Hot Dates and Swim Lessons and Homeless Dogs

I had a relatively busy weekend. P and I did have our date night on Saturday. We started the evening with dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. While we were waiting for our table we had a drink at the bar, surrounded by real, live grown-ups! Dinner was really good. As much as we love and adore the short, curly-headed girl who lives with us, it was kind of nice to eat dinner without having to say, "We don't play with our food. Hold your 'big girl' cup with two hands. Put that down. Sit down. Seriously, I'm counting to three. Hey, stop licking the butter off your roll."

After dinner we went to see No Country for Old Men. I can tell you honestly that this was one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. I thought about the movie for hours after we left, and several times the next day. I'd definitely recommend it. Javier Bardem, the actor who plays the murderous villain in the flick, was scary as all get-out. It was so tense that when I left I felt like I had done about a thousand sit-ups.

Finally, we had a couple drinks before heading home to relieve the babysitter. As we sat at the bar, we started to notice that . . . we are old. Or, if not certifiably old, just getting there faster than we thought. There were two chicks at the end of the bar (a fairly casual bar) who were wearing short black dresses, boots, heavily highlighted hair, cleavage, and mega tans. When we arrived we had a quick discussion as to whether we should pay for our drinks in cash or start a tab on our credit card. We decided that P should hang onto his cash in case he decided to purchase some services from the "ladies" in black. I mean, seriously, who goes out of the house like that? It's January and this is the upper Midwest. Vegas is that-a-way.

I also spent a good portion of the weekend working on rescue-related stuff. We are taking in dogs faster than we can get them logged in. Normally there are a couple of heavy dumping seasons when we can count on being busy. We get a lot of surrenders in the early summertime (why pay to board your dog while you're on vacation when you can just get rid of him altogether?) and then again right before the holidays. So this post-holiday dump is a little bit unexpected.

I am fostering a very sweet girl named Mandy. I don't care for the name so I usually call her Mandarin or Mandolin. I'm disappointed that I haven't had any inquiries about her. I think it is because she doesn't really have a dramatic, heart wrenching story. I've been thinking of making one up. She is so darned cute, though. Nothing makes her happier than if you just sit and hold her paw.

In other news, the kid starts a swim class at the Y tonight. The class does require parental involvement so P and I figure we'll switch off each week. I wonder if I can lose 10 pounds by tonight. I have a rule that you have to have known me for at least 5 years before you can see me in a swimsuit. I've had this rule in place since . . . well, since I became aware that I look like crud in a swimsuit. That was probably at least 20 years ago. It is really difficult to enforce the rule at the Y, though. I mean, technically even my own kid is breaking it.