Friday night I met some friends for dinner at the Rhythm Kitchen. One woman, an engineer at Cat, is selling her house, quitting her job, and going to Australia for four months before returning to the states and seeking a job in the Chicago area. Wow.

Almost a bigger “Wow” is that several of the “girls night out” participants run marathons. Marathons! I can’t imagine running that far, or even actually WANTING to run that far.

Saturday I took the kids shopping for an upcoming middle school dance. This time Chris and I aren’t chaperoning. They wanted to go to the darkly lit, incredibly cluttered Hollister; home of overpriced, undersized clothing. Maybe it was the shock and amazement that their notoriously cheap mother would lead them into the land of wonder, or some crazy voodoo magic, but my kids got along! Actually cooperated and looked at clothes together, paid each other compliments, and nary a sarcastic word was said. I wish we could live there, amongst the $24.50 t-shirts and $34.50 hoodies. We could sleep there at night, curled up on piles of fleece, bathing in their ubiquitiously named SoCal perfume….

Tonight I was supposed to start my new part-time job. But I chickened out. What with hosting Thanksgiving and Christmas and Taylor, Reagan, and Chris all having birthdays between now and December 25th, I just felt like it would be too much. I took a brief poll of my family members:
“Would you rather have me at home and less xmas/birthday presents or would you rather have me drag my sorry ass to a second job and be a massively cranky, exhausted Bitch for the next 6 weeks?”

All but Taylor voted on the first option.