Chris and I went into this weekend knowing we weren't going to spend a lot of time together on Valentine's Day. When I arrived home from work on Friday he greeted me at the door and asked me if I wanted my gift today or Sunday. If I had more time to think about it I would have said Sunday, but I blurted out "Today!!!". He got me my smelly stuff from Bath & Body Works, and a LOT of it! I was super excited. I didn't get him anything though, which made me feel kinda crappy, so I invited him to dinner since our plans with Margie fell through. Chris found out that some friends were meeting up at JM Randall's, so we decided that would be fun. We jumped in the car (it was 6:00 PM) and headed on over. When we arrived, we immediately saw Missy through the window in the parking lot. We entered, passed the hostess, saying to her "We're meeting friends back there". Once we got closer to the table we realized it wasn't Missy at all. Oops. Wrong person. How embarrassing. We ended up at the back of the restaurant standing there like fools. A waitress asked us if we needed help. We said we'd need a large table and she offered us one in the back room, off to the side. She told us there would be another party of 15 back there, but we said that was fine, since it was the only area that could support a party of 8. We needed a lot of room. So Chris saw Trey walking in at that point and went up front to greet him, except that wasn't Trey either. It was another guy. At that point, Chris called Trey and asked him where everyone was. It was then that Trey filled us in that everyone was meeting at 8:30. Good to know. We told the waitress to hold that table. We'd be back in two hours. I told Chris that I couldn't wait that long to eat dinner, so we went to Hayashi for sushi, which only killed an hour. Then we wandered into Gymboree for...well...stuff. We returned to JM Randalls at 8:15 and only waited a few minutes before our party arrived. The party of 15 was there too. They were mostly adults in their mid 40's. They didn't really bother us, except that they kept staring at Amber. I am used to this though, because no matter where we go people stare at Amber. They can't help it. She's 5'10", thin and stacked with a pretty face. I'm always the Duff when we're together. After a couple hours and a few drinks I noticed that our rival party was getting a little frisky. I'm not one to stare, but they were fondling and holding hands. I found this to be odd behavior for married people in public. They are married, because I saw wedding bands on all their fingers. The one incident that struck me was when one couple was canoodling, the man got up to talk to someone and another man took his place and began stroking the hair of the previous man's wife. I was waiting to see an altercation for such a brazen move. But it seemed that the woman didn't care. Then, I pointed out to my friends another couple engaged in a deep-tongued make-out sesh which I laughed out loud at. GROSS. We all stared and laughed (how could you not), then not 10 minutes later she was on the dance floor getting goosed by yet another guy. It was clear at this point that we found the Williamsburg Swingers Club. Around midnight they all got their checks (I would assume this would be tricky - who pays for whom?) and then the grand finale: they all said goodbye to eachother on the lips. For a long time. Their farewells take a long time...each person gets some sugar. I know we weren't hiding our shock very well. The last two couples stayed longer and one guy had rested his head in his sweetheart's lap. I got nervous, because I was not ready to see any more. They didn't proceed, but I have a feeling they were doing it just to get a reaction from us. If it weren't for the band playing (who were AWESOME) we might have left before them. It was a pretty shocking scene.
Completely by coincidence, Ann brought up the topic of a Swingers Club in Williamsburg at our house last Sunday because she read an article in the paper about it and thought it was strange. She didn't bring it up because she was intereseted (at least I hope not) but when we made the connection at JM Randall's we had an "a-ha" moment. I asked her more about it. Apparently, there is a fee for married couples. Single women are free, and single men are not allowed. This brought up a million other questions. Who keeps the money? What is the money for? Why are they in public? It was giving me a headache. Or maybe it was the barometric pressure. No, I'm sure it was the freak show.
Saturday was soooo uneventful. I finished the Great Gatsby and slept off my horrible headache. Sunday I watched a little TV and did my weekly errands. I made a nice dinner for me and my Valentine and went to bed. Thankfully he joined me at around 11:00 PM. We laid in bed discussing the new version of "We are the World" and how depressing the talent pool in the music industry is these days. (I use the word talent very loosely.) The only people worth a dang were Pink and Jennifer Hudson. There was not auto-tune or strippers in the previous version. The new video made me cry. I can't help but think that Michael Jackson is crying in his tomb.
