Date night over 40. I'm not proud.

We hadn't been on the proverbial date night for a while.  So, a few days ago hubby said, "Let's go out Saturday night," it took about a quarter of one second for me to imagine a peaceful dinner without any interruptions and possibly an adult beverage (or two). 

I said, "Okay," incredibly quickly and effortlessly and had messaged the lovely lady that watches our heathens when we are gone in record time.  That was the easy part. 

The rest of this post is kinda how the remaining details went down.  Let me reiterate:  I am not proud.

1.  Answering the question - What to do?  Once you hit 35 (ahem), deciding what to do on any special occasion (or just date night) becomes particularly problematic.  Add in the four kids who must be left with a sitter, the fact that hubby has a physical injury which currently (until his impending surgery) is causing him constant pain, and the fact that I have been nursing a migraine for about a week and you *might* have a recipe for disaster.

We went through the long (and quite ridiculous) pretense of pretending we would do something other than go out to eat and try to stay awake until we were actually back home.  Sample of that:

Hubby:  Well, babe, what could we do?
Me:  Whatever.  Go eat?
Hubby:  Well, what do you like to do?
Me:  Hmm.  I dunno.  Eat?
Hubby:  We could go to the movies?
Me:  Okay.
Hubby:  A short movie.
Me:  Okay.
Hubby:  Who am I kidding?  I don't want to see a movie.  At the theater.
Me:  Yeah, me neither.
Hubby:  I guess we could go eat?
Me:  Okay.  That sounds good. 

This pretense continued until Saturday shortly before our departure time when hubby said, "Was there anything in the paper going on this weekend?"

I had actually looked through The Weekender, recognized one band that was in town, saw that they were playing at a venue about 35 minutes from our house, ruled that out, and skipped over the rest of the entertainment advertisements with mild disgust that I was far too old to watch bands in bars. 

I said, "Well, I saw that The Texas Tornados are playing.  I really love them.  Too bad they are about 20 years late."

(Hubby did not reply.)

2.  Once we decided we would go eat (!), we had to decide where.  I have written about our absolute favorite place on the planet to eat, Spicy Ginger, a few times.  It's a little embarrassing that they know our names there and *kinda* treat us like family.  Regardless, we decided we were both hungry for steak. 

We toyed briefly (and when I say We toyed briefly I mean I thought about it for one millisecond before deciding it was not going to happen) with eating at "the best steak place in our city".  I figured a meal for the two of us plus a few drinks for me would cost about $250.00.  Then I thought about how many kids' pairs of shoes I could buy for that same amount of money and we decided on Saltgrass.  Perfect. 

3.   Saturday was a rainy first day of spring break and we were cooped up inside with four slightly rotten kids and a wildly insane puppy.  So, yeah.  It was joyful. 

I guess you could say hubby and I both were stir crazy like we'd been locked in an insane asylum wanted to get away by the time 6:30 rolled around.  Normally when I know I am going out to eat I try to starve myself a little so that I can be really hungry and enjoy my food. 

But, I've been having some eating issues lately (by eating issues I mean I have wanted to eat everything that isn't nailed down).  As luck would have it, this insane hunger that's been plaguing me oddly stopped Saturday morning.  I woke up and I had no appetite.  (This usually only happens when I have a severe stomach virus or I am in a coma.  I have never actually been in a coma, but it's how I imagine it.)  I ate a smoothie for breakfast, I wasn't hungry for lunch, and I ate a few pieces of Girl 3's dinner that she couldn't finish.  You would have thought that by 6:30 I would have been ready to eat the menu, but truthfully nothing sounded good.

So, off we went to the previously decided upon steak place.  (We passed Spicy Ginger on the way and I had to remind hubby that we were both hungry for steaks.)

4.  It was a 45 minute wait at the steak place.  And our buzzer thingie didn't work.  And I had to drink a margarita on an empty stomach.  And on the way over to the steak place (before said margarita) my headache came back with a vengeance.  And the appetizer we got was meh at best.  By the time we were seated and ready to order my head was splitting open, and I had completely lost any vestige of an appetite that might have been there.

5.  Poor hubby.  I felt positively miserable for refusing to eat any of my dinner, but the thought of food was making me sick and my head hurt so badly I really was struggling to keep it upright.  He *may* have blamed the two margaritas I had on an empty stomach, but he is a gem so he never said that.

6.  At about 9:00 we headed home.  The kids had just gone to bed when we rolled into the driveway.  (I'm pretty sure our sitter thinks we are 90 year olds.) 

Thank The Date Night Stars, our evening was not a total loss.  We managed to watch The King's Speech on Netflix and I give it 10 stars out of 10.  I stayed awake during the whole thing (except possibly the beginning credits and about 10 minutes after that - shhhh - don't tell hubby) and it was such a delight that I managed to forget about the pain in my head for a while. 

After the movie ended is where it got complicated.  In Texas we have this nasty thing called Daylight Savings Time.  So, the movie ended past midnight (which was really 1:00 a.m.).  I decided at that time to break down and take some serious migraine medication.  As you might know the meds contain lots of caffeine.  And it had started thundering and lightening (of course because we haven't had thunder and lightening in about eight months).  And puppy and the kids cried all night.  And I ended up sleeping in Girl 1's single bed. 

Too bad I couldn't have had date night around 4:00 a.m. because I was still wide awake and I think my appetite was even coming back.

7.  Boy child had my steak dinner for breakfast. 

Date night over 40, people. 

How much will it cost for a re-do?