So I’ve been fighting with my brother lately. He lives north of Toronto in suburban Vaughn. It’s about 40 minutes to get there from where I live, downtown, longer in rush hour. Our fight is mainly about the fact that he only wants me and my family to come to him. He hasn’t been down to our place in 8 months. Nice. How about you make the drive one of these days, big brother?


Anyway he had this barbecue on father’s day and I said we weren’t coming. 1) because he never comes to our place even when I go out of my way to invite him and try to make plans with him and 2) because these family barbecues are, ironically, a terrible way to actually hang out with my niece and 2 nephews — they are too busy playing with their cousins (my sister-in-law’s brothers and their wives have, like, 10 kids between them). If I’m going to drive 40 minutes each way with a screaming 2 year old in the backseat I want to at least be able to spend some time with brother’s kids. Plus all those screaming older kids carrying on freaks E. out so she gets scared and spends the whole time sitting in W.‘s lap looking worried.


All in all, very annoying and not likely to be resolved anytime soon. Right now, we’re at an impasse. We usually talk on the phone everyday – but that’s come to a standstill. Of course this happens every few months, the adult equivalent of when we were kids and we used to absolutely wail on each other with a real, heartfelt desire to do damage.


There’s nothing like fighting with your sibling. It’s pure hate and pure love all at the same time. Whatever we do and say, it’ll all blow over eventually. In the meantime, I’m gonna do the mature thing and lay down the gauntlet: I’m not going to his house until he comes to mine and that’s final and forever no matter what.