downside of divorce

One of the downsides of divorce, and there are many, is the grandchild's birthday party with all the exes present.  I am sitting on the floor wrapping a seven-foot puzzle in paper decorated with puppies in birthday hats and wishing the day was just a vague unpleasant memory.  Dave's daughter's son is turning four years old today and it's a train theme party.

I like Dave's grandkids.  They are gregarious and wildly observant and talk smart.  Joshua, the four-year-old has indicated he does not want old people at his party, who can blame him, we rarely say or do anything interesting.  Sorry, Josh, we showed up anyway and I am being handed a piece of blue Thomas the Train birthday cake and I didn't even get a yellow window.  The children have paper black lumps of coal taped to their chests and they are crab-racing across the living room carpet and pasting them on a cut-out train on the opposite wall.  Surely they will crash, I think, crying and bellowing will fill the room. That doesn't happen but there are a few tears when one little boy wins no races, not even one.

I am sitting next to Dave's ex-wife's new husband and he is wearing thin Italian black leather loafers with little tassels on them. He is a pleasant gentleman but he dresses like a pimp, albeit a very successful pimp.  "I would never make you wear shoes like that," I whisper to the big guy and he looks genuinely relieved.

 The former wife, a woman who treated my Dave shabbily and unkindly, is resplendent in a red blazer with a ruffled red and white skirt and matching white canvas boat shoes. She has let her white hair grow long, half-way down her back and held back with a red ribbon. She looks like a giant candy cane. "And I," say I patting Dave's hand, "will never buy a skirt like that."  God, I'm good at catty.