Date Night

Lee & I went out on a date last nite. Part of the time was spent shopping for clothes which was not his idea nor was it preapproved. Most of the time, if I know that my husband is not going to want to do something, I don't forewarn him. I just spring it on him last minute. I know that this is fairly inconsiderate and probably obnoxious, but I have enough charm that I never get in trouble for this technique. As I mentioned in my last entry, I've been busy with a lot of nonsense lately (we refer to this as 'scurrying sickness'-my inability to sit still) so the poor guy has been subjected to a higher than usual concentration of activities. For example, last weekend we dog-sat for 3 dogs and my 6 year old nephew spent the night while my step-mother-in-law was visiting for the weekend. And we had 2 parties. And my daughter had a birthday party which required one of us (me) leaving the dogs and the step-mother-in-law at home while I sat for two hours at one of those jumpy-house places. And I had to teach Sunday School. And we had a 4th dog over for part of the weekend. And I convinced my husband that it was a good time to paint our daughter's bedroom. This weekend I suprised him with family pictures at 8:30 this am and a pool party from noon to 3 (I was hosting of course) and another birthday party that he had to act as chauffer and sit for an hour and a half (after he had come to the pool party for at least an hour and a half).

So date nite, which had been fairly routine in our household, has sort of taken a back seat to my mania (which after just reading the above paragraph I realized, "Shit, I sound manic"). Sensing that my husband's last thread of patience was about to snap, I arranged for our sitter to stay late last nite so we could go out and make an attempt at a peaceful evening. Dinner was okay-Turkish food; our favorite. After dinner I let him know about the pictures, but I don't think I said anything like, "Oh, I forgot to tell you that we are having pictures done tomorrow morning at 8:30 am" because I know that in man-mind this translates into something like, "I don't really give a shit what you want to do b/c I'm a crazy female and I make all the rules and if you know what is best, you'll just sit quietly and comply. Just do as your told." I think I just told him what was happening. Something like, "Let's go get some white shirts for the pictures we are having done tomorrow morning. We can quickly go into Banana Republic. (And Kids Gap. And The Gap. And Ann Taylor)." Giving him an option of having photos taken and actually shopping for the apparrel is the man-equivalent of Chinese water torture. It's complete emasculinization. He was a pretty good sport the first two stores and then he had to stop at Starbucks to fortify himself. Now that I think about it, I went into Chico's while he talked on the phone to, ironically enough, his friend Chico (Leland the man-wife). I think I went into the store and then his friend called and he sat outside on a bench (maybe while he was in Starbucks he called Leland and told him to call-an SOS). By the time I made my last stop (who knew that finding white shirts could be so complicated) under the guise of getting a parking validation he was no longer polite. As I walked into the store I think he said to me, "What the hell are you doing?" I never noticed that it was so hard to be married to me till reading this. He managed to pry me away from the allure of impulse-shopping and needless consumption (mostly b/c the stores closed at 9 pm) and we went and played Scrabble at a place called "The Chocolate Bar."

On our way there, our babysitter called us. To be precise, she allowed our 6 year old who was wailing to call us. He was incomprehensible through the sobs. There was no crisis. No one had a missing limb or had swallowed poison. He simply missed me and she felt that the appropriate decision was to allow him to dial the phone. I guess she and I have different algorhythms in our "Babysitting 101" book. In my book, the bifurcation pointing to "call parents" is only used if someone is on fire or bleeding profusely. As this was not the case, I was annoyed. I was paying her to listen to my kid cry unconsolably and without reason. She's been our babysitter forever and it's not like she is some pimply adolescent. She is 30 years old and the mother of two children. After he quit crying long enough for me to say, "Put the babysitter on the phone", I gave her some trouble-shooting tips like "turn on the TV". After two more phone calls of having to listen to my other 2 children's tales of woe ("It's too hard to listen to them-the younger 2-cry. Can't you come home?") I was finally able to tame the beast by making promises of candy.

As we were walking out of The Chocolate Bar, Lee made the comment that there were a lot of geeks and nerds in the place and then he noticed the Scrabble box under his arm.

Tonite we are having a redo of date nite. Wish Lee luck.

Joshua 9:14 "So the Isrealite leaders examined their bread, but they did not consult the Lord."