Girls Night Out
or
Daddy's Working Late

June 30, 1999

Chuck's job periodically requires that he work evenings--he teaches class from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Since he teaches at hospitals I guess this makes perfect sense. These people work 24/7 so it stands to reason some of these employees are not around during your standard 8-5 kinda day.

When Chuck has to work evenings I have to leave the office early to pick up Zoe. She has to be picked up by 6:00 or we get charged something like $5.00 a minute for every minute we're late. We've only been late twice. (I wish I made $5.00 a minute at my job.) If I leave the office by 5 I'm there in plenty of time. (Normally I work until 5:30.)

Tonight Chuck had an evening class. Things were made a bit easier picking Zoe up today since I didn't go to work today. I just felt crappy this morning. (I'm still taking all kinds of hormones--no shots though--so I'm not at my sterling best.)

On nights when it's just me and Zoe we usually plan stuff and do the kinds of things we don't when Chuck is around. Usually we have night of beauty: we take a bath together, I give her a hairdo, sometimes I put a curler or two in her hair, and then we usually do our nails. I know, really high speed stuff.

Tonight we varied the routine.

Tonight we made pizza and ice cream cones. It was a hoot. We got Boboli's, sauce, and some pepperoni and had at it. After a 15 minute debate as to why we couldn't have ice cream first--a debate that wasn't helped when my father called in the middle of it and said I should tell Zoe that he said it was fine if she had the ice cream first (I didn't).

We finally got to the place in the discussion where I was finished and it was made very clear that it was pizza first.

So, we washed our hands in the kitchen sink (we can't use Zoe's sink because there is a June bug living there and according to Zoe "you can't kill Mother Nature"), and donned our aprons. We laid out all the ingredients and had at it. She spread the sauce on hers, I on mine. Then we did the cheese. She was really good with the cheese part. Then she put pepperoni on hers. She was very precise in the positioning of her pepperoni. We popped the pizza in the oven.

Zoe has been helping me cook for quite some time now. She is pretty good at stirring and doesn't let too much slop over the sides of the bowl.

Five minutes after they went in the oven she wanted to know if they were done. Then two minutes later. Then one minute later. Then three minutes later. So I took the pizza out of the oven. The cheese was mostly melted and she doesn't like her food hot anyway.

The pizza was pretty good. I got Boboli brand pizza sauce and it was a bit too sweet for my taste but she liked it.

Then we had ice cream cones. She picked strawberry ice cream at the store and some cones that had chocolate on them. We had also picked up some chocolate sprinkles but forgot to put those on our cones. We had our cones outside.

After ice cream we had a quick bath, stories, and to bed.

OK, it's not like the girl's nights out of my past but I would consider this one a huge success.

Until next time. . .