So here I am. Home, and sort of alone, on a Friday night. The little man’s gone to bed and the husband has gone to urgent care. Don’t worry, he’ll be all right. But I’m not leaving the house any time soon. I’ve actually been quite preoccupied, blazing my way through The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. But I need to pace myself. I don’t have another book lined up in the queue yet. So rather than posting another half dozen comments at poor James’ site, I thought I’d belatedly tell the tale of our last girls’ night out, the first official one we’d had in some time. Never mind that it happened over two weeks ago. I remember the day quite well. It was winter. Uh, like it is now. It seems like those in our little group had all had good mornings, and then crap afternoons. For instance, the little man and I started out the day with our last ECFE class for the semester. The parents participate in something sorta neat. Each parent has a sheet taped to the wall with their name on it. The other parents walk around, anonymously writing on these sheets something they appreciated about one another. When mine was returned to me I was pleasantly surprised to see no one had written “you are a big freak” or “if you ate meat, you’d be taller” or anything of that nature. There weren’t even any passive agressive Minnesota niceties, just straight up goodness. Nearly made me blush. But my bubble burst a bit after returning home. The husband and I are far too disorganized. Mail comes into the house and ends up not in one central location, but somehow in nooks and crannies all over the place. It took an email from a friend to let us know our telephone line had been temporarily disconnected. Doh. Why the DSL was still working is beyond me, but I’m glad it was. Thankfully that was taken care of before I left for the evening. I ran a few errands before heading to the restaurant, but was still the first one to arrive. Leaving me time to sit in my car a little longer and listen to NPR…to one story about virtual physical education in Florida, and another about recent scandals related to the sweet science. The former had me thinking that I’d been born too early. Like Ernie, I was always the last one picked to play kickball, or any other sport involving teams. I was almost always a foot shorter than the other kids…and still am, really, at five foot nothing. So I was in a strange mood when I entered Evergreen. Still feeling a bit stressed, and more than a little wistful. When the ladies arrived I found I wasn’t alone…in more than one sense. One had been on the phone with her sister earlier in the day and had an exchange that was quite out of character.
Her sister: What are you doing tonight?
My friend: I don’t know, but I feel like getting really drunk…or chewing on glass.
Thankfully we did neither. What we did do, well we ate a lot of really good food, caught up with our satellite member (who was in town for a few days from San Fran), and, this was the best part, made each other laugh. A lot. It was a wonderful release, getting goofy and giddy with the girlfriends. I’d say it’s not too soon to schedule the next night out.
