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my bff and her sister. WARNING: this is LONG...

Just before Christmas last year, bff's Sis (let's call her bS <g>) said a couple things to bff that were really out of line. Bff has spent YEARS putting up with similar comments but this time, she snapped. bS is the kind of person that when you confront her on her crap, she gets mad and tries to turn it around like *she's* somehow the wounded party...but whatever. The point is bff and bS had minimal contact for the last few months.

Then bS got COVID a few weeks ago and bff, being a good sis, made her some soup and dropped it off on bS's front porch (they live only 11 houses apart on the same street). bS figured all was well and while not going completely back to her old ways, she apparently hasn't learned much since the freeze out earlier this year.

Bff's niece "M" is graduating at the end of April from a college about 3 hours away. She got 6 free tickets for family and friends to attend yet somehow, despite being from a family of, oh, 8000 people, M hasn't decided who to invite. Or perhaps more importantly, bS hasn't decided who to invite (because bS is a helicopter parent to the extreme and makes everything about herself...).

So the other day, bff and bS were talking and bff says something along the lines of me wanting to go to M's graduation. Ummm...I do? I like M just fine and there's been a number of times she's tagged along when bff and I were doing something or else I was invited to, say, go to dinner with bff, her sis, her BIL and M (I'm doing that tonight actually) but I don't feel especially close to M. I'm happy to wish her well and send her a card, maybe toss in a few bucks, but I don't particularly desire to see her walk across a stage and I really don't want to sit through a ton of boring speeches before M gets her degree.

Bff swears M's "eyes lit up" when she mentioned me going. OK, I don't really think I'm all that important to M but if she wants a bunch of people at her graduation ceremony, and nobody in the family steps up, I'll go. It would require an overnight stay but hey, there's an IKEA not too far from the college, and I've been sitting on a gift card for IKEA for over a year (I don't know what Bro was thinking when he got it for me Christmas of '22 but still, it was nice of him to do so. And yes, I could always use it online...).

BUT...just after bff told bS I wanted to go to M's graduation, bS cut her off and said "She can't. She's watching our cats!". Again...ummmm...I am? News to me. Some of you may remember that when bff's mom died last fall, I drove two hours to go to calling hours and was originally planning on staying overnight and attending the funeral the next morning, but bS asked me to "feed" their cats after calling hours, so I drove home, found they had food and just wanted their evening snacks, fed the fish also and then was a bit tired the next morning and didn't feel like making another four hour (round trip) drive, so I didn't go to the funeral (luckily, it was streamed, so I got to see most of it).

Anyways...bff got mad at bS's assumption, and bff's BIL stepped in and say hey, we can get <former neighbors and still friends> to take care of the cats. bS replied "We can't make them drive all the way in from Mentor to do that!". Ummm...what? It's actually a shorter drive to their place from Mentor than it is from my town, and bff angrily told bS that. bS then blew up and said "She's coming in anyways to take care of your animals though!". Um...no, I'm not. Bff is undecided what to do with her dog but she knows it will either be the neighbors taking care of Pup or else she'll take Pup to a kennel for the night. And as many cat owners know, kitties can go 2-3 days by themselves as long as they have plenty of food put down, several water bowls and ideally several litter boxes. We used to leave our cat Peppermint home when we went on weekend jaunts, and she was just fine. A little mad at us for leaving in the first place but she survived. The longest bS's cats, and bff's kitty, would have to be alone would be a little over 24 hours; bS and her hubby would go down on Friday to help M get her stuff out of her dorm room, bff would go down late Saturday afternoon, the graduation is late Sunday morning, and everyone should be home by early Sunday night.

Nobody's asked me what *I* want to do. *I'm* not sure what I want to do. On the one hand, I have no desire to see M graduate, but IF she really wants me there, I'll go. I don't know why she would but I do think it's nice to have a bunch of people cheering for you when you're handed your degree. Plus I wouldn't mind staying overnight and going to IKEA. OTOH, if my presence would not be that big a deal to M (and hopefully other family members would want to go), I wouldn't mind taking care of the kitties. They're what I consider "typical" cats--neither super affectionate nor scaredy cats/hellions when someone is in their house--and they kind of know me. It'd be nice to pet a kitty again and frankly, I'm sure bS and her hubby would give me some sort of compensation. When I checked in on the pets after bff's mom's calling hours, I was there maybe 10 minutes...bS and hubby sent me a thank you card with a $25 gift card for First Watch in it.

I would also be OK with not doing anything at all <g>.