A night out

Linda and I actually hired a babysitter and went to dinner last night. Jen asked us over a week ago, so we had time to plan. Dinner was originally planned for 7:30, but I asked if we could do it at 6:30 instead, since Linda gets hungry early. Jen said that would be fine.

It turns out that Jen and Derek got married yesterday. I admit that I didn't see that one coming. So, when I asked to reschedule dinner, I was sort of rescheduling her reception dinner.

We had a nice time. Linda talked quite a bit, especially at the beginning, although she got tired after a while and switched to listening mode. Restaurants are very hard because of the background noise, and last night was a bit more noisy than usual (you notice these things with practice).

He can sing

After dinner, there as an actual reception of sorts at the Dukum Inn's karaoke night. I wasn't really planning to go, and just took Linda home. Ellie was tired and cranky, even for the babysitter (which is unusual), so I asked her if she wanted to go to bed and have a story. She fell asleep almost immediately, so I went out.

The down side of karaoke night is that it takes place in a bar. After a little while, I found myself feeling excessively jittery and just a bit fuzzy in the head. It was the cigarette smoke. The smoke was definitely the worst part of the evening--it is just so gross. So I stationed myself in the door that they opened to let out the heat and it was a bit better.

The up side is that it's pretty fun. For the record, I sang two songs, and it was pretty fun. I did the Can You Feel the Love Tonight, the Elton John song from the The Lion King. I also did an old Charlie Rich song called The Most Beautiful Girl. Both went well enough that I wasn't embarrassed. I was impressed by how many people could actually sing. Karaoke has such a reputation for public embarassment.

I got home a bit late, but my timing was very good. Ellie had woken up and was asking for her mom and dad. Linda was just calling me on the cell phone when I came in. She calmed down pretty quickly and went back to sleep.

I can still smell the smoke this morning even though I left my clothes in the laundry room and took a shower right away. It must be in my nose or something; I smelled it all night. I'll have to run my clothes through the wash this morning in case it's that.