But it's not supposed to be either.

Saturday night was date night. Thanks to the kindness of my company and co-workers, the wife and I had a little motivation to go out and eat somewhere nice, and just the two of us.

Since my mother-in-law couldn't make it to babysit, my folks graciously accepted our "offer" to come over and "play with the kids."

Right. Urchin 1.0 had about seven hours of sleep and urchin 2.0 was 7 weeks old. Fun times.

So we spent most of Friday and Saturday trying to figure out where to go. What we found out was, if you wait until Friday night / Saturday to decide what nice restaurant you're gonna eat at, you are going to have SEVERELY limited your choices. Stoney River couldn't seat us until after 9pm, and the same went for Garrison's. Even PF Chang's said it'd be at least 8:30 until we got a table. So it was either Outback Steakhouse or California Dreamings. Since we'd already had Outback before, we decided to try something new and have dinner (not snacks) at California Dreaming.

So we got there about 6:25 and hit the bar. We figured there was no rush, so why not have a couple of cocktails and wait for our table?

Which came available (thanks to the coaster buzzer) at 6:31pm.

We took our time (or so we thought), and got the seafood nachos and brought our beers, and then we finally settled on the fried flounder and the fried crab claws and finished with a nice piece of cheesecake.

We also had some great conversation, which you take for granted a lot when one of you is constantly saying "Lauren...no. Did you not hear me? You'd better....." You get the point.

Anyway, for the first time we really talked alot about what we've been through since Halloween. I mean, we had talked before, but it was more on a surface level. After all, it's not like the wife got to sit at my bedside and dote on me. She had a daughter to take care of and she had to get ready for urchin 2.0 whose arrival was far more iminent than we'd thought.

So we took our time and really enjoyed our dinner and especially the conversation. I don't know how we waited 8 months to go out with urchin 1.0, but this was our 3rd time out with this one, and I'll not refuse a babysitting offer ever from now on.

We talked about everything, but then we finally boiled it down and talked a lot about mortality, fear of death, luck, karma, fate, etc. Ultimately we kind of decided that there had to be more in play than dumb luck and anything like it. There's a reason I got a pass, and we don't know what it is.

But I've decided that I think I want to try going to church.

I'll give those of you that know me fairly well a moment to either get up off the floor courtesy of some smelling salts or to wipe the beverage remnants off of your computer monitors and screens.

Now there are two things you need to know about me if you don't already.

1) Organized religion makes me nervous.
2) Singing in public with strangers makes me very VERY nervous.

That said, there's this. Although I've never been a big believer, I see the benefits of church. It's great for the kids. I think it's healthy for kids to try to get a belief system developed as well as a sense of fear of something bigger judging them for their actions. I don't mean an angry God. I just mean it's good for kids to be held accountable (in their own minds) to something bigger than mom and dad.

Also, I think there's a lot to be gained by going to a church in your area as it relates to being involved in the community. Like them or not, churches do good work. It's funny (in my twisted brain) that the Catholic church does so much good around the world yet can't stop hurting their little parishoners, but I digress...

I'm sure that you (and my parents and my wife's family) are wondering what church or religion we'll pick. After all, I was raised Lutheran and my wife was raised Catholic. In the end there were a couple of things that swung the vote to the side of the folks who confess everything:

1) There are no Lutheran churches near us that I know of and I haven't found any Lutherans (practicing anyway) in our area. I'm sure they're there, but if I don't know them by now, it's their loss.

2) Lutheran and Catholicism are very similar. Lutherans just do less kneeling and more singing. I think drinking is a wash.

3) We know of a good Catholic church that's very nearby that is highly thought of by a number of our friends. Oh, and did I mention that the Catholics offer Saturday afternoon church, leaving your Sundays free for football and the races and such? That's a good marketing point. They oughta work that into their brochures.

So there it is. Over some fried seafood, the wife and I decided to drastically change the course of our lives, at least religiously speaking.

I don't know if this adequately explains why this came up at our house. I can only say that thinking about your own mortality is drastically different than facing your own mortality. It's very easy in the abstract to have a set of beliefs, but when put to the test, they might not hold up as well as you might have thought. Not to get too deep here, but I also think that facing one's own mortality at age 77 would be a good deal easier than facing it at 37, which I did and continue to do.

I only hope if you see us there, you'll keep your eyes on your own hymnal and not worry about what I'm doing. I'm probably reading a book. And not the one that they give you there.

p.s. Robert, you can keep your cakehole shut. No one wants to hear from you. Besides, you're Catholic anyway you heathen bastard.

Oh, I guess I should finish the story.

After making such a potentially life-altering decision, we looked at the clock and realized that it was 7:20pm.

Seven freaking twenty. We had babysitters lined up for the night, and we were finished with our dinner like two Amish teenagers rushing to get home for a milking. And no, that's not a euphamism for anything.

We called the Gwinnett Arena to see if the Gladiators were in town, and we called a few friends, but we ended up...

Going to the mall. For walking shoes. You know, for the treadmill. Of course, you can walk in them anywhere, but I needed new shoes for my exercising, which is walking, ergo walking shoes.

Oh, and we bought some cute shoes for Sophia at Nordstrom's and then some great (but rather expensive) fabric softener. Then it was off to Barnes and Noble for the live Big Head Todd and the Monsters cd and a couple of discount hardbacks. For an avid reader, there is nothing quite like the table that says "former best selling hardbacks at discounted prices," and then finding interesting books for $5.88 and less.

For those of you not familiar with BHTM, you're not alone. But they are the performers of my favorite song whose CD I did not own...until Saturday. You can read about the band here:

Linkage

I also bought a fabulous cd I'd never seen before with five songs from both Cinderella and L.A. Guns. And before you ask, yes...it TOTALLY RULES!!

Then, it was back to the car and home by 9:30pm. Nice job, old people. Maybe next time we'll catch a movie first and THEN eat dinner. Otherwise, we may end up home before dark.

So in summation, we had dinner, decided to change our life's direction spiritually, and then bought some hair-metal cd's. How's that for odd?