My Weekend

My Sweetie had a business event Friday night and had told me he wouldn't be home for dinner, so I asked my daughter to take me to dinner somewhere. She happened to be off work and loves a free meal. This was all decided Tuesday I think. Well Thursday he tells me he won't be home until late Friday night, so I dashed off an e-mail to Kate to see if she also wanted to party after dinner. She said she had no plans and that sounded fun.

The night started out great. We ate at Texas Roadhouse, which has some really good food. Also I found my missing lawyer. (I hadn't seen him in ages, and dropped by his office several months ago and he wasn't there. It was a whole new law office.) Well in he walked. We talked for a while until his friend showed up. I now have his new card. Kate has a semi-crush that she sees at Razzoo's on occasion so the deal was we'd go in, have one drink if he was not there, then leave. So we sit at the bar on the outer loop of the big L-shaped bar (or maybe a cursive U), she scans the bar and is crushed. So I said, "Fine, we'll get this drink and then go to Pockets." I had an urge to play some shuffleboard. So she decides to run to the restroom and turns toward me (away from the main bar) and goes, "Oh my God! There he is!" So he was sitting in one of the booths that flank the bar with his roommate.

Then we go into this retarded dialogue that I will just explain as simply as possible. I was saying just go say hello and she's saying now it's too awkward. She didn't even want to go to the bathroom now. It was driving me crazy. So she says okay, turns to stand up and one of the waitresses is sitting next to him so she panics. I said, "Geez, just walk by, say hello, and go to the bathroom!" Did I mention this was driving me crazy? Well finally she got moving, but when she came back, about 3 waitresses were hovering over the booth. Finally I was saved from all this nonsense by Norman.

Where do I begin to describe Norman? I first met Norman in February. I was replacing the faucet in my bar sink and had Kate drive me to a plumbing store. They were not helpful but I wanted to "refuel" before going to Home Depot. Across 157 from HD is a great bar/billiards joint called Pockets. She didn't want to go as she was 20 and couldn't drink, so I promised her food. We pull into the lot and it was packed. Packed! At 3:30 in the afternoon! As we finally found a parking spot, I noticed the pole. Then I noticed this giant pole was attached to large truck. Well we had happened upon some radio station's "bring in the weekend" party. I said, "If it's country music, we're not staying." Well it was a hard rock station, so that was tolerable. As soon as we settled into our bar stools, she shot out of her seat like someone that's going to run up to someone and flatten them with a hard right. I didn't know what was going on. It turns out Norman, a guy she was going to be hanging out with later was there. He came over and sat with us. I thought he was pleasant and nice looking. I guess the next time we saw him was in April. Kate had driven me to a Dr. appointment and we decided to stop at On the Border. She called Norman and he met us up there. I got to know him better this time. The next time we met was for lunch after Kate had driven me for MOW. That day he followed us home and the 3 of us played Monopoly. By the end of the game I knew him pretty well. Nice, yet ornery, smart, yet seeming to be short some shed tools. In June, my husband had a business trip during the NBA playoffs and I thought it would be more fun to watch the game in a bar. Especially since we (by we I mean the Pistons) were playing a Texas team, so I figured it would be wicked fun. I arranged for a ride home from Kate. She worked til 10:00 that night so that would work out well. I just needed to get there. So I called Norman. I think he thought it was a little weird at first, but apparently got over that. When he called that Tuesday evening, to let me know he was on his way, I said, "I hope you didn't misunderstand. I just need a ride. You can just drop me off if you want to." He said, "No, I'm going to watch the game with you." On the ride to the bar, his cell phone rang. Apparently the caller asked what he was doing. He said, "I'm on my way to Pockets to watch the game with my friend's mom." Apparently the caller found that odd, because when Norman hung up, he said, "Is this weird?" I said, "Well it's not weird to me." Anyway, he stayed the whole game and my sister-in-law joined us just after half time. Norman was pulling for the Spurs but Lisa is also a Pistons fan. Near the end of the game Kate showed up and I thought about what a motley crew we were. A 20-year-old, a 24-year-old, a 35-year-old, and a 44-year-old. I had a blast. He called me a couple of times after that to see if I wanted to go have a beer with him, but I was always busy. My husband started calling him "my little boyfriend," but
that was a joke.




Well Norman is an odd bird. Kate had told him about our Friday night out and he insisted she call him so he could meet us after dinner. She called from the restaurant before we got our check. It started out typical: Norman: Hello? Kate: We're fixing to head to Razzoo's, what are you doing? Norman: I'm at the Movie Tavern watching "40-year-old Virgin. Kate: What!!??!! You answered your phone in the movie? GET OFF the phone! That's Norman. Well I'm sure when he walked in, Kate felt he saved her dignity. I could tell she was hurt by crush-guy being surrounded by a bevy of beauties. So with dignity intact, she got up, walked over to say hi to the guy, I met him (again - I met him once before in August at the same place) and his roommate and then we were off to Pockets for some shuffleboard.

The rest of the weekend I didn't do much. I did make some kick-ass chili Saturday night. I used a large chuck steak that I cubed and simmered in minced onions and beef broth for 2 hours, instead of ground beef. After another hour and a half cooking with the chili spices, it was melt-in-your-mouth tender. We also watched Memento which I had read a lot of stuff about and thought it would be hard to follow but it wasn't at all. Actually, the way so many scenes are repeated I told My Sweetie, "What a great concept! You only need about 45 minutes of footage to fill 2 hours!" Today I mostly read. The book is The Rule of Four, and if you liked The Da Vinci Code or if you might be interested in the campus life of Princeton University students, you will like it. It's hard to believe that 2 weeks from tonight, I'll be going over last minute lists for my Vegas trip. Two weeks? eeeek.