I will admit that I clicked on this headline because I am the friend the first LW wrote about (well not HER friend.. but same scenario).

The local friend of the expat seemed, from the letter, to change her behavior so out of the blue that I wonder if there's not some cultural misunderstanding going on here. Like, maybe by the standards of her culture's idea of friendships, she's just expressing sadness (or maybe even in her own culture she's being too…

I love her. A few years ago we saved and scraped money together to buy me a ticket to a private luncheon with her (Christmas present). When I was talking privately to her, asking her how to get rid of the rats in my garden, she said, "Oh... just leave them be. They're just trying to get by!" She then gestured to the…

My step mum who died from breast cancer said once that she was pissed off that so much money went into breast cancer awareness and research and almost none into those who are battling cancer and dying from it. I concur.

The concept of "awareness" drives me batty. People are aware of breast cancer. Seeing pink lightbulbs lighting up a building or posting the color of your bra on Facebook or putting pink hand-prints on a poster doesn't make me go, "Oh, hey! I'd totally never heard of breast cancer before! Thanks for making me aware!"…