Club 40 in Austin

In about 11 hours, I will abandon my children.
In about 15 hours, I will leave my husband.
In about 20 hours, I will be kissing a woman.
In about 24 hours, I will likely be drunk.
It will all be documented.  But most of it NEVER shared.

These are my women:

Skinny, pretty bitches, aren't they? 

And this is after about 6 hours of drinking.

But I love them in spite of it.

My high school posse of seven gets together every couple of years, and honestly, it's one of the most precious, important things to me.  We travel from Iowa and Nebraska and Minnesota and Colorado and Montana and Idaho.  They are smart, terrifically talented and multi-faceted people, and when we get together we aren't people's moms or wives or employees or bosses or doctors or designers or marketers or artists or corporate brass.  We are Julie and Paige and Meem and Dee and Steph and Liz and Jen.  People with histories and victories and tragedies.  I know every one of these chickas has my back, and I have theirs.  And they know EVERYTHING about me, which makes you feel a little sorry for them, no?  Do you want to know how much I love them?  Do you?

I would poop in front of them.

That's right.  Go ahead and cringe.  But if you are a woman, you KNOW that's a big deal.

Here we are re-living what was probably a middle school slumber party move:

Since I'm the tallest person, I'm always the heaviest too, so I spared them all the ER visit and didn't get on the top of the pyramid.  You're welcome, girls.  This was taken two years ago when we last met in a gorgeous house in Scotsdale, Arizona.  That weekend was such total and complete bliss, and we all cried when it was time to leave.  I've been so effing busy at work and with the kids and our basement renovation that I haven't even had time to think about this trip much until tonight, and I'm finally starting to get so excited.  It's the oasis in the desert.  With tequila.

Since my air travel experience wasn't fantastic last time, I'm sure to load up on reading material.  These are the two books I'm lugging along for my drinking reunion weekend:

That George Washington book is a bigun.  It is making me rethink my aversion to a Kindle.  There is just SOMETHING about opening that book and turning the pages and feeling the heft of it in my hands.  I'm a little old school about it.  But a Kindle would be a dream for the trip.  Maybe in Large Print. 

I briefly considered taking Todd "Hot Nuts" Epstein with me for the trip, because that cheeky squirrel is always up for a party, but if airport security took him away for any reason, I would just die.  I wouldn't get on the plane.  It nearly killed me that they took my forgotten mini Swiss Army knife out of my makeup bag.  I begged them to let me keep the tweezers, because with the Chia Brow I need to pluck every 3-5 hours.  I'm taking my muffin top because I have nowhere else I can put it.  I'm taking a camera and swimsuit and Prilosec and Aleve, and the rest doesn't matter.  Which is good because it is now nearly 9 p.m. and I haven't packed yet.

Au revoir, Wifers!  Have a great weekend, and I'll be back all full of verboten tales on Monday.  Or Tuesday.

UPDATE:  Oh bloody hell.  I got sucked into Property Brothers on HGTV, and now it's 11 p.m. and still no packing.  Up at 6:30 to get kids to school, still have to pop in at work for a couple of hours, flight at 1 p.m., what was I thinking? 

Damn you, Property Brothers and your stylish renovations.  Damn you to hell.