Looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong Weekend

It's been a long time since I've actually felt this way, but BOY am I glad to be back to work!

This weekend Grumpy and I worked a festival that our charity group puts on every year. It is always an exhausting weekend for us both, but I think this year took the cake. He got stuck on midnight security for the WHOLE festival (Wed night - Sun night), and I got stuck there with him for Fri - Sun. I have a whole new respect for folks that work midnights. Granted, I love me a good afternoon nap, but my body likes to sleep at NIGHT, not be awake at those wee hours! Hell, I'm a firm believer that certain times of day shouldn't even exist on a clock, and I got to be awake for ALL of those times this weekend!

A little about this charity group....

Grumpy has been a member for almost 16 years now, and grew up with the group (his Dad is a long time member). I've been involved for the 10+ years that he & I have been together, and have been a member for 7 years. When I first joined, I went super-duper, jump with both feet, full steam ahead into my commitment. And well, I burned out. So now I've taken a GIANT step back, and am still contributing, but now from the outer fringes instead of always being in the thick of things.

This group of ours is an interesting little case study on society for me. I've truly learned that the same 20% of the people will do 80% of the work, and a different 20% of the people will do 80% of the bitching! Who knew grown adults (mostly men) could be so catty, so power hungry, or so back-biting?

I joined the group because I believed in the work they were doing, and the greater goal they were working towards. I've backed away because of the insane amount of politics, power-struggles, and the "hey, look at me" that most members seem to want to scream from the rooftops. Instead of a successful project being about the money raised for a cause, or the teamwork it instilled in our little family, it is about who did the most work, and who it couldn't have been done without. When things don't go the way we hope for, its all about the finger pointing and mud-slinging.

Am I being naive to really believe that adults aren't supposed to behave this way? I don't mean to sound all Rodney King-esque, but, Can't we all just get along???