It is Friday, and it is time to get the hell out of here and enjoy yet another blistering hot Southern California weekend. Or not . . .

I actually have a few things to do this weekend that might break up the ever fun beer drinking and water play that usually accompany the heat; two kids’ birthday parties. Yes, this is the highlight of my weekend (if you couldn’t smell the sarcasm in that sentence through your monitor, then you need to get your smelling sense checked). The first, tonight at “Wild Kingdom”. This is a place with three large rooms filled with bounce houses and jumpy “things”, along with other inflated mostrosities that the children go ape shit for.

Not to be outdone, my daughters “boyfriend” from pre-school is also having a birthday party tomorrow, at a place called “Pump It Up”. Yes friends, that’s right; two days of inflatable birthday parties. The last time I went to one of these things, all I kept saying to myself was “when the hell can I get out of this place and have a cigarrette?” I swear, the people who work at these places are the most patient people I have ever met. Well, next to the idiot who gets paid minimum wage to walk around in a rat suit at Chuck-E-Cheese. No really, they are teenagers who could have one of those cushy “mall jobs”, but for some reason they decided to run around with a group of 15 screaming, sweaty, cake hungry, 4 and 5 year olds. To this I say: “You will be a heavy drinker one day, mark my words”.

I cannot complain too much, as it will tire my daughter out and make her the sweetest nicest, “asking-questions-and-using-the-word-please”, type of child I have always wanted her to be. I will bring her home, and she will beg to be put in her pajamas, and laid in her bed. This makes mommy happy. She has never given me any issues as to sleeping or going to bed, which I feel SO lucky about. However, if she feels like she has been slighted in the category of play time, she will protest loudly and in that whiny voice all parents hate, during the entire process of putting her to bed. The inflatable palace I take her to tonight will definately spare mommy that heartache, and allow me to sit down with a beer early enough that I might actually tie on a buzz.

Wish me luck,

K