The Hubs turned 33 last Friday, but it really felt more like MY birthday . . . We had our first date night since Punkies was born! My fabulous, intelligent, beautiful sister (buttering her up for future favors, though she is ALL of these things) babysat so we could go out and celebrate. I was in charge of making the reservations for dinner, so I chose a place that I knew the Hubs would love. It also just so happens that I've never been to Ruth's Chris, and since the planning was up to me, I figured why not take advantage? The true purpose of the night was to celebrate the Hubs's birthday, but given that it was my first night "out" in a long time, we decided to go all out.
I wore a dress and high heels, did my makeup and hair, and even splashed on a little perfume! I can't describe how excited I was for our night out! All day I had visions of a romantic dinner, giggling over a bottle of good red wine, sharing a sinful dessert, holding hands under the table . . . and it was absolutely everything I'd hoped for! (You were expecting some sort of snide, sarcastic comment to follow, but no, we had a wonderful time! It was absolutely perfect.) After dinner, which was by the way amazing, we headed to The Four Seasons hotel bar for a drink and to people watch. I'd never been, but the Hubs goes there frequently for business lunches and thought it might be a nice place to continue our evening. He was right. The hotel/bar/patio is beautiful, and there certainly was some seriously good people watching! Don't get me wrong, he and I have plenty to talk about and always enjoy each others' company, but for some reason we frequently find ourselves interested by what others are doing, saying, wearing, and how they're acting. If someone were to overhear our commentary, I'm not sure they'd always find it to be nice, but it sure is funny! And it's all in good fun. We certainly aren't being mean, we're just amusing ourselves at their expense . . . privately . . . so they don't know it . . . therefore there's no harm done, right?
Allow me to give you an example of our warped sense of humor from a previous hot date. It was our second anniversary, and we were vacationing in Italy. We had rented this quaint little apartment for a night in Cinque Terre, and it had a balcony that overlooked the main street. It was absolutely beautiful and perfect in every way. That night, after dinner, we decided to take a glass of wine out to the balcony. Romantic, right? But then our "people watching" began. At first it was innocent. We enjoyed seeing the locals meet at their regular spots; the elderly Italian men sitting on stoops, smoking cigarettes and commenting on the younger women that passed by, while their elderly wives sat outside of one of their homes a couple of blocks down gossiping and tsk-ing the scantly dressed bar goers as they walked by. We especially got a kick out of the old woman "cleaning her windowsill". In actuality she was scrubbing the paint off that thing as an excuse to watch over the neighborhood. Occasionally she'd frown and report the goings-on over her shoulder to her husband who was obliviously watching TV. But the real fun came a little while later, after the elders had retired for the night. That's when we saw two dogs off their leashes, with no owners in sight. We watched them for a while because they were cute, until one of them took a huge . . . ahem . . . sorry, relieved himself in the middle of the street. This was the main street, mind you, and there are very few cars but LOTS of people walking. So of course we did the only responsible thing and got out our video camera. I mean, come on, someone was bound to step in it, and our hopes were high that it would be a stumbling drunkard leaving the local bars! I am not exaggerating when I tell you that we sat out there for another two hours, laughing ourselves silly every time someone nearly hit it. At one point I had to go to the bathroom so badly, but there was NO WAY I was going to risk the inevitable poop-covered shoe that some sorry sap was about to encounter. So I held it. Until I nearly lost it when one guy missed the poo by maybe an inch only to "kick it like a football," as the Hubs described. But have no fear, he actually managed to reposition it in the perfect spot . . .without even noticing what he'd done. We were nearly hysterical at this point. (Here I will pause to remind you this was our anniversary. In Italy.) Fast forward through more of the same until finally victory was ours. A group of young girls were leaving a bar and gabbing away, clueless of their eventual demise, when one of them absolutely nailed it. I mean, we could hear the squish from our 2nd floor balcony, a block down the street. It was awesome. An amazing dinner, beautiful night on the balcony in Cinque Terre and now this; our night was complete!
So now it may make a little more sense when I tell you that the second half of the Hubs birthday night was spent sipping cocktails and discreetly whispering about the cast of characters that we saw in the bar. Some of our favorites were the two men, probably in their 60s, smoking cigars and drinking scotch who would stop all conversation to elbow each other and bite their lower lips when a girl . . .any girl . . .walked by. Then there was the woman who thought her voice was good enough to sing along with the band, loud enough that we could still hear her from the outside patio. But the real zinger came as we were leaving. We were waiting for the valet to pull up with our car when two bombshells strutted past us wearing 5 inch heals, an entire MAC store of makeup and dresses that left little to be desired. I was telling the Hubs a story at the time and found myself stumbling over my words at the same time that I realized he wasn't listening anyway. When our car pulled up, I gently lifted the birthday boy's jaw off the ground and reminded him it was time to go. As we pulled away and I finally peeled my eyes off of the barbies we'd left at the curb, I refocused my stare on my husband. I was almost too baffled to utter words, but I finally managed to say the only thing I could think of, "Did you see the boobs on those two? Who looks like that?" The Hubs chuckled and simply said, "Hookers." WHAT?!?!? I am so naive. I'd just seen real live Julia Roberts Pretty Women! And that was the icing on my cake.
After our evening of delicious food and our typical people-watching antics, we were ready to head home. It was only midnight, but we were pathetically exhausted and completely satisfied with our glorious night out. The Hubs thoroughly enjoyed his birthday and I can't tell you how much I needed that night. It was nice to have some time alone together, and it's important that we continue to have our date nights.We went home feeling like our old selves, and as we took a peek at our video monitor and saw our precious little angel sleeping soundly in her crib, we were also happy to feel like our new selves. Date nights are good, but we wouldn't trade our new status of mommy and daddy for the world.
