Weekends are for playing

On Friday night, we shared a very tasty French dinner in the City with friends to celebrate Sybil's birthday. Although the sitter report time turned out to be not so well planned - I forget that the dinner and bedtime routine merits review each time, and the commute into Manhattan took the hour and fifteen minutes I'd planned, making me a good 20 minutes later than our reservation, it was a lot of fun. The birthday girl had herself some steak tartar (which looked divine). We had ourselves some nice wine. Unfortunately, because of my early morning tests, we had to excuse ourselves around 10 pm when I could no longer eat or drink, and I drove the tipsy husband home.

The glucose tolerance test on Saturday morning was not nearly as horrible as I'd imagined. I guess that if one is going to fast, a hearty French dinner along with fondant du chocolat is the way to begin. It was a small lab in New Brunswick, with no apparent staff, several signs posted about logging oneself in (including a note in all caps that said YOU MUST INFORM STAFF IF YOU NEED A TIMED TEST), though no sign-in sheet. There were about a dozen or so people waiting in the lobby already, none English speaking...and I know, well, what Dora has taught my daughter how to say in Spanish. Finally, about 15 minutes after I arrived, a phlebotomist appeared behind the counter...and I informed him that I was there for a timed test. He asked when my appointment was and rolled his eyes that I was late. Uh huh. So, anyway, despite the rough start, we shared a relatively pleasant 3 hours together, while he complimented me for "doing so well" on this "rather difficult test" and poked two veins in my left arm with ease.

Late Saturday afternoon, we visited Karen and Chris while our daughter and their 2 sons did a remarkable job of taking out every toy stored in their playroom. After sharing some pretty fabulous barbeque, the kids retired to the living room and movies while much alcohol was consumed including Kleiner Feigling. I can only say that the fig vodka smelled really yummy, and it must've been pretty good because my husband must've had 3 glasses. We made plans for Sunday afternoon to take the kids to see Ice Age 2 which was cute, and the kids enjoyed. We even got to share a Weird NJ moment, and met at Mary Ellis' grave in the middle of Loew's parking lot. Karen even brought daffodils. Her sons scaled the 6 foot retaining wall to place them graveside.

I missed playing. It was so great to see everyone this weekend! We must do it again soon.