One man's trivia is another man's...uh, trivia.

So it turns out Eve does have pneumonia after all. That's right -- I sent my plague-ridden daughter to another woman's house while I was out carousing. Mother of the year, right here. In my defense, no one could believe it, including the people she's staying with. And my doctor had said to call her if Eve got worse, which she hadn't, so I guess I won't bitch about it taking two and a half days to call me after the x-ray. And she did call me on a Saturday morning, which my sister the health-care professional assures me is quite impressive. So, the icky pink medicine has been dispensed, she is still happily ensconced at her best friend's house, and we'll all just have to live with the medical mystery. Apple a day my ass -- I think she may have proved that being a chronic wiseass actually strengthens the immune system.

World Trivia Night was an unmitigated success -- not 'success' in the sense of 'winning' or 'placing' or even 'proving that I'm not a total moron', but, you know, 'success' in the sense of 'ate a lot of crap', 'laughed like, well, a moron who doesn't know her daughter has pneumonia', and 'answered three questions no one else knew, two of which involved television or movies, thereby revealing to all assembled that I watch The Mentalist (only sometimes. When I'm too lazy to pick up the remote and change the channel. I know. The shame). The Divine Miss M.L. made her first in-person appearance at our table and in my life, which was awesome. Lynn made us Cheez Whizard costumes (capes and starry pencil-wands and wizard hats with tinsel and pictures of cheese, which was kind of a relief since I was kind of expecting actual string cheese) which got us into the short list for the Best Costume category. And the dudes who actually won Best Costume (Angus McCrock -- kilts, berets, blue faces and a massive wall of beer cans) were very gracious when I asked to take a picture of them for my son (whose name, we all agreed, was awesome). And I got to see Julie again, and transferred some of our vast accumulated Spiderman wealth to her, so yay. (And I still think she's really smart. A lot of people might think, on first glance, that 'star' is a five-letter word.)

At the end of the night we were all happily exhausted, all smarter by a few prime ministers, planets and countries (Dominica -- who knew?), hopped up on sugar and white-lipped from the massive salt infusion sucking all the moisture out of our bodies, and really glad to know our daughters didn't have pneumonia. Well, most of us. Sigh.