Girls Night Out

Photo courtesy of sak-40.blogspot.com

We've been doing it for years.  Usually twice a year, sometimes more.  Four of my girlfriends and I go out for girls night out (GNO).  In the early years when our kids were little, it was more of an elaborate affair.  Stolen time away from the kids and husbands to talk about girl stuff.  Which of course means we end up talking about our kids and husbands.  That hasn't changed over the years.  The way that other things have.

It used to be that the evening would start with dinner.  Then we'd venture to a martini bar, stumble through an art gallery buzzed,  hit up a club and dance, mocking the creepy guy and even take a spin on a stripper pole. And there would be photos.  Not tons of photos, but scant photographic evidence that these events actually occurred.  (Since I didn't check with my girlfriends, none of this evidence will be posted here in a public forum.  But, trust me, they did occur.)  We were younger and crazier once.  But, not anymore.

You would think it would be harder to get out of the house with younger kids.  With their clinging,  spontaneous projectile vomiting and us moms just being way too tired to get dressed to go out. But, this just makes the escape from the confines of toddlerdum even more necessary to a mom's survival.  Now, we all have teenagers and don't need to schedule or pay babysitters.  Conversely, they can't wait for us to leave to go out and be rid of us for the night.  Cause we're totally embarrassing and they don't want to be around us.

Which makes it seem like we should go out every week.  Except now that we have teenagers, their social lives take precedence over ours.  And since our kids only have learner's permits at this point, we are still in the chauffeur years. So close to more personal freedom for ourselves and them.  But, not quite yet. And when they do have their driver's licenses, there's just more to worry about.  They know better than to text and drive right?  Whose party are they going to?  Will there be brownies at the party?  What exactly is in the brownies?  What are they washing the brownie down with?  And if they didn't do any of this, who else will be on the road driving on the same street at the same time as them that did all this or more?

From the time I suggested a GNO to celebrate my friend Linda's birthday, it took six weeks until all five of us had an evening, the same evening, free.  A month after her birthday.  If we don't celebrate her birthday does that mean it didn't happen and that none of us are in fact older?  But we are.  Maybe going to a hip new restaurant will revive our youth.

Brother Luck Street Eats.  Bar food with a twist and boasting a nightly gourmet menu served out of a dive bar.  I got the goat and risotto.  It was both gorgeous and delicious.  I should have taken a picture of it.  But I didn't.  I didn't take one single photo.  True to form, we talked about our kids.  Their activities, our daughters menstrual cycles and our impending menopause.  And the fact that no one can sleep anymore.  No longer woken by our young children with bad dreams, but by our urgent need to pee or hot flashes. Worst case scenario, both.

Archive photo of the nightly menu taken my last trip to Brother Luck

Tonight there'd be no bar hopping.  It was the night before Easter.  Everyone had eggs to hide.  Which is really symbolic when you're a woman on the cusp of  losing your own fertility.  We needed to go home to sleep.  So we could get up in the middle of the night and worry about our daughters' impending fertility.  And that before we know it,  we'd pass the cup to them.  And they'd all be getting together to get away from their own kids.  But, I'm sure they'll be passing a wine glass, not a cup, just like their mothers did before them.