In which we go out to celebrate Primo's birthday and I wonder if people who regularly stay out late know how crappy they feel but I can do it once a year for Primo

It was Primo's birthday yesterday. I made him a cake - chocolate with chocolate frosting.

Primo doesn't think it's dessert if it's not chocolate.

I - and I never thought I would ever say this - get a little tired of chocolate and sometimes want something different.

However, this overweening desire for chocolate chez nous is mostly good, as it means Primo doesn't buy ice cream in non-chocolate flavors. If he would buy salted caramel ice cream or rum raisin, I would eat a lot of it and Primo would eat none of it and I would have to own what I eat, which I hate doing, as I have been on a diet my entire life.

Enough about dieting - I try not to talk about that stuff because it is boring to other people. But after a few days with my mom, it's on my mind. She is 73 years old and still talks about dieting and losing weight and it makes me sad. First, she is not at an unhealthy weight. She is very healthy and she looks like what she is - a 73 year old woman who is not starving to death - and there is nothing wrong with that. I hope - and I am trying - that when I am her age and even before that the main focus of my life is not what I weigh.

I made a chocolate cake for Primo and I bought him some taro chips from the Hawaiian place. I didn't get him a card because there were no new cards with kittens and if the card doesn't have a kitten on it, there's no point, plus Primo and I both agree that four dollars is a little much to pay for a greeting card and we would rather use the money on cinnamon rolls from the good bakery by our house.

But what Primo really wanted was for me to go out with him.

You guys, I hate going out.

I. Hate. It.

I am an introvert. I don't like being in crowds. I don't like being in noisy crowds.

Also.

I do not like to stay up late. I treasure my sleep. I never get enough of it. Primo is always asking me to wait to go to bed with him - he's a night owl - and I tell him I will stay up for him if he will get up, get out of bed, and stay up at 6 a.m. when I have to get up for work.

That usually shuts down the conversation.

Also.

I do not drink. Not for moral or health reasons but just because I do not like the way alcohol tastes. If I am going to imbibe recreational calories, I would rather have butter.

But I went out with him because it was his birthday and he wanted to.

We went to Bar 1 to see his friend's band playing. But it was really loud and nobody else he knew was there. At 10:30, Primo suggested we leave and I got all happy and excited because I thought we were going home.

We were not.

We were going to Bar 2.

"I promised we would be home by around midnight, right?" he asked, which was indeed the case but I had gotten my hopes up about being home by 11.

We got to Bar 2 and it was also loud, but this was karaoke and not a band and I really like the guy who runs the karaoke show - he is the one who helped me set up Primo's Christmas present years ago - an afternoon in a recording studio making a CD. Jon has a friend who has a recording studio in his basement and Jon, Primo, and the guy made a CD! It sounds great and I made this fun CD cover, which you can see above.

Primo asked me what he should sing and I told him "Suspicious Minds," because he does that really well, but he sang, after telling everyone in the bar, "This is my wife! I really do have one! She came out with me because it's my birthday!", "Can't Help Falling in Love With You," which was nice because he was singing about how much he loves me in a public place, but was a little weird because I don't really like that song and what are you supposed to do while your husband is singing about how much he loves you and you don't even have a beer in your hands?

So that was strange but still nice and I am not sure how to handle that kind of thing because I prefer to be controlling events when I am in the spotlight.

Then we went home and it took me days to catch up on my sleep. Maybe next year I can just buy him some kind of cat thing instead of going out with him.