I try to keep these posts foul-language free, but there’s no way around it: Last Saturday, I was shitfaced. So drunk. Completely out of control. I had a sudden flashback yesterday: Me, dancing on a table. That one wasn’t totally my fault. There was a low table. My cousin-in-law said, “Hey, look at that! No one is dancing on the table.” The table breaking? Yeah, I think that was my fault.
And I did it at my cousin’s bat mitzvah. I. Am. The. Most. Pathetic. Person. Alive.
Let’s rewind a bit: Work has been a little stressful, Adam is preparing for a whole mess o’business trips, and I’ve taken on the task of room parent for Doodles’s class (I think my status as suburban hausfrau is solid gold). I was looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend on Miami Beach. A quiet dinner on Friday night–my mom was making our favorite steak kabobs. A boat ride on Saturday on my cousin’s boat. The bat mitzvah. A lovely brunch on Sunday. A relaxing weekend. Miami Beach. Ahhhh.
Yeah. Right.
On Thursday my mom called me. My father was having chest pains and was admitted to the hospital. Apparently, he’d been going around for a week (okay, since the previous Saturday because I know he’s going to nitpick this when he reads this) with pains but ignored both my mother’s and his doctor’s pleas to go to the ER (he was in New York at the time, which is how he got away with not going). When Peter got to Florida, he went kicking and screaming (he tried to convince my mom to wait until he made some coffee, shaved, paid a few bills…). Not a moment too soon. He was lying there when his heart beat plummeted–he last remembers the monitor reading 36 beats a minute–and the next thing is my mom was screaming for help. They called Code Blue–straight out of ER–and pulled out the paddles and everything. Obviously, he’s fine, otherwise I wouldn’t be blogging this. By Thursday night things had settled down and he thought he might come home over the weekend.
So Friday morning, I’m packing. Doodles is yelling, “Your child! Your child!” as Pie raids the DVDs. I yell at the kids to clean up and Pie picks up her guitar and starts singing, “Clean up, clean up! Everybody everywhere! Clean up, clean up! Everybody do your share!” Needless to say, she did not do her share.
We make the plane and of course Pie chose that day to not nap. She happily watched her Dora…until the DVD player Adam forgot to charge died on her. And then she screamed. For a good while. Until I caved and did that thing I never do in daylight hours anymore: Ming Ming.
Off the plane and over to the hospital. Peter was up and around, looking good. Doodles was fascinated by the wires attached to his chest. When asked about the plane ride, Pie very coyly announced, “Pie cried. Pie got Ming Ming.” And then Pie wanted to go home. Right now.
The night wasn’t too bad. Doodles got to sleep with Nana. Pie was so exhausted she passed out. Nana took them the next morning and built them the most extraordinary tunnel/cave out of about seven moving boxes. And then, the boat ride. I love those boat rides. First we had a quick breakfast at our favorite, David’s. And then we jogged down to the boat launch to hop a ride on the Triple Play. Except, Doodles, who adores boat rides, decides suddenly that he doesn’t like boat rides. “I want to go home. I want to take a nap. I don’t want to go on the boat!” Over and over. I know that when we get to the boat, everything will be fine. Sure enough, we get to the boat. Doodles’s cousin, A., a lovely three year old, is on the boat. G., nine months, is there. H., nineteen months is there. There’s a TV onboard. Chips. Heaven! Yeah. He refuses to get on. Adam agrees to let me go with Pie and he’ll take Doodles home. So Pie gets on. And starts screaming. Top of her lungs. “No like boat! No like boat!” And that was the end of the Triple Play for us.
Back to the apartment. Needless to say Doodles doesn’t nap. Instead, we head to the pool, where thunder quickly chases us back into the house.
So we head to the bat mitzvah. My cousin Annie was fabulous. Read flawlessly. Gave a great d’var Torah. Looked a little too much like a grown-up for my comfort, but she was beautiful nonetheless.
The party after was held at the synagogue. I don’t know about you, but when I think “synagogue party,” I think metal folding chairs and white-tablecloth-covered round tables. Yeah. Not even close. Think My Super Sweet Sixteen, without the attitude. The place was gorgeous and we could have been in any South Beach hotel. And the bar? It was open. Wide open. Completely open.
What was my family doing while I was drinking? Well, my kids were the absolute first people on the dance floor. They got their blinky rings and moved to the groove. Those two danced their pants off. I love my son, but unfortunately he has Elaine Benes moves. Pie? She gets out there and just shakes that tushie. They danced and danced, until Adam pulled them off the floor for a late dinner, at which point they crashed. Adam, who had been surreptiously checking Red Sox scores, “volunteered” to take them home–you know, the place that has a TV for uninterrupted quality time with his Red Sox. I quickly found a designated driver (and a big shout-out here to Stoney, the ever-reliable designated driver, and Claudia, the ever-reliable drinker in crime, and to Margaret, who apparently didn’t need to be sober to take all these picturees), and drank the night away. I’ll be honest–it was completely unintentional. It was just one of those nights where the wine glass was always full and at one point, waaaaaay too late, I realized I’d had about five too many. At that point, I did set down the glass and walk away, but it did little at that point.
At the party was a photo booth. While I wasn’t the photo whore my cousin-in-law Jennifer was, I certainly was a photo skank. The pictures were then placed in a book for my, yes, thirteen-year-old cousin. And we were expected to write her notes. I remember at one point writing something to the effect that now that she was a woman, I’d take her out and get her drunk, and my friend Bettina pointing out that I’m really not the hip teen I seem to think I am, but an old lady wearing pearls. I looked down. I was indeed an old lady wearing pearls. True, I was a drunk old lady wearing pearls, but an old lady wearing pearls none the less. When the hell did that happen?
Funny thing is, I’m not even sure who I was drinking with. Margaret, who was drinking Scotch on the rocks in gigantic tumblers, was snapping pictures. Adam left. My mom left. My sister left. Jennifer was playing hostess. And Bettina summed up her evening in a haiku she wrote:
a cry
ing baby
did not like loud club music
party ends early
Do I need to talk about Sunday? Sunday was not pretty. Actually, Saturday night was not pretty. Sadly, my wildest night out in four years ended well before midnight. I spent a lot of time doing the kind of things I don’t like to read about. Brunch the next day wasn’t super relaxing. A visit to my father before heading back. Delayed flight. A child who didn’t want to watch her movie, but instead screams from her car seat, “I want go get out. RIGHT NOW!” A luggage belt that didn’t want to return our luggage.
And now we’re back. Well, some of us are back. Adam is in San Fran for work. My father is still in the hospital (but in good spirits) and is having surgery at 10 a.m. today to drain fluid from his heart. Doodles and Pie are back to their old selves, if by old selves you mean not sleeping, screaming all night, cranky during the day.
And me? Did I mention I danced on the tables? Dear God. Someone take away my pearls.
