At the grown-ups table

Went to a surprise party for Scott's mom tonight. It was thrown by one of her friends. The good part is that she truly was surprised. I honestly thought she was going to fall over from the shock and have kicked myself repeatedly for forgetting my camera.

The not as good news is that it turns out I STILL don't feel like an adult. One of her friends was there with her three little kids (more on this in a minute) and the hostess didn't really seem to be down with having children in her home. Both she and her husband were very concerned about things being spilled and so forth. I wanted to say, "That is why God invented rug cleaner, my dears." But I did not because I was brought up better than that. So, we sat around and made small talk with all of these people who were a lot older than me and I kept wondering who are these people? How did I get to the grown up table?? Luckily, there were a few other "outcasts" and we joined together so we could have people to talk to, but altogether it was little disconcerting. I got shunted in with "the wives" while the "husbands" watched football in the kitchen. I'm not married! Although, I'm not entirely certain I would have liked it that much more if I weren't.

Don't get me wrong. I adore Scott's mom and it's not that the other couples weren't nice. It's just that they were older. More established, I suppose -- and definitely more about putting on airs then I can relate to. They're living in $200k + houses and getting ready for retirement... They actually have food in their freezers that isn't pizza and ice cubes. They probably have more in their savings accounts than I make in a year. Going on a cruise isn't a big deal for them, isn't the trip of a lifetime -- it's just an annual occurrence that's a bit of a laugh. Cannot relate to that. The women with their hair just so and the men with their little beer bellies talking about when their next golf game is going to be. Snore. Not that my life is so much more exciting, but at least my hair moves around! ;-)

About the kids. Once again I find myself surrounded by children that make me think -- there's something I'd like to have in my life. It's not fair for people to raise model, adorable children and then parade them around in public as if they are standard issue. I know that I'm not that lucky, but I can't remember that when I'm around these Stepford kids. They start to make you believe that you can have kids that will be relatively well-behaved in public and be open to new people and not whiney and just adorable. The daughter Anna (there's a girl and two boys) is borderline princess but she's just so damned cute that you don't even care. I was across the street saying good bye to Scott's aunt when they were leaving and I called out to Anna "are you gonna leave without saying goodbye to me??" She started to cross over the street to me despite the cars coming. I made her wait as her mom came up behind her to stop her too. When I went over, she gave me a big old hug goodbye and then started to walk away. Then she came running back and threw herself around me again and said, "I love you!" I thought I was going to melt into a pool of sentimental mush. It was hard to pull my hard-hearted self back together again after that, I tell you.

But I persevered. And didn't start getting baby pangs.

And I haven't forgotten what it means to be single, Rose! Although, if I were still single, I certainly wouldn't have found myself in the wives room.

I will explain the above comment in another blog -- I think for now I'm going to sleep off my boxed wine headache. See y'all on the flip-flop.

HP