Last Friday morning in the midst of overdue writing assignments, rolling hills of dirty laundry and an echo chamber for a fridge, I got a super sexy call from my husband.
He was in NYC working on a project and I could tell he was calling from a TV editing suite by the hollow and hushed tones seeping through the phone.
“You need to meet me here tomorrow,” he whispered.
“Pardon Moi?”
“You know that event I’m going to? Yeah, well the seat next to me just opened up and I have a ticket for you.”
“No WAAAAY!” I gasped. “Um, how are we going to pull this off?”
Back story: My husband had been invited to a benefit being thrown in honor of Sting’s 60th birthday Saturday night. This was not a chicken dinner, dance to “celebration,” bid on a basket of handmade soaps sorta benefit. Oh no.
This was going to be a concert of epic proportions, with a line up of musical superstars, housed in a vintage theater, that would give TMZ a cocaine high sorta benefit.
Getting to join him in New York in less than 12 hours for this thing was more than worth the last-minute mayhem that needed to take place in order for this whole thing to go down.
We sprang into action.
By mid-afternoon, it was all lined up: Sitters, car to the airport, meal plans, other logistics for the boys, and flights. Done and done.
I left the next morning after watching two-thirds of my 9-year-old’s football game, racing home to change out of my rain boots, and grabbing my little overnight bag.
I got to his boutique hotel in Midtown at about 3 p.m., zipped up to the 19th floor, and knocked on the shiny white door feeling all secret mistress like
I kinda loved it.
No. I super loved it.
He texted me earlier that day asking if I was going to show up in a trench coat and nothing else.
But after letting him know I thought it might create a code orange situation at airport security, I opted for my hottest jeans and a low-cut top.
It felt downright scandalous. A sensation not often conjured up in my beloved native suburbia.
The line up went a little something like this: Intimate dinner for two, pre-concert drinks with all the fancy people, a show I will just never ever ever forget, Ray’s pizza at 1a.m., a “blissful” night’s sleep, breakfast in Central Park, a bit of shopping at Bergdorf’s, and then, zoom, off to LaGuardia to catch our ride home.
The whole way back to Chicago staring out the window at the sky, I was floored by just how big of an impact a bit of spontaneous combustion with your spouse can be.
Like most of our comrades with kids, my husband and I run through the majority of our days like wind-up toys fueled primarily by Vente Red-eyes with a steamed foam topper.
We try to connect over Raisin Bran and coffee and chaos in the morning, or carpools and re-heated dinners and homework at night. But we rarely get to break free, do something that’s not on the “to-do” list and basically re-enact a scene out of “Sex and the City.”
I also realized the spontaneous, off-our-rockers moments don’t always have to be about last-minute trips to NYC and off the fa’ shizzle events.
It’s the spontaneity that is damn sexy.
So, I ask you, are you ready to get a little more spontaneous?
I am.
Here’s a list I’ve started in my journal of how I plan to proceed: (I don’t really journal, it’s more like the back page of a notebook I borrowed from my kid).
* Beg grandpa to watch the boys one night and make a 9 p.m. reservation at a local restaurant.
* Pack a “night-cap” picnic and hit the lakefront (five minutes away) for a chat and glass of wine under the stars… before winter hits, which could be any day now.
* Buy a GOOD bottle of bubbly, set up Scrabble after the dudes go to bed and once again get trounced by my Scrabble savant of a husband.
* Hit Vicki’s Secret and buy the most stripper-ish thing I can find. And then do that trench coat thing when he arrives home late from work.
I only have four so far. But it’s a start.
Please join the convo. And add some more in the comments.
We all want to know how YOU get your spontaneous ON -or how you fantasize about doing so.
