My mom likes to party all the time, party all the time, party all the time

When I was a kid and my mom was an old lady of, oh, probably 35 or so, I thought I was extremely clever when I dubbed her Oil of Olay "Oil of Old Lady." What a hoot was I! Actually, maybe it was my sister who came up with that one, but either way, man, were we hilarious. Of course, now I slather myself not only with Oil of Old Lady every morning, but I use the one with SPF and can literally feel the melanoma growing in my cells if I go out into the harsh Pacific Northwest sunlight (hahahahahahaha) unprotected.

I have turned into an old lady who uses skin products and wears a hat in the sun and thinks about my footwear if I know I'm going to be on my feet during whatever event. I've even been known to bring a pair of comfortable shoes along when I am wearing heels, just in case. 

Case in point... I had a True Blood marathon date with my friend Lisa last night. She and I are both too cheap to actually have Showtime or HBO or whatever channel it comes on, but her 24-yro daughter does, so she DVRs the show for us and we converge on her house to watch it, even though the kids feel compelled to fast forward over the sex scenes while we are there. The joys of adult children, but that's a post for another day.

Anyway, plan was 5 pm we head to the daughter's house so we can watch three episodes and be finished by 8 pm, because we feel the need to be home by 8 pm on a Sunday night. (In my own defense, I also have a 9 year old to get ready for bed at 8 pm, so that is part of my excuse for having an early curfew.)

So it's 4:45 and we are sitting on my couch, leafing through the new issue of Woman's Day (no lie) looking at fun Halloween recipes (no lie) and WAITING for 5 pm and the phone call saying, ok, come on over. 5 pm comes and and goes and no phone call, so we start calling the daughter to say here we come, but she's not home. Apparently, starting your evening at 5 pm somewhat cramps the style of the 20-somethings... go figure!

So FINALLY at 5:15 she calls and we are all like YEAH BABY and jumping in the car to head over there, with our bottles of wine and pan of lasagna. We get to the house, plant our asses on the couch with plates of lasagna and a bottle of wine, and start watching TV... and we are, like, in heaven.  This is our idea of  GOOD TIME and this is how we PAR-TAY.  Uh-huh.

Then we are watching this completely campy, sex-filled program with over the top acting and horrible southern accents and LOVING IT and the four 20-somethings are as interested in watching us watch the show as they are in watching the show and quietly mocking our lameness because we are so easily amused.

And at 8 pm when I am home, putting my child to bed, I am thinking about how I used to take a nap at 8 pm to get ready to go out at 11 pm, and I'd be putting on my makeup at 10 pm instead of turning on my heating blanket and plumping my pillows, I kind of miss those days of being young and spontaneous and not tired.  (But only in a wistful "those were the days" missing kind of way, and not in a real "I want to recapture that," because, oh, hell no, not really. Because I have a single friend, who desperately does not want to be single anymore and, jeez, would I never ever ever want to be her.)

Some days I am like "this is my life" and all teary eyed and thankful and in amazement that I have a great home, a fab husband, healthy/clever/good kids and wonderful friends. Sometimes it just hits me that I have it SO GOOD and I can hardly believe it. And then some days I am like "this is my life?" and I'm all WTF? What happened? I was totally going to be somebody VERY VERY important making important decisions about important world affairs, and instead I am contemplating how best to arrange the pantry to make sure the lunch-prep food is easily accessible for morning sack lunch prep.

Tonight I'll be cleaning out old food from the fridge and finishing off the giant mound of laundry.  Par-tay!