Sisters Thursday

Remember our Sisters Weekends? Those annual no-husbands-no-kids-allowed estrogen fests, communing over food and jigsaw puzzles? It's been way too many years since we've had one but, you know, life gets in the way and all that.

So Debbie called Tuesday night and said that she'd rented a hotel room near me and the four of us were expected to begin converging there Wednesday for a much-needed weekend of sisterhood.

And Britt was not invited.

I was a little perturbed that I wasn't included in the planning for this because it was very short notice and I have no babysitter and no car right now and if I had been included in the planning I maybe could've made some babysitting arrangements or rescheduled the thing to a more convenient date. Also, I could've told her that the hotel she'd chosen was nowhere near me, but anyway...

I didn't make it over there Wednesday night, but Thursday morning I was up at the butt-crack of dawn to go condo shopping with them -- and, yes, Britt was invited if that's what it took to get me on board. So we scoured the northwest part of the city all morning and into the early afternoon for a condo that suited Cathy, then went to lunch, adjourned for naps, and reconvened after Mikey got home from work so he could watch Britt for me.

It was the first time the four of us had been alone together in way too many years. We went out to dinner, had a few drinks, laughed a lot, and went back to the hotel, where Debbie introduced me to Sudoku (she said I'd get hooked on it, but I already have a pointless time-wasting addiction -- my Family Tree habit). Mikey called to see when I was coming home and put Britt on the phone to lay the guilt on thick, so I stayed an hour longer than I'd intended to out of pure stubbornness.

We were supposed to go condo-shopping again Friday morning, but Cathy wasn't up to it. I was relieved to hear it, because I wasn't either. I heard nothing further until 4:00, when my sisters showed up on my doorstep without warning. They had tried to warn me, but I hadn't answered my phone, which I later found stuffed behind the sofa cushions.

It was embarrassing to be caught in my jammies at 4:00 in the afternoon -- though I usually wear jammies 24/7, I do put clothes on if I know somebody's going to be looking at me. Also, I hadn't done any chores in two days and Britt had dumped out a bag of Chex Mix on the end table while I was passed out on the couch recovering from the night before. I'd cleared the stuff off the table but I hadn't gotten around to picking up the overspill from the floor yet. So, anyway, they didn't see me or my house at our best.

They invited us out for an early dinner, because they wanted to eat and go to bed early since everybody was worn out. I had to pass, since Britt and I had just finished a late lunch due to the aforementioned passed-out-on-the-couch thing. After that I never heard another peep from them, so I guess the Sisters Weekend kind of petered out -- not from lack of interest but from lack of energy.

Gawd, what a bunch of geezers we are.