The Move, Part II

Not content with merely hiding condoms from my friend's mother, we naturally decided that it would be a good idea to get her drunk. This is a proud tradition that goes back to a wonderful Chinese restaurant in Albuquerque. My friend and I loved this Chinese restaurant and its special chicken. Even after my ex-husband found a cricket in his soda at this restaurant, we continued to eat there. (We knew the owners, and we had seen the kitchen. The cricket was definitely an anomaly, possibly brought about by my ex-husband's karma. He's an okay guy, but I think he may have had a cricket coming to him.)

Sometime long after I was 21, I went with my friend and his family to this restaurant, and his mother and I got smashed on less than a glass of plum wine. (One glass. Collectively. We are very cheap dates.) Allow me to be clear--his mother and I already liked each other a lot. But never before had we found ourselves so outrageously amusing, so full of cross-generational goodwill. I'm not entirely sure what Dad thought about the whole thing (I think I know, but I choose not to ponder this issue much), but Mom and I had the time of our lives.

Over the years, on rare occasions, the experience has been repeated. Some very nice holidays and very fancy dinners have been brightened considerably by our conviction that we are girlish and charming. So when, after a day of 104 degree weather when she'd been working like a tartar helping my friend move, I pointed out that bellinis were fruity and frozen, it was the beginning of a night of uncharted alcoholism.

We each drank two (2) bellinis. Remember, please, that we are talking about women who get drunk sniffing the cork from a bottle of wine. We were hammered, and it was truly delightful. There are not many people I'd get drunk with, and only one of those people is like a mother to me. And I'm very, very proud to have sent her home with a hangover.