You know you're of a certain age when you have two options of what to do for the evening, and you pick the one that gets you to bed earlier.

I went to New Orleans this weekend for my pregnant-with-twins-friend's baby shower. We had fabulous cheesecake at the bistro, accompanied by much ooh-ing and aww-ing over all the cute baby things. I got books that the children must have read to them in order for them to grow into productive members of society, namely, Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, the first Richard Scarry word book, a copy of I Love You Forever, and a Sandra Boynton book. I think Sandra Boynton may be the latest most brilliant children's book writer. She's fantastic, and I own several of her books just for my own enjoyment. I wanted to get a copy of The Giving Tree, a book that can teach a person so much about life, no matter what age they are, but I thought she might already have that one. My promise to the Twins: I will always buy y'all fabulous books.

Anyway, after the shower, the girls got together to do the post-mortem on the event, and also to spend a couple of hours talking about when we were all in college and Phi Mu together. Obviously, some of us got up to more than others of us, but I won't name names (except to say blue eyeshadow and Louis Vuitton).

I wasn't planning to stay in NOLA overnight, but I got talked into it, and me, Tammy, and Adele headed down to the French Quarter to do a little painting. We planned to paint the town red, but only made it to a slightly pink color. Sheesh. I think Adele was a little disappointed in me. But I haven't spent more than an couple of hours in a bar since I started seminary, and I'd much rather go to a place where I can talk with my friends over a drink, instead of shouting at them over a loud band, while being poked in the back by the couple making out on the bar stool behind me, while inhaling a couple of packs of cigarette smoke.

I think the night really started to wind down when Tammy and I saw an open bookstore that had posters on the walls. The ones we saw were New Orleans architecture prints, and I'm always looking for art, so we strolled in. Now, I have to interject here that Adele knew what the place was, but said nothing. She left us to figure it out on our own. The painting and posters of naked men helped us figure if out pretty quickly. We had wandered into a gay bookstore, fooled by the lovely non-homosexual framed prints we spied from the street.

I can say nothing more on this topic, except to note that we tried to play it totally cool, but failed miserably. Giggling happened. Then we left, with me trying to look only at my feet and not at the giant paintings of penises. (Tammy is a doctor, so she was all,"whatever." And Adele assumed the nonchalant attitude she cultivates at any stupid thing her friends do.