With less than two weeks to go, the drama unfolds

As of Friday, I still hadn't received the check from my sister. I asked my brother to call her. For a number of reasons, I felt it better that someone with a cooler head call her. He left a message for her to call him.

I don't know about you, but when I hear from someone who normally doesn't call me, I'm curious. I might even be worried that something's wrong. And if its someone from my family, especially, I return the call almost immediately. Did that happen? Of course not.

Saturday night, the gloves came off. "Sue, it's Dave. We need your money for the party. If you've sent it, great. Give me a call back and let me know when you mailed it. If you haven't, you need to. And are you really coming to the party? Give me a call back and let me know that too."

Sunday came and went. It was decided that he would call her at work today, where she wouldn't be able to caller ID her way out of talking to him. This morning, I arrived at work to find the following e-mail in my Inbox:

Ellie, I got a message from your goony on Saturday regarding the money. I sent that to you on Tuesday. I was dealing with one of my big events at a time. Once the wedding was over, I was taking care of Fran and Trick's party obligations. Let me know if you didn't receive it. I don't know why you didn't just give me a call or email me. As I have always said, I will pay my money and be a part of the party wherein Dave indicated that he didn't think I wanted to. That was hurtful. Let me know, Sue

Hurtful? Please. Once again, she figured a way to manipulate the situation, making herself look like the victim. I tried not to think about it all day. It helped that I was in an all-day computer training session, and couldn't immediately fire a response back in the heat of the moment.

I got out of the my training session early, and headed right for the gym -- 50 minutes on the treadmill, 10 on the eliptical, 3 sets of lower body strength training. Worked up a sweat, forgot about how dysfunctional my family can be.

When I got home, there was a check in my mailbox from Sue. She had mailed it to the wrong address -- to the apartment I haven't lived in in almost six months. That was the delay. I made some soup, heated up a piece of bread, flipping words around in my head, fashioning an appropriate response to my sister.

Sometimes, the words just come out right the first time. Sometimes a re-read reveals nothing needs to be changed. Tonight, that happened. And when I hit "send," I felt amazingly better. A weight had been lifted, all the bad feelings were gone. Because I was able to articulate how I felt, why I asked Dave to call her, and why she most certainly was not the victim:

Sue, I received the check today -- apparently you didn't have my correct address, but thankfully it was forwarded. Thank you for sending it. I'm sorry you were hurt by Dave calling you. There was a reason I asked him to call you, though I certainly wouldn't call him my "goon." Throughout this entire planning process, you've been difficult at best or downright non-responsive to my updates and questions, including the most recent ones regarding the money, the actual amount and you feeling that you weren't getting adequately updated on the party. Sammi and I have done an incredible amount of planning for this party, and to continually receive e-mails from you that seemed to second-guess what what we both happen to do for a living was, to use your word, hurtful. I thought it best to have someone else contact you about the money. And given your history in actually attending family events, can you really blame Dave for questioning if you were coming. I'm really happy that you are -- I know how hurt Fran and Trick would have been, having seen first-hand how hurt they, and others in the family, were when you didn't come to Jenny's wedding. Thanks again for sending the money. I will see you next Saturday, Ellie

Next week should be interesting.