In truth, it's only been three weeks since I was at Jalapenos with them.
I guess that's a sure sign of how much I value these family and friends dinners on Fridays!
Here, in this shot of the guys' side of the table, we had just gotten our meals.
Tony was down talking with Jimmy and Mark, while Smitty was getting ready to dig in to his special.
Remember, it's the same configuration every time, unless they choose a different restaurant.
From the far end, that's Becca, Betsy, Mary, and Laura (though she isn't in the frame of this shot).
I must say, Laura and I had a great time talking about a trip she had last week to honor one of her coworkers.
I'm so glad the company that took over Azalealand shows real interest in making things better there!
I even ordered my usual trio of crunchy beef tacos - cRUncH!!!
But here's where it varied: Tony stood.
Instead of sitting like all the others, he pushed aside his chair and STOOD.
He had offered to help me into one of the high-top chairs, as he and Laura had done for me three weeks ago, but I declined.
And that's when he must have decided to stand along with me.
He didn't make a fuss about it, or even mention that he was doing so, he just quietly stayed on his feet the whole time I was on mine... which was the usual two hours we were all together.
Thank you, my youngest brother, for that choice.
That really showed I was special to you.
He and the other guys, plus Laura and Becca, showed that again later after we'd had a visit by Josh Cowart.
His dad, Larry, had been a regular customer when I worked with Smitty, and his wife died a few months ago.
It seems that Larry, now 76 years old, is dating again.
That sparked a conversation about how long someone should after a spouse dies before they get back in the pool again.
I'm glad Josh had already left.
Mary made a comment about Larry using his money to attract women, and, silly me, I saw that as an opening.
"Well, that's what the man in the Oval Office did. There's no reason a woman would be with him except for his money, because he's such an ugly man."
Betsy jumped in with "Who are you talking about?"
Mary said, "She's talking about the President."
Boy howdy, we were off to the races then!
Both of them started spouting rhetoric about Melania not having needed to marry him for his money, that she was rich from being a model when she met him and so I was wrong, wrong, wrong about that.
They were so fired up that I just shut my mouth and let them simmer down.
I was not about to tell them they were wrong.
When Donald and Melania met 26 years ago, she was making the rounds at parties with her agent, as models are required to do for publicity.
Yes, she was a model, newly relocated from Slovenia, and already 26 years old, making about $40,000 a year after ten years in the business, which is hardly rich, even in 2005 dollars.
She likely made more money when he included her in his Trump Modeling Agency in 1999, but that was while they were dating and before she did the nude photo shoots.
They broke up shortly after, but in 2001 got back together after she got her green card to be working in the United States.
They wed in 2005, prenuptial agreement in place, with them having separate residences and him paying her a stipend.
Odd, right?
That seems more like an action one might take with an escort, which is essentially what Melania was for him.
She didn't even have to stay the entire event with him, just be there at the start so all the media could see him in the presence of a model.
A year into the marriage, in 2006, when she was almost 35 and he was almost 60, they had one child, but that was it.
He already had three children from his first wife and one from the second, and he made it clear to Melania that he would not be helping to raise their son.
The addition of that child didn't help her relationship with Donald; in fact, he started dating models again, to escort him to public events.
What a slimy mongrel.
I feel like the others tonight were aware of the sham of that marriage, and that's why they kept silent.
I have to wonder if Mary and Betsy are aware of how jealous Melania might be of the loving and sharing marriage and family life they have had with their husbands, a marriage with a true partner, not just as head wife of a harem.
I'll just have to remember to not speak of this particular POTUS again for another two years.
By then, the chickens will have come home to roost and his time in the Oval Office will finally be over.
Who knows what will be revealed then?
I'm glad that hiccup in the conversation was only about ten minutes.
That hardly marred my time at Jalapenos.
Tonight was still wonderful and I look forward to the next time I can share the company of my brothers and others.
(smile!)
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