So, at what point do you decide to ditch your flakey friends?

I had plans last night to go out with some girlfriends. I actually made plans with my friend Mimi, who always goes out with a certain group of single girls- among them the Russian, the Model, the Fashionista, the PR, the Rich Student, etc- who I don't know very well, because they are all single and working and I spend some nights out with my husband, some with our married friends, and some with my mommy friends. Our social lives aren't the same obviously, but they have a big overlap. They don't mind if I come along because I more than pay my way and I don't compete with them for the single guys. I like them because I get so horrifically bored talking about real estate, finding a good cleaning lady, and nice parks for kids. I absolutely need to pretend atleast once a week that I am what I was- although as they all start to reach their 30's, once a week is enough of that lifestyle, which starts to seem a bit desperate and forced. Its like how in the last season of Sex in the City, you started to laugh a bit less and feel bad for them- praying that Carrie and Big would sort something out before the episode where she receives her first issue of AARP in the post.

I hadn't seen the girls this last weekend, so I was going through my emails and looking at the invites I had for parties on Halloween night and thought it would be fun to do something with them. It was already Tuesday afternoon, so a bit lastminute, but you know, everyone had Wednesday off, so I didn't think it would require that much organization to get people to go out. I talked to Mimi and she didn't have any plans. I sent her the invites I had and said I thought it would be fun to go to Regines, I hadn't been in ages. She was more interested but said that she would give some other people a call to see if there was anything really really good going on and would call me back at around 8:30/9. That was perfect because I had planned a big dinner at the house and didn't want to leave until after.

When B got home, I checked that he didn't mind doing some babysitting- I knew that he had plans for Wednesday so atleast it would be a fair trade this week. I made dinner and we sat down with wine for a nice meal, but we finished and there was no call from Mimi. I blew out my hair, fixed my make-up, but still no call from Mimi. Now, Mimi has been known to cancel- especially when it is just girls going out and she will be paying for herself. Realizing that it was almost 9 and she hadn't called yet, I rang her up so that I knew our plans and could pick out something to wear. No answer. I left a message but was already seeing red. I flopped on the sofa and said that I wasn't changing my clothes until she called me, that ?*!&*§ I just knew she was backing out and I had been really looking forward to a fun night out. Right in the middle of my tantrum, the phone rang- it could only be Mimi. I sent a silent apology her way and jumped up for phone, happy to have been completely wrong about her flakey-ness.

So I tell Mimi how I was just moaning about how sure I was that she was going to cancel, she had fallen asleep on the sofa and wouldn't be coming out, and wasn't I silly? Yeah, not so much. She tells me how her two other girlfriends, the Russian and the model, got in a fight on Sat night over which club to go to and weren't speaking still today. She was still planning on meeting with the Russian until the Russian pointed out that everything near the Champs was paying at the door, which she didn't want to do so she wanted to go to the Casbah. But Mimi pointed out that we would NEVER get taxis home in that neighborhood. So they decided that in any case, there would be too many awful people out on Halloween and everywhere would suck so it would be better to stay home. Didn't I agree?

Oh, well when you put it like that...

What really happened is that all the Wallets decided not to go out and so the single girls decided that it really wasn't worth a night out. I hate these girls sometimes. I get that they go out 4 or 5 nights a week so one night in is no big deal. But I have so much planning to do! I have to get a babysitter, I have to make sure Ella is gone the next morning so I can sleep off my hangover, I have to make sure that B has a night out in the cards so that we can have equal alone time. But then, its not like I have a back-up group of girlfriends; this is it. So really, the question of "When do you dump your flakey friends?" is totally rhetorical. I'll keep putting up with it until I have an alternative, which yeah, is easier said than done.

To top it all off, I couldn't even sit home and open up a bottle of champagne to drown my sorrows because we cleaned out all our stock before dear (champagne-swilling) Elizabeth left town and now the cave is filled up with red wine. Sitting home and drinking a bottle of red wine is not nearly decadent enough to make me feel better, so instead it was Pellegrino and an early bedtime. But I swear, if those bitches don't make it up to me this weekend, we are finished.