Over and out!

Today's blog is a personal note.  As most of you close to me have known, I had been dating a woman for over a year.  She was very personable, very smart, attractive, and an excellent cook.


We took jitterbug classes together, which gave us something in common to launch a personal relationship.  We would dance, we would go out to movies, we would go out and eat, go to church, and she would come to Roscoe and spend time.


As with most courtships, it wasn't without rough patches.  The primary and recurring rough patch for us was a life long friend who the woman I was dating wanted out of the picture.  I took this as a vote of no confidence in my ability to make correct choices.  This friend is someone I have known for 55 years.  She knows things about me that my dating friend will never know, just because she grew up in the same small community with me.


My dating friend made repeated accusations that my childhood friend was making waves for her.  My childhood friend, when I asked denied all accusations.


Eventually we found the best way for us to get along in a dating relationship was to avoid any of the places we had frequented in Abilene with my friends or her friends.


Just after the first of the year, the program my dating friend is the director of underwent a federal audit.  Even during the Christmas vacation, this federal audit kept rearing its head.  I could be talking to this lady and she would begin making notes to herself in her phone about some audit detail.  Then she couldn't tell me what I had said to her.


I told her that I had been through several state and federal audits and what I have found is that if you do business every day like you are supposed to, you have no problems.  When you have lapses, you spend a lot of time and energy trying to go back and fix stuff before auditors arrive.


It was during this time, I realized that I would always come in behind her job, and I took a step back.


As she saw it, I was not happy with her and was disciplining her by denying her affection.


Maybe I was.  But maybe I was realizing that any affection I had had, was mistaken and not true or possibly not as great as I once thought..


When my birthday came up in February, my lifelong friend had called saying she had planned on driving on and fixing birthday breakfast for me and Memama but she had a busy night with her work and she wouldn't be making it.


My farm hands and I had planned on grilling burgers for my birthday, and near lunch my friend called and said she was on her way.  She ate burgers with me and the guys and then she went to sleep at Memama's house.  (She works nights).  I returned to the barn and the hands and I finished our day.


Just before five my cell phone rang and it was the woman I was dating and she wanted to know where I was.  I told her and she said she was at Memama's.  I drove to the house and discovered she had brought birthday cake and gifts.  She and Memama were sitting in the living room.  She asked about my day and I told her about cooking burgers and that my lifelong friend had been over (I've never tried to hide my friendship).  She told me she knew.  I asked her how she would know and she said it didn't matter.  I said it did.  I have wondered if she had taken advantage of Memama's mental state and quizzed her about whether or not my friend had been over.


Then Pat and Hag walked in and Memama mistakenly gave credit for the cake to my lifelong friend, not my dating friend.  Pat was trying to hide because she was cracking up.  I corrected Memama, but Pat said for an instance the look on my dating friends face said it all.


My dating friend, Memama and I went to Ma Allen's buffet for my birthday dinner, and my dating friend was extremely quiet.  We returned to the house and ate cake and opened gifts before she returned to Abilene.  I asked her to text me when she got home so I wouldn't worry.  Well, I guess the drive gave her time to think things over and get mad.


For my birthday she had given me three gift certificates, all of them redeemable by her.  One was for a quilt made using Crown Royal bags, one was for a one night stay at the hotel of my choice in the metroplex, and one was for dinner and drinks at Casa Rita's,


This was all set to coincide with her going to Tyler to one of her granddaughters gymnastic meets.  She was going to ride down with her daughter and wanted me to drive to Dallas on Saturday and get her and spend the weekend.


I may not be the smartest guy, but I am not a glutton for punishment.  I told her there was no way in hell I was going to put myself in a position of being confined with a person as upset with me as she was for the weekend.  So I declined the invitation.


We had no communication for almost four weeks.  She was wanting a face to face.  I set it up as I was going to Abilene for supplies and I picked her up, saw a square for my quilt and we went out to eat.  I will say there was a lot more drinking went on than talking.  Nothing was settled, the only result of the face to face was a little buzz, a full stomach, and a healthy charge to my debit card.


Unbeknownst to me, a letter arrived March 7th.  Memama got the mail and somehow it ended up lost in the covers of her bed.  On March 16, Pat discovered them trapped between the quilt and the comforter.  She brought me the letter addressed to me and I opened it and read it.  It was very junior highish and contained $120.  She told me the money was for the hotel and dinner gift certificates.


I put the money in an envelope and wrote a letter telling her here is the money, IF we ever go to the metroplex we will talk bout the gift certificates and I told I was not saying we would go, I was not saying NEVER, but I was saying NOT RIGHT NOW.


Needless to say, the fight was on again.


It occurred to me that this was a woman who had been told no very few times in her life and on those few occasions I doubt she accepted it.


Her MO anytime we had a skirmish was to let some time pass and then sweep it under the rug and live to fight another day.  This time, I felt like she was going to bully and bluff her way to get what she wanted.


Didn't happen.  Now it ain't gonna happen now.  I have seen this woman at her absolutely best and I have seen her absolute worst here lately and the bad way outweighs the good.


Yesterday I received an e-mail sent to a group my date friend was in.  Usually they send them out to tell everyone where they are going dancing for the weekend.  When I received mine, I e-mailed the lady back and asked her to remove me from the group mailing list.  I told her that with the situation like it was between my dating friend and I, I didn't want her to think I was stalking her and if we did cross paths I wanted it to be purely coincidence.


Well, once again what I thought was the considerate thing to do rang the bell for another round.


I have been accused of using her, being misleading, scheming.  I could go back to the texts and tell you exactly but I won't.  I will tell you though that she did cut me to the quick.  She unfriended me on facebook!  Talk about Junior High.  That's like giving back someone's disc.


Oh FATHER, deliver me!