Poconos/Pokenose

I’ve just returned from a wonderful, relaxing, restoring long weekend with my bestest buds from college, Jules, Julie and Ariane. We all converged on Julie’s parents’ vacation house in the Poconos (which was free for us, yay! And thanks Julie and Julie’s parents) because it had been far too long since we all got together. Jules brought her son Malcolm and Julie brought her little boy Ben.

We didn’t do all that much, just played with the kids, who provided hours and hours of entertainment. Malcolm and Ben are so gorgeous, and smart and sweet and such a blast to be around. Malcolm is a little firecracker, two and a half years old and talking up a storm, just like his mama. Ben is 18 months old and has a smile that will melt your heart. One of the cutest things I think I’ve ever seen was the sight of little, blonde, curly-haired Ben meandering through the living room, clutching a tiny Nerf football and singing the Oompa Loompa song. And Malcolm had us all laughing so hard we were crying when he invented this bizarre Bubba Freebie game at dinner.

After the kids went to bed, the four of us just sat around and talked, which was way better than it sounds. There are very few people in the world with whom I can be 100% myself without any reservations, but we speak the same language, the four of us. There’s no pretending or nonsense. We all have the same sense of humor. They get me, and I get them. We talked through each other’s problems, seriously and humorously. Julie, when I was telling her how I couldn’t get an appointment with the diabetes specialist for months “See you in June. And hope you still have your feet!” The answer to my infertility? Crack. I can’t believe I never thought of trying that one. When we weren’t gabbing about current events, we reminisced about our favorite college memories. It was supposed to be a top ten list, but we had so many good times we gave up on trying to number them. I’m pleased to say the great Cow Caper made it pretty high on the list too.

And then today we packed all our stuff up, cleaned the house and headed for our various homes under the chilly grey Van Gogh sky. No offense central and eastern Pennsylvania, but you are kind of boring. Every once in a while I’d come around a curve on 81 and a pretty valley would be spread out in front of me, but for the most part, it was dullsville. The most exciting thing that happened was that I drove through a town called Frackville, which was hysterically funny after a couple of hours of watching bare trees and rocks go by (it’s still winter in most of PA – I didn’t see any green until I hit Harrisburg). Somehow I missed Frackville on the drive up, but today I pictured it as a town composed of Battlestar Galactica fanatics. They all just moved their clocks forward by 60 centars (I think a centar is a minute, right? Or is it a second? Or wait, is it centon? Whatever, you get the idea.) and the SciFi channel is like a local network.

Now I am home, where spring is firmly entrenched. The tree in my front yard has started flowering, and all sorts of blooms are popping up in the front and back gardens. John is playing a computer game and Seamus is snoozing by my side. All is right with my world. So how was your weekend?