Mama Bear Wants to Claw Someone.....

Sweet Girl hates it when I refer to her as my "cub" or refer to myself as a "mama bear." She'll understand the concept when she has kids of her own.

I'll probably mess up part of this story, since it is Sweet Girl's and not mine to tell, but I'll risk it anyway.

My daughter loves to cook. I don't know where she got that gene, because it certainly didn't come from me. Not only does she love to cook, she's pretty darn good at it. She experiments, she tries new recipes, she uses exotic spices and flavorings.

Me? If it has more than 5 ingredients and there's a single thing I can't pronounce or don't know what section it's in, I move on to the next recipe.

(I almost posted on Facebook the other night: "Food just tastes better with a new can opener" but I was afraid no one would get it. Or rather, I was afraid it was dumb.)

Sweet Girl decided NOT to come home for Thanksgiving this year. She's technically unemployed (but almost finished with school, praise all that's holy for that!), and we all know gas isn't cheap these days. Instead she decided to stay home and cook a meal for one of her married friends and her small family.

I don't know the entire menu, but I know she cooked a turkey, baked a pecan pie (I have never been that brave myself), made deviled eggs, and a host of other goodies. She cleaned her townhouse and sent me a picture of how sparkling it looked. She got up early on Thanksgiving Day and put the finishing touches on some things, whipped up a few things that can only be made the day of the meal itself, watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and relaxed while she waited for her friends.

Only they didn't come. Canceled (by text message, I think) at the last minute. After not returning her calls the day before.

Man, have I been doing a slow burn ever since yesterday. I want to track this little girl down (and her husband and child too, I'm not picky) and kick. her. ass.

How could she DO that?

My sister-in-law were talking about it today, and we pondered whether it was generational. I couldn't think of doing that to any of MY friends, not now and not when I was 28. Not ever. If you say you're going to be somewhere, you go. If you don't think you can make it, you don't say you will be there. And especially an occasion like Thanksgiving, where the girl had to know how much trouble went into the preparation. Not to mention cost. For an unemployed veteran who just wanted to have someone to share the holiday with her.

The Mama Bear in me wants to find that little b****'s number on Sweet Girl's phone and give her a piece of my mind. But that would embarrass my child, and I need to reserve those moments for really special occasions. Like riding the grocery cart through the parking lot.

IS it generational? Is it just young people in their late 20's to early 30's (older? younger?) who are so ME, ME, ME, ME oriented that they can ignore the feelings of other people and cheerfully go about their business? Or is this an isolated case of one young person/family? Please, please, please tell me it's the latter, or I may just crawl under my comforter and suck my thumb until the world comes to an end next month.

I know I should give the girl the benefit of the doubt, particularly since I don't know the WHOLE story. She has a young child, so there could have been any number of reasons that she had to cancel at the last minute. But she didn't offer ANYTHING in the way of explanation. I believe the phrase she used was, "We can't make it." Even if she had to make up a LIE, it would have been better than not offering an excuse at all. (I think Sweet Girl would disagree with me on that last one, because she's inherently way more honest than I am. I mean, when backed into a corner. Yeah, that's what I meant.)

Ugh.

This parenting thing just never stops hurting.