Slumber Party

The new push around the communal home is for less swearing. (For those of you keeping track at home, we now have six adults living here, albeit some only temporarily - Mom, Jack, Me, Tony, Levi and Christine, Tony's mom. It's Jersey Shore with a lot less gym and tanning. But more laundry.)

Anyhow, upset with the amount and quality of profanity in the house, Mom issued an edict that we should all try to be a little more...intellectual in our discourse with each other. Keep in mind that my soft-spoken and mostly well-behaved mother used to have a mouth like a trucker, which you can still bring out in her IF she's properly enraged. However, she never swore that much in public and never casually. Just when she was angry. You won't like her when she's angry.

Somewhere along the line, though, things got a little off-course. Instead of sounding more intellectual, we merely sound weird. Perhaps we'll adjust. Perhaps we're just resisting the change. Perhaps it was Mom's choice of substitute for every swear word.

She chose "slumber party."

So now, JUST now, I had to refer to something as a "pain in my slumber party." Tony, five minutes ago, referred to someone he met while showing his mom the sights as a "slumberpartying idiot." Levi kicked open the door to the library last night, shouting "what the slumber party is going on in here?" (Which, as an aside, is not actually necessary, because the library has glass doors. He could see Mom and Jack watching TV. He's just a slumber party.)

To be honest, I'm not sure how long this experiment will last. The novelty will surely wear off soon and it has to be odd to hear a group of adults continually referring to a "slumber party." Outsiders probably think we're some weird pajama cult that sleeps in the high school gym in our Barbie sleeping bags.

Until then, I'm going to keep my slumber partying mouth shut and take this like a man.

Three guys. And two gals

Last night, every adult in my house went out for dinner together. For those of you playing along at home, that would mean that all five of us piled into the big car (which finally has legal Kentucky plates, after several months of trips to the BMV and many faxes) and drove off into the sunset.

What makes this so fun is that it isn't easy to put five full-grown humans in a four-door car, no matter how you slice it. So Levi and Tony get to ride in comfort in the front seat, while Mom, Jack and I squeeze into the back. (Unless Jack is driving and then Levi STILL gets to ride in comfort and Mom, Tony and I squeeze into the back. Seems like Levi's living on easy street here, doesn't it?) Anyhow, Jack likes to make Mom miserable, so he spends the entire ride squishing her into me, until she blows her top. Or he'll squeeze her knee, which inevitably makes her pee her pants. In my car. You know, stuff adults in cars do all the time.

By the time we'd made it to Five Guys, everyone was ready to get out of the car and have a few square feet to themselves. This is how the evening went down:

- Mom and Levi got into a (physical) slap fight trying to get in the door of Five Guys because they both tried to go through together. Not the best first impression on the folks in the restaurant.

- Jack left his change at the register.

- Jack and Mom got into a (verbal) slap fight because Jack, as usual, didn't bring his cell phone with him to dinner and Mom wanted to go to the Verizon store and get a replacement phone for him. (His is dying a slow death.)

- Jack, peeved about the slap fight, swept all of his empty peanut shells into Mom's lap when he went up to get the food from the counter.

- Mom, peeved about the peanut shells, scraped them out of her lap and put them all over Jack's chair.

- He saw them, but sat on them anyhow, earning the new nickname "Peanut Butter."

- I, of course, had to take five phone calls during dinner, prompting Tony to give me the same lecture I used to give him about phone calls and emails while we were out. Note to self: just keep mouth shut in the future.

- After dinner, Jack went to the bar to drink away the pain of the peanut shells in his tush while the rest of us did some window shopping.

- I bought a giant artificial flower arrangement for my entryway. Levi and Tony took it back to the car together and it was only when they returned that we realized they must have looked like quite the happy couple, taking their flower arrangement to the car in their complementary polo shirts and matching shorts.

- Mom, when throwing away her milkshake remains, managed to toss it in the trash can in such a way that she got chocolate ice cream sprayed all over the front of her shirt and in her hair.

- On the ride home, Levi had to hold the flower arrangement in his lap, finally experiencing the type of car ride I usually endure, with Mom peeing on my leg and being squished into me the entire time.

In other words, a typical family night out.

The Big 3-0

Well, folks, as much as I've tried to avoid it, my 30th birthday is right around the corner. In less than six weeks, I'll hit the proverbial wall and have to admit that I've accomplished less than half of what I thought I would by this point in my life. (Unless you count marriages, because I've tripled my expectations there. Small victories, people.)

And honestly, I'm not that upset about it. At this point, it just seems like another day. Most days, I'm so tired and burned out from being a Captain of Industry that I feel 500 years old, so 30 seems like a real bonus. And anyone who knows me understands that I'm not the most introspective type, so I'll probably spend five minutes obsessing about my life's accomplishments and then start reading a fashion magazine. Which will start me obsessing about my fashion sense.

The biggest problem is that I don't know what I want to DO for my birthday. I've been in friend hibernation so long that I would have about three people to invite to a party, and throwing a party for yourself has always seemed a bit...narcissitic. I have a business to run, so I can't take a trip, which is what I thought I'd do. Turns out a spa vacation is a lot less relaxing when you have to take your phone and laptop. Makes the massage really complicated. We're still hauling ourselves out of the giant we're-not-working-but-the-bills-are-piling-up hole we dug over the last 16 months, so extravagent gifts are out of the question. (I bought all of Tony's gifts at the Walgreens this year. He got a ring toss game and a coffee mug. Sixteen dollars total. I know, it was too much.)

As far as food is concerned, I'm the resident birthday dessert maker. Every birthday, I'll bake something for the birthday person, be it chocolate cake, chocolate cupcakes, chocolate pie, whatever they want as long as it's chocolate. I'm generous that way. I don't expect Tony to whip up something fabulous and my poor mother spends half of every day cooking for the ever-growing pack of hungry adults who live in my house. (I live in a reality TV show now, in case you didn't know.) I don't feel right asking her to add to her duties with a cake.

So, I've decided. I'm going to sleep late, eat a Five Guys Burger with all the fixins, see a terrible summer blockbuster movie and buy myself something pretty (that costs less than $20.) And then have a giant sundae from somewhere that serves ice cream. The perfect recession birthday.

Or maybe I'll just drink all day.