12:10 p.m. - 2006-12-17
great food and my new best friend
Greetings.
Last night Kevin took me out for a really nice dinner to this Italian place we really like that is very yummy and slightly expensive, so it's only for special occasions. We were celebrating my new job. We arrived and long story short, we ended up having to sit at a table in the bar. The restaurant part has such nice atmosphere, I was a bit disappointed. Especially when the bar started getting really crowded - big Italian guys walking around with cigars, etc. Well, it turned out that there was some sort of surprise birthday party going on in the bar for someone named Hazel. This became increasingly loud and I was increasingly annoyed until it became so ridiculous it was entertaining. This woman, who was obviously the organizer of this event, entered and was one of those people who just kind of take up the whole room. Let me try to explain. She had about twice as much hair as me, done Jersey Girl style, big, lots and lots of hairspray. Her outfit was really odd. This gray dress-thing made out of t-shirt material, with the short sleeves and the waist kind of gathered up, like how if you have a loose thread on a shirt and you pull the thread, the material bunches together. (Does anyone remember those long t-shirts with fringed sleeves and fringe along the bottom, sometimes with those little beads that little black girls sometimes have in their hair...then the t-shirt would say something like "ocean city" in hot pink and lime green and purple airbrush? Though sans airbrushing, this "dress" was rather reminiscent of that.) Then she had on gray leggings and really pointy, strappy very high red heels. Very large earrings. Raccoon eye make up. A voice straight out of the Sopranos. Extremely long fake nails with some sort of design on them. She was smoking and gesturing and smoking and gesturing and greeting people with names like Louie. I wanted to be her friend. People like that are always either having a lot of fun or bitching about something. It's always an adventure. I wanted to slip her my card or something and write "Will you be my new best friend? Check yes or no." on the back of it.
This made our experience all the more enjoyable as far as I was concerned. I was mesmerized by her. She was such a stereotype, it was amazing. I am CERTAIN her name was Gina or possibly Marie.
In any case, we had a lovely meal complete with a great bottle of pinot noir, a zuchinni appetizer, the best salad ever and really delicious main courses (veal and pasta for Kevin and this procuitto cheese spinach roll thing for me) The meal ended splendidly with triple chocolate mousse cake. Yum.
Today my husband is leaving for 4 days. I am less than happy about this. But I have made plans for every day he will be gone except for one, which will be the cleaning and present wrapping day. I hate when he has to travel for work, which was pretty often for a while, though we weren't married then. I am hoping this doesn't become a regular thing again.
I was feeling really sorry for myself yesterday until I remembered that the last time he went away, at some point, I thought of the wives of the soldiers in Iraq who have to be away from their husbands for unacceptable lengths of time, and not just that...but they are in one of the world's most dangerous situations. I bite my nails for the 1.5 hours each way that Kevin will be on a plane, praying and having a stomach ache over the teeny tiny possibility that something bad will happen. Well, I don't actually bite my nails because they are encased in acrylic, a la my nail technician, Steve, a very nice Vietnamese man who runs the shop with his equally nice wife, Karen. But you know what i mean. I feel bad that i worry so much, in part because it's just not good for me - Jesus says so. And it just seems like such a privliged, white-bread worry - tha my husband travelling on business might encounter something bad. People around the world live daily in much more precarious situations. But my worries are those of privilege. And that makes me feel bad.
Therefore, I will try very hard to not worry. I will spend the next four days doing the following: Having a nice dinner with my parents tonight. Cleaning and wrapping presents tomorrow night unless Sarah Lozecki calls me back. Tuesday I will have a sleepover at Haley's. Wednesday I will go out after work with my teacher-friends who I might not see much after this week. Thursday, I will have a pizza party with the children, since I feel bad for leaving them, and then i will meet little Kel for drinks. Then Kevin will be home that night barring really bad weather. So, that's the plan folks.
Last time Kevin went away, I stayed at his house to take care of the kitties, the mail, the fish, etc. and i pretty much came home every night and drank a lot of white wine and felt sorry for myself because i can't make the DVD player work.
The Steelers are on in about 50 minutes and that is a good thing.
