My weekend fun (LONG LONG version, sorry!)

WARNING-->this is quite possibly the longest post I've ever written, it goes on FOREVER and has no real point...hey, this is now another entry in my nano with a few modifications....read only if you have a lot of time to kill and nothing to do!

Since it's been so long since I had a weekend that had more social activities for myself than for my kids, I thought I'd share! OK, it wasn't a wild weekend on any other measurement scale, but I'm going to take what I can get and I really had a good time!

Friday, 5:01, hit the road, picked up my son & was on the way to get my daughter at about 5:20. Got a phone call that at 5:10, my little girl "beat up one of the boys in after-care". (I'm not one of those parents who think their children are angels and can do no wrong, but she's absolutely the last person in the world who would hit someone.) When I asked for details the girl said she "pushed him, kicked him in the head and he ended up with a large bump and will have to go to the doctor's and she LIED about it." I made sure it was MY daughter and the boy she supposedly beat the crap out of was a lot bigger than her and one of her friends, so it totally did not make sense. Apparently they thought she was lying because when they said "Why did you kick him in the head and beat him up?" and she said "I didn't beat him up, I just pushed him off me." When I got there it seemed the after-care program director and both of her assistant helpers had all left at 5pm and the only ones left were the two high school girls who are pretty much incompetent. After talking with my daughter and calling the mother of the little boy it turned out that the kids were all crowded in together on the mats watching a movie and they bumped each other, another boy shoved this one onto her, Beth got hit in the shins and had a few little bruises, so she pushed the boy off her and he stood up, tripped and fell backwards over another kid, hitting his head on the ground. The mom said he didn't even have a bump or anything and not to worry about it. SO my daughter was the FIRST one suspended out of the program and I had to get creative about getting her to & from school. Man, that's a phone call I didn't ever think I'd have to make...."sorry my daughter beat up your son...." HAH. OK, I have to admit, a little part of me was like "YEAH!" because she is just learning to stand up for herself if someone picks on her or her friends.

After we got everyone all calm and happy at home and called the mom and such, Friday night was pretty much ready for bath & snacks & bed for kiddos and I knitted this new satanic yarn I bought from the LYS on my bday. I am making a modified funky boob tube, and it's the most HORRIBLE stuff to start on circular needles, but once it gets going, it's not too bad. I knitted, frogged, knitted, frogged, said the HELL with this BIRTHDAY yarn crap and got a glass of wine. It called to me....."I'll be nice, knit me, please, knit me" So after another glass of wine and laughing on the phone about my daugher aka "bruiser" decided to give it another go. I was cruising on the boob tube, had about 8" done, it's such a simple pattern and really moves.....realized I screwed up and was supposed to do plain ol stockinette for the first 8" and not start the increase pattern until AFTER the first 8" were done....YUP, I'd been just increasing my little heart out and it was not fixable....so the whole damn thing was frogged again. I was actually trying to get it done to wear out on Sat. night, but that didn't quite work. So, got myself a diet coke (I know, it was after midnight and I'm popping caffiene before bed) typed about 1300 words on the never-going-to-get-to-50,000 nanowrimo thing and went to bed.

Sat. I had about 4 people I hadn't talked with in months call to say hello and catch up. Man, the best friends are those you can talk to while cleaning toilets! I got the kids to help clean the house as it was getting a bit frightening! We went garage-saling in the am and had fun, found a few treasures (aka CRAP) that the kids couldn't live without and mostly wandered around in the cold air. I loved watching the munchkins decide on their purchases...they have to take their own quarters & when they're out, they're out. Joey's a monster when it comes to wheeling & dealing....he goes up with a toy marked $2 and ends up using his big-eyes-looking-sad bit and comes back after spending a quarter. The kid's got talent. Beth uses him now. She'll send him up with a girly thing and he'll say "I really want to buy this for my sister, can I use this?", hand her a couple quarters and if that doesn't work, he HUGS them. What little old lady can resist a spiky-headed-boy that hugs? MAN I have to act really interested in some piece of crap on the lawn to observe and not look like I'm pimping my kids.

Went to Huyen's baby shower while mom watched the kids. There's nothing more fun than hanging out with about 50 asians! My wild little group is starting to mellow out. My friend Alison got me adopted into this big international group and I've gone from being that "tall white chic" (I'm actually only 5 foot 7", but most of my friends are barely 5 foot, so I'm like a giant-woman) they brought along for fun, kind of a fringe-friend, to being invited into these women's and their friends' lives. It's wierd. When you are a kid, you make new friends all the time. When we go to college, we make life-friends and then we grow up and just end up with aquaintances. I made a resolution to live more of my life and be open to making friends a few years ago and I ended up meeting Russell & Alison right about then. Since then I've added other special people to my life and it's really amazing....

OK, enough touchy-feely-crap, back to the story....ANYWAY, Huyen was one of the girls I went to chicago with over July 4th weekend (pictures on my links). She's about the cutest little preggo girl! I was cracking up because there were about 4 white people, a few Indians and a ton of asians. I've never seen so many freaking cameras in my life, it was like the biggest stereotype of all, but I SWEAR I'm in about 45 pics and I wasn't the momma-to-be! She must be in over 100. I was cracking up. They also EAT very well and DRINK a bit too. I was a good girl and just ate veggies & fruit and no drinks. The group's parties seem to start in the afternoon and usually end up around 2am. They wanted me to go out for my bday that night, but I had a hot date, so couldn't. They said to not make lunch plans for the next day. I can't explain it, but it's so amazing to just be pulled into this neat group of women! It makes me all happy & gushy inside. OH, and of course there's one old white guy (the daddy-to-be's father) who comes to ask for my # before I leave....WHAT IS THIS FREAKY OLD GUY MOJO I'M WORKING NOW?????????? He's rich as snot, about 60 and a slight alcoholic. woo. baby. At least he didn't resemble Kenny Rogers, that's a plus as most of the men I attact are dead ringers for the country star.

TIRED OF READING YET???

Sat afternoon I ran home, got the kids, went to get dvd's for the new dvd/vcr player I got from mom & dad and got the kids set for my super-sitter, Michael. Michael's one of my hundreds of cousins (I'm catholic, what can I say?) His big sister was one of my best friends when we were growing up and she ended up dying of cervical cancer in her early 20's. Michael's kind of an adopted baby brother who looks like a linebacker. He's in KC now going to college at DeVry. He comes over about every other weekend and the kids love him. I feed him and pay him and we hang out and catch up and I pick on him like Erin would have done. It's a good setup for all as he's kind but also big & tough and a good male role model for Joey too. He got there and I hit the ROAD. Wore a black scoop-neck top w/jeans and heels and my cool wild-mix skinny scarf wrapped around my neck about 5 times, GREAT hair, NO zits and I was a little hotty. Headed out to Argosy casino and met my old friend Bill there. He found out it was my bday weekend from another friend and decided we'd live it up. Bill could well have been my "bob" (my wild aunt Dot from CA has a gentleman friend who is my goal for what I want in a life partner. He's amazing, sweet, funny, cute and has his own damn life and his own damn job and own damn house and comes over when she wants him to and goes away when she wants too...it works for both of them. I've decided I'm not getting married again, but my goal is to find a friend/lover/partner when I'm in my 50's or 60's and if not that's ok too) He's moving to Hilton Head, SC to run a bowling center, he's now a district manager for about 18 centers in the area. We decided we like to hang out, there's an attraction, (NO HE'S NOT A BOWLER, so NONE OF MY OLD FRIENDS GIVE ME ANY CRAP HERE--My ex-hubby was a professional bowler and the 2nd hubby that only lasted 6 months after marriage because he was a crazy M.F. was also a bowler and I swore a blood oath that I would not marry any more bowlers) SORRY, back to the LONG-ASS version of my life....

DAMN I'm getting tired of typing!

So, we go in and wander past the restaurants and decide on the Journey, this really nice (and expensive) steak restaurant. I ate EVERYTHING and almost barfed. I'm not one of those dainty little pick at a salad on a date kind of chics. If there's food, and it's good and especially if it's expensive, I'm EATING it baby. So, we both get salads, bread, steak, mashed potatoes that were like HEAVEN and green beans that were amazing....and there was NOTHING left on my plate....how scary is that? We also downed a bottle of shiraz wine and were just talking and telling stories, he's lived the most amazing life. I am trying to get him to start a blog just recording different things he's done as a record. He decides since it's my bday, we've got to get dessert. I very daintilly (is that a word?) say I may barf on the table if I force any further food into my body....and he says just take a taste of mine....and he orders this chocolate fudge cake satanic godiva chocolately thing that I could have DIED it was so freaking good AND a piece of strawberry/raspberry/cheesecake divine thing....of course I packed in about half of those as well. After we finished the wine, I rolled myself out of the restaurant and we wandered over to the craps table.

Bill gave me a $100 bill to use, and I said "I'm not using your stinking money" and he said whatever we make we'll spend. So, since my fingers are getting tired here, I'll just say I lived on that $100 all night long. The only time I'd tried craps I'd lost all my $$ in about 15 minutes and didn't have a clue why. THIS time I was QUEEN of the table. It was a blast. The funny part was Bill threw down at least 4 more $100 bills. I kept saying "you want some of my money?" but you can't share chips at the table and he wouldn't hear of it. (He's also loaded and has no kids and no real demands so I figured he's a big boy). At one point I had the two trays in front of me FILLED with chips...counted $680-something at one point...but we kept playing. After about 2 1/2 hours there we moved on to roulette. I left the table with $450 or so and he got up to $300 in chips, so overall we were a bit up. I hate roulette, but we had a blast. We sat next to the funniest girl. She was with this tough biker-guy. She talked like a cartoon character from the 30's...that high pitched baby doll voice, and had BIG ol boobies sticking out of this top that had one little button hanging on between them. She also jumped up & down whenever she did anything good or bad, so it was quite a sight. Then she looks down at her boobies and says to me, "Do you like them? They're new!" And I say, they're lovely. Bill elbows me and whispers "Are you seriously out at a casino talking about a woman's new breasts?" The other guys are cracking up at the table. Then I see she's talking about the brooch or pin things she's got on the top just below the one button that's straining to keep these little basketballs in place. I laughed until I snorted.

So, we end up telling stories, laughing, having fun until I figure I'd better get home and we go out to the valet around 2am. I get a very nice kiss goodnight and head off into the night, listening to my Violent Femmes cd loud with all the windows down and the butt-heater in my seat on high and in a very nice mood.

The kiddo's wake up at about 6:30 am, so momma's moving a little slow...they run & I stagger downstairs and get breakfast, then lay on the couch while the munchkins entertain themselves by building an obstacle course of blocks, chairs, giant spongebob pillow, sleeping bags and the like. Make my way to the shower and Phuong and Huyen call about lunch. We get moving and head to the Elephant Bar (very good food) and meet up for lunch for my bday! The kids shared a meal and I ate until I was going to pop AGAIN, inhaled this wonderful chicken chinese thing. And they gave me PRESENTS! I was just so touched that these new friends remembered my bday, and then that they scheduled a big lunch for me and PRESENTS! I got some yummy perfume (with comments that they're tired of my old-lady Elizabeth Arden Red Door that I've worn for years), 3 silver picture frames and a cute necklace & earrings set that looks like me! We ate a bunch, talked a lot and of course many more photos were taken! (I don't even bring a camera anymore to anything as I know these girls will have it covered!)

Then we run to Joey's friend's bday party. It was a dress-up princess party with about 25 girls and 4 boys. They stuck a note on Joey's card that he could dress like a prince or a king if he wanted to. We don't have a whole lot of king-material, so we did the batman cape and a paper crown. We got to princess alley and saw a crowd of cinderellas, snow whites, sleeping beauties and tinkerbells (when did she become a princess?) and Joey and the other little guys with their capes. Joey got rid of the paper crown and put up the batman hood w/eyes and pointy ears and was running around the room with his arms out like he was flying....chaos. But they had a blast, ended up getting both kids' faces painted and I very politely said no thanks on the bday cake as I could not possibly put any more food into my body.

Sunday evening I got my presents from the kids. Beth had made a beautiful drawing of she & I & Joey playing on the swings and Joey made me a heart and wrote his name in it.

My life was all stressful and kind of getting to me and I wasn't planning on doing anything for my bday. I ended up having the nicest weekend in a long time. Friday I'm going out with some other friends for a belated bday party and am going to try to drag Russell along too! I got nice emails & thoughts from my new blogger friends and I'm just a happy little camper. I think I'll plan on not celebrating again next year and see if I can do all this again!