The Vital Character Trait Necessary For Survival During A Visit From The Lemon Stand Household...

Survival before, during and after a visit from my family 'en masse', requires a VERY well-developed sense of humor.  Our family is blessed a lot more than we deserve when it comes to friends and family.  I have decided that one of the reasons Kelly and I are still such good friends is the fact that neither of us can hear most of our conversations with each other.  Kelly's hearing is worse than mine and her offspring selective deafness is more well defined than my own, which is saying something considering the state of my own deafness. 

She has that special quality that makes our friendship work... What quality would that be?  Well, frankly, she can ignore me.  That probably wouldn't sound like a quality that is treasured in most friendships, but for us... it's necessary and it works.  You see, because she can ignore me, I get to talk ad naseum and she just seems to know when to nod her head or make a kind of non-committal sound that allows me the illusion that communication as taken place.  

What does she get in return?  Well, besides having my dulcet tones to use as the human version of a white noise sound therapy machine?  Ok, AND having me as an alternative to sleeping pills?  I'm not addicting, you see. Quite the opposite actually.  Just ask my kids...  Never mind.  Don't ask my kids.  They'd probably just throw me under the bus by describing me as some kind of caterwauling alarm system.  Just what everyone wants to make unwanted friends and neighbors (possibly even burglars) avoid your home like the plague. So OTHER than those things?  **shrugs** I have long suspected that she is really a closet masochist.  I haven't a clue. 

Although the ability to be able to ignore me is a plus, it really is more the fact that her entire immediate family is just a treasure trove of opportunities to tease and harass endlessly has a great sense of humor and the experience to know not to take any of us seriously.  The fact that our husbands actually 'get' each others humor is a little scary on occasion, but we all seem to be able to live with that.  The fact that all our kids respond to whichever one of us happens to be yelling at correcting them at the moment, should probably be considered a major plus too!

In appreciation for all of the above... I have chosen to not use any of the recent blog fodder material provided this past weekend to appear here on my blog... Now THAT'S a true pity that I am throwing away a lot of material that would have kept my white blog screen of death away for a very long time to come true love and friendship...

QOTD:  "Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and have her nonsense respected."  ~ Charles Lamb