Corrupting the Youth

This may lead to some lecturing, but I don’t care…feel free to tell me what a crappy parent I am. I may just have to break out the tried and true “Whatever, I am her sister, not her mother” defense.

I did one of my favorite things with the Munchkin last night: take her out with me. That’s right, my sister is 11 years old and in the fifth grade and she has two favorite bars and knows, I think, five bartenders or bouncers by name. In July she was thrown out of her first bar, and I was very proud.

Ok, that sounds a little bit worse than it is…lol. It started because she is a HUGE Chicago Cubs fan. I have no idea why…I think her father was a baseball fan and it rubbed off. We grew up more in White Sox territory than Cubs territory, but she somehow adopted the Cubs.

The problem being that the Cubs aren’t on TV in Boston more than once or twice a year. There is, however, a plethora of sports bars in the city, many of which have satellites and all kinds of programming. The week after I moved her out here, Smoking Hot Roommate suggested that we all go to one of them (it’s like a Chili’s or an Applebees, only not one of those…lol) and see if they would turn the game on for her.

Needless to say, if a super cute little girl and her hot older sister and her mega-hot older sister’s best friend ask a bartender to put someone on TV, he does. And thus started a regular Thursday tradition during the summer: chicken fingers and Cubs games (when they are playing). Occasionally if it is not crowded they will let her sit at the bar, but usually we just take a table in the bar and hang out. There are two regular bartenders there that she most definitely knows by name and that greet her by name and by ringing the bell when she shows up, which makes her all the more happy. Now, if they would just play the games earlier so she could watch more than the first couple innings…

Then there is a bar over on the waterfront that has a patio open in the summers (if you are a local, yes, it probably is the one you are thinking of…lol). We go there a lot in the summer so we can sit outside and eat, and since not that many kids are regulars, at least two of the waitresses know her by name as well.

Really, I never hesitate to take her anywhere. If I have her with me, it is almost certainly before 8:00 or so, which means that the places are not as crowded, not as loud and not as drunken. Even if they are 21+, she they usually let her in if it’s early enough…it is pretty clear that she is not gonna try and order drinks. And, Smoking Hot Roommate and Big Sis know EVERYONE, so they can usually have someone let us in.

Which I guess sounds kind of weird, now that I write it. But I like having her around, and she loves being included and being with me:-). So as long as my friends like having her around and make sure to keep the conversations PG-13, I don’t really see the harm in it. I know it is probably a little bit “different”, but we are different, so I guess it matches. She has fun and never wanders away from me or Big Sis or SHR, and she feels oh-so-sophisticated if she can get a Shirley Temple in a martini glass

Ahh, the getting thrown out of a bar…this is a funny one. Last summer The Body, The Mouth and a couple other friends came to visit for my birthday. We went out right after work on a Thursday night and had some dinner and were just hanging out shooting the shit and Munchkin was with us.

Well, we sort of lost track of time…we hadn’t seen them in a couple of months and we can get very chatty. Before we knew it, it was like 9:30 and the bouncer (who I know pretty well) came over and told me “AM, you know we love you guys, but you have to get her out of here.” I sort of felt bad that I made him tell us…I should have taken her home before then, but it does make for a funny story:-)

I bet you never got thrown out of a bar when you were 11…hee hee. I didn’t, but I did have to escort someone home who had been thrown out of bars a couple of times when I was that age. That is a whole other story.

Anyway, so even though the baseball season is over, I took her out to her favorite place for chicken fingers last night, and then we stopped and met up with The Boy and a couple of his friends – yes, including McBeal and Otter;-) – at a bar that was on our way home. So I had some alone time with the Munchkin, got to see The Boy for a bit and had the little one home by 8:00. That is actually a pretty good night in my book.

Dinner with the Boy's parents

So, I am offsite today and only have a second to write...but I have a good story. I was supposed to meet The Boy and his parents for dinner last night, which we do maybe once every two months.

And his parents are awesome...I like them a lot and I think they like me. They were crushed when Munchkin couldn't come with me to their daughter's wedding (The Boy's twin sister). But that doesn't mean I want to hang out with them on my own just yet.

But that is what happened. I got a call from him "Really sorry, I am stuck here, gonna be 10 minutes late." Well, the 10 became 20 and then an hour. Which meant I just hung out and had dinner with his parents. After about half an hour his father announced that he wasn't waiting any more and was ordering. Which was good, because I was starving:-)

He finally made it to the restaurant as we were paying the bill...good timing!!!

I am not really complaining, to be honest. Like I said, I like his parents a lot and they are fun people. It is just a little weird to be alone with them...lol. Fortunately his mother has a lot more sense than to ask awkward questions like "When are you two getting married?"

Three good things actually came out of it. First, I do feel like I know his parents better, which is good. Second, dinner was fabulous...lol. And third, he felt guilty enough to really do his best to make it up to me afterwards. Which translated into like a solid hour of oral sex, which I will NEVER complain about. He sure knows the way to my heart;-)

More about best friends

Okay, I thought of this because I was talking about BFFb.

The Boy has lots of friends…which I think we can agree is a good sign. Basically, people like him and like to be around him. Me included:-)

And lots of his friends are girls, which I am not only ok with, but I actually really like. I think guys and girls who can maintain close friendships with the opposite sex display a measure of balance in their personality that I appreciate. This includes on of his very, very closest friends, who I am going to call McBeal. Why? Because she is a lawyer and she is really cute, although she doesn’t have an eating disorder.

McBeal is not only The Boy’s friend, but she is engaged to another of his very closest friends, an old roommate from college (I watched Animal House last week, so his college roommate is hereby called “Otter”). McBeal also dated The Boy before she started dating Otter. The Boy was very upfront with this and told me (most of) the whole story…that he dated McBeal in College but that they sort of fizzled and it was pretty clear that she and Otter had a chemistry that they hadn’t, so about a year after he and McBeal broke up, she and Otter started dating.

Everyone is copasetic; everything is out in the open, yadda yadda yadda.

All fine. I have no problem being friends with girls that my boyfriend has had sex with, and I have no problem introducing him to guys I have fucked, either. Beyond that, she is really nice and made a big effort to make me feel comfortable with all of his friends.

I should back up…they are a pretty close group of like 15 people, some of whom have dated each other, some of who still do, and a couple of which are married to each other or will be. I think I had met them all once or twice when McBeal called me one day and said that the girls in the group were having a girl’s night and I should come with. And I like them all, and they all seem to like me and have been really warm and inviting.

One little thing…I was having lunch with McBeal one day and just casually asked how long she and the boy had dated, because I didn’t know and never thought about it.

“Two years.”

Two years?!?!? That caught me a little bit off guard. I am ok with knowing girls he dated, and knowing girls he fucked, but dating someone for two years? That is a LONG time, and I am not real sure how I feel about that.

I think I am ok with it because it is clear that there is nothing left…Otter would probably be the most sensitive to it, and is awfully close to both of them, and he has no problem with it. I asked him about it once and he just laughed and assured me that there was nothing to worry about.

And I know he is right, but it still weirds me out a bit. I mean, that means she met his whole family as his girlfriend, and was definitely on the “marriage track” if there is one. Can you totally wash all that out of your mind?

Do I have a right to question this? And what exactly am I questioning?

Am I nuts? I am not really a paranoid person, but am I being crazy?

This actually happened like two months ago and I am sort of past it, but I would be interested to hear anyone’s thoughts. So shoot me an email or leave a comment if you have any ideas…

BFF's

I have two more people to introduce you to, my oldest and dearest friends, who get the appropriate monikers of BFFb and BFFg…one is a boy and one is a girl, duh. And they are super-mega-hyper awesome and are my other halves (2 other thirds maybe?) They still live in Chicago and I am trying to get them to move out here because that is the ONLY thing I dislike about being here, not seeing my two best buddies more often.

I met them when I was about 4. We moved into a new house on a new street (where my mother lived until she died) and BFFb was the troublemaking little boy across the street, which means he immediately became my friend:-). BFFg lived two houses down and was friends in short order as well. The three of us have a lot in common…dirt poor, no fathers and all of the experiences that come with that. But we benefited from each other…I always felt like nothing could really break me if I had my two BFF’s around.

There was a fourth for a while. In about sixth grade, High School Boyfriend moved in and the troika became a quad. I guess the fact that I call him HSBF sort of gives away where the story goes, but there is a lot more to it for some other day.

BFFb and BFFg have separate but equally important places in my heart. BFFg because she has been my closest friend forever and was the one I most often stayed with when my mother was, um…“incapacitated”…and I needed a place to stay. She is still the one I call first when I have something, either good or bad, that I really need to tell someone. And she did all kinds of big sister things with Munchkin when I was away;-)

And BFFb because I think he is my most loyal friend. I trust him absolutely and completely. That might not make a lot of sense, but when I finally get to the High School Boyfriend story, you will understand what I mean. But for now I will say that he has demonstrated through words and actions that he will blindly observe my best interest, even if it is uncomfortable for him. And I would do the same for him. He is also really hot, and currently single…take note, ladies, I can totally hook you up;-)

Ooh… that reminds me of another post, but I wanna write that one separate. But I think I can get it done before my 1:30, so check right back…

A Tour of My Tattoos

I promised to tell you about my tattoos…all of them are small and most have some meaning…

#1 – I have a little bird carrying a red flower on my stomach. It is about two and a half inches to the right and below my belly button. I got this in high school after a girl I knew pretty well got shot when a bar fight spilled out onto a street and into the coffee shop she was in. She was a completely pure soul, and I never wanted to forget her, or the way that made me want to move as far away as possible.

#2 – I have Japanese characters on my left shoulder blade that say “From perseverance through adversity comes strength.” I got this one at the beginning of my sophomore year after the final, final, final end of a long and sometimes tortured connection with High School Boyfriend. That story is gonna take me like a month of posts to tell, and it might be a while before I get to it.

I actually forgot exactly what this said at one point…lol…and had to have The Body’s father translate it again for me exactly. I knew the gist of it, but the exact wording I forgot. I also saw a website once about people with Asian letter tattoos that they think say things that are really deep, but are really like recipes for Kung Pao chicken and stuff. I am pretty sure mine is legit, though…The Body’s father was with me when I got it and wrote it out for the guy who did it.

#3 – I have a rose on my ankle…this one is cute:-) After my sophomore year, I went home for a week at the end of the summer, which was only the second time I had been back in about two years (it took me a year and a half to go back home when I left for school…more on that some other day). I took Munchkin to a fair and we got temporary tattoos. Then when I left the next day I was feeling kinda down and I really missed her, so I stopped on the way and had it done for real.

#4 – I have a sun kinda thing on the small of my back. This one doesn’t really have a deep meaning, it is just sorta cute. The Body was getting one done and I decided to get another one with her.

#5 – I have three rings with an interweaving vine on my foot. This one is really small and is the newest of them…I got it in July. In the story about my father, I mentioned that I never met him or his family until a couple years ago. Well, his family is awesome, and my cousins (all 13 of them!) are great. Of the 13, there are only two girls, both a little older than me (28 and 27) and are basically best friends. In July after I first met them all, I was invited to Favorite New Cousin #2’s wedding, which was really the first time I met the WHOLE family. Favorite New Cousin #1 was her maid of honor, and right before the wedding, the two of them went out and got matching tattoos of two interlocked rings with a weaving vine.

Favorite New Cousin #1 got married last summer and asked me to be one of her bridesmaids, which was just like the sweetest thing ever…I am crying writing about it…lol… She also asked Munchkin to be a flower girl, even though she is not actually related to her at all (you know how a wedding program lists the people and their relationship with the bride and groom? Well, Favorite Cousin #2 was “Dearest Cousin of the Bride” and I was “Newest Cousin of the Bride” and Munchkin was “Almost Cousin of the Bride” which I thought was super cute.) Anyway, I am way off track…

The two of them called me one day and said that right before the wedding they wanted to have a third ring added to their tattoos for me and for me to get the same thing. So that is where the rings come from…my connection with my two favorite cousins that my asshole father never let me meet until I was 22. So fuck him for one more thing.

So those are the five…and I have promised at least one more. Munchkin is, at least for now, completely obsessed with them. If she turned 18 tomorrow, she would run out and get the same rose done that I have, and she has also sold both Smoking Hot Roommate and Big Sis on us all getting something matching when she is old enough. That is still a long way off, and I am not going to encourage her if she changes her mind between now and then…lol. But she can be stubborn, so it wouldn’t surprise me if she ended up asking for these for her 18th birthday…

At which point I will be 30…yikes that makes me feel old.