Wednesday, April 27, 2011

These Just In!

Daily Daffodils

Forsythia Forever

Rhododendrons Popped Today!

Tulips Today!

Out To Lunch

And out for lunch! 3 girlfriends. We go out to celebrate each of our birthdays. The birthday girl gets to pick the place. Somewhere fun, casual and always different and a teeny bit more upscale than a yogurt or PBJ on the run. We are hardly the ladies who lunch!

It always makes us laugh when the bill arrives. 2 of us treat the birthday girl. Believe me, it isn't calculator worthy... although we have no beverage stronger than lemonade, when the 2 treaters start calculating the split plus tip and who owes who how much... since one of us had exact change for the tip while the other had no more change ...only a debit card.....we look like AND the birthday girl patiently fiddles with her wedding rings and reviews her manicure, nail by nail....by nail, we find ourselves giddy with a slight hysteria over the confusion...well aware that we look terrifically tipsy...which makes us create a bigger scene. Basically, its the irreverent nervous church laughter....magnified

Sometimes the birthday girl offers up her wallet just to get the whole painful process overwith....perhaps hoping to be home by dinnertime.

Once the bill has been paid, the treaters begin the silly debate of which treater owes the other the simple sum, what bills we put on the waiter's little brown plastic tray, how much change came back on the tray, amount to tip the server... sometimes we have distractedly dismissed the birthday girl with pained looks on our faces, an air kiss and a quick wave to free her from the birthday hostage situation.....and the birthday girl, having aged over the process....runs off into the distance like a frightened cartoon character!

Ironically, one of the "girls" is a doctor, one a nurse and one was a mortgage broker in another life!

Ironically, of all the ""birthday girl" lunches we've shared, some of our greatest memories are of the bill being tallied!

Ironically, we have become "those women" who will continue to call themselves "the girls" well beyond the "certain age" years. We spend far too much time hunched over the table with eyes squinted, glasses perched at the tip of our noses, whispering nervously, nodding our heads, leafing through our wallets while truly believing we are not, will not, could not ever become "one of those women who quibble over a bill!"

After all these years watching "those women," I realize they haven't been arguing about who ate the steak and who had the grilled cheese...it's a luncheon ritual that has been going on since women carried a coin purse...it's not the money...it's time well spent with friends!

When was the last time that you had lunch with the girls? Call a friend ....do lunch! You go girl!