Heather Poole

My friend Cady gave birth to a baby boy recently – okay fine, so it wasn’t really all that recently, considering the kid is like two months old and seventeen pounds already! Which is why I need to go see her – NOW!

Because Cady lives in Florida and I live in Los Angeles, we don’t get to see each other very often. Actually, we get together about once every two years, which is pretty much never, but we do leave each other these phone messages that are so long they drive my husband crazy, so crazy, in fact, he feels the need to ask WHO ARE YOU TALKING TO when he knows exactly who I’m talking to due to the fact that she’s practically the only person I talk to – on the phone. I’m not a phone person.

Whenever I tell him IT’S CADY, even though it’s not really Cady, as in Cady-Cady, he starts shaking his head side to side and asks CADY OR HER ANSWERING MACHINE, putting this really long pause between the words CADY and OR which is his way of letting me know I’m crazy. I’m not crazy. Which is why I just squint my eyes and tell him to GO AWAY so I can finish doing what I’m doing, which is leaving a really long and detailed message on her answering machine about my husband who is asking me who I’m talking to when he knows exactly who I’m talking to.

So anyway, I just booked a flight to Miami – not this weekend but next weekend, which is my wedding anniversary weekend, the perfect excuse to book a hotel way out of our price range. Honestly, truth be told, I don’t really need an excuse to score a nice room, not after our last weekend getaway to Palm Springs where we stayed at what I thought to be a charming little place called the Calla Lilly Inn, but I chose to work the reverse psychology anyway.

HUSBAND: Did you book the hotel yet?

ME: I’m still looking, but I think I found something interesting.

HUSBAND: I don’t do interesting.

ME: I think you might like it. It’s this mom and pop place right on the beach in Fort Lauderdale. It’s just…(three second pause)…I can’t decide if it’s super cute or…well…I don’t know…there’s wicker furniture in the living room and Hawaiian bed spreads that look to be…oh…really old based on their flatness. Other than that…(three second pause)…it’s not too bad. A real deal when you consider the price.

mom and pop hotel

HUSBAND: I don’t do interesting. The last time we did interesting I found myself smoking cigars with a bunch of lesbians at an adults only hotel.

ME: Adults preferred. Not adults only.

NOTE: My husband doesn’t have a problem with lesbians. Not at all. What he had a problem with was the adult “preferred” hotel in Palm Springs that forgot to tell us they preferred adults and accommodated us, as well as our two year-old son, anyway. Not a fun weekend. Though the kid might say otherwise as he briskly power walked around the pool several times and yelled out HI MAN! HI LADY! to all the adult preferring adults who did not say hi back, over and over. The cigars were a peace offering

ME AGAIN: Well it’s a little pricey, but Cady says the Boca Beach Club is very nice.

HUSBAND: Book it.

I already did.