Knock three times …

My very good friend BFJ and I enjoyed another hotel-and-spa visit this past weekend. We have our usual overnight hotel stay and dinner routine on Friday night, then a huge breakfast and a couple of spa treatments on Saturday morning and afternoon. Around the dinner hour we usually head to our respective homes to recuperate from all the calories ingested and the sore tummy muscles from laughing so hard. We do this several times a year, and our last spa weekend in February was quite – um, how should I say this? – eventful.

We hadn’t spoken to each other face to face for a few months, so we had an awful lot to catch up on. Although my life has been pretty bland lately, hers has been quite interesting, so over dinner, she talked and talked and talked. I listened and drank and drank and drank.

After dinner, instead of heading back to our hotel room to continue the gabfest in private, we decided to go to the hotel bar. Which had these really yummy champagne-like drinks that went down nicely. Which kept tasting like more. Which ended up making our bar bill almost twice as much as our dinner bill had been at the Italian restaurant we’d eaten at earlier. Which also made for a couple of loud, giggly women who really are of an age to know better.

Of course, we weren’t driving, and the bar was in our hotel, so we safely staggered upstairs shortly before the bar closed. But naturally, we were too keyed up to sleep, so although we had no more alcohol, we partied it up some more. Eventually, I had a shower (you try shaving your legs after drinking what I drank that evening – I dare you! It’s a real challenge!), and BFJ changed into her pajamas. But when I emerged, instead of calming down, we simply kept on talking and laughing. Like a couple of goofy teenagers! And by this time it was after 2 am.

Then, from the room next door, there came three startlingly loud thumps on the wall we shared. We froze in mid-giggle. I don’t think we quite comprehended what it was at first.

Then BFJ sputtered in amazement, “We’ve been SHUSHED!”

That started us up again. We rolled under the covers, howling with muffled laughter. Yes, we’d actually been shushed by someone in the hotel room next door. Two grown women acting like loud, drunken idiots had been shushed by someone trying to get some sleep. How embarrassing! And how much more lame and immature could we be???

Yet, the next morning, we huddled in our room till we were quite certain that whoever had been next door had already left, just so we could avoid seeing them and their accusing glare in the hotel hallway or at the checkout desk. So, yes, I guess we could actually be more lame and immature after all.

One whole year

Hey, it’s my blogiversary! I’ve been blogging for exactly one year now! WOOOOOOOT!

I’ve had such fun writing down my thoughts and experiences, and slowly establishing a small regular readership. When I think about it, it’s rather an odd thing to do: writing stuff and sending it into cyberspace, wondering if and when anybody will read it and perhaps even send some small acknowledging comment back. It really is a bit of a leap of faith to blog, and although I think I’m hooked enough to keep doing it regardless of response, it truly does make my day when I open up my WordPress Dashboard and see that I’ve received a comment from somebody far way.

I don’t think I’m ever saying anything new or exciting, and it’s not that I believe my life to be so much more interesting than anybody else’s. But I know I like reading snippets of other peoples’ lives, mainly because it’s not MY life. It’s only logical that what I write will interest a few other people out there for the same reason. We just have to find each other, and that’s where other blogs come in. Making those blogging connections has been so rewarding, and I owe thanks to the writers of all the other blogs I read (you know who you are!) – for sharing your thoughts on the Intarnets, for the cyber-relationships we’ve developed, for continuing inspiration, and also for the opportunity to check out your blogrolls.

Everybody, thank you for reading, and thank you especially for commenting!

Now, let’s have some cake!

WWWW 2009

The graphic to the right was designed by my friend Lainey.

I’m just back from the annual Wild Wimmin’s Whistler Weekend with eleven of the best women in the world. This was the eighth time we’ve gone, with more or less the same core group. As usual, we had a blast!

We rented a house for the weekend in the ski resort of Whistler, which is about a two and a half hour drive from home for most of us. We love going there, because there’s something to please everyone. There’s the incredible mountain scenery for those who like to sit on the deck all afternoon and read. There’s hiking along many kilometres of forest trails, past lots of lakes and rivers. There’s mountain biking. There’s skiing and snowboarding, even this late in the season. There’s gondola rides up Whistler Mountain and the new Peak 2 Peak gondola, which goes between Whistler Mountain and neighbouring Blackcomb Mountain. (It has the longest span ever between two towers – 3 kilometres! No way I’d go on that, is there?!) There’s wandering around the pedestrian core of Whistler village itself, with all the shops, restaurants, and of course, the people watching. There’s often free musical entertainment in the various village plazas throughout the day. And in the evenings, there’s the nightclub scene if you’re so inclined.

The Wild Wimmin were actually pretty tame this year, relatively speaking. Friday night, after arrival, we had a feast of junk food and appetizers and alcohol. We stayed up until the wee hours, telling stories and laughing and getting progressively louder (and drunker). Saturday, most of us spent the day in the Village, walking, window-shopping (and sometimes even buying something), and having a bite to eat and a drink at one of numerous outdoor terraces. It was such a beautiful, hot day that there was no way anybody could resist sitting outside and soaking up the sun.

And every year, I run into some old friend or acquaintance who I haven’t seen in years, and this year was no exception. I was in the Gap, looking at jeans, when I heard my name. I turned around, and there was a woman whom I’ve not seen in four years. Her daughter and my DD started kindergarten together and were very good friends for many years, so our two families knew each other quite well. Her husband was also there, so we spent about 45 minutes chatting and getting all caught up in each other’s lives. It was really great to see them after all these years.

Saturday night, the Wimmin stayed in again, basically repeating what we did on Friday night. This was a first, as in the past, we have always gone out for dinner, then those who wanted to, went out dancing. But this was cheaper and just as fun, we decided. I swear, the rest of the year I never laugh as much as I do on these weekends!

I am truly blessed to have the amazing friends that I have, and I really love our Wild Wimmin’s Whistler Weekends! We are a group who absolutely value and respect one another, and we are able to have the most incredible heated discussions – practically arguments at times – and then turn around and forget the whole thing with NO hard feelings ever (at least I think so!). We are all so diverse and interesting, and we have never yet run out of things to say.

Except when one of our group announced that she was pregnant. Then there was a – very brief – moment where we had nothing to say!

Valen-update

So I did get my Valentine goodies at the Trivial Pursuit party last night: brownies, heart-shaped cookies, red velvet cupcakes (two different kinds and sizes) with pink icing, fruit dipped in dark chocolate, Turtles, plain chocolate candies. I sampled everything – sometimes twice. Some smaller things three times. And starting at about 4:30 this morning, I started paying for it.

My stomach started aching quite insistently and I ran back and forth to the bathroom about five times before things calmed down about five hours later. I can eat again now, but carefully.

The moral of the story? Be careful what you wish for, and DO NOT take seconds.

Act your age

So – New Year’s Eve. Seeing Trooper perform. Trooper being a popular Canadian band from the seventies. The seventies being my era, so to speak. Not that I haven’t been a part of the eighties or nineties or the – what do we call this decade, anyway? The uh-ohs?

It’s just that I’m dating myself by specifying “my” era (dating as in carbon dating, but not quite so prehistoric). I’ve had a hard time admitting my age for many years, and having hit the half-century mark last year (I can’t believe I even TYPED that!), it’s worse than it ever was. I mean, obviously I’m as old as I am because DD is 21 years old, and I’ve been teaching for 29 years, and I remember stuff that people my age usually remember. But I just don’t BELIEVE I’m as old as I am.

My mother tells me that inside, she is really about 25. I used to scoff at that, but no more. In my mind, I honestly think I’m somewhere in my twenties, as well. I have always looked younger than I am (apparently that is a Capricorn trait. Also, my dad’s side of the family always looked young.), so when I look in the mirror without my contacts in, I can pretty much see someone who is in her twenties. Okay, late twenties. What gives me away, however, is all this knowledge I have accumulated. Well, that and the aches and pains of my body.

I know things like how the Gulf War started. I know where I was when I heard that John Lennon was assassinated. I know about the two referendums in Québec and how worried many of us were that the vote would be “oui” and that Québec would separate from the rest of Canada. I actually voted for Pierre Trudeau. Twice. I know that leggings were a bad fashion choice twenty years ago and are still a bad fashion choice, especially with a too-short sweater. Ditto for shoulder pads. I remember the original disco and grunge movements, for heaven’s sake!

I also realize that I know almost all the words to almost all the songs that Trooper played the other night, despite the fact that they weren’t exactly my favourite band way back then. I had no idea that their music was so much a part of my consciousness at the time – I guess we can thank the Canadian content broadcast laws for that one.

In addition, I found it quite astonishing that so many of the people who attended the show were so fat, grey or bald, and wrinkled. They were OLD! And the clothes some of them were wearing – don’t you have mirrors, people?! Strangely enough, many of them also knew the words to the songs. I guess even old people like Trooper – because I’m certainly not THAT old.

(And just so you know, they put on a fun, energetic show. Even though they too are a bit past the first bloom of youth!)