So, back to my night ‘o fun with my friend Brian. First of all, you must meet the cast of characters. The main players would be, well, let’s face it, the evening revolved around me…oh, no, wait, I mean Brian and his partner Michael. Maxine is Michael’s best girl friend who was at one time, his GIRLfriend. I was introduced by Brian that night as, “this is Jenny, my Maxine” or “this is my The One.” So, I was Brian’s – The One (the one girlfriend, that is). And Rebecca was, “Oh! You’re Joe’s Jenny?” or “This is Rebecca, Joe’s Maxine.” Rebecca was Joe’s Last One. Rebecca was a little nervous about seeing Joe – and all of his friends again – since the last time she saw all of them he and she were dating, but it was weird as he was in the figuring-things-out process. (I was told that Brian had figured things out, so to speak,while sitting at a table at an outdoor café in Northern France. What a place to hear, “So, you know how we kind of all used to joke that Brian was gay….yeah…well, there’s something you should know…Oh, and he’s also with a man named Michael now.” I will always wonder what those poor French people thought of my reaction: “NO WAY! ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW?! NO WAY!!!! But yeah, I can sort of see that, but still NO WAY!).

When we got to the brewery, we sat down at one end of a long table, at the other end was Joe who was totally ignoring us – but wait! On closer inspection, I realized quite quickly that it wasn’t Joe –this man just looked EXACTLY like him. Rebecca – not having seen Joe in a while – thought it was Joe and was wondering why the heck he was ignoring her; he was being rude and making an already awkward situation even worse. When Michael came to sit with us, I said, “Who is that guy? Imitation Joe?” Michael said, “Yeah, don’t they look exactly alike?! That’s Joel – Jewish Joe.”

Soon, the “real” Joe arrived and we had a fantastic and awkward-free reunion. We asked Joe about Joel. Joe told us about his first time meeting Imitation Him – the Jewish version, a few weeks previous. Joe had gone to dinner with Brian and Michael and knew that their friend Joel would be there as well. Joe couldn’t believe his eyes when he sat down at the table across from Joel. He said that he literally sat there staring at Joel, slowly moving his arm, itching his nose, scratching his head, etc. to see if Joel would move like a reflection in a mirror. Apparently Jewish Joe wasn’t so quick on the uptake and didn’t figure out what Joe was doing for a while. Seriously though, Joel could be Joe’s stunt double; Joe loved that idea.

Moving on to Sheila – who Brian describes as his “Karen Walker” (a character from the TV show Will and Grace). Sheila is Brian’s great, great super-fun friend who I knew back in high school (when they were first starting college). I later met Kelly – described as Michael’s Jewish Sheila/Karen Walker. Maxine (Michael’s Me – if you’ll recall) ended up marrying Brian’s good friend Dave. And the two worlds collided. We were all joking that if we could just take our show on tour, then we’d really have something. Throw in a few dysfunctional family-type holiday dinner gatherings and we could go on Oprah!

After a bit, it was determined that some dancing was in order. I was 100% game for dancing as it’s been way too long since I shook my thang out on the dance floor. And let’s face it: this thang needs to be a-shakin’ as I’m quite the shaker of my thang. Mike thought it was hilarious that I was going to go out dancing on a “school night” (every night is a school night for me – I’m studying the art of being a mommy and have yet to pass with flying colors. And every day has an early start). When I called to tell him that the party was regrouping and relocating for further partying, it was already 11pm. (On a normal night, I would’ve have been tucked in by 10:30, ideally). I estimated that I’d like to be home by 1. Crazy talk!

When we all arrived at the club, it was evident that some of our extreme dancing skills were in order to get the crowd going. Brian and I, especially, really ripped up the dance floor. Although, it must be said, that Brian’s friend Anthony did a phenomenal performance of Michael Jackson’s Thriller. My hat’s off to him (as well as my white glove). It turns out that my dance moves can last about 2.5 hours before I start running low on creativity. I had a GREAT time. Rebecca did as well, though she took one for Team Beauty – her shoes were hurting her so badly after dancing, that she walked barefoot back to my car. I made it home at 1 on the dot. Phew! Just made curfew. I managed to get up at 7 the next morning to get ready for my Halloween music classes. A different kind of celebration than the night previous, but fun too!