red, white and yawn ...

4th of July weekend!!!

Friday night kickoff.

What's that I hear?? No, it's not fireworks... ahhh yes, it is the combined sounds of Gregg sleeping like a rock and a dusty favorite, The Wizard of Oz, on television. Holy mackerel. When the hell did I go from slowing down to 87 yrs old? Must have happened in my sleep one night when the nightmares stole my party fire. I knew I should have locked that up a little better. 


Well, I'm not elderly just yet. I do love a good party and can hammer down a bunch of beers as good as the next sloppy jerk but still ... something has changed. I guess my love of comfort and "home" has finally beat out my love for scream singing Tenacious D at 4:30 in the morning. It was a hell of a fight though. And let's not pretend it won't happen again someday.


My partying days were long. Days? Wait, no, clearly YEARS. I spent about 13 years - maybe 14 - giving it my all. I can remember when I lived at home my parents demanded that I choose one night per week to stay at home and I simply could not commit to that. My routine was this: Wake up, shower, work, shower, head out until anywhere from 1 am to 8 am, sleep a few hours and do it all again. I do partially blame the restaurant industry for creating that monster. I smoked like a fiend, finished more bottles of rum than a century of pirates and didn't give a rats ass about anything. I was out for fun. Responsibility fail. 


Of course things started to slow down when I met Gregg. He was a different breed... and he was exactly what I needed. I am very lucky to have found him when I did. I'm not sure that things would have changed and who knows where I would be today. That's a sobering thought - no pun intended. For years I dragged him to parties with all of my friends - who are now all of his friends - and I believe they like him better - and he was a trooper through it all. 1 am, Gregg: "Are you ready to go?" Me: "Nope".  2 am, he is asleep on the couch while I am DJ-ing the ipod with Johnny and still thinking it is 10:30 pm. 4 am, Gregg: "Let's go". Me: "It's still earlyyyyyy".  Yeah, he had his hands full. He took it all in stride. As long as he was driving me home he could rest a little easier. Good guy that Gregg is. 


So here we are - 2010 - 4th of July weekend. Beautiful weather. Insane amounts of parties. And I'm eating popcorn and watching Dorothy knock on the Tin Man's shoe. What you probably don't realize is that I'm actually not complaining. Tricked ya didn't I? That need to be at a party 3 nights in a row is fading more and more as the years pass. It started with New Year's Eve and is currently working it's way through the calendar year. I no longer feel like I am missing something. It's the same people in the same places doing the same things. Of course it's a good time every time but I don't feel guilty about staying home in my hello kitty pjs. It is perfectly okay to 'sit this one out' once in a while. 


We don't do as much as we used to simply because of circumstance. After a 60 hour work week Gregg can barely hold his head up on a Friday night. It's practically mandatory that he fall asleep on the couch at 8 pm. Who can blame him?? It takes him 2 days to recover from the physical exhaustion and then he's right back at it on Monday morning. I have eased into the role of stay-at-home-wife once again due to another round of unemployment. I keep things going. Cleaning, shopping, errands, etc. I have plenty of down time and I don't expect to fill it all up every weekend. Some weekends are jam packed and others are lovely lazy days. It's all about balance, gang. So while the old Sheri would be ashamed of her empty holiday Friday night - the current Sheri couldn't be more content.