8-11-09 reminiscing brainI’m spending time in KC this week, so a perfect time to reminisce about my July Girls Weekend in KC, which happened about 3 weekends ago.
The weekend started with the drive down from Des Moines on Friday evening with Ann and her “new” car (new to her). She was dealing with the previous owner for several weeks before they came to an agreement on the car price. Ann enjoys negotiating. Ann has named the car her “sweet ride”. I call it the “sweet mobile” in contrast to her van which is the “shopping mobile”.
Her car is very luxurious with leather seats and a wonderful smooth ride on the highway. We met Greg in between KC and Des Moines as he was coming to Des Moines for a retirement party that weekend. He snapped our picture in Bethany were the three of us ate dinner.
Since I know Ann likes music from the 70’s I had searched through my CD collect and choose about 6 albums to bring along to create a fun play list for our 3 hour drive to KC. I started off with one of my favorites, Meat Loaf, Bat out of Hell CD and played “Paradise by the Dashboard Lights”- A great summer song from around 1978.
I enjoy spending time with Ann. We laugh a lot together. The more I learn about her, I realize that the first part of her life was very tough living, in contrast to my idyllic childhood.
Ann’s family came to the U.S. from Trinidad when she was around 8 years old, I believe. Her mother forced the kids to study and work hard and Ann graduated high school by age 16; left home to escape her mother; joined the military at age 17; met and married an Iowa farm boy at age 20, who also was in the military; went to nursing school; became a mother.
It seems that Ann is only now beginning to be able to really enjoy life since her son is now out of college. Ann told me that when her son went off the college, she realized she needed to create a new life for herself apart from being just a mother and wife and she needed to make some friends. Now Ann has many friends.
So I see my role, as Ann’s new friend since 2005, is to help Ann relive some of the silly teenage years she missed out on. AND I’m just the person to do that. I believe we accomplished that on our fun girls weekend.
As we drove into north KC, Ann insisted we stop at the TJ Max store in that part of town. Now there is a TJ Max within a mile of our KC house, but Ann especially likes this store. Ann will stop at every TJ Max store which her path crosses. We did find a few FUN bargains…..
To be continued tomorrow-
PS: Ann is getting up at 3:00AM this morning to attend the send off of the Honor Flight from Des Moines today at 7:00AM. The public was invited out to the airport to show support for the Veterans. The fact that Ann wants to do this, tells you a lot about Ann.
Judy, you have left me speechless. I'm laughing and crying at the same time. Tears of joy and wondering...what if we were buddies back in the day. Oh well, my new motto is leave the past behind and move forward, and that's what we are doing and having a BALL!
ReplyDeleteJudy's Mom and Dad- you raised a wonderful daughter and one that brings a ray of sunshine to all she comes into contact with. Thanks for sharing her with the rest of us.
Judy's Dad- look forward to the Honor Flight. It was an AWESOME sight this morning.
Greg had a correction for me today.
ReplyDeleteIt is TJ Maxx. (with two xx's).... How could I argue, he worked in a TJ Maxx in college.
Thanks for letting us all know more about Ann, and thanks for introducing me to her. she is a really amazing woman and has the energy of a teenager.
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