DEAR MISS MANNERS: We have friends, a married couple, with whom we have vacationed on several occasions. We live in different states, so we don’t see them that often.
GENTLE READER: Your dilemma is not that you do not know how to tell your friend it is no fun vacationing with her anymore. Your dilemma is that you do not know how to get away with it -- in other words, how to do it without giving offense and possibly severing the relationship. My father and I were not very close, but I stayed in contact, particularly as he began to decline with dementia. They lived across the country from me, so I called every few weeks and visited two to three times a year.