Saints and Poets and Friday Night Lights

Emily:  ... Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it -- every, every minute?
Stage Manager:  No -- Saints and poets maybe -- they do some.

It is Friday night.

You'll have to excuse me if I am particularly pre-nostalgic over the life I'm living right now.  It's just that it's the start of the school year, the fall, a little crazy, a little stressful, and utterly, utterly normal. 

God, normal tastes delicious.

But as I was saying ... It is Friday night.

The Boy is across town, playing sax in the high school marching band at a football game.

The Husband came home from work and the girls and I piled into his car.  Went to a local Tex-Mex hangout.  Husband has said he'll go pick The Boy up (probably about 11 pm) when they get back from the game, so I was free to have a happy hour margarita.  Whoo-hoo!  It comes in a glass so heavy I'm afraid to pick it up and happily, tastes of fresh lime juice rather than the pickled taste of mixer.  Thank you, Jesus, for good margaritas.  And by Jesus, I mean the man behind the bar, Hay-zeus.

Chili con queso and chips and crispy beef tacos (with potato) and cheese enchiladas with chili gravy.  And a short Mexican man with a keyboard, playing -- I do not lie -- The Macarena, followed by "You Sang to Me."  LW gives her daddy Big Huge Eyes behind her glasses and cons him into going over and dancing with her.  He's a sucker for all of his kids.  His wife, too.

Friday night.  The restaurant is crowded and it seems like there are high chairs at just about every table.  The Princess and The Husband are teasing each other now, and for the millionth time, I threaten to separate them.  "You're a bad influence on your father," I tell my eldest daughter.  She smiles proudly.

She and Bo Peep have both cleaned their plates.  I give them each a bite of my cheese enchiladas, off my fork.  "Hope none of us are sick," I mutter to The Husband. 

Well, if they get a bite, then LW wants a bite, even though she hasn't finished her own dinner.  I sigh, and give her the last piece.

I'm certainly not a saint, and not much of a poet.  And I disagree with Thornton Wilder.  I think most of us realize life.  Oh, okay, maybe not every, every minute.  But a whole lot of the time.

Give us a good margarita, some gooey yellow cheese spilling across brown chili gravy, and those Friday night lights, and we realize how good we have it.