Ringing It In

Thank goodness for this blog. For days, I couldn’t remember what I did last New Year’s Eve, and through the miracle of archivedom, I discovered that on Dec. 31, 2008, I fell asleep at 9PM and didn’t give up the booty. THIS year, I fell asleep at 11PM.

 

Again, I managed to keep my ample underwear on.

 

My husband is a patient man.

 

I don’t call him The Rock for nothing.

 

Please allow me to back up and start at the beginning.

 

Last night, our former daycare provider offered to take both girls overnight (FOR FREE!). We were to drop them off at 6PM and pick them up at 11AM the next day. Now, I love my children, I really truly do, but lately my conversations with The Rock have consisted of “Move over,” and “Which CSI do you want?” It’s not pretty. Alone time would help merge us more fully together.

 

Still, we first decided to go for an early dinner with friends and then a) head to a movie, a long-forgotten art; or b) go home and merge more fully together; or c) a combination of the two.

 

As planned, we first went to dinner. We arrived at a local spot with a band and a bar and booths and billion dollar booze. Our friends were going to meet us at 6:45, and The Rock and I arrived right on time and were seated. After about 15 minutes, our friends still hadn’t shown up and we politely continued to wait before ordering drinks and appetizers. But this wasn’t like our friends. In fact, L, is early to everything. Endearingly (sometimes annoyingly) so. I texted her several times with varying degrees of irritation.

 

“We’re here! Sitting in the booth! Reservation is in my name.”

 

“Still here. You guys find the place OK?”

 

“Everything all right?”

 

“Are you here yet?”

 

“WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU TWO? Screw it. I’m ordering.”

 

I never received a response, and a half hour later, just when I was about to have a full-blown spaz attack, and The Rock was going to implode from my obsessive questioning of “Do you remember what you did last year? What did we do last year? I can’t remember what we did last year. Is that an age thing, you think? I really need to know what we did last year. You sure you can’t remember?”, L’s husband walks to where we were seated. His eyes were fixed at a point beyond us and I nearly had to tackle him to get him to stop, and believe me, I was up for the task.

 

Turns out he was on his way to the bathroom. He had to pee, see, because he and L had been there, drinking drinks, FOR 40 FRACKIN’ MINUTES in another corner of the restaurant. The same tube-dressed ditzy restaurant hostess had seated us both, a party of four, at two separate tables. Two separate tables under the SAME RESERVATION you dumb-headed boobatron.

 

I was PO’d.

 

B then went to get L, who sauntered on over with a bottle of wine, which she’d ordered first thing, what the hell is with that, because I waited to order until they got there. But still, it was a welcome sight.

 

However, I continued to be agog with righteous anger. Because hello? Forty minutes wasted wondering where the second half of our party was while they were right there all along and pay attention, boob head! There are more important things than who is checking out your butt.

 

Speaking of which, this little suburban watering hole had a lotta butt and boob checker-outters. It reminded me of Melrose Place, but the 1990s version, and without a pool.

 

I’ll get to that in a minute, but my righteous anger first.

 

So the waiter arrives to take our order, and L and I talk over ourselves to communicate how very righteously angry we were over the mis-seating situation, while The Rock and B squirmed uncomfortably and wished it were legal to spray us with aerosol tranquilizers.

 

In the end, the waiter didn’t give two figs and we didn’t get the free dessert we’d been hoping for as an “I’m sorry we almost ruined your night” consolation prize.

 

Despite all, we did manage to have a delightful evening of warm, crusty bread, tender, lightly fried calamari with homemade marinara, perfectly arranged caprese salad, beefy filet mignon and juicy prawns with piquant crab stuffing.

 

Those assholes.

 

Maybe I’m still a little angry.

 

Not because of the mix-up, I know those things happen, but because they didn’t care that they’d messed up. You know? Just a sincere apology. Or a damn tiramisu.

 

Whatever.

 

Let’s get to the boobs and butts.

 

Hoooooolllllyyyyyy cow.

 

So these tipsy 40-somethings (NOT that there’s anything wrong with that) walked past our table all night, as it was on the way to the bathroom, and we all watched as the liquor loosed them up and encouraged all manner of inappropriate behavior. It was like high school in 1986, but with more Oil of Olay and less muscle tone. These women were ON THE PROWL. And the ones with husbands were flirting with the band and screaming high-pitchedly during”Brown-Eyed Girl.” Also, cameras flashed and bra straps showed and Facebook is going to be craz-ee with housewife party photos today.

 

After dinner, when we walked through the bar and out of the restaurant, The Rock, normally unflappable, said he felt “violated” as the cougars at the bar checked his little butt out and tried to catch his eye.

 

He said he even thought drool was involved.

 

I know, right?

 

My little Rock, all visually assaulted and gawked at? It’s enough to make his wife want to exert some kind of ownership and merge more fully with him.

 

But we had a movie to take in, see, and I was NOT going to let that be taken away from me.

 

So we pay-per-viewed The Cove (SEE IT!), fell asleep within 10 minutes, and a day later, I still have my makeup on, barely smudged.

 

Even after the merging more fully this morning.

 

There. I have now recorded for posterity what we did New Year’s 2009, so I can look it up next year when I’ve forgotten it again.

 

Now if you’ll excuse me. I’ve got to get this makeup off with a liberal dousing of Oil of Olay.