This luncheon has been going on for 40 years.
A chance for friends to get together for a leisurely lunch.
They invited me yearly for a long time, but
the lunch was always mid-week, and I always worked. They eventually
stopped inviting me.
They took a break for a few years, as family
matters which go along with an aging population interfered, but I was
delighted to get an invitation for this "reunion." (Though sad
that, ultimately, Natalie was not able to attend after all.)
The only problem was that it was being held
on a Thursday, my Logos day. I finally decided to play hookie.
Anne, who filled in for Sandy when she was on vacation is now an on-call
volunteer and I asked her if she would work for me today so I could go to
the lunch. She agreed, and I was free to finally attend my first Lazy
Ladies' Luncheon.
Apparently the history of this lunch was that
it started in 1976, a chance to get together with those women whom you first
got to know in PTA, or Little League or Scouts or some other organization
and now never see, unless you happen to pass accidentally downtown (where
everyone admits nobody goes any more!)
Apparently the event continued annually until
about four years ago and there hasn't been one since. But perhaps the
impetus for reviving it came from a tea I attended a few months ago, where I
got to see a lot of women I know in Davis, but rarely see any more. It was held
at the home of our kids' former nursery school teacher.
So when the "save the date" e-mail came, I
assumed this, too, would be held at someone's home and was surprised when the
official invitation arrived saying it was at the local country club.
Was I surprised when I arrived! This was no
"little" luncheon. There must have been 80-100 women there and I
probably had known half of them, at least, over the last 40 years, though
may not have seen them in 30. What fun! There was the
psychiatrist's wife, the wife of our kids' high school music teacher, two
women I actually see for lunches a few times a year, the woman I used to
work with at the bakery, a friend of Marta's mother whom I did not recognize
until she introduced herself to me, lots of women I worked with on various
school projects, the former mayor of Davis, a few women who had been
involved in one capacity or another with the Davis Comic Opera Co., a woman
who is the town historian, our kids' nursery school teacher....everywhere I
looked there was either someone I remembered or someone who looked familiar
and I was embarrassed not to remember her name. Fortunately we all
wore name tags. Only one woman brought up Paul and David (for which I was
grateful), but her kids had performed with our kids (David's only on-stage
kiss was with her daughter).
It was a real ego booster for me, as I had so
many women come and tell me how much they enjoyed my reviews (though one
woman asked if I was still writing them, since she hadn't seen any in
awhile--and this is my busy season, so there has been at least one a week,
if not three!)
I sat with our friend Dair, one of my
favoritest people, whom I have not seen in several years, since she moved to
a retirement complex out of Davis, but she and her
husband were the reason why we took on our Mexican daughter, Marie, who has
now become such a
successful business woman. She had not heard of all of Marie's
recent fame and we were able to smile that we both remembered her when she
was just a little girl in a little town in Mexico that someone thought could
achieve good things if she had the chance of an education in the United
States. It was definitely nice getting caught up with Dair and sharing
stories about our grandchildren.
There was a lovely salad and soup buffet
lunch, with cookies for dessert, and our hostess greeted us with a few
words, starting out by asking who in the room has had some part of her body
replaced. Probably half of the room raised their hands (this is an
experience I have yet to have, though can knee replacement be put off
forever?)
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