A Night Out on the Town

On Friday morning I picked up Annette H from the airport. I arrived late because I underestimated just how bad the rush hour traffic was on the 101 and 202. I am thankful that I have a very short commute to work. The airport was amazingly calm considering the heightened security. We went to Einstein Bagels for breakfast then headed back to the house for a massage. Annette gave me massages while I was pregnant with Ty and she is so good I begged her to give me a massage when she came down here. It felt great. Tracy came over for a massage too and when they were done, she took Annette to Jill’s, who I have decided is a Matriarch. Now there are two definitions of matriarch: n 1: a female head of a family or tribe [syn: materfamilias] 2: a feisty older woman with a big bosom (as drawn in cartoons). I actually don’t think Jill would be offended by the second definition with the exception of the word “older” and would actually be pleased by the “big bosom” part, but alas I was thinking of the first definition. Her house seems to be a home base for traveling souls.

I had my yearly ob/gyn appointment at noon and waited an hour and a half to see the doctor. I think that’s the downside of seeing an ob/gyn versus a general practitioner… the doctors are off delivering babies while you’re sitting in the exam room wearing a flimsy robe. I love this doctor so I forgave him when he came into the room. He never rushes which is why he is easy to forgive for running behind. These appointments used to be about birth control and then they turned into having babies and now the topic: mammograms and osteoporosis. I felt really old.


At 5:30, Jill and Annette picked me up to take me to Annette G’s for Tracy’s non-surprise party. Tracy turned 36 and we decided to celebrate with a stretch Hummer for the evening. I was a little apprehensive about this evening because I knew we were going to be out until 1 AM and our kids get up as early at 5 AM but I decided that life shouldn’t stop just because you have kids.

Brian joined us in the limo and 13 of us headed to Sugar Daddies where the most memorable moment was a woman challenging Tracy to an arm wrestling match. Now, I haven’t been to a bar or club in a long time but in my day, we weren’t into arm wrestling. Tracy held her own despite being a bit inebriated and then Jeanette crushed another challenger.
Here is Annette coming back into the limo from her short visit with the driver.
Our next stop was a bar called E4 or Environments or something like that. I didn’t really get the place. They had rooms for fire, water, oxygen and earth. This is where Jill accused Shannon of putting eyeliner on her lips and Shannon insisted that it was lip liner, even though it was a blue-grey color. Fortunately, no fight ensued.
We moved on to Barcelona which was supposed to be for 30something people but I saw, no kidding, a man who was like 80 years old. That didn’t deter us from having fun even though the dance floor was 130 degrees and completely packed. I hit the wall about midnight and was ready to go to bed. Fortunately, we were at the front of the limo and told the limo driver to go to our house first so I was in bed by 1 AM. Ty woke up every 5 – 10 minutes from 3 AM to 5:30 AM and finally went to sleep but Jack then woke up for good. So I didn’t get to sleep much at all.

On Saturday I spent the day with the boys and we went to the mall. They had closed the gate at Barnes and Noble because a mother lost her child. I must be PMSing because just thinking about that made me want to cry. I stopped by Jill’s for a jewelry party before rushing home to get to the Benefit Show that my work puts on. We’ve gone every year for 10 years and don’t miss it. It’s for a good cause and I used to perform in it before having kids. This year, there was a lot of dancing, so I liked that a lot.

Brian usually gets up with the kids but I felt like spending more time with the boys so I got up with them (Jack woke up at 5:00). I met the girls (6 of us) at Wildflower for breakfast and I think at some point, we may be banned from eating there because of all the jocularity and noise that comes from our table. So sue us. We will have several interesting months of Nancy going through her first pregnancy and Pam getting engaged and married.

I took Jack back to the mall later in the day for some 1:1 time. We went to Rubio’s and the GAP and then to Barnes and Noble where we listened to CD’s, read some books and shared a cupcake. I love going to the bookstore with Jack because we always have so much fun and I have to drag him out of there because he loves it so much. Brian and I watched the movie “Man on Fire” which I thought was really good and is worth checking out.