hot tub sally (part 1)

you better slow yourself down... ride sally ride

(with all due apologies to every blues musician in the known universe)

----

we got to the party around 7:45. i was running a little behind - there was stuff to finish right up 'til just past 5 at work, and daughter had called me to see if i wanted to get together at all (they were leaving on vacation at 7am saturday). i needed to get a couple of groceries for stuff to eat at the birthday party.

it was a nice dinner with daughter - she ate - i watched - we had some iced cappuccinos. more on that dinner later.

but, back to the party.

i took my swimsuit, but smitten did not take hers. she has temperature control issues in general, and especially in hot tubs. and while smitten has a bit of an exhibitionist streak, she also has a very reserved, shy, unsure side too.

out hosts were my friend L (female) - the red hair auto-mechanic by training lady. she works in the same building as me as chief of staff to one of the client group. her partner T works in one of the community offices for the client group.

i've known L for about 10 years and T for about 25 years. T is kind of gruff and grumpy and is a HUGE football fan. we have not collided, but we are of different mindsets - so we were never close. we've worked together and gotten along - he, for all his grump, is a total true believer - and that common goal can you past most issues.

L is quite the wild woman. more about this later (no - it wasn't her who tried to pick us up). nice lady. we hit it off from the first moment we met. she knew stbx-Mrs_C and liked her. they had invited us to do things for pretty much the whole time, and started inviting us to the birthday party about 7 years ago. we saw them at a few office/organisation functions and had a good time, but i could never get past that with the stbx.

smitten and i got to the party at about 7:45. we walked in the door and T and a bunch of the guys were watching football (THE team) on the big screen in the living room. the party was well under way in the back yard. it had started at 2pm with various people who had the day off. i stashed the food in the fridge - the party was BYOB and BYO food on the invite - but L had gone to town with a massive table of food and many others else had brought food potluck style (we'll know for next year). we poured ourselves drinks and went out to see what was up. i knew very few people there. i thought the party might not be as fun as i wished. i could tell from smitten's demeanor that the crowd was not quite what she was expecting either. we had been expecting a crowd about our age (L is 43). it was pretty heavy on the greying boomer side of things (no offense to any greying boomers...) - we just felt a little out of place in a crowd that was not a good match demographically, and which obviously knew each other well already. L joined us at the table - there was a couple of other folks as well. everyone was gregarious enough and we loosened quickly. shortly after the football game was over and THE team (our local franchise) had won. the was much rejoicing.

we ate and drank and our table diminished. some other folks i knew arrived and we went to sit with them. they are pretty neat folks. ex-hippie (real hippies) save the earth folks. they had lived around the world and in various strange good works/development exercises. fun and with good stories.

we continued to drink...

after awhile i decided i was going to go in the hot tub. smitten had not brought a suit, but L had thoughtfully bought 6 suits ($7 wal mart specials [not bad style though - basic black]), male/female, s,m,l for anyone who hadn't brought their own.

L keeps her tub just slightly higher than body temperature - so it is not an insanely hot tub. smitten figured she'd be good with that.

did i mention we were drinking?

hot tub sally had been in and out of the tub for awhile. people were drinking in the hot tub and smoking dope.

there were many hoots of appreciation from the audience when we arrived on the scene - smitten is just generally hot, and i was easily the best built guy there (a fair number of middle aged paunches - it wasn't hard to beat the crowd). sally was highly vocal from the first point she saw us. moments after we got in someone brought the jello shooters around. that was the start of the slide into reckless abandon...

[to be continued]