Adventures in Fine Dining

So.

Yesterday was dinner with the ex and his family. The whole evening had an almost...ethereal quality to it; I felt a little like we were on stage, preforming some staged version of our lives. I can't believe that Dooney (the ex's son) is four-years-old now. We were playing with him in the living room while Mom and Pop Dukes finished the meal, and the whole time I had the "no one hates a baby" series running through my head. I'm really glad that I don't remember number 2 or 3...because I know that they got progressively worse...and the first one was pretty awful. Meanwhile: Dooney is the sweetest kid on the face of the known planet; how TJ is managing to raise this amazing kid by himself is beyond me. [Side note: I will admit, thtat the whole...in the living room, playing with TJ and his son thing, made me sad for a brief moment. But I recovered by dinner]

Mom Dukes made me proud; she did not launch into her "you're supposed to be my daughter-in-law" speech like I thought she was going to. There were moments that I could feel her leaning in that direction, but she restrained herself to just a quick "it's not too late" when I hugged her before I left. Pop Dukes, on the other hand, had be told (by TJ) to cool off with the marriage suggestions, at various parts of the post-dinner conversation.

I promised a friend of mine that I wouldn't do anything I would regret, so when Mom and Pop Dukes took Dooney off to bed, I declined all invitations to go hang out at the park or Riverwalk or any other such place where we tend to flip the switch on our on-again/off-again situation to the "on" position, even when he made the sad face and baby voice. Go me.

Here is when I would say something clever to sum up the whole evening, but I've got nada. I was nervous that the whole ordeal was going to be a lot tougher than it was....yay for starting to move on and all that. Ya'll have a great rest of the year...I think this might be it for me until 2011.

Peace Be