Wench

I wrote this post exactly a week ago but forgot to post it.

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When I started high school I was mostly friendless. I had lots of friends in middle school, but my best friend had sort of moved on to other, more herbal and adult beverage type endeavors over the summer whereas I was still a giant square who liked to wear baby doll dresses with wacky tights and chinese slippers (which sounds weird now that I read that - but they were just black mary janes from Chinatown that cost like $2 and probably ruined my arches forever). I was also very into french braids and Princess Leah buns.

When freshman year started it didn't take long for me to find "my people" and for the most part they were drama dorks. And older than me. By 3 years. Yes, I made friends my own age as well, (and grew closer with them sophomore year when most of my older friends abandoned me for college) but I was really enamored with my older friends. They were so clever! We could skip school and drive around town in their cars! And I could hang out in the Senior Hall! And get rides home from school! And meet older boys!

Best of all, we formed an imaginary band. It was 1993, we were 90 minutes from Seattle and everyone who was anyone was climbing on board the garage band train. In an effort to mock all the high school guys who were in a band and therefore thought they were SO COOL, we decided to start our own, all girl band. We called it WENCH. An obsession was born. Pink was our theme color and we had official Wench Parties with name tags and invitations. Since we never actually played instruments, I only remember that Darrah was going to be our interpretive dancer. Man, we were dorks.

In the summer of 1994, when most of my friends had graduated high school, my older friends banded together and rented the house of our drama teacher while she performed at a summer festival in another city. We dubbed it The Wench House. In hindsight my parents were supremely cool because they essentially let me sleep over there every night that summer. And to illustrate my point about being a giant square, I will tell you with complete honesty that I don't think we had a single party there that summer. And for certain I never consumed a single adult beverage. But every night felt like a party.

We would make "supreme beds" on the floor, using every blanket and pillow in the house, and watch Reality Bites over and over. And over. Like, until we had the entire script memorized and said the words along with the actors. It was "our movie".

This is going to sound corny, but I really think back on that summer as one of the best summers of my life. It was also the summer after I started dating Jeff so that certainly adds a golden haze to those months. But (sorry Jeff) it was mostly my Wench friends. I was only 15, so it was the last summer I wasn't required to have a job and I had no responsibilities. I was permitted to hang out with my friends and eat Rice Krispy Treats for dinner all the time. Chris worked at Baskin and Robbins and would bring home (pink) peppermint ice-cream when finished with her late night shifts. I was totally in love and I knew it was my last summer with all of these amazing friends before everything changed so I was determined to live it up. I have so many memories from that summer - the morning after a distant friend stayed over with her boyfriend and Katherine wandered into their room to clean up and exclaimed with total disgust "It smells like SEX in here!!! GROSS!" (following which, we all rushed into the room sniffing deeply and acting grossed out), listening to Sarah McLachlan at top volume with Erianna and Heidi after Heidi suffered a break up, laughing til I cried watching Kristin and Darrah do the "Punchy dance", playing truth or dare at 5am and running through the front yard with Chris in our underwear on a busy street, making batch after batch of Rice Krispy Treats with Heidi. But mostly I just remember that my life that summer felt like one long party.

You can imagine the let down going back to high school was for me in the Fall.

So.

This weekend, most of the Wench girls will be in Seattle. For a reunion of sorts. Heidi's bridal shower is Saturday and we're all pulling together to help. Erianna flew in from New York yesterday where she's been living since forever. As I type this, Katherine is flying up from LA, and Kristin is driving down from Bellingham tomorrow. Edie is being farmed out to my parents for the weekend and I am free to stay up late, make a supreme bed, eat a pan full of RKTs, spend the night with my friends, and sleep in. For 2 nights!! Aside from the fact that I no longer wear baby doll dresses or remember how to french braid my hair, it's going to be like 1994 all over again! Except with more gray hairs and wrinkles. And earlier bed times.

The perfect ending to this post would include a photo of Wench from 1994 and I can picture the exact one I want (picture a group of girls with really big hair wearing vintage pink dresses and party hats sitting on the front stoop of The Wench House). But alas, I think it's at Darrah's house in a frame and I'm certain that no one has it digitally.

Yaaargh!

I hadn't planned a Halloween costume for Edie yet. With all the dress-up clothes she got for her birthday, I figured it would be a game day decision between skeleton (from last year - it still fits), mermaid, snow white and maybe Tinkerbell (she has the makings to pull any of these off).

Yesterday I learned at daycare that Jen was planning a "Halloween Day" today for the kids. I'm assuming because most of her kids are part time and Wednesday was her best chance to catch as many of the kids on the same day. Jen wrote me an email last night to confirm. Part of her email said, "I thought it would be great for the kids to dress up and as Edie would say "have some spooky activities". "

For some reason it really cracked me and Jeff up that Edie apparently likes to "have some spooky activities". Where did she get that phrase? These days she says all sorts of stuff that cracks us up though. She was pretending to make us pie tonight and when I asked for a milkshake to go with mine, she said, "YES, yes" in a tone that implied, 'why didn't *I* think of that??' then brought me an invisible shake. I took a "sip" and asked her what flavor it was. She thought for a second and then looked kind of sneaky and replied, "Salt".

ANYWAYS!!! My point is to say that this morning at 8am (drop off is at 8:30-8:45 and it's 10 minutes away) I asked Edie "What do you want to be for Halloween Day at Jen's house today?" And she immediately replied with, "PIRATE!!" After a quick "oh shit" moment on my part, I improvised. I pulled an old pair of too small black leggings out and shredded the bottom, pulled her red socks up to her knees, put a blouse on over her skeleton shirt, added her only non-pink cardigan for warmth, tied a weird sash from one of my H&M work shirts around her waist, and added a random necklace for "treasure". Basically I relied heavily on the legit pirate hat we already had in the dress up box. And hoped that she'd sing the pirates of the Caribbean song for extra effect.

But seriously guys, these photos KILL ME. I want to eat her up right now she's so hilarious and squeezable.


I had a brief moment of panic when I dropped her off because one of the other girls was arriving in full princess gear at the same time - what if Edie changed her mind and wanted to be girl-tastic?! But relief, she didn't. She positively rocked the pirate look all day. I only wish I could have talked her into an eye patch (don't think I didn't brainstorm possible methods this morning - I eyed her Baby's headband very carefully, wondering if it would fit around E's head and if I could use double sided tape to fasten a sharpie colored piece of paper to it for the patch).

Wanderlust: Belize

Seriously. This was the dock where we waited each night for the water taxi to take us to town for dinner. We would mix drinks, and drink them on the dock while waiting. EVERY NIGHT.

I'm fairly certain that we have not both simultaneously looked this relaxed since this
photo was taken.and then we took a "chartered" boat captained by a dude who's name I think was Steve? And he took us to exotic reefs that were so much cooler than anything I'd seen before. "Steve" had a large chunk out of his leg in the same shape as a shark's mouth, so when he told us it was perfectly safe to swim with these sharks, I politely watched from inside the boat. I mean, I like exotic, but I'm not an IDIOT.But I can't judge Steve too harshly because he fulfilled my lifelong goal of swimming with a manatee and it was so much more amazing than this photo of me drunkenly holding "fins" with a cement manatee.

But maybe my favorite thing about Belize were the amazingly fast boat rides in the pitch black. Each night we would usually take the last boat back to our hotel from town - I think at midnight? Despite Jeff extolling the dangers of the driver's speed, I couldn't bring myself to be nervous. It was the most bizarre sensation - it was about 90 degrees but when we were zooming through the shallow tropical water it felt about 78 (one of all my all time favorite temperatures). And the insanity of speeding full throttle with no vision 10 feet in front of you was like getting the exhilaration of Space Mountain but without all the nauseating twists and turns. I remember on our last night closing my eyes and memorizing the sensation so that I could keep it with me when we got home. Then I made our friends take a picture (with the flash) so I could have it documented.

If ever I should forget why I love Jeff, I think this picture would help me remember.

I'll never need reminding that I love rum based cocktails, but that doesn't mean I don't want a picture of me enjoying one.

Tadaaaa! When I tried to wear this bikini this summer it gave me 4 boobs.

Wanderlust: Guatemala

I've been ITCHING lately for an exotic trip. Ideally, I picture Edie there just enough to have a taste of culture, a quick snuggle, and maybe a day to play on a beach somewhere as a family. But then someone else magically cares for her the remainder of the time so that Jeff and I can pretend that we are footloose and fancy free. Free to make friends with tiny Guatemalan men, hold hands and reflect together on our day.
But for reals. Remember that time we went to Guatemala? I'm ready for another round. So, since that's not happening, let's instead look back at how exotic life used to be. Humor me and please look at my photos from 2008.



I've spared you the photo of me pretending to ride this tiny horse in the dark after having had a few drinks one night. Or maybe it was this horse (plus cart)? Let's be honest - it was probably both.





Gah! I'm so ready to eat somewhere magical like this again! Or at least travel to a place where every meal includes a serving of guacamole approximately the same size as your entree.
Or where the view from our room looks like this at sunrise:
And go to a crazy country where apparently no one ever gets sued for anything because they let you climb perilously high and rickety staircases and then hang out on top of a ruin with no guardrails whatsoever despite being higher than the tallest trees in the entire world.

Oh and monkeys as big as my 2 year old daughter roam loose.

And the only other tourists are smoking a joint while enjoying the view because apparently the "parks employees" that aimlessly wander the park with giant machetes could care less. That's us. Not the doobie smoking tourists. And this was our view:





Oh, and when we go on this fantastic vacation, I would also like to magically reverse the aging process by 3.5 years and 1 baby. Because look at me all 29 and fresh out of the shower looking all young and dewy with no wrinkles or bags under the eyes.

Stay tuned for Belize photos where I reminisce about drinking tropical (adult) beverages, being skinny, swimming with manatees, and hammocks.

Seabrook

Belated photos from the wedding we attended in Seabrook on the first of the month.

playing on the beach with Dad while I helped get things set up for the wedding.

walking to the ceremony from our cottage.

I hesitated as to whether to include this moment - It makes me feel like a shitty parent every time I see it, but at the same time it was a big part of our weekend. This was taken moments before things went wrong. We weren't sure how serious it was at first so Jeff took Edie back to the cottage to see if he could cheer her up while I stayed for the (short) ceremony.

Following it with this picture of her having a popsicle at the hospital after "the doctor fixed it!" makes me feel slightly better.

The wedding and our triumphant arrival at the reception. Note that some photos were pilfered from Facebook since I was too stressed out during the ceremony to take my own pictures. I'd like to rearrange these photos, but Blogger is my enemy and won't let me right now. So instead I offer you a random assortment of photos from the wedding and weekend.