Ladies Night Birthday

As many of you know, I am part of an amazing group of women who gather on a weekly basis -- and have for 25 years -- to be with each other and discuss the week.  Our husbands think we talk about them, but honestly, this is not the case (although it does happen).  And we don't just talk about our kids, although sometimes one or more of us does.  Sometimes, although not every week, or even  every month, we talk about current events, especially around this time of year, when we sometimes bring ballots and discuss our civic duty.  That wasn't the case this evening.  Sometimes we discuss our moms.  And there's lots of weeks when we talk about our own challenges and opportunities -- work, personal, and social.

Tonight, we were at the Boulder Outlook.  There was a blues band from Israel playing. We all agreed that the lead singer, a  beautiful, slim young woman with long wavy dark hair in a Tibi dress, who sounded like an older larger Hazel Miller type woman, didn't sound Israeli, or even at all like a woman who looked like she did.  But, isn't that what's great about voices? In fact, I was listening to her during a break and she sounded Southern.  But it was fun.  After we got tired of not being able to hear each other, we went outside of the bar/music venue, into the hotel atrium by the pool, and played pool.  Donna is good, the rest of us, not so much.  But, we had fun, because we're the ladies.  Not great pool (someone -- i'm not going to say whom -- knocked the 8 ball, with her hand, into a hole to end our misery!), but honestly, there was no one else there, no hot group of guys waiting to compete, so who cares?

To continue the warm, fuzzy theme that my husband established for my birthday present, Marilyn (my angel) got me warm fuzzy socks and a warm fuzzy scarf.  Yea!  Plus, I got two cards in addition to the one from Ladies Night.  One from my mom (I won't even say how upset she'd be if I sent her a card that was two days late) and the other from my friend and former colleague Laura in MT.  So sweet, both of them.  Never mind, the two emails I got today, as well as a phone call.  One of the emails was from my first friend -- from nursery school (how many of you remember when we that's what we called pre-school) -- with whom I've barely corresponded in decades.  I've re-read it several times.  The phone call was from a woman who started a Colorado enviro group, who is one of a cadre of women that my cohort all think of as role models, and here she is telling me I was a roll model.  I almost cried.

Meanwhile, my arm is getting redder and hotter and more bothered.  Aargh.