On Saturday evening, Matt and I had a sitter come to stay with our minions and we got all dressed up to attend this year's Navy Supply Corps Birthday Ball.
Matt cleans up nicely doesn't he?
Even though I can promise you is the first thing he'll say is he can't believe how thin his hair in on top now. I suppose I could photoshop it for him, but I don't see a point. He looks FINE even with less hair on top. That's the thing about men right? They get better and more distinguished with age.
Women?
As we get older we just have to keep working harder and harder to look acceptable.
If we had a baby just over 6 months ago we have to basically starve ourselves for a month ahead of time to ensure the new dress that we ordered which should have been plenty big enough but for some inexplicable reason kind of wasn't, will actually zip. We have to spend an hour and a half at the salon getting our hair blown out. We have to spend another hour applying make up to cover all the lines and the wrinkles and the zits that we are ABSOLUTELY too old to still be fighting. Then we have to smoosh our skinny-enough but still VERY wobbily from growing 3 babies middle section into some fantastically small "smoothing" underpants armor to make ourselves look okay in our almost-too-small-seriously-should-have-gone-up-a-size gown. That's not to mention the push up bra with the nursing pads discretely tucked into the cups so that our boobies don't start to leak through our dress a little should the evening drag on a little longer than planned.
Honestly.
Back to the like, turbo, one gajillion strength, super-wham-a-dine, extra elasticy, goes up to your bra, makes it so you can't breath and don't wear these too often because you are very likely to suffer some sort of catastrophic organ failure- skinny-fying underpants.
They took me about 10 minutes just to get on.
Hahah.
But, between the starve myself for a month even though it makes me kind of bitchy all the time diet....
And my super underpants....
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| Damn I looked good. |
Or, hmm... maybe I should have squeezed in some arm workouts to tone up those biceps again. Grrr....
Anyway.
Enough about looks. Yes, looking pretty is important. But what's more important?
A night out.
A night out with other grown ups, AWAY from the kids.
:)
This year the Ball was held down in Coronado at the Marriot, overlooking San Diego bay. We didn't exactly see most of the resort but out front they had several little ponds, including this one which had a little flock of flamingos. Not that you can see them behind us really, but I promise they are there.
PS... I heard a whole bunch of places got snow again last week. Meanwhile we were having some sort of heat wave during the day. But by 6 when we arrived, it was absolutely MARVELOUS.
JUST LOOK AT THAT BLUE SKY.
I knew there was a reason we love living here.
So anyway, once we got inside we got out professional "prom pose" picture taken and then we did cocktail hour. I made friends with some random spouse right away and we played fashion police for the duration.
That's always fun.
She was looking lovely in a long, fitted, black jersey number that I am way too fat too pull off any more so I give her props for still having it.
I however, realize now that I stuck out like a sour thumb being basically 6 feet tall in heels and then wearing bright WHITE and RED. Goodness. Nearly everyone else was in black (because, DUH, their uniforms are black) but also at least half of the dates wore black gowns as well. I found myself wondering why I never wear black.
Seriously, I think I have worn black maybe.... twice in nearly 15 years worth of these formals.
I hate black.
Black is boring. Slimming or not, it's so plain. I like COLOR.
And also, on me, black looks like a horrifying snow storm because of my skin.
Ew.
What's that you say? Enough Jen. Really. Nobody wants to hear about your fat or your boobs or your "moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis" this much. Now that you mention it, nobody wants to hear about that stuff, pretty much, like, ever.
Well, get over it, because this is the reality of my 90% of my existence these days: Raising and nursing Babies/Kids, Trying to put my body back together after having babies/kids, trying to make my skin stop falling off. The end. That's all. Haha.
Also, ew, the way I just wrote that makes it sounds like maybe I nurse all 3 of the kids still. And I really, really don't. It's just the baby I promise. (And I really want to be done with that already.)
PS, probably somebody else just read that who happens to be, like, IN to nursing their 3 and 4 year olds and now I have offended them. But whatever. I give up.
Moving on....
Maybe next year I should choose something a little less stand-out-ish for my dress, because I am obnoxious enough all on my own even when I don't choose to wear something obnoxious.
Oh, but it was just so preeeeeetty.
Oh well. Hopefully I didn't embarrass Matt (too much) (again.)
Anyway.
Soon enough it was time to take our seats.
There was the normal 10 minutes of them trying to get everyone seated and quiet.
There was the panic when we realized Matt left his cell phone in the car and the babysitter only had his cell phone number to call just in case. (He ran out to get it. Boy was he unhappy. But I cried high heels and won the argument.)
Then there was the introductory remarks, the colors, the anthem, the prayer and then it was time to eat.
And it was about time because I was sta-arving.
OMG they passed out bread first. And I haven't been eating much bread for like a month. But my dress was on now so GIMME ALL THE BREAD. Yummmmmm....
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| Matt was all about this weirdo flat bread. He nibbled on it quietly through out a lot of the opening announcements and stuff. He seriously might have eaten all the flat bread from the whole basket of assorted breads. |
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And also, when I took a picture of them eating, they both laughed and told me to take it again.
Haha. |
We were, actually, sitting right by the band.
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| And by band, I mean a woodwind quintet. Nicely done Ball committee. Good choice. |
I originally had typed "quartet." Geeez. I need to remind myself how to count.
So then after the bread there was salad and then we waited for our dinners. I'm sure there were more speeches and things. I confess, my back was to the podium so I wasn't exactly paying the closest attention.
Finally the main course arrived.I was less than impressed. My beef was over done and WAY too peppery. Darn it. Matt traded me half his good meat for half of my over done meat but I was still irritated.
However, seated across the table from us were a two folks who both happened to have broken arms from two totally unrelated motorcycle accidents. I found this to be very confusing because Matt was just telling me the other day about somebody from his office who'd injured themselves in a motorcycle accident. And NO it wasn't either of these two. So basically it seems like if you work in his building, maybe riding a motorcycle isn't the best plan right now. Because 3 people injured in motorcycle accidents from one building seems like kind of poor odds.
The fellow on the left (seen in the photo below) got sort of mad at me for saying that. I tried to explain that I wasn't picking. I like motorcycles. I told him I used to ride on my Dad's motorcycle aging back to when I was, like, 2. He said there was no way this was true and basically told me I was full of sh*t. I assured him it was true and told him I'd love to have a motorcycle of my own accept my husband would really rather I didn't. And also, now that we have 3 kids, their car seats don't exactly fit.
But I'd still love to have a motorcycle for recreational use if I could.
And he still gave me crap. Yet his wife, who actually might be the one who works in Matt's building (and is not in the picture) stayed strangely quiet about the whole thing. I wonder if she rides herself. I wonder if she approves....
Somewhere I have a picture of me on a motorcycle with my Dad as a little kid and boy do I wish I knew where.
Whatever.
After that I didn't feel so bad for laughing at him as he struggled to cut his meat.
Meanwhile, the lady on the right, she was just hilarious about it. Basically, she was making fun of herself for crashing and getting herself into the situation.
I liked her much better.
In other news, soon enough dessert came around.
Yet again this year they had the big gigantic ceremonial birthday cake that they cut at the beginning and then NEVER even served. Instead we got carrot cake.
I mean, carrot cake is fine and good. Except for the fact that in the grand scheme of desserts it is basically health food.
Terrible small portions of over cooked, over spiced beef and healthy desserts?
Don't they know this is like my ONE good night out a year?
Oh well.
After dessert it was time for the guest speaker. Originally it was supposed to be Rudy. Like "Rudy" of the movie "Rudy" about the Notre Dame Football player. I was kind of excited to meet him because I have a friend who was nicknamed after him in college marching band for being the little guy with big dreams just like him or something.
Except I guess he cancelled or couldn't make it because instead we got to hear from a retired Navy Supply Corps Officer who after his retirement had been a contractor working in Iraq for awhile until one day he got kidnapped by a gang of, um, extremists or something. He was held hostage for 311 days in various locations until U.S. Special Forces came along and rescued him.
It was a fascinating story.
One I'm glad to have heard, but only now that Matt is home from Iraq. I certainly won't be volunteering him to go back as a contractor any time soon. That's for sure...
When he was done, the formal part of the evening was concluded and they turned the lights down and the DJ stepped up and it was time for dancing and craziness.
Except that is about as crazy as Matt got. He didn't dance.
I danced a little while all the people at our table mostly stared at me. Except the shorter Lieutenant girl danced with me for a minute as well. Mostly I think she was just egging me on. Clearly she doesn't know me well enough because you don't have to try very hard to get me to embarrass myself.
NOT THAT I DID.
Matt is way too Senior these days (not that he's THAT senior, but he's also really not a newbie anymore) for me to misbehave for real. I have to represent my man properly after all.
:)
Even still, when I came back from dancing to a song or two he just kept telling me it was time to go.
And, like, as much as I love and missed my kiddos I wasn't ready to go home to them. I wanted to have fun.
He kept reminding me that our babysitter had plans the next day an we didn't need to keep her out later than necessary.
He also kept looking at me like this:
He usually reserves that look for me when I actually AM thoroughly embarrassing myself, or worse yet him. Or when I say things like "bread roll" or "laundry machines" or "Don't you love these new and completely impractical shoes I just bought myself because they were ON SALE!!!!"
I have no idea why he was making that face at me on Saturday.
But he just kept doing it until everybody else from our table left and then I agreed to go too.
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Everybody from our table. See what I mean about sticking out like a sore thumb?
I tried to crouch down in front so as not to stick out so much, but it didn't work. |
All in all, it was a good night.
We had fun.
And I was only a little bit hung over in the morning. But that was okay because my husband, "Lieutenant Commander Morning Person" snuck out early to pick up donuts before anybody else woke up.
Surprise!
He takes me out AND he buys me sugary breakfast treats the next day.
I'm the luckiest girl alive.
