Standard Time invited Ice Cream Man, Sleepless and Little Sleep to dinner. Due to the fact that this was discussed over the lunch that almost didn’t take off (damn you Words with Friends!), I was also invited.
Tomatillo had returned my bag of Christmas sweaters, so I thought it might be best if we dressed up for the dinner. “I don’t know if it is a dress-up kind of event, but I can’t not dress-up,” I told Dr. BJ. “You definitely need to dress-up,” he advised me. As I was pulling my red and white striped over-the-knee socks up and over my knees and leggings, I asked (rhetorically, of course), “Are these too much?” To top off the outfit, I donned my mistletoe headband – an early Christmas gift from Sleepless. “This dinner party may get real awkward, real fast,” I told Dr. BJ.
Standard Time lives in a galaxy way far away from our downtown abodes, which may explain why staying out in the city after nine is late for her. After passing through the weigh station, customs, border patrol, several time zones, and going over the river and through the woods, we made it to her house. We were welcomed by a crackling fire, elegant Christmas decorations, dinner on the stove, and wine in our glasses. “It’s a good thing we dressed up,” I whispered to Sleepless who had also donned one of the Christmas sweaters. Ice Cream Man opted against donning a sweater. My guess is he thought it would be bad for business. His loss, our gain (literally – those thick knit sweaters really add weight and inches to one’s frame). With such great props, Sleepless and I immediately started posing for pictures.
As we were sitting around the dining table, Ice Cream Man was entertaining the kids with stories and games, and Sleepless decided to cop a feel of my sweater. “Wow, that’s soft. Is that Chanel?” she asked. “Chanel,” I sang back to the tune of Laverne and Shirley’s theme song. She immediately joined in, “Schlemazel.” A major mumbling of the third and fourth words and then everyone else joined in, “We’re gonna do it!” This reminded me of the time Tomatillo told me, “You’ve got the life. Always going out and drinking drinks I can’t pronounce.” ‘Wine’ is easy to pronounce, ‘Hasenpfeffer Incorporated,’ not so easy.
Standard Time, who was now wearing the lovely sequined and saucy Christmas apron we gave her, was moved by our singing thus, moved right next to us at the table. A few minutes after doing so, her son crept up behind Ice Cream Man with a large inflatable bat. “Be careful. We’ve got drinks,” Standard Time advised him. She then turned to Sleepless and I, tightly gripping her wine glass, and said, “Priorities. I don’t care if he hits Ice Cream Man, but I don’t want our drinks spilled.”
Time passed quickly – as it does when you’re crossing time zones – so we decided to say goodbye, but not before singing a few Christmas songs around the grand piano. Turns out we sing carols about as well as we sing theme songs, “Dashing through the snow…..laughing all the way….mumble, mumble, mumble, mumble.” Knowing all the words is not important. What is important, however, is that we were dressed for the occasion in what Little Edie would hopefully consider ‘the best costume for the day.’