Worst 4th ever...really. Was supposed to spend the day with Terry and kids, but found out that her family was going to be there, so tried to wiggle out of it. It worked only enough to keep me from them till late afternoon. Then off I went, so the kids would not be upset with me. Her brother and sister are not my favorite people. Her sister, who has never worked outside the home has never been there to help Terry when the chips were really down. When everything in Terry's life went wrong and she was barely hanging in and taking care of her two kids, while her soon to be ex was off fucking his secretary and snorting whatever money he made up his nose, her sister would not help. Would not take the kids for a few hours if Terry had to work late, would not pick them up, would not do anything! Take one wild guess at who was the person who did her best to help? Not patting myself on the back, just saying it is not hard to help people you care about when they need, especially when you know they would do anything for you. Her sisters husband is another story and would do anything to help, but has been stopped by his wife, who says things like, "She shouldn't learn to depend on you!" If you can't depend on family, who can you depend on?

Terry's brother (who is obnoxious in his own right) is married to a woman that I find it very hard to be around. The differance here is that the woman means well, she is just so in your face that you want to scream...well, I want to scream. There was a small spider on the table at dinner and I jumped up to get away (very afraid of them, I am), I did not scream or yell, did not jump up and doen, just stood away from the table waiting for it to be gone. The woman kept telling me over and over to just calm down. I WAS calm. I was just standing. She would not stop. Terry told her that I had a phobia and that I was handling well, just kill the spider already. The woman wouldn't do it. She wanted to save it and bring it outside. Terry finally reached over and killed it so we could get on with our lives.

Before dinner I had to sit for 45 min. while her brother and her sister in law flipped quickly from channel to channel, never stopping longer then a few seconds at each channel. The TV was on full blast. They bickered over every channel stop. "NO! I don't want to watch this!" "Well, I don't want to watch THAT!" "Flip BACK!" "Flip FORWARD!" I was crazy by the time it was all over.

I came home and was too cranky to go see fireworks, though in my heart of hearts, I wanted to. It turns out that I could see most of the display from my front porch, so kitty and I stood out on the porch and watched them. That was nice.

Didn't mean to be so cranky. Shouldn't feel so strongly about people I rarely see (it's knowing how they behave most of the time that gets me).

Glad we made it through. Love my country.