Retirement Off to a Great Start

Last night I went up to my new haunt, Kenny's, to celebrate the start of my retirement. A great time was had by all.

When I walked in the door Billy the bartender started clapping and announced to the bar that I had retired today. Everyone appauded right along with him. I received a lot of pats on the back and hand shakes of congratulations. Billy poured me one of the many shots of Kamakazies he poured for me last night.

I ordered a Blue Point Winter ale, which is my beer of choice for now, and had a dinner of scallops, fresh spinich and potatos which was excellent as always. Then my good friend Scott from work showed to help me celebrate. I hung out talking to different people waiting for the band to start when the people I was talking to, stopped talking and started staring at something behind me. I turned to see what it was and it was Arlene. "WOW, you made it after all!" I said. Her friend Kati dropped her off. Arlene and I were supposed to go out tonight, but we are due to be hit with a blizzard tonight so she said she would try and make it last night. I'm glad she did, because we had a great time last night.

The band started and a short time later my son Brian's best friends TK, came in. He informed us that Brian and Cheryl, Brian's girl friend, were coming up in a little while too. Arelene became a little nervous about meeting Brian, which was understandable. You see, Arlene is the first woman I've dated since my wife Barbara passed away and neither she nor I knew how he would react meeting her. Brian knows I'm seeing Arlene and doesn't seem to have a problem with it at all. Matter a fact, he tells me he is happy for me.

About a 1/2 hour later Brian and Cheryl came in. I introduced them to Arlene. I'm very happy to say, he shook her hand and gave her her a kiss on the cheek. "GREAT!" was what I was thinking. I think if Brian really had a problem with me seeing Arlene, he would have just politly shook her hand and been done with it. More drinks and more shots of Kamakazies later Brian, Cheryl and TK left to go to a different club with people more their own age. Brian gave Arlene a kiss on the cheek goodbye then too.

At one point during the evening, Arlene went to the ladies room and all my friends from the bar couldn't wait to tell me how much they liked Arlene and how lucky I was. "WOO HOO!" now even my friends like her. Truthfully, I wasn't really surprised my friends would like her, because she really is everything, and more, I've been telling you about her. (No Arlene, I'm not going to stop complimenting you.) I was a little nervous, like Arlene, about how my son would react. So I'm glad it went so well.

Edit: The next day when I saw Brian, I told him that Arlene was nervous meeting him, not knowing how he would feel about meeting her. He smiled a big smile, laughed a lttle and asked me why. I told him and just laughed again and told me that he thinks she's very nice.

No wonder I love him so much.