An evening with Our-Hero-Charlie-the-Vanquisher

TheCSO and I were feeling peckish yesterday afternoon, so we headed over to the shabby little game store in the next town over to hang out with the our friend Tina, who works there. She's married to Our-hero-Charlie-the-Vanquisher, a beloved ex-boyfriend of CC's. Tina is pregnant, which is still a bit of a head trip for CC. ((So you don't have to follow the link: CC dated OHCTV off and on for seven years. He wants give his first born son the first and middle name "Charles Fredrick," a name which goes back five generations in his family. We figured we'd call him "Fred." So off and on for seven years, CC imagined herself the mother of a kid named Fred and now his wife is going to bear a Fred instead. I don't in any way envy her and she's much better suited to OHCTV than I ever was. It's not about the guy, it's about my loose conception of what Fred would be like. (Which is either more or less disturbing depending on one's prespective.) But it's still a headtrip. Luckily, it won't be right now. Tina's having a girl and naming her "Victoria," which a certain blogger is welcome to consider a shout-out, though it isn't one.))

Anyway, there was an active Axis and Allies game going on, so theCSO and Charlie and I played Arkham Asylum, which we won twice. (Arkham Asylum is a cooperative board game that you play against the game. You should play it. It's fun. It takes hours and is incredibly freaking complicated, but it's fun.) At one point Tina said of Charlie and me "You two argue like a brother and a sister. Of course, that would make the stuff that happened in high school kinda gross..."

We decided to go out for dinner. Tina drove my car and talked to TheCSO, I was the passenger in OHCTV's car. As we drove, I asked Charlie if Tina would be having a baby shower.

"I don't think so," Charlie said. "She doesn't have that many female friends and the ones she has are really poor."

(And a collective sigh of "awww..." goes up from my readership.)

Oh fine.

We got to the restaurant and we all sat down.

"So," I said. "Can I throw the baby shower?"

Tina was very excited and very happy. Her mom is in Idaho, so I tentatively suggested that in addittion to her female friends, we invite her stepmother and her sisters, Charlie's mother and sister, my mother and a math teacher she and I both liked in high school. (I haven't mentioned that I've known Tina for fourteen years, too, have I? She's the one who engineered Charlie and I getting together in the first place.) She started listing off the female friends she did have, and she actually got quite a list together.

We will have it at TheChaliceabode. The baby is expected in August, so we will probably have it in June, perhaps the Saturday before I leave for GA. The CSO will like that as this means I will want to do a bunch more work on the house by then and probably do some repainting in the living room. I'll put up a buffet of snacks in the study, we will play whatever sort of games people play in the living room. Goodness knows I've never thrown a baby shower before, but I assume there are books on the subject. I'm sure that it will be a nice party.

But me throwing a baby shower might be the biggest headtrip of all. Honestly, it's like going to Richard Dawkins for spiritual counseling.

CC