Hot Chicks

My “Diners’ Club” friends and I gathered around the kitchen table a few weeks ago, sorting through dozens and dozens of pictures taken over the years, over the last 30 years. I was struck by the younger pictures of us. We are and were five ordinary women who gathered together because we shared one thing in common – we were all single mothers. We were all around the same age, over a ten-year gap. Our children are around the same age, over pretty much the same ten-year gap.

I say “ordinary” but when I saw a photo of us taken in 1993, we were anything but ordinary. Those five women were HOT. I never really thought of myself that way. But there we were, dressed to the nines for our Christmas dinner, gorgeous legs, beautiful smiles, huge brilliant eyes, silky touchable hair. Hot. Hot. Hot.

Our history is ripe and full. We’ve gone into and out of relationships. We have raised our children with no little chaos, but they cleaned up well as adults. We shared grief, joy, announcements, marriage, adoption, new jobs, old jobs, strife, and successes. We have been written about twice! First Becky Nappi wrote about us in 1993, then 15 years later, Cindy Hval wrote about us. (here)

We are meeting tonight at Cedars in Coeur d’Alene. If you are there, we will be the five extraordinary women over in the corner – we are loud, laughing, talking, sharing secrets, ogling each other’s face or eyes or hair or blouse. We won’t notice you but if you stop by, we will wrap you in our friendship. We are definitely not ordinary.

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9-1-1 Girlfriend

9-1-1 Girlfriend

I have the best support group of my entire life.

My “Girls' Diner Club” (nicknamed by Becky Nappi when she did an article on us for the Spokesman-Review in 1993) has a phone tree that is efficient, speedy, and totally there for you at any given moment.

. . . . Like, during the Dishman Hills fire, when Jill watched the fires slowly but determinedly, climb Park Road toward her house, taking out million dollar homes below her. She was lucky – just the weekend before, she and her husband had slaved on the brush and undergrowth below her house. Her house was saved – the one just below hers was not. And the phone calls began – first one friend, then another, all reaching out to her to make sure she was safe, out of harm's way.

. . . . Like, when Kathy, who has Parkinson's, suddenly realized she was blind in one eye – a piece of plaque had broke off from an artery in her neck, and landed at the back of her eye. Jackie started the phone tree, letting all of us know she was in surgery, she was fine, but now blind in one eye. She's adjusting as valiantly as she always does – but first and foremost – she is rallying because of her four Best Friends Forever standing at her side. And also, her hubby paid for a gift of a permanent eyeliner tatoo – which she proudly displayed at our last dinner.

. . . . Like, when I let them all know I would go on dialysis the next day, a mere two weeks before we were planning on going to Disney World – plane fare, hotel fees, and park tickets all prepaid. The calls started coming in from each friend, supporting me, going all the way for me, preparing to cancel our trip – until my doctor, now my fifth best friend, making arrangements for me to have dialysis in Orlando.

Have an emergency? Just dial 9-1-1 Girlfriend.

:)

Tea and Sympathy

I’ve had two occasions this week to partake in “high tea” at the same place. One was sweet and the other will be bittersweet.

I’m struggling here. I have had several ups and downs this week, more downs than ups.

I met with my Red Hat sisters at a high tea in Spokane at the “Taste and See Tea Room.” (See their website.)

(Cindy Hval writes about it here.)

Tonight, there will be 25 women, all co-workers, attending high tea to celebrate one of our own – who is losing her fight with colon cancer. She has been part of this place, a family away from home, for almost 29 years, starting when she was 29 years old. Half her life.

In the middle of all of this, I am facing more tests for a transplant and the likelihood that I will NOT be a candidate. What I am feeling and dealing with is so short of what my co-worker is going through, not even comparable. But I’m still feeling it.

I am experiencing an overwhelming sadness – for things lost, friends slipping away, time moving on and not, damn it, standing still.

Tonight we are gathering in all our finery, hats, jewels, gloves to honor and celebrate the life of our friend. We are helpless in what to say and can only say – we love you. I love you.
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Shoulder to Shoulder

Sometimes I need shoulders other than my own.

That's why I have my four friends that meet together religiously once a month for the last 25 years. Sometimes one of us needs all four sets of shoulders. It's the closest thing we have to professional counseling and a hell of a lot cheaper. In fact, I think it's better. A counselor doesn't LOVE you. These four friends do. We love each other like sisters and sometimes like mothers. There isn't a problem or predicament that is too difficult or too convoluted that can't be aided and softened by this particular circle of friends.

We don't always get together to whine about our problems, although we know we can without criticism or judgment. A lot of times we get together and confess our antics and adventures, to gales of laughter. There was that time that "one of us" (never ever will I let on who it was, other than to say it unequivocally was NOT me) dyed her hair. All of her hair. Both on her head and down there. She wanted to look like a natural blonde – everywhere, which left nothing to the imagination for the rest of us on why she wanted to have matching hairdos. Instead of blonde down there, she was temporarily screaming her head off from the pain and was afraid her precious hair was being burned off by the chemicals. Never again – she'd shave it off first.

Another friend of the four recently had surgery for Parkinson's where battery packs were implanted in her chest with wires through her neck to her head that would subtly zap her to keep her shaking down to a low roar. She calls her implants her baby boobs, not to be confused with her big boobs.

She used to be a hair dresser. We've watched her hair go from bald to short, sticking straight up hair that was incredibly soft (so we were at restaurants where all four of us were running our fingers through her new soft hair, exclaiming how soft it was), to a chic new do in her natural salt-and-pepper color. (And no, it wasn't her that had the pubic hair adventure.) She's become stunningly beautiful.

Now it's my turn. I will be seeing my kidney specialist in a couple weeks to discuss either going on dialysis or being put on a transplant list. It is a monumental deal. It's not that I'm surprised because I have known this day would come, for many years. I kind of had hoped it would never come and that I would maintain as I have for so long. But coming it is – and fast.

My dinner with my friends is on the 15th – in time for me to use their shoulders and gain strength to face the verdict from my doctor. And they will be with me afterwards to carry me forward. That's what shoulders are for.

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Friendship: the Staff of Life

I have mentioned my friends before. I value my friends like nothing else. They are someone to lean on, listen to, cry on, giggle with, play with, and hold high as exemplary people that make me better than I would be without them.

I have recently developed a friendship with someone new - a freelance writer for the Spokesman-Review and several other publications. Her name is Cindy Hval. She enriches me and subtly reminds me to see the lighter things in life. What sets her apart from others is her sense of humor, quick wit, and eloquent compassion.

I invited her to share dinner with my friends a month ago; she in turn wrote a column about us – a sequel to a Spokesman-Review article about us done in 1993 – so 15 years later, we are hardly changed at all. If anything, we imbue the phrase, we aren't getting older, we are getting better.

I am one of the luckiest people on earth to have so many very close and dear friends, and to count Cindy as one of them.

Please read the beautiful Article by Cindy Hval in the Spokesman-Review today.

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A Special Celebration

I took my time choosing just the right outfit. It had to be “to the nines” and red or purple. I pulled out my purple velvet floor length dress, picked through my jewelry and found three long red-stoned necklaces and two ruby red bracelets. I added to this the matching earrings. Topped it all off with a red feather boa and ended the whole flashy display with a beautiful red hat. I looked like a party ready to happen.

Several of us took special time this morning to get similarly dressed. We are Red Hats, in particular, we are the Scarlett Snickerdoodles of the Red Hat Society. We do things together once a month – fun things. We go to antique stores and garage sales, we go to teas and plays, we travel to other towns and experience their idea of teas, antique stores, garage sales, and plays. That’s what Red Hats do – we play. Today is a special day, though, and I can’t describe it as playing. One of our members made a special request for us to deck all up in our red and purple splendor. Today is her memorial service.

We were gathering together today to celebrate her. A week ago she passed quietly away from ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease). Her passing was so unlike her. No dancing. No skipping. No throwing back her head and laughing out loud.

Another member was grateful and thankful – boisterous even – that our friend was finally able to be free of the devastating effects of ALS, a disease with absolutely no cure and only certain death. I have had a hard time dealing with this – with her loss – and finding joy in her death.

The pastor related that at her graveside all her grandchildren happened to spy a deer leaping through the green grass near where she was laid. It was a sign! She was the spirit of that deer, bounding free of ALS, totally free to dance among the spirits.

So we gathered together and sat with her family and her friends and celebrated her life. ALS stole her from us, ALS stole her legs, her voice, her speech, her tap dance, her life. But as we sat together, leaning towards each other, touching each other – we started to laugh. We started to bring up all her qualities and she had no bad qualities – she was like each one of us in so many ways. She was opinionated, ornery, stubborn, funny, witty, danced through her day, sang at the top of her lungs in the shower, made Snow Angels in the snow, hugged babies, and laughed. And we all are just like her in all her ways. It’s trite to say she’s gone but not forgotten. But when I look at any other Scarlett Snickerdoodle and the flamboyant red hat, purple top, feathers, and flowers – I instantly see her. She is truly in my heart. And I could honestly say that I feel like dancing.

This is for you, dear Lois Watts

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Lois Leaves

My friend, Lois, beat the devil of ALS to the ground on Friday and then walked into the arms of Jesus and left that useless body behind. She was so through with it. She took her favorite hat with her that she wore to all our Red Hat gatherings. In sparkling letters it said "Bitch." She was very fond of that hat.

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What Would You Do?

Eeek - it's been ten days since I've written.

I love my life because usually I am my own comic relief. I am channeling Lucille Ball most of the time. Things happen. Can't explain it.

But lately, life and the process of living has been depressed, much like our economy. Have you noticed that nobody is really saying we are in a depression???? It's a recession, they say. I had to look up both words.

Depression – a slump, a recession (I hate words that define other words that I'm trying to define in comparison. How can Webster do that????), slump, downturn, fall. Ok – those all can be applied to my poor skeleton of a 401(k) plan.

Recession – depression (see????), slump, downturn, collapse, decline – Well, this definitely applies to our situation today. Maybe there is no difference?

Anyway – back to depression – I'm kind of in the human depression of despair and hopelessness. I've mentioned my friend before, who has ALS. I have started taking care of her Friday mornings before I went to work. She now needs 24/7 care and our Red Hat chapter is taking turns helping out her husband so he can go to his day job.

I just got off the whirligig of doing the same kind of care for my mother-in-law; doing the same for someone my own age is startling. I'm kind of paralyzed in what to say to my friend. She's the one with a sense of humor. (I like to think I have a sense of humor – but it's hard to be funny when you see your friend's body steadily slipping away, muscle by muscle.) She can't speak, can't walk, can't stand. The first thing that happened was that she slipped out of bed onto a foot stool. By the time I got to her, I was horrified to find out that I am not wonder woman like I thought. I had no strength whatsoever to pick her up and put her back to bed. After several attempts to lift her, I was debating calling 9-1-1 just to have someone pick her up so I could get her into her motorized scooter. She flung her arm out towards the front door and I asked if she wanted me to get the neighbor. Yes! Yes! Yes! She nodded in a frantic sort of way. (At the same time it was finally registering with me that she was naked. She well knew it – I was just getting the hang of it – she kept patting the bed and I didn't get it – well her clothes were folded at the end of the bed. How could I not see that she was naked???) We threw clothes on, I raced next door and woke up the neighbor, who blearily came over and between the two of us, she was miraculously back in bed. Heavy sigh. The rest of the morning was pretty uneventful. We maneuvered into the living room and into her easy chair. The dog happily bouncing along beside her. Later she kept trying to get the dog to sit with her but he was focused on me. Finally she got out her only means of communication – a white board. And she wrote, "I have taught that dog everything he knows, but I forgot to teach him how to read." That whiteboard was her lifeline to the rest of us. She once wrote "I'm working on my bucket list." Her bucket is almost full.

I am signed up for Fridays, 7-9 in the morning. I promised her I would go directly to her bedroom and help her get up for the day, instead of waiting to find her squatting on the floor.

So, what kind of friend are you – and I mean this in a double-sided coin way. Would you help your naked friend with natural ease? On the other side, would you be a pleasant patient if a friend picked you up naked from the floor?

She and I decided that next time I even think of calling 9-1-1, I will call Hospice instead because they have promised to send the tallest, cutest, hottest firemen to our aid. She is making motions of fainting even now.

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In Memoriam

I have a good friend who has been diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease). She is a member of my Red Hats group, the Scarlet Snickerdoodles. She put in a request today. She is planning her Memorial Service and wants to be sure that we attend in all our Red Hat Glory and plethora of red and purple garments, hats, gloves, pins, and whatever else red and purple we can drape ourselves in.

It socked me in the stomach and left me breathless. She's dying. She's not just terribly sick; she's over the top sick with a disease that there is no cure for. She is going to leave us soon and wants to plan a last big bash where she won't be attending.

If you were planning your own memorial, what would you do? What would you say?

Here's to Lois - my friend. Here's to a special person who is a friend to all who meet her, who has a daughter and granddaughters that adore her, who has a husband who thinks she's just tops; who is part of a group of nutty women who like to wear purple and big flamboyant hats.

Here's to Lois who only desires to make memories, lots of memories, everlasting memories.

Here is to my vibrant, living, breathing, very, very, very good friend. Lois.

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Dinner with Friends

I have mentioned my group of friends before – we are "sisters of the heart." I think we are like a marriage but even better – our divorce rate (I mean us, the "sisters") is a whole lot lower than for all those other married couples. We have been a loyal group of five for just endless years (around 30) and we have never sought out a younger, firmer replacement, nor have we had illicit and clandestine meetings with anyone we would think were filling our needs better than the other four members of our group. We have occasionally had a sixth person – usually a daughter, sometimes a mother. Our mothers have all passed away and now we are running through the daughters as our sixth.

The five of us are J1, J2, J3 (me), S, and C. I say their initials only because they would freak if I publicized our antics for strangers to read and they would slap their hands over their mouths if someone actually knew who I was talking about. So – a lot of subterfuge going on.

We meet once a month for dinner and our conversations are laced with gossip, sex, sagas, episodes, tears, laughter, and on into the night. We choose different places throughout Spokane for our monthly gathering. We tend to forget that there is anyone else present in our space – like the waiter or waitress. Waitresses seem to understand what we are talking about; waiters always come in at the very end of a topic or at the peak of a topic and walk away thinking we are discussing all the steps in making love to our mailman without our husbands getting the drift, only we were actually talking about our dogs being bred to raise pure bred puppies. Like I said – men tend to get a small piece of the whole story and walk away with a whole new story on us. Out of context. Really!

We share intimate details of our lives while enjoying each other's company for these monthly trysts.

For example, J1 had breast surgery, which she paid for herself, to make her more endowed. We individually went with her to the restroom at one of our dinners to have a viewing. It caused quite a lot of heads turning, people buzzing, what's going on – and hard to explain that NO we aren't doing an imitation of Larry Craig. After all the ooing and ahhing, we settled down for dinner and J1 passed a sack to me of her cast off bras, which slipped in the hand-off and spilled all over the floor of the bar we had decided to eat in. So – here I am, blushing the color of a tomato, gathering up various "practical" bras for someone who obviously doesn't really have a use for them. But there you have it.

We get along fairly well for being almost sisters. We have our moments of sibling angst. But we work through it. One of us usually has some major trauma/event to discuss at dinner and we are fairly decent about sharing our two hours together so each of us has a chance to spill our hearts – whether for five minutes or for 30 minutes, whatever we need. We have no rules. We aren't judgmental, well, rarely. I'm sure when two of us get together away from the others a little judgment might happen.

To be continued, for sure. . . .

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Girls' Night Out -or- The Fire Up There

Tonight is my monthly dinner with four friends. We have been doing this eating thing for 30 years, monthly, religiously, unfailingly, devotedly. We save up our individual little daily "adventures" (single mothers (well, parents generally) have very few days that roll along without and "adventure") and then we share them at our dinner table, along with commiserating with each other on their unique adventures of the last four weeks.

This time we can hardly stand ourselves to sit by idly waiting for the minutes to pass until 6:30. One of our group lived through and survived the Spokane Valley View Fire of 2008, Thursday July 10. Last Thursday we had a fierce wind storm that whipped up a little campfire to a roaring frenzy, aiming it at an exclusive gated community of very expensive homes, with one single access road going north. The fire and the smoke were unbelievable, the wind insurmountable. In the end, the firestorm acted like some tornado you would see in Indiana. It twisted and turned and jumped any which way, striking one house, leaving another, and pouncing on the third. Eleven houses were burned. There was little carnage – it burned so hot and fast, that nothing is left except cement pillars, cement porches, cement foundations, and lots of ash. It spread over 1,000 acres, slipping through the locked community gate and indiscriminately changed lives forever. Fortunately, and blessedly, there were no injuries or deaths. Not sure about pets – but people came out from everywhere, strangers, and took in dogs, cats, horses, goats, while their human families were evacuated.

My dinner group friend lives in the middle of the fire zone. She and her sister (another of my dinner group) were doing errands on Thursday and noticed the smoke coming from the area quite a ways west of my friend's house. They both thought nothing of it - that it was just a small brush fire or maybe even a controlled burn. They went on with their chores. When she drove up to her house, though, a guy was parked by her driveway and she asked him why he was there and he said "Oh, I'm just watching that fire." She looked over and it was suddenly a lot of smoke - an awful lot. She still felt safe though - that the wind was blowing more northerly than southerly. However, when she got in the house, her animals were all acting totally nuts and she decided to take caution, even if it were too much, and started gathering important papers.

She is WAAAYYYYY more organized than I am. She was able to instantly put her hands on: a box of pictures; a box of bills and statements; and a box of all the receipts and floor plans for her house, which she and her husband built about ten years ago. She loaded the boxes into her car, gathered up the animals and stuffed them beside the boxes, and started down the road - only to come across fire on both sides - near the Pring house (a two million dollar mansion which would be engulfed moments after she passed). A little trickle of fire was running across the road and she floored it past there and drove until she reached a "meadow" which was a baseball field that one of the gated community residents built. There she waited with about 30 other residents, AND a fireman. They couldn't get down further because a larger branch of the fire was burning across the road. They sat there in pretty much a safe zone and watched the fire burn around them, sweep up towards her house, and crawl around and down the other side across from the baseball field. About two hours later, they all were led out of the fire zone. Her house was saved - but the two on either side of her were burned to the ground.

So I have been quite introspective lately. I could easily be jealous of my friend – she lives on top of the world, with a great view, locked safely in behind a key-coded gate, in a house that she and her husband built, their dream home, for half a million (one of the lower end houses).

There is much to be thankful for that we (well, I) take for granted. My house is paid for, is comfortable and fits me, has good insurance on it, in case a purple elephant should fall on it. I have a plethora of friends that fill my various needs for affection, caring, praise, love, empathy. I have a good car that is paid for and gets 34 mpg, a real necessity today with soaring gas prices. I have two adult sons that are my whole life! A house is simply shelter. A house can be easily replaced. My friends and family cannot.

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Friends and Soul Mates

Friendship is such a powerful thing. Do you ever think about it? Do you think about who your best friend is? Do you have one main special friend or several?

I have four friends that came together as an informal spontaneous "support" group. It started more than 30 years ago, when I was working two jobs to help ends meet and raising my two sons alone. I cleaned houses as a second job – I cleaned four police officers' homes and one of them was one of the first women on the Spokane Police Department. She is integral to this story because we all were brought together by her: She has a sister, and then an ex-sister-in-law (ditched the husband but kept his sister), and then her best friend whom she met while they were attending Alcoholics Anonymous for Spouses, and then me, her part time house keeper. (She hates when I introduce myself that way!)

We met because we all were single mothers; we were all around the same age (I'm the baby); our children were around the same age; and we were in-between relationships. We have religiously met for dinner once a month, and rotate who picks the dinner. We have individually only missed a dinner for whatever reason keeps us away, however, the group itself has NEVER missed a dinner in all these 30+ years.

We were front page news (well, Section C front page) of the Spokesman Review in 1992, where we were crowned "The Diners' Club" by the S-R writer, Rebecca Nappi. Thank you, Becky! The most amazing thing was the number of MEN who read and commented on our ariticle! {smile}

We are alike.

We are different.

We have been at each others' weddings and held each other through divorces; we have gone through teenage traumas with each of our children, together; we have taken on the ailments that pester people as they get older and we do it with aplomb and humor; we have supported our children in their struggles stepping into adulthood; we have survived all of our parents and now are 50-60-ish orphans. We cry on each others' shoulders, rant and rave about whoever is wronging us, share deep and private secrets that go no further than the table we are sitting at, laugh and giggle, weep, cry, commiserate, sympathize, and empathize – sometimes all of this several times in a two-hour period.

We started a "mad money" pot several years ago where we would pitch in $10 a month to fund something, anything, to get out of Dodge for a night or two. Our "mad money" pot has paid airfare, hotel, and food on two trips to Seattle, one trip to Yakima for the Spirit of Seattle dinner train that was stationed there (before it moved to Seattle); we spent a Christmas night in Coeur d'Alene overlooking the lake, with Santa's Village visible on the other side; another Christmas in Sandpoint for an absolutely magical snowy Christmas. We have a group Christmas card that got started in the mid-80s that we pass around on a rotational basis and we each take turns summarizing the year we have just finished; we have had pages added to it; I finally scrounged card shops for a new envelope to replace the frayed one. We each have had the card during a year that invariably is one of transition – literally – where the Keeper Of The Card is moving to another house and at the same time tries dutifully to keep in mind which box has "The Card." I personally would hyperventilate over it for 365 days until I handed it over to the next person at our Christmas brunch, with a huge sigh of relief that I didn't lose it. (Or throw it away.)

Our best trip by far was to Disneyland – twice. We saved enough to pay for several days in the Park. Our first trip, we piled into a taxi at the LA airport, five of us "old" ladies chattering and giggling at once and the driver fell in love with us. He happened to be going off duty for the weekend, but he "adopted" us and became our driver for the weekend. He got our plane schedule and then faithfully picked us up at 6:00 in the morning, took us to breakfast, drove us to the Park, told us to meet him here at this spot at 1:00 to take us back to the hotel for our "naps" and then drove us back to the Park for the rest of the day, picking us up at 11:00 at night and delivering us back to the hotel, watching us c-r-a-w-l up the steps to our room, only to start it all over again the next day. He figured out that our plane left at 5:00 in the evening and calculated how many play hours we could spend at the Park, and he picked us up and delivered us to the airport in plenty of time for our plane ride home. Thank you, John!!!!

We have talked about everything you can imagine from men, to menopause, to teens, to men, to independent women, to old age, to men, to ….. hmmm, well, MEN. We have all been through serious illnesses and without the support of each other, we would have flailed cluelessly through it all. One of us is a breast cancer survivor, one of us has Lupus; one of us has kidney disease; one of us has been diagnosed with Parkinson's. We hold each other up, lift each other up, and brighten each other's lives. I don't know what I would do without these four women in my life.