Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

One of the discussion topics of the weekend was: "Why Girls' Weekend and not Women's Weekend?" Because, the Warrior Princess explained, "Women's Weekend" sounds too much like something that involves talking about menstruation and other Sex Ed. type topics. Whereas "Girls' Weekend" implies we just want to have fun.

It took us less than two hours to get there, which was better than I'd expected, so we arrived long before lunch. Everyone was gathered in the living room, reading and socializing. The Warrior Princess was knitting, working on a hand towel for her kitchen. She's one of the most interesting women I know: equally good at traditionally female activities like knitting and cooking, and at traditionally male activities like chopping wood piles and training horses.

The word for the moment was definitely mellow, and with the sun coming in the front window, the heat spilling into the room, I felt like a cat in a windowsill. I soon began to feel sleepy as I sat in my chair with a book in my hand.

The two daughters of our host, The Cousin, were in high spirits. The eldest daughter was working on a paragraph for her reading class, getting tips on vocabulary words from several of us. The resulting paragraph was both funny and used the words well, so I'm sure she'll get a good grade.

The eldest daughter had been invited to go roller skating, so the rest of us decided that would be a good time to hit the local craft store. In the meantime, we had lunch of three homemade soups and some of my home made hummus, along with whole wheat pita, tomatoes and spinach. I tried the broccoli soup. The lunch was very filling and healthy, too.

We waited for the eldest daughter's friend to come pick her up. They were supposed to get there at 2 p.m. That time passed, and so did 2:30. Still no sign of them. Eventually, The Paper spoke up and said she didn't mind staying with the eldest daughter until the friend came, if the rest of us wanted to go hit the craft store. We thanked her, loaded up a couple cars and went.

It's been awhile since I've actively been doing any crafts. Most of my creative efforts lately have been focused on writing, doing design work for Wild Violet, and designing T-shirts and such. But this craft store was huge: lots of aisles with different sorts of goodies. It was fun to browse while my friends found what they needed.

I ended up only buying two black buttons so I can repair one of my jackets, which has a broken button.

When we returned to the house, The Paper revealed that the eldest daughter's friend had never arrived, so we figured the skating excursion was canceled, and she resolved to join us for our dinner reservations.

Before we left, I changed into a dressier outfit, just for the heck of it. I wore a pale green wraparound skirt and a multicolored shirt with a mandala design on it, along with a matching sweater. I got a lot of compliments from the other women.

This was a new restaurant experience for me: a Japanese restaurant with a special room where we had to take off our shoes to enter. Inside, we sat on the floor on cushions, and there was a well underneath the table for our legs.

I ordered a sushi dinner, which was served with soup and salad and therefore was very filling. The most entertaining aspect of the dinner was the 2-year-old son of one of the women, whose husband also joined us, just for dinner. The couple were in the middle of a busy weekend, having recently moved back to the United States from Puerto Rico. In addition to buying a car this weekend, they're also finalizing the purchase of a new house. After dinner they went off on their own.

The 2-year-old ran around the room, giggling, at top speed, laughing and giggling. The most surprising thing about this kid was his strength. He came up behind me, and because I was at the right height, he threw his arm around my neck for a hug. When he squeezed, I thought I was choking. I gently pried his hands off, not an easy task.

After dinner, those of us who had dressed up changed back into casual clothes and did some more socializing. One whole wall in the living room was covered with book shelves, and people kept taking books off to page through them or read them. One of the most popular were comic collections of the Modesty Blaise comics, of which she had several collections. She's a female secret agent, I gather. I'd never heard of her before, but it looks like it used to run in newspapers.

The Warrior Princess, with a little help from volunteers, baked two delicious apple pies. I had a slice straight out of the oven with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. But shortly after The Paper and the Book Lover excused themselves to go to bed, I found myself falling asleep at the kitchen table. About midnight, I went downstairs to set up my bed.

I'd brought along my folding cot, and I settled into the downstairs study with some blankets, burrowing in up to my neck against the cool autumn night.

More from Girls' Weekend:

November 17, 2004 - Outdoorsy Sunday

Copyright 2004 by Alyce Wilson

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