Girlfriends Weekend

This past weekend was our annual "girlfriends weekend," and for the second year in a row, I wasn't there.

Ten or so years ago, four childhood friends and I made a pact to get together once a year, with annual hosting duties rotating through the group. We roll in to the driveway of one or another's house on a Friday afternoon in June, eat, talk, eat eat eat, talk talk talk, sleep, eat eat, talk talk . . . until after lunch on Sunday.

Over the course of the weekend, we find out what each others' kids and animals are up to, the latest gossip on school friends we like and school friends we don't like, who's died, who's divorced, who's won the lottery - all the while eating, or lounging on the beach (if we happen to be at the twins' place in Destin, Florida).

And lots of remember whens. The time we stuffed Linda into a locker during our junior high days (she was small, she fit, why not?) always comes up. Various dating disasters - of course - paired with "Whew! Dodged a bullet there!" The hell we put our poor old 4th grade teacher through (we were little smart asses and she was way too old to be teaching us - no one's a winner in this story). The fourteen times we had to lug Susan's Homecoming Queen suit (and damn tiara) to school for yet another yearbook picture. And so on.

But I reckon they'll be kickin' me outta the club unless I show my face at the next year's girlfriends weekend. I've invited them to New York - might make a nice change from Chattanooga or Franklin or Sand Mountain or Atlanta (or Destin). And were my ears burning over the weekend? You bet.

Big kiss to all the girlfriends out there. We'll always be 14. Or 10. Or 17.