Bonnie and clod

I have a few friends who've been going through big deal nasty health stuff this year. And two are now, blessedly, through the worst of it for now. Which is great. So much relief. I suspect you'll hear more about one of them next week, but now you just get a funny story at my expense, about the other one.

So, she's doing great. Her treatments are over. We needed to celebrate, I thought. And what started out as talking about having one or two of us go out for drinks turned into her thinking about all the great folks who've been really very much there for her, which turned into our inviting a bunch of people to come have a party at my house. Which is all as it should be.

In the interest of not making her life any more difficult, I handled the invitations.

Now, it happens that there are two women who work with us who have the same first name and last initial. We'll call them Bonnie Cormier* and Bonnie Carruthers.* They are otherwise nothing at all alike, except that they're fun to have around. I'm a little closer to Bonnie Cormier, who is also a friend to the guest of honor (who we'll call GOH). But GOH is closer to Bonnie Carruthers, who I like fine but do not know well, and Bonnie Carruthers has been a great help to GOH in her illness.

So, of course, as we were planning, GOH reminded me to invite Bonnie. And I invited a number of people, including Bonnie. And Bonnie was the first person to respond, saying what a great idea it was and how glad she'd be to attend, and could she bring anything? And because I'm organized like that, I started an RSVP list, and wrote "Bonnie C." at the top of the "yes" column.

(Confused yet? Welcome to the three-card monte that is my brain. I, too, have lost track of which Bonnie we're talking about.)

And when I sent GOH a list of who was coming, "Bonnie C." was right there at the top of the list, but as I was typing it, I thought twice. So the actual list item says:

• Bonnie C. (Hm. I invited Bonnie Cormier. Just occurred to me, did you mean Bonnie Carruthers? It is not too late for me to invite her.) 

And then the response came: "I did mean Bonnie Carruthers ... Bonnie Cormier is great too!!"

Ah, ick. Now I feel like a jerk, because the invites went out almost a week ago, and now the gathering is tomorrow. But, as diplomatically as possible, I send this message to Bonnie Carruthers:

I am SO sorry to have inadvertently left you off the original list for this; you were on my paper list, but I just realized as I was nudging people with reminders that you’d never actually gotten the e-mail. Yikes! I really hope you can join us; I know GOH would want you there if you can make it, but I understand if the notice is too short.

to which I get the response, from Bonnie Carruthers:

You didn’t leave me off the list – I got the original and I’m planning to be there (bringing a munchie).

and so I responded how glad I was to hear it, and then quickly checked my sent messages to see if I had also sent one to Bonnie Cormier. Nope.

So, all is right with the world, except that Bonnie Carruthers probably thinks I’m a crazy person. Or drunk at work. Either way, should be a hell of a much-deserved party.





*Not their real names, though Bonnie Cormier and Bonnie Carruthers were two girls from my second-grade class with whom we had somewhat similar difficulties, back in 1978.