Been a Long Lonely, Lonely, Lonely, Lonely, Lonely Time

Saturday was R.'s last game of the season, and the head coach's wife took me aside earlier in the week and said, ramblingly, "MV, we're going to get together on Saturday night at the beach, around 6, 6:30, everyone's just going to bring some food to share, we'll send you an e-mail."

So I thought, hmm, I guess since three team families belong to our beach club, they negotiated some way that everyone else can come in on Saturday night for an end-of-season thing. I didn't ever get the e-mail, so when I dropped off money for the coaches' gifts I left a note, let me know what I can contribute. So then I got an also rambling phone message, "Well, I'm going to bring some hot dogs, and some cheese, and a salad, and a watermelon..." then she named the families who would be there, and they were beach families, not baseball families, and I thought, Hey! We're being invited to a party! With the Coach-Families!

These are people we have known ever since we moved here and R. was not yet 3. I guess she invited me to some random things back then, and I always said no, because big R. worked 12 hours 7 days a week that first year. She also backed out of R.'s 4th birthday party the day of, and failed to RSVP for a Christmas party and then said months later that they found the invite behind the kitchen cabinet...I guess we both just gave up inviting each other to things.

We had a fabulous time Saturday night, although as always I did better talking to the men than to the women. Women (not my friends, but random privileged suburban women) always seem to me to be sliding around beads on an elaborate internal counter, figuring out who wins. Whereas the men seem to be thinking, "Are you sexy? Okay, are you cute? Hey, you're funny!" And it's okay if you can just get them to stay away from, "Ooops, you're too smart."

Anyway, as the sun set gorgeously and I was processing a margarita and a fair bit of white wine, I decided I could overcome my usual reticence and solid boundaries to say, "Mrs. Coach-Family, thank you so much for including us." So I did, and to my wincing horror, Mrs. Coach-Family said, "It's been a long time coming." Don't say that!

I know, I'm very neurotic.