Happy New Year

Happy 2009


Emotions are crazy things, one minute your laughing the next you're crying. That's the way the last few days have been for me.


Tuesday was card club. It was also Al's birthday, and a month ago she offered to have club at her house. Al lives about 20 some miles from the rest of us and she hates to drive at night and especially in bad weather. So hosting the party on her birthday seemed better than driving.

Like most of the single women I know, Al seldom cooks a meal. So, she decided rather than try and cook something, she'd like to take us all out to lunch and after go back to her house to play cards.


We met at a Chinese restaurant. Umm Umm Good. I had string bean chicken that was to die for.

This group of women has a 40 year age spread but you wouldn't know it when we get together.

We laugh until we cry. We bring out the best in each other but for some reason we also make a lot of cracks about our sexless lives. If anyone over heard us they might think we are a bunch of hussies who would jump the first male that crossed our path. We wouldn't think of it. 4 or 5 would have to cross our path before we'd jump their bones. Just kidding. See, I bet some of you didn't believe I had that in me.


The restaurant where we had lunch is near one of the hospitals. On this day several tables were full of men only in business attire. It was like having our dessert before dinner. Oh my, were we mumbling some choice things under our breath. And of course the things we were saying were so far from our real character, that it made it even funnier.


I started the potty mouth stuff last year when we took a bus trip to Branson. We boarded the bus at 5 am the first morning and made our first stop for breakfast at McDonalds an hour later. We were all half asleep when the bus driver announced that the right side of the bus, my side, would be getting off first. As I stood and moved into the aisle I leaned over to my two friends on the left side and said "Oh goody I can't remember the last time a man let me get off first" They laughed so loud the entire bus wanted to know what was so funny. It sure woke us up. And my friends followed suit and began coming up with one liners of their own.


Now, whenever we get together it continues. Tuesday at the restaurant we laughed so hard people kept looking at us. When the waitress brought Al a birthday cake and we started singing, every table around us joined in.


As we were getting up to leave the table next to us told Al happy birthday and Al said thank you and added "I hope we didn't disturb your lunch by our rather raucous behavior , but we are a group of widows out having a good time."

The ladies laughed out loud and said "That explains why you're having such a good time. You're not married."


The afternoon of cards held even more laugher.


When we got back to the house we opened a bottle of wine and toasted Al. As soon as the wine got to Barbs lips she had one of her famous hot flashes, so we turned on the ceiling fan. When it was my turn to discard I threw my card towards the pile and the breeze from the fan caught it just right and the card went into the crack of the table. I couldn't do that again in a million years and we laughed again.


Finally at 9:15 we called it a night. To our surprise we'd gotten several inches of powdery snow that was still falling and blowing. I was happy that one glass of wine was my limit and that it had been 6 hours earlier.


As I was pulling out of the driveway, I said outloud "Jesus be our co-pilot" and everyone answered "Yes Jesus Please"


I white knuckled it all the way. The interstate was really slick but I could follow the tail lights of the car in front of me to stay on the road. But when we turned off the interstate and on to the highway there was no one in front of me and I had a terrible time seeing the road.



Our laughter had died down and I think we were all praying silently. Just before getting to the road my friend lived on I could feel that my right side was riding the lip of the road and I tried to get it back on the road. I must have over compensated because the van started going sideways. Big ditches were on both sides. I pressed the brake firmly not pumping them and the van finally came to a stop. We were on the road still, but heading the opposite direction.


"Thank you Jesus" we said in unison. Then someone asked where the car had gone that was behind us. She had noticed the lights just before we skidded. Someone else thought they had seen a car coming towards us , but amazingly none were in our path like they should have been. We all felt like we had just experienced a miracle.


Funny how the feelings change in a moment.


Last night a few of us went to church, then to dinner and then to a movie. The same changes of emotions occured. We started on a spiritual high going to church and remembering the blessing of the night before. We met for dinner and laughed and shared stories with those not with us the night before and then we went to see Marley and Me and laughed til we cried, and then wept.

I was exhaused by the time I said good night to this great group of friends.





Peace and Blessings in this new year.