Girlfriends

I just returned from a weekend in Chicago with 7 of my closest girlfriends, and it was simply wonderful.

It was three nights and almost three full days of laughing, eating, teasing, and drinking. It was three nights and almost three full days of no temper tantrums, no poopy diapers, no cooking, and no cleaning. For a group of women with 21 young children between them, this is as close to heaven on earth as we can get right now.

Thursday night kicked off with a champagne toast, and we toasted to the small miracle it took to coordinate 8 different schedules in order to get us in the same city on the same weekend. More drinks followed, as well as conversations about gardening and composting and finding snakes in your dining room.

Friday found us in the most amazing seats at Wrigley for a Cubs game courtesy of Kathy's sweet brother (single ladies of Chicago - hello! He's gorgeous, smart, employed, and really tall.). Third row behind home plate. There were husbands and fathers all over the country green with envy. Then more talking, laughing, eating, and drinking.

Saturday was spent meandering around the Miracle Mile and enjoying the opportunity to shop and try on clothes without a stroller full of kids screaming in the background. Giordano's pizza for dinner, and then back to Wrigleyville to watch an old friend perform in a hilarious improv group. Then more talking, laughing, eating, and drinking.

The cups they're holding? Oh, yes. That was lunch. That's right people, some of us had chocolate milkshakes for lunch. Just because we could.

I felt lucky the whole weekend. Lucky to have friends like this, who love me exactly as I am, good and bad. Friends who were there to listen if I wanted to talk about cancer, but didn't expect me to. Lucky just to be here, and be healthy enough to have fun with my friends. And I felt especially lucky to have a supportive family to take care of my kids so I could go have this experience.

Sunday we slowly extracted ourselves from the Heavenly Beds at the Weston and tearfully went our separate ways. The only thing we had left to talk about at the end of the weekend was, "When can we do this again?"