What a long weekend I had! It's not often that I cut myself off from the blogoshphere for more than two days, but this weekend, I would not have been able to juggle both of my lives. It just wouldn't have been possible. For someone who stays in on the weekends, I was burning the candle (no pun intended) from both ends and now it's Monday morning and I feel heavy, hungry for another day of sleep. Damn, I must be getting old.
On Friday night, I packed my bags and moved in with Ginger and Vinny, out at their mom's house in Queens for the weekend. With the calm after their mother's funeral starting to settle in, I stayed with them to keep some movement and laughter in the house. Every one could use a sassy little Italian girl to keep things fun and light. We're just built that way. Along with me, Ginger's friends from high school whom I haven't seen since my J.Lo velour jumpsuit, pin straight blow-outs and hoop earring days, kept themselves available for back-to-back girl's night on both Friday and Saturday. It was nice to see the direction all of our lives have gone in over the course of ten years, and we reminisced over all of our fashion disasters, long crazy nights at the city's hottest lounges of the early 2000s that are now either tourist traps or empty and for sale, and of course, the creepy men we've dated.
To make it an official "Ladie's Weekend", we went to the launch party of the 2013 New York City Firemen Calendar that Vinny is posing in. Yes, I have a cousin posing in the hunky calendar. I guess I'm not the only coquine in the family! The party consisted of cheap drinks, firemen being passed around like hors d'oeuvres, greasy food, jukebox rock and a portion of the calendar proceeds going to the Jacobi Medical Center Burn Unit. All the bases were covered for mischief and madness and all going to a good cause. That's all I needed, another excuse for me to order drinks.
While I'm not much of a beefcake lover, I couldn't resist the kitch of the whole thing, and within minutes at the tavern, I turned into a middle aged house wife having a ladies night out at Chippendale's circa 1985. Had the evening's event been held in Queens, I would have fully committed to the role and rocked my spandex capri pants, off the shoulder sweater, vintage Versace zebra print mules complete with gold bamboo heart "I Love You" earrings, but since we were going to the Firehouse Tavern in the affluent Upper West Side, I played it safe with a red and white striped boat neck top, a navy blue skirt and ballet flats. France representin'.
Not realizing that there is an entire subculture of women who not only love New York City firemen, but crave them, posed a bit of a challenge in getting any of them to sign my calender. I had to get aggressive, and leave it to the little Italian girl to get things done around here. In order to get a little face time with the boys, I had to chase them down, and when necessary, hid behind drink menus that between you and me, wasn't much of a useful disguise, and once I had them in my grip, ordered them to introduce themselves and sign the calendars at our table of ladies in waiting. Always send in an Italian to get shit done. Russians have a good reputation with this as well.
During a lull in the evening, I had a moment to chat with my cousin who needed a break from his screaming fans (really) and as he was telling me about his news bit on Fox that had aired that morning, we were interrupted by a girl whom he had been taking to earlier in the evening. She looked very unhappy with him. "So you were just tawkin' to me, and now yaw with her?" she said in her thick burrow accent, staring back at him with wide eyes that were demanding an explanation from someone she had met twenty minutes earlier. Her entitlement of my cousin's attention was impressive, I was in shock. I forget that women like this really do exist, and aren't just manufactured for the show "Tough Love". I wanted Steve to pop out and explain to her why it's not advised to cling onto a man you just met, and to make a scene when he talks to another woman..his cousin, no less. I know I couldn't explain to her why this was a big dating faux-pas because in her eyes, I was the other woman. Some women take their fantasy of being rescued very seriously, and to her I was getting in the way of her dreams.
Before getting myself into an unnecessary bar brawl with his admirer, we relieved this woman of her fear and filled her in on our relationship. "We're cousins," Vinny and I said in unison. "Don't worry, I was just leaving." I assured her with a smile that implied that I was not planning on making any trouble with her and that she could have my cousin back, who not surprisingly wasn't terribly interested anymore. "That's a new one," she said while shaking her head in disbelief, signaling to her friends that it wasn't going to work out. You think? Clearly she was drunk but any shot she had with my cousin who is very cute, very single and may have been interested before, was long gone because she was acting just crazy. I try to avoid dropping the "C" word, because men use it so freely, but sometimes it's the only word that fits the description. This girl was nuts. This is also coming from me, the girl who spent the entire evening stalking fireman by tucking and rolling on them. I'm hardly one to judge. After she stormed off and a new round a women surrounded my cousin, I excused myself when the hunky Mr. November walked by. I scurried after him like Sofia Petrillo with my pen waving in the air.
I know what you must be thinking, what would Séb think of my hot tamale night? Well, funny you should ask, he was kept up to date with all of my shenanigans, thanks to Jann who recently befriended him on Facebook, he was tagged in every photo that was uploaded. Whether I was feeling the bicep of Mr. March, Séb was tagged, or biting my finger while looking at Mr. January, Séb was tagged or fully wrapped around the tree trunk of man that was Mr. September, Séb, still tagged. I woke up the next morning with likes and comments from him, his entire family and friends who saw these embarrassing drunk photos of me looking like a cat in heat with the NYFD. To give you an idea, here's a taste of the "hotsie-totsies" that went on Saturday night. (Cue in Kool and the Gang's "Ladie's Night")
While I don't see myself relocating back to New York and settling down with one of our city's heros, I enjoyed an evening of harmless and playful fun with these firemen who were such troopers, handling their satirical new roles as topless stud muffins with irony and humor. It was a perfect way to spend my last weekend in New York, with old friends, family and smokin' hot firemen. Tssss (burn sound)....