When do you write someone off?

I have a friend, well, I thought we were friends, who hasn't returned my call. I've left her three voice messages. Is this enough? Can I say, I've tried and now it's time to move on. Well, in all fairness, we were not real close to begin with. We had lunch together every six weeks or so. Then she lost her job. I left messages to show her I supported her but she hasn't returned any..not even a voice message. It's been over 2 months. If I leave her another, would it be borderline stalking?

This is where I think it would be handy to have a "friendship application." I know the journey to finding friendship is suppose to be part of the experience but sometimes you have to wonder if the effort is worth it. What if you put a lot of time and energy into a potential friendship only to find out they're "not that interested." It might be best to know up front what kind of relationship are they looking for. Do they have enough friends already? Is the close friend position already taken? Do we just send each other Christmas cards and acknowledge each other in line at Walmart? Do we get together for beer and wings during Monday night football? What? I did develope an application for my humor writing classl. You can view it here.

I hope my friend calls me. I really do. It would be a shame for me to give up only to discover that's not what she wants. In the meantime...her number is still programmed in my cell. Just in case.

Lent and other things

My husband and I were trying to think of what we should give up for lent. He is Catholic so he takes this a little more seriously than I do. He will give up meat on Fridays until Easter.

The other day, after giving Scruffy Girl her evening food, Phil got upset because she didn't eat it. He was really taking it personally, like he had been slaving over a hot stove for hours in order to prepare it. That is when I said, "Okay, this is what you are going to give up! No more stressing over things you have no control over. No more bellyaching for stuff that you can not control." To my surprise he agreed.

I wast thinking, yeah, I really need to do this too. There are so many times that I get upset over things at work...how they are handled. I have littled control. I am making a conscious effort to stop. Another thing...I'm going to stop apologizing for asking people to do their jobs. I'm not going to say I'm sorry to my doctors office when I request a refill on my prescription. I'm not going to apologize to my boss for interupting her. It's a question pretaining to the business. It's not like i'm personally benefiting from knowing how to enter a provider into the system. It's my doctors job to supply me with the drugs I need; it's my bosses job to guide me so I can do a good job for our clients. I shouldn't be sorry.

And that's that.