A post in which I have dinner out with the boys

I pulled up Female on the Beach this morning and finished watching it before work.  Not bad.  No Mildred Pierce, but not terrible. 

I was in the office early, and decided to do a bit of cyber-shopping for Christmas before I settled in.  Last year I got caught flat-footed, not ready for Christmas, so I'm a teeny bit paranoid about it this year.  At the same time, I can't shop too early because I need to wait for my profit-sharing to come in first as part of my credit card debt strategy.  Nonetheless, I have decided to get the immediate family out of the way, so that if I need to bump someone off the list later I can do that. 

I was going to buy Russ's present today, and had had an email from Billy last week that he had updated his Amazon gift list.  But when I pulled it up, there were two lists.  One last updated in 2005, and one with TWO things on it - both of them stupid car accessories.  One for $10, and one for $50.  Really?  I called Billy, who of course didn't answer his freakin' phone.  (It amazes me that they have hundreds of megabytes at their disposal, but not one of the three of them can be reached, ever, on their ridiculously expensive fancy phones!) I left him a message and shot him an email.  He did call back in a bit, at which point I suggested that he kill his husband.  But apparently there is some problem with Amazon, and this isn't Russ's fault.  It still threw a (little) monkey-wrench in my little plan.  I bought Billy's present instead. 

It was really nice to come in this morning and not have a backlog waiting for me; not that there wasn't plenty to do.  I have finally decided on a title for the cookbook, I wanted to get it on to the printers.  Since I have worked so much overtime in the last couple of weeks, I had no compunction about slipping away for a bit to run over there.  The woman at the printers still remembers me, amazingly, and we got things squared away quickly.  Unfortunately they don't do hardbacks, but I think a softback binding will be just as good.  I had thought about online publishing, but was worried about the formatting requirements.  Also, when I priced the books, the  minimum I could order was a hundred, which is a bit much.  They were also pretty expensive (not that these will be cheap). 

That taken care of, I settled in to work steadily through the day.  There was enough new stuff coming in and loose ends to be tied up to keep me occupied for the rest of the day.  $382 thousand placed on my desk this month - whew!  I'm glad the month/year is almost over, and things will go back to a semblance of normalcy.

Towards the end of the day, the texts started about going to dinner tonight.  I begged off on the excuse of poverty, but Vince offered to buy my dinner if I would come.  Ordinarily I am too proud to accept an offer like that, but I've changed since treatment.  Sometimes it's nice to let folks do FOR you for a change.  Besides, after the difficulties I've had trying to do nice things for Lisa, Lori, Miss Kat and Dana, I have a much better appreciation for what it is to be gracious in acceptance.  It's not a bad skill to have, but is surprisingly difficult for me.  I think it comes for insecurity, but that's just a working hypothesis. 

As I was leaving work, Larney just gave me $15 of Kohl's bucks that she had gotten on Black Friday.  She wasn't going to use them, and they expired on December 3.  She said she had no use for them.  I've gotten used to Larney's constant small gifts.  At first they made me uncomfortable; but she's so rich (she works for amusement) she could care less.  Besides, I knew exactly what to do with them.  I ran through there on the way home, and found pretty much the perfect thing for Lisa.  If she doesn't like it, she'll enjoy having a credit at Kohl's anyway.  She loves that store. 

Very pleased with myself, I scampered home, washed the lunch dishes, fed the cats, ran through the shower, and headed out for supper.  There ended up being nine of us, and I was the first to arrive.  I sat with Vince and visited with him for a bit while we waited on the others.  I love him, but he is so hard to read these days.  He seems oddly lost without Brian.  I guess it's because he's torn.  I can tell he misses Brian, but Russ says he doesn't want to go.  So he's in an odd place, torn between missing his husband and not wanting to leave his home.  It must be difficult.  I hurt for him, and feel that there is something I should do for him, but I'm not sure what to do. 

We were at LongHorn tonight.  Sigh.  That's another reason I wasn't going to go, although it feels petty to say it.  The food is so expensive, and really not that good.  Maybe it's because I'm not ordering steak.  The last time we went my salmon was pretty much raw.  I guess that was my fault - I ordered it rare.  Tonight that wasn't an issue because I wasn't asked.  I decided to leave it up to the serendipitous fates.  For a while, it looked like we weren't going to get any food at all.  Fortunately I wasn't starving.  We waited at least 45 minutes for salads.  Russ and Billy had ordered soup, and Russ's soup came out cold.  At that point, I would have eaten it like a popcicle, but he sent it back.  The food wasn't terribly delayed, which was good.  Vince had ordered the porterhouse for two, and frankly it was easy to see that that was where the love had been spent.  It was an enormous piece of meat, served with fanfare.  There was a separate trip to the table to hand-mix the custom sauce for it at table.  It came out on a plate that was at least two feet long.  He said it was scrumptious.  For forty freakn' dollars, it ought to have been.  My salmon had been pretty much incinerated.  It wasn't burned, just cooked until ever vestige of moisture had gone.  The potato was human-sized (unlike the enormous ones you get so many places now), but dry and kind of mealy.  The veggies were soft (fine with me, I like them that way, but too soft for sauteed vegetables), and the usual tasteless, spiceless offering.  I was supposed to have snow peas, but I assume they referred to the actual peas in the pod.  I had one snow pea pod on my plate.  But since I was being treated to dinner, it seemed unseemly to complain.  I ate it. 

I was really there for the company anyway, and the company was nice.  Bill, John, and Jake were there.  Bill wasn't feeling well, but Jake was as cute and flirty as ever.  There was another new hot guy tonight.  His name is Joel.  He was absolutely yummy, and I heard that he had a piercing that I would really love to see; but of course he is too young, thin, and pretty for me.  Speaking of beauties, I was a little worried that Lee would be there tonight.  I really embarrassed myself online chatting with him a week or so ago, and I was a little worried about facing him, but he didn't come.  I got to sit between Billy and Logan, and it was good to see them, since I don't see that much of them any more.  I told stories and just generally chatted and caught up.  I strategized with Billy over what to take Saturday night.  I just can't decide.  Since Russ wanted to make macaroni pie, I just told him to do it.  I guess I'm going to bake a cake, but that isn't an easy decision.  Lori and Lynn will want something chocolate, but Lady Beth's favorite is plain.  I may bake a plain one and then put a mocha glaze on it, but I have to check in with Miss Kat first since she's bringing a dessert.

Apparently there was a table of fundies behind us who were unhappy with our conversation.  I of course didn't notice, but according to Russ they were giving the back of my head the stink-eye for most of the evening (we were there for two and a half hours)(!!).  Oh well, I guess they shouldn't have been listening to our conversation then should they?  How nosey. 

Eventually, we all settled up and headed for home.  It was almost 10pm when we left, and my bed was calling me.