Weekend Reunion, Part One

You ever have one of those get-togethers with friends from high school or college and it's just all awkward and strange, and you really can't quite remember why you were friends in the first place?

Judy, Moi & Debbie, doing a VERY lazy Charlie's Angels pose.

This wasn't one of those reunions.

I hadn't seen Judy or Debbie since the mid '80s, probably going on 20 years. And I hadn't seen the two of them together since Debbie's wedding. Judy and I were pink clad bridesmaids for the occasion, held at the Hotel Del Coronado.

Judy and I met in junior high. We did a dramatic reinactment of the scene in The Three Musketeers where D'artagnan first meets Rochefort and Milady. I was Milady, wearing a dress that Judy helped me sew for the occasion (my very first costume and I still have it) and Judy was D'artagnan, complete with pink satin breeches and wig. Debbie was a year ahead of us and I think that we met through my sister 'cause they were in Drama together. Hey, it's been years, folks!

But what I DO remember is that the three of us got along really well. And when Debbie and Judy showed up at the Hidden Vine winebar Friday night, it was obvious in the first five minutes that nothing had changed in that regard. After hugs and 'Oh MY GOD, you haven't CHANGED!' (and they really haven't...it's kinda scary. What I call the Dorian Gray syndrome) were exchanged, we settled down to some serious walks down memory lane, accompanied by an Alsace Cremant bubbly, some luscious Oregon Pinot Noir, and the amused/bemused smile on Dave's face as he listened to us compare notes on who we still were in contact with from the old days, who we liked, who we thought were bitches (that would be Caroline F., Jeanne C., and a few other assorted women with low self-esteem who seemed to thrive only when making someone else feel like shit), and assorted other topics. All of this was accompanied by the sort of raucous giggling and noise and loud voices that make you either want to join a group 'cause they're having so much fun, or shoot them so they'll just shut up.

We touched lightly on a lot of subjects, but didn't delve too deeply into any one of them. After all, this was giddy catch up time, glossing over as many topics as possible to lay the base for the next day, when it would just be us girls with a three hour drive to Glass Beach in Mendocino, a drive that would give us ample opportunity to get into the really SERIOUS stuff. After all, we didn't want to bore Dave. Right, girls?

Right.

I don't think he was bored. At the very least, he was given insight into his beloved's teenage years. I got some insight myself, actually, at least as far as how my friends viewed me back in the day. Gotta say that the ego boost was extreme, with the words 'gorgeous', 'stunning' and other nice things bandied about.

And they were talking about a time BEFORE I turned into a walking ego who assumed that everyone thought I was the cutest trick in shoe leather (to more or less quote Rhett Butler - I'm too lazy to look up the exact phrase right now).

I was actually very shy in Junior High and the first year of High School. The shyness was usually interpreted as stuck up. And even when I graduated from 'shy' to 'reserved, with some idea that I wasn't butt ugly,' I was still fairly slow when it came to things like flirting and dating. I was a drama student, comfortable on stage, but still a little awkward in my own skin. So to find out that I was perceived as 'quite the presence' in high school was, to say the least, about as flattering a perception as I could want.

Debbie and Judy were also self-esteemed challenged when they were in high school. Both amazingly intelligent, cute as hell, but, like myself, kind of geeky. We were Star Trek fans, okay? We attend STAR meetings. At least, Judy and I did. I can't remember if Debbie hung with the faux pointed ear crowd or not.

Speaking of which, I'm watching Star Trek as I write this. The Cage. Captain Pike. The original green-skinned Orion animal woman episode, dammit! While I like Captain Pike, he just ain't Captain James Tiberius Kirk. He would have been all OVER Veena. Call me old fashioned, but I like my starship captains horny and shameless. I would have made a great Captain's Woman in Mirror Mirror, by thunder. But I wonder if I would have had a beard and mustache like Spock...

Ahem.

I digress.

At any rate, we ended Friday night on a slightly tipsy, but totally respectable note. Debbie and Judy headed back to their hotel, while Dave and I caught the L Taravel line home. The plan for Saturday morning was for Judy and Debbie to catch the BART to Daly City, where I would pick them up and the three of us would head out on our trip to Glass Beach. They'd call me when they were headed out of the hotel. Just not before 7:00.