Dinner Out With Friends

Today was a pretty quiet day. Santi sat working on her new design set (that's almost finished by the way) and I piddled with the Trunk Show CD. She looked over at me this afternoon and asked me what was wrong, I was being so quiet. If you know me, you know this doesn't happen often! I turned and looked at her and said, "you're working and you're on a roll and I'm not going to bother you!" The phones and visitors were very quiet today and the muse was sitting on her shoulder whispering to her. I didn't want to scare the muse away! She's at a point where she is doing some very intricate fine tuning on her set and distractions right now can cause her to lose track of where she is and what she has done so far and that is extremely frustrating to anyone who is that focused on a project!

Tonight we had dinner plans with friends of Peter, Estelle and Frank. You know how it is when you first meet someone, you're not sure exactly how formal or informal you should be. But, being Peter's friends, I kind of expected them to be down to Earth and they were! They are such a fun couple, we sat around the table talking and laughing until about half an hour after the restaurant closed (ooops)! No one knew the place closes at 10pm, they thought it was 11pm! And the staff said NOTHING and continued to bring coffee and drinks after business hours! We finally noticed that the staff was doing their closing work and we decided we should be nice and let them go home.

They told stories about Peter and I told stories about traveling with Santi and I think we were laughing so loud we may have encouraged a few other diners to leave a little early? We talked about the differences between South Africa and the States for a while but it didn't take long before we were off topic (like the list gets at times :) and back to laughing and joking around. I really did enjoy the evening, I felt like I had known Estelle and Frank for years! Estelle and Santi sipped their wine but I guess they had been together often enough to know that although the boys drove us, the girls would be driving home! I did threaten Peter that I would be driving and not Santi, she really doesn't like driving at night. OK keep in mind that this was not long after Santi told on me for almost getting run over in the street not long after I arrived! These people drive not only on the wrong side of the road but on the wrong side of the car! Every time they turn I'm thinking they are turning into on coming traffic! It can be quite disorientating really. You are sitting there, letting your mind wander and soak in the view and all of the sudden you hear the van kind of lag a bit and you start going for the clutch to down shift!

I USED to laugh when we were traveling and Santi would head out to the van and walk up the (our) drivers door! I would hold out the keys and tell her, "oh, you decided to drive for a while?" I'll never do that again! I find myself doing the same thing. I keep telling myself "passenger, passenger, passenger" cause with or without Santi, I'm usually the driver. OK so "passenger" here is on the drivers side of the car! I'm getting better about walking to the car thinking, "driver, driver, driver" now. 9 out of 10 times I do find the right car door but at the same time I'm wondering where my keys are and who stole my steering wheel!

So we get Peter home and he's still feeling pretty good with a smile on his face even though we picked on his most of the night. Peter can take a joke! Frank asked how long I had been here and before I could say "3 weeks" he popped up with 3 months. I told him it just seemed like 3 months cause he was having too much fun! They have a good family friend Pam and quite often they'll say Pam instead of Pat, or Pam Pat LOL Tonight when Peter would call me Pam I told him Pam couldn't hear him did he want the cell phone? So can you get an idea of how much fun this evening was?

By the time we left it was drizzling outside, but it wasn't cold. Peter is pushing me out into the rain as we continue to talk and laugh and again I threaten him with me driving home on the wrong side of the road! He just had to guess who's "wrong side" I was talking about! We finally said our good byes and headed out to the car. Peter was probably OK to drive after wine with his dinner but Santi took the keys and showed him where the back seat of her 2 door 4 wheel drive (this isn't like Cara's 4 wheel drive mind you, it's a real one). Being "company" I get the passenger seat :) Now, before you get the wrong idea here, Peter really doesn't drink that much. He may have a glass of wine with dinner, but that's about it. Tonight was an exception. He and Santi hadn't seen Estelle and Frank for some time and you know how the boys get when you let them out to play!

Unfortunately for Peter, Santi and I were in a playful mood... so things didn't get any better for him once we got back home ;) Let's see, Santi locked the security door and told Peter HE had the keys to it. We had him wandering around to find where he had "dropped" his key chain (it had slipped his mind that Santi had his keys because she drove him home). Once he "found" the keys it didn't stop then, we just kept on him until he finally gave up and went to bed! Of course Santi and I continued to laugh about how he kept looking for the keys until she finally gave up and went to bed. Poor thing was so tired, not only has she had me for 3 weeks Monday was Mari's birthday (Happy Birthday Mari!) and Santi and Mari hadn't had much "sister time" since before I got here, while I was at Cara's for dinner last night she and Mari spent some quiet time together. Like sisters do, they were up late talking, so Santi was worn out tonight.

I'm heading off to bed myself now. My Social Directors may have told me if I have plans for tomorrow, but if they did that information flew out the window at some point! I am sorry to say that I didn't take my camera with me tonight but Frank and Estelle want to get together again before I leave and I promise to take the camera with me when we go! I've had requests for more "people" pictures and after reviewing the photos, I see I have been slacking off on that part of my "job" here. I will do much better and stock you up on photos of the family and extended family before I leave, I promise!