinity of the sink. There was a jar…a mason jar.

It was filled with fluids I, to this day, will not speculate on.

This was my first encounter with mason jars filled with suspicious looking fluids, but not my last. To this day, the son responsible will not explain what was in those jars, or why he kept them. This is one reason I encouraged him to go to Florida, where he resides now.

My unbelieving eyes fell from the jar to the toilet.

Now, I want to give a huge shout out to men who flush, because a great majority of them do, and I applaud you gentlemen for your thoughtfulness, consideration, and selflessness.

Let us say not only that the toilet wasn’t flushed, but apparently someone had been in the burritos again.

That is all I have to say about that.

I inspected the floor next, and my jaw fell open as I observed the toothpaste lying on the ground. It was open, and to my abject horror, it was lying in a puddle of piss on the floor.

When I looked to locate toothbrushes, they were one floor in between the toilet and the sink..you know, where the funk always gets drawn to.

I looked away from that terrifying sight to observe the overflowing garbage can, with liberal bits of toilet tissue and q-tips scattered on the floor, along with various gum wrappers and other garbage.

It was then I realized, as I backed out, that I had toilet tissue that had been used for God knows what, stuck to my bare feet.

That was more than enough for me.

Not only did I run away, but like any obedient adherent to horror movies should, I went and grabbed my husband so he could view the carnage and verify my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me.

They weren’t.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN and……May all your bathrooms stay CLEAN!!!!

Years and years ago, in my youth, I worked for a time as a 411 operator. It was a very, very boring job, only a few occasional calls that spiced things up. On one memorable call, a man was trying his very best to get me to have phone sex with him, whereupon I reminded him he had two hands, most likely some lotion around the house, and definitely toilet tissue, unless he was a caveman, and since ostensibly he had called for a phone number, I assumed he was civilized enough to utilize the tissue, lotion, and hand option, instead of wasting my time.

As I stated, for the most part it was terrifically boring. I am not a person who can take to boring easily, and throwing notes over our claustrophobic cubicles soon grew old.

So, I decided to spice things up a bit. I was friendly with all the people whose cubicles I sat near, so I started throwing tampons (not used, I’m not THAT nasty) at the guys just to see who would recoil fastest. Oddly enough, I found when I started throwing tampons at women, they tended to recoil even more, probably because they had firm reason to associate tampons with suffering.

I also plugged a former co worker in the head with a nickel in the middle of a call. God, I still do laugh over that, as I threw that nickel HARD. She happened to be in the city and state portion of the call, and understandably the “and state” came out a little garbled, as she held her head, eyes glazed over. She was the consummate professional however. She finished the call before she glared in my direction. It wasn’t hard for anyone to know who the culprit was behind these tampon and lower denomination monetary attacks. You just turned around and looked to see me giggling madly.

One extremely slow Thanksgiving, we had a toilet tissue party. Yes, I did start it, there were no managers on duty to avoid, THEY got the holiday off, only employees holding fort, so I threw the first toilet tissue roll (lying around so you could blow your nose, the company was far to cheap to provide you with anything other than sandpaper toilet tissue to blow your sensitive nose with). We had a grand time that day, the cleanup sort of sucked, but well, it was worth it to giggle through asking for city and state, and anyone actually using 411 that day was treated to some of the most cheerful, happy operators they’d ever encountered.

I did have one bad patch of time when I worked there, and I was unable to escape, as were my co workers. I don’t know if the ladies reading this have ever come across a period in time when they are extruding truly noxious gases out of their ass, but I know it’s afflicted me, and in the worst way, stuck in the middle of a very narrow cubicle with nothing to…shield myself from the blow.

Now, I did have fun with this, believe it or not. I have witnesses who are prepared to step forward and admit some of my more noxious days resulted in their eyes tearing up, and I personally witnessed this for myself. But my fondest memory is of a supervisor no one liked at all walking into one of my clouds, then literally turning right around on one foot and walking the other way. There could be no doubt in my minds, nor the mind of my co workers why she fled, as our eyes were full of tears anyhow…no, not from the gas, we became accustomed to that, they were tears of joy that the bitch wasn’t there to lecture us. Conversely, I was ashamed and felt pity for my own direct manager, who was one of the sweetest, nicest ladies I’ve ever known, when she leaned down to whisper good job in my ear one day, and I had just let off a blast. I understand she did recover, but I know for a fact she was in her office the rest of the day, with a fan on.

Lest you get the idea I was a raging adolescent…ok, I kinda was, but I did hand out roses to EVERY female employee working there at my own expense….at least they smelled better than what I had previously given them to work with. I’d do it for holidays we worked, or just for every day purposes to perk them up. I also made absolutely sure to get balloons, flowers, and a card for anyone’s birthday, so I tried to even myself out, even did a charity dinner there to provide Christmas gifts to the elderly at a local nursing home.

But being nice now and again didn’t stop me from laughing my ass off when wasps invaded the building one day. I will never, ever forget one gal I worked with standing up with her headphones hooked into the computer at her cubicle, screaming “JESUS CHRIST, WASPS,” right in her clients ear, and then running in a circle hoping somehow this would make the wasps get tired and wander off.

In spite of my antics I wasn’t fired. Nope, I actually had a dinner in my honor for all the client comments on me, and my accuracy rate in giving out correct information, won numerous awards, and had lots of friends there.

Think I’ll save perhaps the most startling thing I did while working there for another blog post.

I shaved my head.

Bald.

As in, shaving cream applied to head, razor to take stubble off, bald.

To be continued….

Tomorrow’s post will be a scary story, not a continuation of this one. November 1st is my birthday, and I will be taking November 2nd off as well, so I shall be back and blogging again November 3rd….please pray I find my bald pictures, or figure out how the hell to get them uploaded so I can post them for you all to see!

You never know what I’ll do on any given day, usually I try to behave myself, but as you’ll see in my next few blog posts, I can make some horrific, embarrassing, and usually hilarious faux pas, along with in my wilder moods, shaving my head bald and throwing tampons at people.

It started as any nerve wracking visit to the gynecologist office should. I sat in the waiting room and waited for my name to be called. The nerves were due to wondering which friggin room in the vault they called a medical office I’d be called into, my deep, deep suspicion due to the intercom system being faulty, and my dread to be facing a pap smear in the first place.

For any men reading, a visit to the gynecologist is not something to be looked forward to. You have prostate exams, and I can to a degree sympathize. But you don’t have a torturous looking device called a scapula rammed up your ass, so to some degree, I have no sympathy whatsoever…mostly because your friendly gynecologist usually rams his or her finger up your ass at some point during your regular pap smear exam.

In fact, I would be quite interested to hear some comments from men who had a trainee perform their prostate exam or colonoscopy, because we ladies have entertained trainees learning how to ram cold, metal scapulas up our private areas, not to mention the tentative and sometimes brutal “happy ending” which results in a trainee’s finger ramming up our back ends.

I have never found anything more disconcerting than having someone who doesn’t know that they are doing poking around in myself, and continually asking their supervisor if “this is where it’s supposed to go?” It inspires fear, dread, and palm sweating. If you men want to get a rise out of a woman, mention the word pap smear, and you’ll see the same expression of dread you have on your own face when a guy gets kicked in the balls on tv and you happen to be watching.

I have twisted pity for the trainee’s however. I never fail to be polite, even when they are attempting to cram something sideways in a hole that just won’t accommodate it. I do my utmost to be polite, but it seems every time I get a trainee, I tend to forget I’m lying in a prone position, legs awkwardly in stirrups, and totally unable to see what said trainee is doing down there. This is why I’m a huge advocate for hand warmers, as it would prevent the seizure like symptoms most women exhibit when touched on a pap smear table.

Hand warmers would also come in handy when they are feeling me up. That’s right, we have our little breast exam to go through before we have to spread em and admit whatever object assures us we are healthy.

Making conversation is the truly awkward part. I’ve made conversation when people are checking out my innards through my vagina, I’ve made conversation when someone is ramming a finger or two up my ass, but I find nothing more difficult than lying there with my breasts hanging out, looking the person who soon will be probing said innards in the eye, and asking them what they think the weather is going to be like the rest of the week…or whatever else I can think to say when they are aggressively pummeling my funbags to make sure no sign of illness is present.

As you’ve probably noted, at every gyno’s appointment, I don’t have dead people I’d prefer to chat with around me. Instead, I have the Ghosts of Pap Smear Pasts and Present in attendance.

These fond memories were passing through my head as my name was called to go in. The problem was, I could NOT hear what room number was announced, so I went for a fair approximation as I wandered down the hall checking room numbers.

I found one that faintly sounded to me like the number announced on the intercom, knocked briefly, and walked in.

To my horror and dismay, I was presented with the bottom half of some woman who’s face I could not see, though I did note her legs, awkwardly placed in the stirrups, were shivering, and took a millisecond to bemoan the fact they keep the temperature in near freezing temps in these rooms. It also occurred to me to ask myself why in hell the door was not locked, and why her ….ass end was facing the door. I quickly averted my eyes and saw the dr looking at me curiously, not moving, with gloved hands held high in the air, liberally smeared with lube (God bless you, Doctor).

Murmuring a inaudible sorry, I shut the door.

Then I ran like a little girl who’s been caught at something she most certainly should NOT be doing.

I ran like the wind.

It goes without saying I did not keep my appointment that day.

In fact….I changed doctors.

If you ever happen upon a woman who is nervously scanning all the other women milling around her?

She’s looking for me.

Suzanne and I will be discussing Soulmates Vs Kindred Spirits tonight, and believe me, my views on this subject aren’t exactly what you might expect!

We will also be giving away a $20 grocery/gas card for one lucky listener, so if you have a psychic/medium question, give us a ring toll free, and you might just win!

Course, must mention the grocery/gas card is sponsored by Suzanne and myself, so well, if you are here, lydiaaswolf.com is what I plug, and as Suzanne’s hubby does MY taxes and book keeping, Tax2Go@gmail.com is the other sponsor!

Hope you are having a great day, all!

After the introduction in last post of Anonymousteenbitches, they were often to be found parked in Ho’s front yard, huddled around her whispering and occasionally throwing dark, foreboding looks in my direction.

Not that I minded, I didn’t pay them any mind. I have the ability to look through people as if they aren’t there, and I use it pretty liberally to this day.

Instead, I was becoming irate about the defection within my own ranks. There really was only one person who had been on my side, and that was Apronstrings.

You would assume since in the last post, I stood up for her in her time of need, she would stick by me and stop talking to FelonTwo and Oompa Loompa…except that’s not quite how it went. Apronstring was often spotted outside talking to Ho, with whom it appeared she had a “understanding” with, as well as Oompa Loompa and FelonTwo.

So I knew when Apronstring came to me and tried to talk smack about the other three, that she was carrying back anything and everything I said with her own spin on it. This served to make me even more isolated by choice, and distrustful of Apronstrings motives.

I must mention that school starts here in August, and that we have very mild weather til late October as a rule, which is why, in case you were wondering, lol…that everyone was regularly out talking smack about one another.

It was during this relatively mild weather that I noted one day whilst out getting the mail that someone had used spray paint on the street. It was rather odd, as whatever had been written was also crossed out with spray paint, so naturally I asked Apronstring what this was all about.

Turns out Anonymousteenbitches and Ho had hatched a plot to “frame” me by spray painting slurs regarding Ho in front of her part of the street. Their “plan” was to call the cops and implicate me, which was laughable, as I guess Ho finally realized, which is what prompted the bizarre, crossed out slurs.

I found this EXTREMELY laughable, amazing, and a indicator that I was living in a high school, not a neighborhood. Honestly, you can’t make this shit up, it was absolutely crazy, and I still laugh about it.

Of course, after discovering this, I decided I would talk smack with Apronstring, who seemed too full of information about the parties involved in this bizarre scheme…almost like she was in on it.

So I talked smack, and lo and behold, it got right out in the neighborhood immediately, to the point that that Oompa Loompa and Ho’s kids were no longer allowed over at my place, which I can assure you, saved me loads on grocery bills, which was a relief.

However I had ulterior motives in mind. Scorpio’s like myself are reknowned manipulators who will wait years to get even, and I differ not one bit from that profile.

Only I found out soon enough I had a deadline to work with.

I kept talking smack to Apronstring and watching her go up to tell Ho, Oompa Loompa, and FelonTwo what I was saying, so there was a consistent, ripe atmosphere for anything to happen.

One day, Apronstring let spill that Ho was moving in a matter of days, and claiming that it was I who drove her out of the neighborhood. Before entering my home and whooping with joy, I told Apronstring I thought it was about time I made some things clear before Ho left, and showed great glee and joy in her leaving the neighborhood, which Apronstring ate up.

Now, we know a few things before I lay out what I did.

We know Apronstrings was feeling very powerful, because SHE was the only one who could talk to me, and therefore keep the pot stirred in the neighborhood.

We know Ho, Oompa Loompa, and FelonTwo never fully trusted her.

We also know I never fully trusted Apronstrings either.

Therefore, I wound up, a few days before Ho left, making a huge batch of homemade ginger snaps to be delivered to all the neighbors save Ho. I wrote a little note to Ho basically admitting what a ass I had been in the past, asking her forgiveness for my hotheaded temper and the inappropriate things I had said in the past, and sincerely hoping she would be kind enough to forgive me and allow her children to play over again.

The brilliance, as I see it, is how I distributed this bit of news. I walked up to Apronstring, asked her if she would deliver the note and the cookies to Ho, and told Apronstring she wouldn’t want to miss the note being read.

Apronstrings all but danced with glee at being able to deliver this hot piece of bad news, as she saw it, and was further joyful because Oompa Loompa and FelonTwo happened to be at Ho’s house at the time.

Needless to say, when she did storm out of Ho’s house, she was one unhappy little camper.

She made several mistakes.

One was believing I was going to seriously send cookies and a note chewing Ho out.

Second was believing I honestly was clueless about her power play in the neighborhood.

Third was that I could never diminish the power she believed she had the neighborhood.

I have often since this event, sat and pondered with a fair amount of glee  how it must have looked to Apronstring when she was inside Ho’s house. You see, Apronstring had led Ho to believe before opening the note that it was all nastiness and vitriol. So can you imagine standing in Ho’s home, with people you have led to believe one thing, people you KNOW do not trust you, and having the message from the dreaded bitch, Lydia, be nothing but peace, forgiveness, and admission of her faults in the past?

To say Apronstring was furious is an understatement. As they all left the house, Ho smiled at me, Oompa Loompa smiled at me, FelonTwo even smiled at me, and yet Apronstring looked like she had been beaten with a wet mop.

Apronstring stalked over to my house with a sweet note from Ho, where forgiveness was tendered, and all was well between me and the three ladies again, but it was clear Aprongstring was in deep shit.

She tried to pick a fight with me over inconsequential things, like how high the kids were jumping on the trampoline which I was monitoring, wearing shoes on trampoline vs not wearing shoes, and any number of other subjects.

You see, the last thing she COULD do was let me know that I screwed her hard, because then the admission would have to follow about all the smack she was talking.

It was one of the most satisfying victories I’ve had in my life.

It also had a purpose.

You might have noted that people who attain high positions are often knocked from them in humiliating and humbling ways. This was what I was striving for with Apronstring. It offended my sense of justice and fairness, grandstanding as that might sound, that she sought and truly believed she possessed all the power in the neighborhood and could do whatever she wanted, so I ensured her fall was publicly humiliating, and that she would never be looked at the same.

I will say that although Apronstring has attempted numerous times to attain the small, petty amount of power being two faced, and stirring up shit in the neighborhood might gain her?

She has never attained it.

Summer passed, and school was in session again. Hostilities weren’t that horrible in the neighborhood. Perhaps I should put that differently. I no longer cared, nor did I participate or make myself a target by being outside as much as I had been before. My husband walked up the street to pick up our kids from school, as he’s big, imposing, and not inclined to be a chatterbox, he was the best bet for keeping me out of shit. I thought if I removed myself from sight, perhaps things would go better, and for a time that worked.

Until one day when Apronstring went to fetch her kids. I should mention here that Oompa Loompa, Ho, and FelonTwo were in tight with one another, and Ho had never forgiven Apronstring for apologizing to Oompa Loompa for what we both deemed was unjustified behavior on our part. The fact that she happened to be outside when I verbally eviscerated Ho, was just another strike against Apronstring, so far as Ho was concerned.

So it was with little surprise when I walked out to fetch the mail that day, that I saw Apronstring stalking around in her front yard on the phone. She impatiently motioned me over, and then told her tale. Apparently, she had been walking up to get her kids, when Ho walked past her and told her “Bitch, you’d best watch your back.”

This put Apronstring in a fury, and truthfully I wasn’t that far behind. After all, Ho chose to mutter this inane threat when Apronstrings kids were running down the street, having already gotten off the bus. It struck me that had it been uttered to me, I would’ve thrown down, kids or no kids, right then and there…have I mentioned I happen to be hotheaded?

Ho had been walking up the street to go to FelonTwo’s house, where Oompa Loompa was already. I’ve no doubt as a psychic and observer of human behavior, that Ho bragged about what she did as soon as she was in FelonTwo’s house.

This served to infuriate me more, because I knew if it would’ve been ME in the same place, that dumb, toothless Ho wouldn’t have said a word, for fear of what I might do next.

So I told Apronstring we would wait til Ho returned to her home from FelonTwo’s house, and have OUR say when she came back down.

This was noticed by Ho, Oompa Loompa, and FelonTwo. Apronstring and I, after all, were stalking around in her front yard, pointing in FelonTwo’s direction and making no doubt that we were watching and lying in wait for Ho to return.

When the cowardly bitch did come down, she had her kids protectively circling her.

Like that would stop me.

I’ve repeatedly, and will, until the day I die, proclaim I am not a saint.

As soon as she got close enough, Apronstring and I were on her like a dog on prime rib. My role was clear; to harass and “tree” Ho before she could retreat to her Fortress of Hoitude, so that Apronstrings could get what she wanted to say out there.

Naturally, the whole neighborhood was outdoors, word having flown that shit was going to go down soon, and no one wanted to miss the show. It was with that in mind that I loudly proclaimed, as a message to all watching, that “Apronstring doesn’t have to watch her back, because I’m watching it for her, why don’t you try and get through ME!” This wasn’t something Ho appeared able or willing to do, and she had nothing to do but stand there and take it like a woman, no less.

It was when Apronstring was lunging at Ho like a pit bull, that my attention was called to FelonTwo and Oompa Loompa, who were both whispering to one another, and grinning. That I had stood up for Apronstring, and they wouldn’t stand up for one of their own amused me mightily, and because of it I laughed loud and long.

That was both a good and a bad thing, as it gave me the appearance of lunacy, which is necessary whenever you want to scare the living crap out of someone, and a bad thing because both Oompa Loompa and FelonTwo were glaring at me as I laughed practically in their faces.

I say with no great pride in myself that after laughing in Oompa Loompa and FelonTwo’s faces, I went back to work verbally assaulting Ho. It appeared Apronstring was done, so I went about my work with relish and great amusement at the time. To my mind, NO ONE threatens my friends without payback, and as I am a Scorpio, God help you if you get in the way of me or my friends, lol. Ho did eventually retreat into her home, whereupon Apronstring and myself went into her home and discussed the best lines, and so on and so forth.

Shortly after, Anonymousteenbitches moved in next door. I didn’t include them in my colorful introduction of the cast of characters because they are very, very minor players, owing to the fact they didn’t live here terribly long. They are worthy of note only because they were intimately involved in Ho’s campaign to bring me down.

Inadvertently, my husband had driven the Anonymousteenbitches to the Ho side, when their vicious, constantly yapping little dog attempted to attack him one day, as he was walking back from picking our four year old from preschool. Brian immediately called Animal Control who had some time containing the mutt. In fact, at one point, Brian observed the Animal Control man accidentally bonking the dog on the head, in a effort to get that little loophole thing around it’s head. Worse yet, the dog PASSED OUT on it’s way to the Animal Control truck, so it appeared the damn thing was dead to the curious neighbors who came out to look.

Well, word got around quickly that we had beaten the dog unconscious, and left it with Animal Control for dead. This was obviously not the case, and FelonOne, I found out later was perpetrating this lie. I marched up to his house and confronted him about it. Not only did I set the record straight about what happened, I also noted that this huge man, (who, if you’ll remember, the cops, humane society, AND social services were on the lookout for) was bowing his head like a coward and refusing to look me in the eye.

At any rate, that got the Anonymousteenbitches (one of whom admitted freely later that her own dog had in fact, attacked her and her sisters) on Ho’s side.

What happened from there is still the stuff of legend in the neighborhood.

Kate, what I’m interested in, is if one of the two friends you are planning this trip with isn’t always fiscally responsible, so to speak. See, I might be off on this, but I keep getting the funds mostly being made available through you and your friend’s hard work and effort, and one of them comes across as a pretty free spender, so it might throw off your trip to England, HOWEVER, you know which friend spends a little too freely at times, and can reign her in right now, so that this trip will be possible for all three of you.

In other words, make certain everyone is saving as diligently as you, and definitely ride herd on this friend who tends to spend without thinking, because summer seems so far away to her, she might not be able to come up with every penny she needs, and yeah, you could always contribute, but remember, if you contribute your hard earned cash to her to help her make the trip, you’ll have to contribute more whilst in England, because if she can’t pay for her full trip, then she probably won’t have cash while in England either, and that, to put it mildly, would be a huge bummer, lol!

So far as a fling is concerned, once in England, I get you meeting any number of nice guys, one of whom sticks out. He’s got light hair and light eyes, good height, good build, very charming, self deprecating, and extremely funny. He is also very intelligent, which I know you appreciate, but remember what I’ve counseled you in the past on, even if they aren’t quite in your IQ level, give em a chance, so keep that in mind.

The thing here is, as far as flings are concerned, it feels more like you keep in touch, see one another quite a bit while you are there, and even keep in touch when you arrive back in the States, but it doesn’t feel like it gets intimate to me, or gf/bf-like at all. So I’m not sure I would term this as a fling so much as a firm friend made, and future possibilities for a relationship are there, but it feels to me like a stay in touch, see what happens, and not feel “attached” so you can explore every other option that becomes available to you.

Now, as far as your close friends, I don’t really get you all three moving close to one another at the same time, because life is going to be consisting of you on the move a great deal, and one of your friends, the more soft spoken of the two, is going to settle down a bit early, and not be able to just move when and where she likes. Now, the other friend, who is outspoken and says exactly what she thinks, when she thinks it, you two will be able to go a year without speaking to one another because you are so busy, and then get in touch and it was like no time had passed….and it might even be several years at times before you two are in touch, but the bond always stays the same. With your more soft spoken friend, I continue to get a bit of fading of the friendship as she settles down, has kids, a husband, and a home to look after. It isn’t that you won’t keep in touch, but you and your more outspoken friend are very alike as I see things career wise, so lots of travel and marrying a bit later in order to establish career first; therein it’s logical you and your friend who has settled down won’t be on the same path, and so will share a little less in common as the years go by.

Hmmm, on the always being a huge part of your life, no. I don’t mean to say that they will just fade, but it isn’t going to be a winding up in the same nursing home, even Godmother type situation. Life shifts and moves, and all three of you have your different paths to take, so it’s not going to be doing everything at the same time, in the same way, in the same place, because each of you have different lessons to learn, and some you have to learn alone, without having friends right there to lean on. On the bridesmaid issue, I get one being able to be a bridesmaid, but this is going to be the more outspoken friend, as you and she will settle down a bit later than your more soft spoken friend, not sure she would be any more than just a guest IF she can make it, and as things stand now? I don’t see your more soft spoken friend being able to make it.

I know you are extremely practical, hence don’t get depressed or upset about these bits of information. You will still have a marvelous time IF you keep your friend saving her money in England, you will meet a very nice bloke there you can keep in touch with, and in the future, something might well come of it romantically, but I’d rather you not pin your hopes on one guy, when so many more are out there that you can judge and explore relationships with, to find what fits the best.

As in regards to your friends, well, after you are out of school, working, traveling, networking, and forming new friendships in your travels, it should only ring true that some friendships where they also are forging ahead and creating the life they most want are going to take a backseat for a bit. It isn’t that you won’t be in touch, but the times between being in touch will be a bit further apart, as is right and proper.

Hope this all makes sense to you, and THANK YOU for your question!

Lydia

PS, I’ve had a few people unsure on if they should/shouldn’t leave comments…by all means, do so, I can use all the feedback I can get at this point