It's one thing, to "know" you look like hell.

It's a totally different LEVEL of a thing, to see that the rest of the world pretty much agrees with you.

Hubby and I don't get out much. He is kind of a homebody, and we are on the broke side, and there's the whole responsible parenting thing. But I do remember, years ago when I was a single girl and kinda cute, spending my weekends dancing and flirting and generally feeling like hot stuff.

Soooo, the tide is turning. The Sons are of an age that they are well and truly able to fend for themselves for as long as we'd like to be gone. Hubby has discovered that the best way to get back into a band is to hang around where musicians go, and get his awesome, bass-playin', drum-beatin', guitar-mastering self planted deep in the minds of every single musician in the tri-county area. And a young guy Hubby once gave a couple of bass lessons to, when he was but a 6th grader with a dream, is performing with his band at a bar not far from home. So tonight, at last, I get to leave the house for more than dinner and a crappy movie.

Movies being, in my mind, a pretty lousy way to pass the time, unless you are making out in the back row of the theater.

We hit the little local bar. It is a nice place, despite the fact that just a few weeks ago a guy was shot and killed in a fight in the back parking lot. Damien, the Hubby's bass playing protege, is awesome, and his band plays some great ska. We are having a blast.

Damien gets off stage and Hubby offers to buy him a beer. We hang out, chat, drink, smoke and generally relax. While Hubby and Damien are loading the band's equipment into a waiting car, I sit at the bar and listen to the second act. The barmaid, who has been sending free Jagermeister shots our way, smiles at me and asks if the bass player is my son.

My freakin' SON.

Holy crap on a cracker, I need to get out of that bar.

Sooo, we head to a second place. Nice little local dive. The band, Niki Barr, is awesome, playing mostly original stuff with the occasional cover of something we recognize.

Two men flirted with me. Respectable, right? Plenty to make a woman feel like she's still got a little bit of what her momma gave her, right?

not tonight, ok?

The first guy was a fairly attractive, light-skinned Hispanic with an accent and a helluva lot of jailhouse tattoos. And then there was the second guy.

The second guy?

The second guy had a hook.

As God is my witness, I am going for a run this morning.