mirrors on the ceiling, pink champagne on ice

The last member in my circle of college friends turned 40 recently. To celebrate this milestone each of us reached within the last 10 months, we're all gathering up our respective spouses and children and meeting over the weekend in Kansas City to attend a surprise party being thrown for one of our group.

I predict there will be copious amounts of laughter, hideous flashback photos, and, assuming I partake in the magic elixir that is an open bar, perhaps some karaoke. I've already called dibs on INXS' Need You Tonight (with bonus encore number Mediate - designate your love as fate, baby. You know I'm talking to you). I intend - in my imagination, at least - to rock that baby as hard as I did in the kitchen of the rundown crack den the six of us - five women and one man who used senior year as a time to prove he was not, in fact, gay (though not by testing on any of us) shared. We'd pop the Kick cassette into the boom box, emerge from the afghan cocoons we'd wrap ourselves in to protect against the lack of heat in the house, and dance on the slanted kitchen floor. One of the best and worst years of my life.

(Before I go on, I feel it only fair to pause so you can all marvel at the fact that I am, indeed, 40. "She acts a wee bit immature, don't you think?" you're probably whispering amongst yourselves. You're right. I can be a bit immature sometimes, so even though I don't feel that you thinking that about me is insulting, I'd like to take this opportunity to say I'm rubber and you're glue and whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you. But I don't mean that in a mean way. I just like to say it. While twirling my pigtails. Let's carry on now, shall we?)

In a shocking twist to my typical straightforward blog entries, this post is going entirely off track (insert smiley face emoticon here). Let's back up and get to the inspiration for this entry. Remember in the first paragraph when I said my friends would be gathering their spouses and children for this KC trip? Well, for my Tool Man and me, this is a CHILD FREE ADVENTURE!

(glitter! fireworks! ticker tape parade! Presidential proclamations! wee!)

Tool Man and I rarely get the chance to be alone together. The last time we attempted the increasingly stealth "Mom and Dad need a little nap! :: BIG YAWN!!:: We'll be back down in an hour or two, so why don't you watch this Ghost Hunters marathon, mkay?", we were bombarded by cries of "Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Daaaad!" by our youngest at the bedroom door. When the invitation for this weekend arrived, we looked at it, then looked at each other, and were all, "You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?", and I asked "Well, just so I'm clear, are you thinkin'..." and Tool Man answered, "I'm absolutely thinkin'...". So I commenced upon guilting a set of grandparents into taking the kids for a night, and Tool Man hopped on the laptop to score us a hotel room. Then we clasped hands and spun around the kitchen singing, "We're going to be alone together, we're going to be alone together."

He didn't want to do that, btw. I made him.

You might recall that Tool Man spends about two to three nights a week in the finest economical accommodations the Midwest has to offer, and because he feels oh so bad about living the life of luxury on the road while I'm toiling away at home with the kids, he decided to treat me like a queen, willingly tossing aside the chance to use his Holiday Inn frequent guest points on an iPod to instead book our room for next to nothing. He failed at getting us a jacuzzi suite, though, because most of the rooms were already booked for the long Labor Day weekend. Apparently, even though people aren't working over the long weekend, that doesn't mean they don't necessarily have a job to do.

("Wait a minute! Was she referring to...?" "Why, I think she just alluded to...!" "OH MY WORD!")

(Heh. I totally was!)

Our reservation made, Tool Man turned to me, a grin brightening his face, and went on and on about all the things we were going to have the chance to do once we checked in Saturday afternoon. "A big old, king-size bed, baby! No kids to interrupt us! I'm gonna show you what lovin' me is all about!" Like I need a lesson in that! Sheesh!

So, if, when Saturday rolls around and slides into Sunday, and you find yourself bored and perhaps thinking about me (you know you do...especially you in the back), I'm not going to pretend and say I don't think it's a bit weird, but, if you want imagine all the hot, hot hotel action that's going on in my world at that very moment. In fact - and again, weird - let me just give you a hint of what it will be like so you can build up your fantasy:

The two of us (and I mean Tool Man, fyi) spread across a huge disheveled bed, limbs entwined in an inescapable knot. The quiet murmurs of satisfaction escaping from one or the both of us to remind the other that we're in a state of euphoric bliss. Then? Then I'll kick Tool Man in the back to get him to roll over so he's no longer snoring in my face, and while he's shifting, I'll grab the television remote out from under where he laid so I can maybe catch the last hour of Forbidden Temptations on the free HBO.

That's what hotel adventures are like for us. Free premium cable and catching up on our sleep.

Because I'm old and I need my rest.

I am 40, after all!

(insert another smiley face emoticon here...)




U2 - A Room At The Heartbreak Hotel (I 'heart you,' Rattle and Hum)(and you, too, heh)