Ain't No Sunshine When They've Gone

Carmel-by-the-Sea, California

My two comrades-in-arms, Debra, whom we call DG, and Lydia, whose monogram is LOL (as a group I refer to the three of us as Las Chicas) left Sunday night. They left very slowly. I saw them through security at Monterey Airport; we all waved before I turned to walk to the parking lot. I called Billy on the way home to mitigate the damages of girlfriend separation. Once home, I poured myself a glass of wine, finished off what was left of the macaroni and cheese (made with truffle cheese, rosemary fontina, gruyere, cheddar, AND creme fraiche), and settled in for episode two of this season's Downton Abbey. I didn't hear my phone ring, nor check it for calls/texts, until after ten o'clock. Turned out their flight had been inexplicably delayed by at least an hour. Not the way you want to end a fun weekend, especially since both of them had to be up at 5:30 Monday morning. I got up at 7:00 yesterday, in a half-hearted gesture of solidarity. Seriously, I'll do a lot of things for my friends, but disrupting my circadian rhythm is above and beyond the call of duty.

Regardless of the travel-debacle ending, it was a fast, furious, and fun weekend (I just threw in furious to boost the alliteration). I picked them up at the airport on Thursday night. I had prepared a sign -- a big, red, hand-lettered Las Chicas, done on the cardboard back of a letter-sized lined tablet. I stress hand-lettered. Art is not my strong suit. When I got to the gate, there was a guy, in a suit, holding a paddle that read The Lodge at Pebble Beach. Now, I am more or less known for my ability to do just about anything that is FUN or FUNNY, even if it is in the grey margins of embarrassing myself. But I felt plainly stupid to pull out my sign while that guy was standing there. Not, I will write, because I believed I was the first person to make a silly sign. But it was only the two of us meeting the flight (did I mention how small - like bus-station small, the Monterey Airport is?). Luckily, his passengers deplaned before the girls, so I pulled my sign out as soon as I saw them. And they laughed (as did I, but more from the relief of not looking like an idiot to strangers -- I frankly don't mind so much looking like an idiot to friends -- I always, for right or wrong, figure they're laughing near me, not at me).

We hung out at the house that night and each of the three subsequent evenings, talking and laughing. We are so good at this. During the day we walked and shopped in town in spite of the freezing cold (west coast freezing cold = temps in the high 40s). We went to Pebble Beach Spa for massages. Lydia and I went to Mass on Sunday, after which they treated me to lunch at The Bench in The Lodge at Pebble Beach on a brilliantly beautiful Sunday afternoon. It was, as always, a pleasure to spend time with them both, and to have the ability to do this in such a perfectly comfortable house in one of the most beautiful places in California. This was, I think, our fifth long weekend together in Carmel, and I consider it a gift that these two fristers have never missed an opportunity to join me in sharing the beauty of Carmel, and the celebration of our Las Chicas friendship.

So, today, I am hunkering down for the remaining four nights that I will be here on my own. They are prognosticating a warming trend. I even heard the word seventies invoked with regard to the coming weekend temps. Each trip takes on its own life in a way, and I haven't been walking as much as usual this year. Rather I am using my time alone to write in my journal and ponder the coming year and the changes it might bring. That can be heavy stuff, so I appreciated the distraction my fristers brought to me. No matter what comes, having close girlfriends can be the absolute best thing a woman can have in her life. I think even more so as time goes on. So even though it has been stunningly sunny and gorgeous since they left, a part of me feels bereft of their company. And in that part of me that always looks forward to the time that we spend together, there just ain't no sunshine when they've gone.Yikes! Someone read this post, and reported back to me that I had forgotten to...wait for it... Thank you for reading my blog!!!