Pauline came and talked to me. I left a polite phone message reminding her that our last childbirth class was last night. She's been working off the Costco money I gave her in January by babysitting for us, so we could go to this class. She came by and said,"I know you must be mad." I told her,"I'm not mad. I'm just heartbroken. You're my best friend and you missed the most important day of my life."

She apologized, but I guess it doesn't mean much to me. I am still rather numb with sadness.

And I'm angry with Steve because he's been putting her down again and doing shitty stuff and she's hurting. She said last night that they'd had an unpleasant phone conversation and that she didn't want to tell me about it because she knows I "hate Steve." I said,"I don't hate Steve or anyone for that matter. I just don't like how he treats you."

She has to come to terms with her dysfunctional shit. I can't do it for her.

We did call and tell Mike's mom that we got married on Saturday. She did this whole guilt trip of how sad she was that we didn't invite her. We told her we'd invite her to next year's event and that we'd show her the video. We explained that the family politics of who to invite and who not to invite were out of our coping range and that we'll invite everyone next year to our big thang. She still went on and on about it, but the wedding wasn't for her. It was for Mike and me and our kids -- our family. I love her and we'd have liked to invite all kinds of people, but we did what worked for us.

I just wish she'd be happy for us rather than making it about her happiness. She said something about how she's had all this unhappy stuff happen that she would have really liked to be part of something happy. I understand being disappointed but it was our wedding not hers and she'll just have to cope.

I have been chickening out about telling my parents. I've told my brother and his wife, who were thrilled for us and are excited about coming out to next year's shindig. We've told Mike's brothers and his mom. We haven't told Chris. I reminded Mike that we'd told his mom that we would call his grandparents last night and he said,"But then they'll tell us to call Chris." I laughed and said,"Well, we don't have to tell him, just because they want us to!" I think we'll just let him find out. I'd like to stay away from the Wet Blanket of Death when I'm so damned happy and apparently, Mike feels the same.

We did go into work on Monday and show our rings to everyone. People were not surprised, but happy for us, and I thought that Patti was going to pee herself she was so thrilled for us. It was cool to surprise her. It was weird, too because last week, someone had sent a fax to Mike and had addressed it to Mike Schreiber and she'd asked him if we were married. Mike told her,"Not yet." And then he told me and we both giggled like kids about our little secret.

And some of you asked,"So Mike's taking your name?" Yeah, he's taking my name. He isn't proud of his father and doesn't wish to carry on that name. When I mentioned it to my parents when we first got engaged, they commented on how thrilled they'd be to have such a nice guy carry on the Schreiber name. (My husband is a wonderful guy...prolly why I married him, huh?) I just have to see how thrilled they're going to be when they find out that he's taking my name a lot sooner than they thought.