Days like these

The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy. Part of it has been the new schedule of my job that pretty much requires me to rise by 5:00 a.m. in order to get showered, make everybody’s lunches and get food in us all before we disband for the day. But more of it has been because one of our dearest friends ended up in the hospital about 17 days ago and then died just over a week ago. He was my father’s best friend and about as close to a second father as I had. It was horrible and so sad, but he was in horrific pain and now, at least, he is at peace. Yesterday was the last of his services, the last of the speeches, crowds, lunches. In many ways the hooplah paralleled that of my father’s services, they were both judges and belonged to the same community, and the whole thing brought back so much of those awful days. And knowing my friends, his daughters, were going through the same grief was so sad. I am so relieved it is over.
But there is always a silver lining. And my friend Dawn is just that. Yesterday afternoon when I was sitting in the lobby of the reception hall, trying to breathe as I wondered just how in the hell I was going to deal with it all ( no, it wasn’t all about me at all, but the people and the associations were still too fresh after two years and I was so close to bawling and making a fool of myself), Dawn called me and asked in her perfectly irreverent way, “Damn, girl, where the hell are you? You still coming to my toy party tonight?” I smacked myself for forgetting and replied, “Sho thing. I just have to ditch this memorial and I’ll be there in a jiff.” And so I did. There were a gazillion people there. I hugged my girlfriend, the daughter, and headed out.
The party was as silly as I imagined it would be. A huge table loaded with wine and sausage, what better to have at a sex toy party than a big ole head of meat. Ladies dressed in bustiers and pole dancers. One dancer in particular caught my eye, and not in a Lindsay Lohan way. Even though I could mostly just see her girl parts, she looked familiar when her head would crop up between her legs. After a few tentative looks I had it. It was a mom from the preschool. Turns out she owns the joint. Now I know why she is so insanely firm, just like I know her whole self is fully firm. Over all it was good times after some super sad days.