DRUNKEN CHICKEN COOKING

Below is Ms. A's creative and sneaky capture of a moment proving my inability to hold my liquor. In this case - vodka.

I think it beautifully encompasses what portions of our long weekends together are like.

This IS a true story. Yes, I did want to use bug spray. It's flammable so it would work. My taste buds - at that particular moment in time - were rather non-existent therefore it didn't matter if the chicken would end up tasting like bug spray. But there were other people, e.g. Ms. S. , who did care about the taste.

And, it's true that I suck at cooking. God only knows why (*cough - bug spray - cough, sputter*).

After having reviewed this series of pictures multiple times, I couldn't help but notice that I look a bit bitchy. I think that can be blamed on the vodka and as most of the ladies know, I'm not the most kindly person when drinking that stuff. Beer makes me happy, vodka makes me bitchy and wine makes me cry.

On the other side of the battle field, Ms. S. looks kindly distressed at this odd and nonsensical confrontation.

And don't even bother with feeling bad for her.

Ms. S. started it all and given this is my blog, I get to say so. She's the one who told me to bring the vodka knowing full-well what I am capable of while deep in my cups. So there.

Speaking of cups - yes, I'm wearing a bra from the 1950's and no, I'm not embarrassed. When embarking to float on a sea of booze, one must have reinforcements - i.e. a good and solid bra. Lord knows I wasn't out to look sexy!

RIOTOUS FLOWERS

So…I’ve been a bit detached from writing lately. My apologies.

BUT! A recent interaction has snapped me back to life so I can finally create this posting regarding the Drunken Beauties of whom I've now nicknamed the Riotous Flowers.

First thing – why are my ladies (yes, they are mine – every last one of them – although they seem to own me more so than I own them) now being referred to as Riotous Flowers? Well, Drunken Beauties sounds a bit insulting as if we’re a clod of slobbering, drooling, beauty pageant whores which is most definitely not our style. I’d like to think of us as elegant, intelligent, sweet smelling yet slightly pickled flowers in various stages of blossom.

Second thing – the words ‘Riotous Flowers’ have always fascinated me. I’ve read many novels and such where the author will refer to the blooming flowers of a garden in spring or summer as rioting. I understand the meaning of such phraseology but every time I’ve read it, I’ve pictured my own garden - full of tiger lilies, wild roses and the other unidentified flowers - all screaming and fighting each other for supremacy which is entertaining in my imagination but far from the truth. It’s always the weeds that are trying to choke out the flowers and plants and these weeds are far from riotous as well. They tend to be more stealth-like in their attack; they’re definitely not noisy and I’ve never seen them move however they do move and quickly when I’m not looking. So…to make amends with my imagination, I’ve decided to correct the term by applying it metaphorically to my ladies.

Last thing – to bring all of this full circle and to explain why this posting has finally surfaced. The same place from last year called me to confirm this year’s reservations. I was surprised! I guess we must not have been as bad as I thought since they called me! I honestly didn’t think they would call to confirm considering we didn’t behave as proper women of intelligent independence ought to. That would be according to the ‘mass-majority’. And if I truly cared, I might behave differently but I really don't care - therefore, TO HELL WITH THEM!

But I digress.

Back to bringing this full circle…the woman who called me happens to be named Rose, she’s the matriarch/owner of the campground, and she just so happens to have a wicked crush on me which makes ‘Riotous Flowers’ even more appropriate. While Rose isn’t my type, I will continue to flirt with her as long as she’s willing to let us return every year to disturb her campground with our debauched machinations. Oh the sacrifices I make simply for the privilege to enjoy the company of my female companions for a couple of days!

NOW – rather than try to recreate the entire weekend, day by day, blow by blow, I’ve decided to post some pictures .

My next posting will be pictures of a little something that Ms. A put together for Ms. S and me. It's all about drunken chicken cooking - an incident she recorded during this particular weekend. Never never cook chicken when drunk and for God's sakes don't touch the hot coals!! My thumbprint still hasn't come back!

DRINKIN’(AND DRUNKEN) BEAUTIES - PART TWO!!!

Friday Morning – It all began at 8:30 AM

Arriving late at Ms. S’s house, I’ve had too much instant cappuccino mix and I’ve forgotten the cookout table. Nothing out of the ordinary there. After loading her into my truck, we headed over to Ms. T’s house which is the meeting place for everyone and has been since the beginning of time. As usual, I’m one of the three chosen drivers and somehow we’re going to fit all of our gear plus our twelve sorry asses into two SUV’s and a mini-van. I transported five of the twelve ladies. The other SUV had two ladies and most of their gear plus a little bit of everyone else’s and the mini-van carted the remaining five ladies.

A car full of chatty and excited women can be difficult to manage therefore my first self-imposed requirement was to drink at least two beers before heading out. Please see the picture. This is what was in my back seat (from left to right: Ms. S, Ms. A, and Ms. E – not pictured Ms. T – she was shotgun). Now you understand the beer and why this is where things begin to get fuzzy for me. I didn’t drink while I drove; I drank only at the stops, thereby maintaining some sort of sobriety until we arrived at our destination.

Take a hard stare at these young, vibrant, beautiful, unassuming, innocent and angelic looking women. I’m sure it’s impossible to believe that the conversations which came out of these ladies could’ve made even poor John Holmes (God rest his soul) blush. Oh yes, I did joyously partake of the iniquitous conversations and contributed to them by providing the joyous sounds of a cheesy romance novel on audiotape.

In my excitement of such luscious talk, I began to rush things by speeding down the highway at 80 mph and I passed a state patrol car as it pulled out to probably pull me over. The speed at which my friends hid their beer cans and drink containers was faster than I’d ever seen them move, ever. Luckily, I didn’t get stopped but had he done so, he would’ve smelled our well pickled fragrance and it could’ve been very bad. I cannot even imagine the possible comments which could’ve poured out of the back seat while the man in uniform would do his job and write me a ticket. Imagine hearing a quiet giggle then ‘oh my, look at his thrusting and turgid pleasure rod’. It probably would’ve have sent me over the edge and straight to jail (and then hell).

In retrospect, I think we scared him. I think he knew better than to mess with us that day. Us ladies…the big scary lesbians.

I’ve only covered Friday morning. There still is Friday night, Saturday and Sunday to cover.

Hang in there as there is much much more to be continued…

DRINKIN’(AND DRUNKEN) BEAUTIES - PART ONE!!!

Introduction and ‘You think we’re what?’

This past weekend I survived yet another one of our annual Girls Only weekends. As usual, I learned a lot about the lives of other women and I learned a lot about myself. Granted, there’s a tremendous amount of alcohol consumed which always enhances our many philosophical discussions as well as our many not-so-philosophical discussions and unfortunately I end up forgetting what the hell we talked about by Sunday night. A wicked side effect of alcohol, I’m afraid.

Recently I mentioned to the ladies that I would eventually write a book encompassing all of our past adventures and put them into a one long weekend story but I’m beginning to think this may be impossible. We’ve had too many adventures, mishaps and revelations to make my one-weekend story believable. I’ll get it all creatively combined one day and it’ll have to happen soon because as the years move along, the list of stories is becoming overwhelming.

It didn’t occur to me until now that my blog can include at least a tiny portion of the experience.

I spent the past 3 days with a most eclectic, intelligent, strong-willed, open-minded, loving, charismatic, humorous, witty, stubborn, talented, creative, independent and powerful group of women I’ve ever known. These weekends always leave me in awe not to mention greatly humbled. Our group of twelve covers just about every type of woman in any stage of life. Some of the ladies are single, married, cohabitating, some with children, some without children, some grandmothers, menopausal, pre-menopausal, not even close to menopausal, and some wishing we were menopausal. Some of us have very few tattoos to none at all while some of us are very well inked and others of us are working our way to well inked. I would continue but I think I’ve covered the gist of us.

Keeping in mind the above description, we’ve now been labeled by the last two campgrounds as ‘that group of lesbians’. Whether or not we have lesbians amidst us is of no importance. What is important is the fact that we’ve been labeled as such and it has led us into the discussion of why. Why is it assumed we are all lesbians? Because we are able to camp, grille out, hang out, tease, talk like sailors and have a good time without the assistance of men? Is it because the male campers in the surrounding area fantasize and wish we were lesbians (of course because we’re all beautiful!!!)? On what basis does the label come from? I’m personally not insulted because I don’t care what people think but I’m fascinated by the assumption.

It’s inevitable that our happy little group of females will become infiltrated by some overly-curious male to whom we usually end up asking to leave after we’ve been rude and very blunt about our displeasure with his presence. It’s a Girls Only weekend after all. But for some reason, a waywardly male has to come and say ‘hello’. Is our rejection of such a male the reason for the lesbian label? Honestly guys, do you really think our rejection of you means we’re gay? If this is true, how egocentric can you be?

The reasoning behind these weekends is because we have enough men in our lives and we’d like to have at least three days out of the year of a completely different type of entertainment. No kids, no men, no Tupperware or whatever kind of chick party crap and no talking about our jobs (I honestly have no idea what anyone does for a living.). Just us ladies being who we are, saying what we like, chastising one another without worry of insult, and most of all the camaraderie and wisdom that each one of us provides to each other. And somehow this makes us lesbians. What a most fascinating accusation.

This is the weekend where I come back feeling justified in who I am as a person. This is the weekend where no woman is allowed to feel inadequate, dumb, incapable, fat, ugly, unwanted, or whatever other insecurities we all tend to suffer from. I’ll admit my faults are brought clearly into the open and made plain to me by Sunday morning but I’m never left to feel as though I’m less of a person because of them. I’m always left to appreciate the diversity of talent these women surround me with and I know I can call on them when needed. There’s much comfort in knowing that we all fill some kind of void in one way or another.

I think next time I see a group of men camping/hunting or whatever together, I’ll consider spreading the rumor that they’re a group of homosexuals and I’ll contemplate infiltrating their group but somehow this doesn’t seem like a good idea. I’m very tempted to cause this type of trouble but common sense tells me to leave the idea as it is…an idea only and no action required.

I will be posting more stuff about this weekend later this week. I have to sober up first and sort through some pictures. I may or may not post pictures and I most certainly won’t be revealing who anyone is. Someone in our group may want to run for office one day and I’d hate to ruin her chances. I'm sure, because of this post (and future ones), I will suffer some kind of chastise anyway. We're not known for holding our opinions back from one another. Let her rip ladies, I can take it!

To be continued…