Metaphorically Speaking...

I just got rid of the car I bought three years ago. Someone who knows quite a bit about cars talked me into getting a Saab. I was pretty happy about that Saab for a while--Smooth ride, looked cool, and it had potential to take me places I had never been. For a car, it had some personality and in the beginning it seemed to suit me well.

But, as anyone knows, those foreign cars can be more trouble than they're worth. In the beginning, the Saab made me smile and in the end, the Saab made me sob. Even with all the bells and whistles of that car...in time, it caused me a lot of agony. If it wasn't the tire going flat, it was the brakes squeeking, or the air conditioning going out, or the battery dying. Towards the end, it seemed as though it was in the shop all the time. And every time it came out of the shop from repairing one problem, it was back in again for something else. I was constantly trying to "fix" it. To the point that I became skeptical that the mechanics were rigging something to fail so they could cheat me out of more money and cause me more frustration. It wasn't even two weeks after I got the squeeking brakes fixed, that they started to squeek again. Several times I even knew something was wrong with the car, but just chose to ignore it because I didn't want to deal with it. I was in denial.

Even though deep down I knew it all along, it wasn't until recently that I could full heartedly admit that the car is just a piece of shit. I never gave that Saab a name, but if I were to name it today, I would've called it some variation of a four letter word. I curse the name of the person who talked me into getting that car in the first place. In hindsight, I should've junked the thing long ago. The time and energy I spent on that car far exceeded the attention it was worthy of receiving. But, I finally freed myself of it. I sold it to someone who probably doesn't know what she's gotten herself into. When she asked me why I was selling, I wanted to tell her it was because the maintenance on it was too much hassle for what I was really getting out of it. But the answer I gave her was still very much the truth. "I want to get something bigger. This car is too small for what I need."

I sincerely hope the new owner doesn't have the same problems with the car that I did. But, she decided to buy it and now it's her problem, not mine. I'm just glad she's the one driving it until it dies-Not me.

Girls' Weekend or Ladies' Retreat?

Last weekend, Goose and I hosted a Girls' Weekend with our college girlfriends here in Minneapolis. We've done this in year's past, but since this year we had NO weddings and NO bachelorette parties or showers among our group as a reason to reunite, a good old fashioned "girls weekend" was back on! There is nothing like college girlfriends. Something about going through such an impressionable time in your life together that always ties you together...no matter how long it has been since you have seen each other or what you have been doing since then.

While the weekend was absolutely fabulous and the turn-out for our named Camp Hagebacher was awesome, my expectations of how the weekend would go were a bit different from how things actually went. With no husbands or boyfriends around for an entire weekend, I kind of thought we would regress to our crazy old sorority girls college days!

Here is how I envisioned the weekend:
Every one arrives late Friday evening at Goose's
place, we whip up a batch of margaritas, gab
for a little bit, then walk to a bar, stay until close, walk home singing songs with our arms around each other, put on our pjs, and dance around the livingroom listening to old college tunes before we all crash.

Saturday, every one gets up, comes to my place for breakfast, where we make omelets and drink mimosas and Irish coffee. We talk about boys, and laugh at old memories while getting a morning buzz from our Bailey's and champagne before heading out to do some shopping.

Saturday evening, we go out for a nice dinner where we order rounds and rounds of Sangria before heading out to Brit's pub to do some drunkin' lawn bowling and have some beers. Once we have our fun there and draw plenty of attention to ourselves, someone will say, "let's go dancing", so we'll find some happenin' club downtown and dance the night away. After dancing, maybe we find a good pizza joint and take down a slice or two.

Sunday morning, we'll wake up with sore feet and hangovers and go to some great mom n' pop uptown diner, where we stuff ourselves with items on the menu such as "The Calhoun Omelet" or "The Uptowner" before everyone starts to hit the road.

Here is how the weekend actually went:
Goose and I spend a couple of hours making mix cds of all our fav college hits while waiting for girls to arrive. We envision playing this CD ALL weekend long (but it only got played once as background music). Only half the girls arrive that night. We make up ONE batch of margaritas and break open a couple of Coronas, talk for a few hours before every one gets ready for bed.


Saturday, every one rolls into my place around 11am for breakfast. We make fantastic omelets, and exchange various egg recipes. After much debate, we decide to pop the bubbly for mimosas. We gingerly poured champagne into 4 girl's OJs, using only enough champage to empty the neck of the bottle. I ended up pouring nearly an entire bottle of champagne down the drain later that day. The rest of the girls show up after breakfast. We DO talk about boys (of course) and head out to go shopping that afternoon.

Saturday evening, we go out for a fantastic carribbean dinner where we order one round of Sangria. We take about a gazillion pictures of each other, covering every combination of each girl with the other. After dinner, we go to Brit's Pub, where we decide not to go lawn bowling, but instead get a table and share saucy stories. Our normal dancing queen had a sprained ankle all weekend, so we sat with her foot elevated on a chair. First yawn came at 1am and half the group left for the evening, and the second group followed about a half hour after. I popped a frozen pizza in the oven, and have to wake up one or two girls who were already sleeping to eat it.

Sunday morning, at some point in the course of the morning, the classic mom n' pop diner got vitoed and we ended up at Perkins. Yes...I said Perkins. 8 girls in from out of town wanted to go to Perkins. Well, some resisted, but still. Perkins. Enough said. But even after spending an entire weekend, together, we still gabbed and gabbed over several pots of coffee.


Okay, so I am making the weekend sound a lot more lame than it really was. We had a blast! My point being, that we just didn't imbibe and get crazy as much as I remember us always doing. Are we growing up? Amazing though, that college girlfriends can get together and it really doesn't matter what we are doing or where we are. We just need to talk and laugh and we can make our own fun! That's what girlfriends are for. Tell me the last time a group of college guys got together for a weekend with minimal booze and still considered it a successful weekend?