First, I'm back.  My big thing is over for the year.  I mean, I have lots of other stuff going on in life.  Things out the wazoo.  Just like all of y'all.  But my big BIG thing ended this weekend.  And was a smashing success, I might add!

So now a bit of venting...

I do this one thing (vague much?).  I love it.  Mostly because I love the amazingly fabulous group of girls who I get to do it with.  They are so much fun and just make working hard worth it in the end.  But there is this one sort of outsider.  She is not really a part of this particular thing.  She is a part of other things.  But she is really just a true nightmare when it comes to my thing.  Buts her nose in where it doesn't belong.  Bosses people around.  And is all around manipulative, condescending, critical, rude, thoughtless, nasty for the enjoyment of being nasty and all around crazy.  Oh I have figured out who flew over the coo coo's nest, my friends!  It's a situation that I sort of, unintentionally, in-part, created two years ago.  Or, not created.  I did nothing wrong.  No one who does this thing did anything wrong.  Crazy Lady created the situation in her head but it has snowballed beyond imagination for two years now.  And every time we sigh relief that Crazy Lady has found a new hobby, she reappears.

She has been coddled, hand-held, reprimanded, legally reprimanded, and diverted.  But none of it works.

To me, it's clear there is something very wrong elsewhere in her life.  Home life, maybe?  I have no idea.  But I suspect this is her outlet.  Oh and I think she is a full handful of fry fries short of a Happy Meal. 

Crazy Lady is a wolf in sheep's clothes.  She is sugar sweet nice and then goes in for the kill.  It's horrible.  The things she will say and do.  And involve her child in.  Just gross behavior.  She's a bully and loves it.

So now as a result, one of the most amazing team players, Sassy, is leaving the thing.  She has been the largest bulls eye of Crazy Lady and it is just too much to ask of anyone.  No one deserves even a portion of what this lady has done. 

It just breaks my heart.  Sassy is nothing short of amazing.  She is so poised and confident and organized and all at such a young age.  She is smart and kind and patient beyond belief.  But she has been beat up 900 too many times by Crazy Lady.  It's heartbreaking and unfair.  I don't blame her.  I am not sure I could stay either under those conditions.  But like so many other situations in life, the bad guy is winning.  The terrible, horrible, no good, very bad person is victorious.  And the fabulous must walk away defeated.

It sucks!

The thing is, this is really the only sour grape.  Like seriously, wincing and tears welling-up sour.  You are never going to love every single person in a group.  But it's rare that one person can have such a negative presence.  And tragic that there is nothing that can really be done to change the situation.

Whats more is that even though Sassy is leaving, Crazy Lady is still not going to get her way.  So next year, she will find a new set of complaints.  She will find a new bulls eye.  She will forever be a big bully.  Joyfully hurting great people right and left for her own personal entertainment.

Sassy though, wherever she goes, will forever be fabulous!  I wish so badly that I could find a way to make her want to stay.  Our thing just will not be the same bucket of cool kid fun without her.