Trish #1 and I carpooled and discovered, somewhat to our surprise, parking on the street near the hotel was impossible. Alas, it was Prom night and the streets were parked full by those who hadn't sprung for a limo. After some fruitless driving in circles we finally parked at the Grace Cathedral parking garage. As we walked to the hotel we passed a wedding party being photographed on the opulent lawn of the Pacific Union Club (a chocolate-brown sandstone mansion built as the residence of mining pioneer, banker and robber baron James Flood in the 1870's) across the street. Everyone looked impossibly beautiful and handsome and well dressed. Nob Hill is a good place to watch the very, very rich disporting themselves.

As we walked into the hotel we spotted Lunesse in the hallway outside the lounge. She had just changed from her motorcycle leathers into something pink and sparkly in honor of Jen's favorite phrase. The three of us colonized a table and I put on my glittery tiara, the better for our guests to spot us. As soon as we'd ordered drinks with embarrassing names (required at all Tiki bars) Jen Wade showed up with Mo and Josh and Jen... oh, this will get too complicated, I can see that right now. I'd better start calling Jen Wade Dr. Jen as she is, in fact, obtaining her doctorate this year. And the other Jen will be La Jen because that is what the French to do distinguish a star, and she was the star of the evening.

The seven of us laughed, and talked, and drank our Tonga Tarts and Bora Bora Horrors. There was a lot of pinkness and sparkliness among the crowd. Josh wore a tie as his contribution to festive attire since he refused to wear pink or sparkles. Trish brought three types of cameras and documented everything. Her Polaroids of us were promptly dubbed Rookie cards; she promised to post them on her web site with appropriate names for us. Eleanor dropped by to give the guest of honor a homemade brownie and to entertain us with tales of good sex and friends who were boys but were not boyfriends. Also she gave us the lowdown on La Jen's party behavior the night before. Let's just say moaning was involved.

Three or four times during the evening we were startled nearly out of our skins by the "thunder" of a tropical storm. See, the great thing about the Tonga Room, besides the fact that it's the largest and fanciest Tiki lounge in San Francisco, is the fake thunderstorms that occur every half hour or whenever the bartender pushes the special button next to the indoor waterfall. Unluckily, we were sitting directly beneath a speaker, so every time the storm swept over the lagoon we were blasted with painfully loud recorded thunder and some kind of wild bongo drum theme music.

After two hours we decided no one else was coming so we wandered up to the main lobby to admire its opulence. We were meeting Michael (unlinked because his diary Irregular Joe is on hiatus) and Paula there, and it gave us a chance to look at all the prom goers. Luny cracked me up with her reminiscences of her New Jersey high school proms, and Dr. Jen swore hers was the lamest ever but I never found out why. Suddenly, Karen showed up! We were delighted to see her. We almost missed her because we didn't stay the full two and a half hours designated as party time at the Tonga Room, so I was very happy she thought to come up to the lobby. We meant to go to a Chinese restaurant for dinner, but apparently La Jen had eaten nothing but Asian food her entire vacation and wanted a change. There not being much in the way of affordable or interesting food downtown, we all went to the Haight for dinner at the Squat and Gobble. Trish drove, following Luny on a wild ride over the hills of San Francisco with La Jen and I squashed up against Josh in the back seat, bumping our heads on the roof of the car. I pointed out all the places I used to live, despite absolutely no one but myself having any interest in this. I always do that, though.

The Squat and Gobble is a strange name, but it's not a strange place, and they have an amazing variety of food to choose from. During dinner Luny wowwed us with the revelation that she does, contrary to some people's belief, do volunteer work that she never mentions in her diary -- she belly dances at retirement homes with her troupe. This struck many of us as exquisitely funny, but we'd all had a couple of drinks by then. Karen hadn't, and since she doesn't get out for social gatherings much at the moment, due to her baby, we went on for drinks at Hobson's, a corner bar on Haight Street with lots of sofas and comfy chairs and big windows, the better to people-watch by.

It was way too loud to talk at the bar, so the group mind opted to go somewhere else after one drink. Karaoke had been requested, but there wasn't any place in the Haight and we didn't want to wander Japantown trying to find a place. Mo and I demanded ABBA. We would not be satisfied without ABBA. Karen wanted to sing, too, and La Jen was already singing along with the music in her head. So we went to Dr. Jen's place to make our own karaoke bar. Michael and Paula and Luny went home as they lived the furthest away and they wouldn't stay, even with the promise of plastic drink monkeys.

We discovered Dr. Jen's houseguests Gus Mueller and his roommate and a friend drinking vodkatea in her kitchen. Gus offered to sing a duet with me if we could find an ABBA song he knew the words to. There was much in the way of loud silliness and videotaped singalongs and discussion of musical theater. Plastic drink monkeys and plastic drink mermaids made their appearance and most of us were festooned with them by the end of the evening. La Jen appeared to be having a marvelous time. She claimed she didn't want to go home. We told her she definitely had to move here.

It was a terrific evening. The strangest part was not having to go home if I didn't feel like it. John was away for the weekend. The cats could entertain themselves and they had both food and water. No dog to walk. No reason to leave. But I couldn't get used to the idea. I had to keep checking the time. It seems I don't remember how to be carefree and feckless. It's strange to find I'm no longer used to staying out as long as I like. I've become entirely respectable and responsible.

I wonder when that happened?

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