Shopping Tips and Guidance by Mandy Claire

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," sister bickering edition! I'm Anne Johnson, sister to one and sister-in-law to several.

Starting with the "several," my sisters-in-law led my mother-in-law to believe that she would be traveling with them this holiday. Alas, they stiffed her, and Mr. Johnson is now bringing her here to Chateau Johnson for the remainder of the Christmas holiday. Oh well!

The bigger quarrel is with my natural sister, and it's not so much a quarrel as me calling her on some Facebook behavior that she says I haven't given her an opportunity to explain.

In the past 18 months my sister has adopted eight pets: two dogs, five cats, and a tarantula. She already had a dog and a parrot. She is soon to be 47 and wants to adopt a child.

A few days before Christmas, a dog fight erupted in my sister's house. The first dog she adopted got mauled by the other two. This sort of thing happens when dogs try to establish pack order, especially in close quarters. Sis posted a photo of her injured dog on Facebook. She also posted a picture of her hand, swollen from the bites she received trying to break up the fight.

I scolded her severely, first for putting up a picture of an injured dog, and then for posting her plans to curb further fighting (plans include shock collars and obedience school). This is not the sort of thing a person puts on Facebook.

What got under her collar was my suggestion that she ought to take a look at her overall behavior pattern and ask herself if it seems logical -- everything in her life at this moment, and all the plans she has.

This is all the detail I'll give on this, because all of this is already on record on Facebook.

Anyway, she left me a message on Facebook that my behavior is abusive, and she wonders if all Druids act like me? This is because I would not sit and listen to her rationalize the behavior of her pets.

She calls it abuse, I call it tough love. If you knew more about our family history, you would know that I'm not mad at her at all ... only worried. And I wasn't abusive ... only elusive. Because I had to kowtow to my mom, but I sure am not going to do it with my sister.

I wrote her back and said that if she is happy, then so am I. What's bugging me is this nagging feeling that she's not happy, that she's anything but happy, and that the hubub around her is her distraction from unhappiness.

Sis has not taken down the picture of her injured dog, and I'm wondering how those who judge people fit for adoption will feel if they see it on her Facebook. Maybe the rest of you Druids know more about this than me.

Asking, especially but not exclusively Druids -- did I overreact? Do you want to see the photo?