hold yourself together, man

After spending our Saturday morning at the farmers' market and our afternoon napping on the couch in front of Casablanca, Mr. Risky Business and I felt fully prepared to venture out into the wilderness, to chart a course for the great beyond, to make the great trek to (gulp) THE SUBURBS.

Okay, so maybe it's not so dramatic. It's just Bartlett. It's just, like, a half-an-hour drive. And honestly we drove all the way to B-town last week just to get Dairy Queen. Who am I to deny an almost primal urge for a Blizzard? Those desires are instinctual. They're in-born. I am in no position to deny myself the base human need of ice cream blended with sugary treats.

Anywho.

This time we were not on a suburban brownie Blizzard mission; we were having an evening out with my parents.

And I have let you down in a colossal, monumental way, because not one awkward, ridiculous, horrendously mortifying or otherwise worthy of leaving a life-long scar incident befell the entire evening. Not one.

We started things off with a drink at their house and little walk around the yard -- since Mr. RB has a monstrous yard and likes to plant things, and my mom knows everything there ever was to know, ever, about planting things -- while mom pointed out different plants and said lots of extremely intelligent stuff about them that I could not repeat for you now if held at gunpoint. They were pretty. And several of them smelled good. That's all I got.

After our drink we headed to the Bartlett Performing Arts Center to see a show, which was a little weird but decently entertaining for what it was. Afterward we headed to East End Grill (Project: Patio for the win!) for some beers and (naturally) cheddar cheese balls.

If you'd seen any of my tweets leading up to Saturday, you'll note that I had been nervous about this meeting. I had. But at some point on Saturday I had a little talk with myself. Yes, my parents' opinion is really important to me. I see them as the most important point on what I like to call the Trifecta of Approval, where the other two points are My Best Women (Holly and Stefanie) and My Best Men (David and Harry). All the points in the Trifecta matter to me a great deal, but their point is like the brightest star in the constellation. So of course there's cause to be a little nervous.

But what I realized Saturday, perhaps even while I was en route to RB's house prior to the start of the evening and perhaps also while talking to myself, was that I needed to do myself a teeny little favor and CHILL THE EFF OUT. No one is chiming wedding bells and picking out cake toppers, no one's knocked up, no one's moving in together, no one is anything. We're dating. We've been dating for, what, barely two months since the official DTR? And this is cause to be nervous? Sister, be cool. Take a tip from the cucumber. This is what I said to myself.

And probably for the first time ever, one of those "snap out of it" pep-talks actually worked. Who knew?

Despite the massive amounts of shit I was taking all week long from both my dad and Mr. RB about the coterie of embarrassing things they were going to do that night, all of the shit-talking remained just that and I thought we had a pretty good time. Of course, maybe it was just the cheese high I was experiencing from mass consumption of cheddar balls, because dear sweet everything that is holy, fried effing cheese. FRIED CHEESE.

Please know that if I am ever faced with mediating a situation of conflict between two or more persons, be it a minor dispute or a conflict of international magnitude, I will counsel both parties, and I will bring both parties to the negotiation table, and on that table? Will be fried cheese.


cheers,
elizabeth