Best. Weekend. Ever

In the middle of the weekend, I received a text message from perhaps my last single (longtime) friend: “Have had the best weekend ever. She’s the one.” I wrote back asking if he meant, “The ONE, the one.” He affirmed. Knowing this friend as I do, I imagine that “best weekend ever” means a tremendous amount of time spent in bed doing things that mere mortals only see in porn – only to be interrupted by a gourmet meal and three bottles of stellar wine (which could also be in bed – not sure). Regardless, the simple text message, which came in the middle of what I considered one of my best weekends ever, gave tremendous pause for thought. My friend was (is?) the guy through which all us married folk lived vicariously. We’d listen to his tales of extensive conquests (tales of tail?) and give him virtual pats on the back as he detailed the who, when and where of each weekend. These would almost always be accompanied by some picture taken on the iPhone, so we could put a face to the story. Somewhere along the way, however, instead of being fodder for envy, the stories simply became depressing and sad. “Dude, don’t you want a family?” I’d ask. (No, I don’t think that everyone does, but I did know that if you were able to strip away the strippers, my friend wanted the family.) He would always give me some kind of crap about not settling and finding the perfect woman. Halfway through this speech, he always started sounding like Charlie Brown’s teacher, “Wah WAH, wah, waH, wAh WAHHHHH…” So, along comes this text. He’s proclaiming his best weekend ever and, while I’m happy for him – I don’t think it can compete with the weekend we had. Saturday morning started with music class. K-Man loves to dance, sing and show off his moves with the rainbow ribbons. From there, we drove up to wine country, where our friends had invited us to spend the day and evening. A day filled with romping around acres of lawns, rolling down hills, sliding down zip lines and flying on swings. Lest there be any question about how much fun was had – K-Man slept 13 hours after this day and G and I slept 11. The perfect day is often measured by the amount of sleep it triggers. We were barely getting started. Sunday brought a trip to the zoo. K-Man has been to the zoo before, but this was the first time that we’ve gone when he knew all the animals. He was wide-eyed and in awe as we quite literally saw lions and tigers and bears, oh my! (And giraffes, hyenas, meerkats, monkeys, tortoises, rabbits, lemurs and more.) The zoo was exciting enough for a three-hour nap. Then an evening filled with more music, dancing and driving the fire truck up and down the hardwood floors. Eleven hours later, he’s still asleep. I thought about texting my friend this morning to compare notes, but he’d never understand. There’s no way that he’d possible comprehend that my weekend was truly the best ever. There’s no way he could fathom that a weekend filled with family and friend, music and good grub could trump whatever it was he was doing. (I actually hesitate to even imagine it.) But, the fact is, if his current girlfriend is truly, “The ONE,” he may very well figure it out soon enough. He may finally figure out what I’ve been trying to tell him for the last seven (and especially the last two-and-a-half) years. A trip to the zoo is better than sex? Oddly enough…yes. I don’t know of anything that’s ever made me feel as good as the smile on K-Man’s face or the sound of his ongoing laughter and singing. Best weekend ever. I just had it and I know that my friend will someday understand it too.