First, the hockey game.

Next, a basketball game.

Finally, an arena football game.

Today was the basketball game � Dallas Mavericks versus the Toronto Raptors.

How closely do I follow basketball? Well, for starters, when did Toronto get a team? And second, who the hell are all of these players? And so on �

So it was really a gift for Blue and I was along for the ride.

We woke up early (5:30am � ugh, this should be illegal on the weekend), got ready and made the trek from Austin to Dallas.

The game was � well, actually, it was pretty good (considering I really didn�t care who won or lost).

This is how into the game I was, though: the most interesting part of the game was spotting Adrien Brody in the crowd, and then seeing him on the big screen and being announced (�We have a celebrity in the house. Oscar-winning actor Adrien Brody!�). Poor guy, probably just wanted to watch the game, and there he was, on the jumbotron.

Seeing him was interesting, if only because it reminded me of his movie The Pianist. I remember seeing it on Easter Sunday evening a few years back (2003? 2002? Whenever it came out) with a friend. I remember sobbing inconsolably for pretty much the second half of the movie. Good movie. But not an upper, by any stretch of the imagination.

I honestly don�t understand how people can possibly be so shitty to each other. I can�t fathom it.

My husband owns his own business. This is a good thing and a bad thing.

The good thing is, he�s a brilliant man and he�s extremely successful with what he does. And he enjoys it. So we have a nice lifestyle, and he has a lot of personal satisfaction. These are good things.

The bad thing is, he�s got a hay-uge amount of responsibility on his shoulders, including the hiring, firing, and managing of several employees both in his home office and remotely.

It reared its ugly head this week and I�m still trying to figure out what, if anything, I am supposed to do.

This particular issue goes back to, well, to before the time I even met Blue.

I met a woman several years ago, Jennifer, who became one of my only real �girlfriends.� I�m just not so good in the staying-friends-with-other-women thing � so I was grateful for her friendship.

Jennifer is one of those people to whom life has given a lot of shit, and who turns that shit into sunshine. She was adopted and had some issues with her birth parents. Then she came into a lot of money as a young woman and blew it all. Then she married a nice guy and had two kids � at which point the nice guy broke his neck and ended up in a wheelchair, unable to even put on his own pants. Her eldest son is a handful � probably because of his dad�s accident but regardless of the reason, he�s aimless and drifting and causing his mother grief.

Through it all, Jennifer has stayed a bubbly, buoyant person who pursued a Master�s degree and who is great at what she does. (Lest you think she is Mother Theresa, however, let me just add that Jennifer, with all of her plusses, is also flaky, self-centered, shallow, and strange. She oohs and aahs over People Magazine, she�s a shopaholic, and she is addicted to dyeing her hair.)

Jennifer was by my side when I met Blue � she encouraged me to date him, and when I had doubts and thought seriously about breaking it off, encouraged me to stay with him. Hell, she even helped Blue pick out my engagement ring and was one of my bridesmaids.

Last year, against my wishes, Blue hired Jennifer. (More history: Blue had hired another friend of mine in the past who still works for him. Said friend�s work performance and ethics have been less than stellar since his hire, and I realized very quickly after recommending him for the job that you should never, ever, ever, ever hire friends.) So I told Blue that while I thought Jennifer would make a great #2 person for his company and would do a bang-up job, her working for him would fuck up my friendship with her and I was adamantly opposed to the idea.

Blue didn�t listen, and hired Jennifer four months ago.

Guess what? Jennifer resigned two days ago, and didn�t do it in a very mature way. She resigned, then she emailed in sick the next day, then she sent another email to Blue reaffirming her resignation.

Weird.

Also factor in that I have not talked to Jennifer much in the past few months because, HELLO! I�ve been depressed as fuck over the loss of our baby. I haven�t really talked to anyone, including my sister and my other �best girlfriend.� I�ve done the bare minimum socializing that I�ve needed to do � I�ve avoided church, shopping, and anything else that might bring me in contact with people. I don�t want to talk to people yet. I just don�t. I know this is not a positive coping mechanism and right now, I don�t care.

So Jennifer has taken grave offense that I haven�t shared my pain with her, and she emailed me telling me as much. She chastised me for being a bad friend, because good friends �share everything, including the happiness and the pain.�

Well, shit. I might venture to say that good friends don�t fucking judge each other, especially when they know the other just lost a baby and is as depressed as is humanly possible. And good friends might cut each other some fucking slack.

And for god�s sake, email is the most inappropriate medium for this type of communication. Have some balls and pick up the phone.

Yeah, she struck a nerve.

So now, here I am, wondering what will happen.

Blue is pissed as hell at her � not only for leaving him in the lurch without as much as two weeks� notice, but for doing it in such an immature way that he isn�t sure he can be friendly with her.

I�m chafed, because NO ONE treats my husband with such little respect � I�m like a protective mama-bear when it comes to Blue and his best interests are my first priority. Not to mention the fact that his business is our sole source of income, and I don�t like seeing someone rock the boat.

I�m also chafed that she followed up her resignation with a nastygram to me. I replied extremely neutrally to her nastygram, explaining that not calling her the past month and a half had nothing to do with her (gee, sorry I hurt your feelings) and everything to do with me (can�t function like a normal human being). She replied with apologies for her nastygram, and asked that we �put this whole thing behind us and have fun like we used to.�

Deep down, I know that her issues have nothing to do with myself or Blue � she�s dealing with her life the best way she knows how, and she�s simply not handling things with much grace right now. Blue and I apparently just got caught in her gigantic steamroller as she was trying to make some changes. I also know she�s got to do what�s best for her. I also know that Blue is better off without her, because an unhappy employee is a nonproductive employee.

So I don�t know. I�m rambling. But I just don�t know if I can get past this crap to be friends with her. No rash decisions or anything, but I just don�t know. On one hand, I grieve the loss of one of my only girlfriends. On the other hand, I�m not sure the relationship can get back to where it was. Once I started being the boss�s wife, things necessarily changed. And I don�t know if you can put the rabbit back into the hat.