Last night, Cowboy was out in the next town doing a little backhoe job. When he was done, I went over and met him so we could have dinner.

We picked a little Mexican place that we like and was close to where we had the low bed parked, and were having a nice dinner.

I had grabbed the seat facing the room, because I like to, and Cowboy was facing me, because he likes to.

This woman walked in with a date, looking vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place her. I kept glancing at her wondering how I knew her, but not really any more than I looked at the other people in the place.

As we were walking out, Cowboy looked startled and said, “Oh. Hi there.”

Yeah, that was the ex-wife. I’d never really seen much of her, clearly not enough to recognize her. But that certainly explains why she kept staring at me. She’s never really had a good look at me either, I don’t think, but she surely has now. I suppose that’s what set off my radar: wondering who this woman was that kept staring at me, but I ignored it and kept up our conversation.

I’m sure Chris is going to hear all about it. She gets insanely jealous whenever she hears that Cowboy’s doing well and happy in any part of his life, and she dumps all over her son. Well, probably both sons, but this one complains to me about it, and the other one is much more formal with me.

She has no reason to resent his happiness either; she’s the one that went nuts and threw her whole family out of the house. She doesn’t like to see them happy, although she has bought her way back into Chad’s life and she regularly tries to bribe Chris (who takes advantage of that and then bitches about her, just like any good boy would.)

Much later that night, Cowboy verified that that was the ex, and congratulated me on not acting nervous. I only took a little credit and admitted that I thought it might have been, but I wasn’t quite sure. The only other few times I’ve been around her, I haven’t known it ahead of time either. Family reports say that it drives her nuts that I act like she doesn’t exist, but hey, I’m not acting. If I don’t know she’s there, what’s there to get worked up about?

Besides, what’s to get nervous about? She dumped a perfectly good man AND his children, and I happen to have been lucky enough to find them and become part of their family.

And yes, it is totally two-faced of me to dislike her and expect my kids’ step-mom to be polite to me. Except that I don’t expect that—I expect civility, but no more. I’m not the one pretending to like someone and bitching behind their back. It’s a fine distinction, but it makes me feel better about myself.

I just plain don’t like Cowboy’s ex, and I won’t act otherwise (won’t cause a scene though.) At least she appears to be honest about the animosity, which is fine. I can only see us interacting if one of the boys gets married, and as little as possible then.

She can do all the kissing up to various and sundry girlfriends and family members that she wants to—the girlfriend is in a tight place, because that’s his mother, but she’s a very nice person and is handling it with grace. Doesn’t at all affect my relationship with her. And if certain backstabbing family members prefer to continue a relationship with her because it makes them the center of attention, well, that’s fine too. That’s par for the course for that particular family member. We know who’s loyal to Cowboy, and we won’t be forgetting it.

But I must say, it is very satisfying being younger and prettier.