Girls Weekend

There's nothing a bottle of milk and Caillou can't cure.

I'm sitting here eating croutons (fat-free parmesan ranch if you must know) right out of the bag for dinner. My husband, the cook of the family, is at our house trying to unpack so we can move back there. (I'm trying to get into the spirit of Facebook where everyone shares what they're eating and doing in real time...)

Anyway, so this upcoming weekend I was supposed to go on a girls weekend with my best friend from high school (she rescued me from certain obscurity when I moved in the middle of 10th grade) and several of her college friends who I came to know and be close to as well. Then I got an e-mail last Wednesday with the title "Last Minute Planning." The gal hosting the extravaganza is Type A so I chalked it up to "last minute to her probably IS ten days in advance." Then I got a call from my friend saying "See you Friday!" And then it clicked. I had the wrong weekend. My flights were for the weekend of October 23 but this shit was going off the weekend of October 16. With or without me.

Last year I had to cancel because my daughters sensed I was doing something for myself and willed themselves ear infections. I couldn't very well cancel again this year and call and say, "Umm, right! You know how you've been planning this for months? Well, I got the date wrong biatches! Have fun without me." So thank you Southwest Airlines! No questions asked or fees incurred, they switched my flights and I even had one of those annoying delightful singing flight attendants to boot.

And, always one to take a lesson away from life's adventures, here's what I learned:

• All husbands suck are challenging. This is either very depressing or very liberating depending on how you look at it. (Actually, I learned other husbands don't work full time plus pay the bills, clean the house, cook the food and generally serve as a butler so I came back a bit more appreciative. But don't tell my husband that).
• These women actually know somebody who poisoned her husband's breakfast with cyanide and killed him. My first question: "What did he do to make her kill him?" Second was what she put the cyanide in. Apparently orange juice or an omelet or a combination thereof.
• Five women should not commandeer a boat to dinner when those five women know very little about boats but a lot about wine.
• Southwest Airlines doesn't consider an obese man doused with a poisonous level of cheap cologne a domestic terrorist.
• My girls can survive 48 hours without me.
• My husband can survive for 48 hours without me.
• My girls don't make my husband sit and watch Calliou with them while they drink their night-time bottle like he's a prisoner in a war camp where they punish inmates with children's television. (It's a good idea... incarceration officials should try it and see if the incidence of repeat offenders plummets.)
• I need to spend more time with friends.

Next year's girls weekend is only 359 days away but who's counting...