A new tribe is born

Oh my dog, y'all.  I have been trying to get on here all week to update y'all on my fabulous weekend and that was a whole week ago.  And I have another fabulous weekend coming up right now.

I have been busy, busy, busy at work - overtime almost every single day even though we aren't supposed to have any.  And I'm hosting an event at my house on Sunday night so every evening has been filled with running errands, cleaning, etc.

Anyway, last weekend I went to the One Fabulous Mama retreat down in Nashville, Georgia.  And I honestly don't know how to put into words how wonderful it was.  Karen in VB.....you MUST figure out a way to go to the next one.

Now, I'm not gonna lie.  It started off a little frustrating.  Karen in VB, I know you'll find this shocking, but I got good and lost trying to get to the place.  We stayed at a hunting lodge and apparently Google maps was unable to determine that this place existed.  Their website did not have a street number, just the street name, so my regular GPS would not help me.  I pulled directions off on my laptop before I left Atlanta and it told me to get off I-75 in Tifton, and go 34 miles on Hwy. 82 E and then turn right on Hwy. 82 S and then some other stuff.  I got off on Hwy. 82 in Tifton and I drove 34 miles and there was nowhere to turn.  So I drove another 5 or 6 miles thinking that perhaps the mileage was just a little off on Google maps, and there still was nowhere to turn so I pulled off on the side of the road and decided to pull up the map on my iPhone.

It told me to turn around and go back 12.9 miles from where I'd come and turn on Hwy. 135.

So that's what I did.

Once I turned on 135 I saw a sign saying I was headed towards Nashville so I assumed that although my laptop didn't, perhaps my iPhone had good directions.

It did not.

My phone then lied like a dirty bastard and told me to turn on Roberson Gaskins and then turn on June Hendley and so that's what I did.  Because the website said this hunting lodge is on June Hendley Road.  I passed two houses and one of those houses had 5 Confederate flags in the front yard.  And both of those roads were dirt roads.  Only it was more like super thick sand and it was not easy to drive on.  It was mounded up in the middle of the road and scrubbing the bottom of my SUV and it would kinda jerk you around so you couldn't drive more than about 15 mph.  I had about 1/3 of a tank of gas when I first got on the dirt roads.

TWO HOURS LATER my gas light was on.  I had to pee.  I had to poop.  And I was super frustrated. If anyone had told me it was possible to drive back and forth on the same dirt road for 2 hours I would have said they were crazy.  But now I've done it my own self.  I tried to call OFM and didn't get an answer and her voice mail isn't set up for messages.  At some point I decided I probably needed to try and make it back to the main road, get some gas, and just go find a hotel.  I was already late for dinner and I was ready to call it a day.  My phone would tell me drive 4.6 miles NE.  Then it would say drive 0.2 miles SW.  Then 3.1 miles NE.  And all I saw were trees no matter what direction I drove.

This is what I saw for 2 long hours:



At some point I passed two different cars.  One was a lady in an SUV so we each squeezed over to the very edge of the road and passed.  After I had turned around for the 38702435712489234th time, I passed an older gentleman and I flagged him down to stop him and ask for directions.  I could tell he had no idea where the place was either.  I kept driving and I eventually passed another dirt road which I had passed 94759475957 times already, and I saw the lady in the SUV had turned on that road and stopped.  So I pulled up next to her, rolled down my window and she called out to me the most wonderful words I've ever heard:  "Are you looking for the plantation?"  "YES!" I screamed. 

She told me she was on the phone with OFM's assistant, (we'll call her Cutie Pie because she is) and to follow her.  "My gas light is on and I have to pee SO bad," I over shared with her.  She told me she had already pulled off the road, walked into a field and used a porta potty which she first kicked several times so she wouldn't get bit on the ass by a snake, and she was afraid a farmer was going to come out of a trailer and shoot her.  I loved her immediately.  "If you run out of gas, honk and I'll stop for you," she said.

I followed her to a paved road (THANK YOU, JESUS!) and she pulled over again and told me that Cutie Pie was on her way to rescue us.  Cutie Pie arrived like a knight in shining armor and said she had to go to a gas station to meet someone else who was really lost.  "I have to get gas so this is perfect!" I said.  I'm pretty sure Cutie Pie was way over all of us before the weekend started, but she didn't act like it if she was.  She was wonderful and sweet.

I think she had to drive and rescue 5 of the 9 of us because iPhone directions and Google maps sucked.

We made it to the hunting lodge where every square inch of the walls was covered in dead animals.  They even had candle holders made out of hooves, y'all.  I threw my purse in my room, met my roommate (we'll call her The Chiro because she's a chiropractor), and since we were late for dinner, we ate.  OFM's community made a potluck dinner for us and it was incredible!  I then ran outside and took photos of the beautiful peacocks, the incredible zebras, and there were also emus, bulls, guinea hens, two cats, etc.  The property is gorgeous.  It's so peaceful there.

Until the peacocks start screaming.

Y'all.  I have never heard a peacock before and it sounded like a lady screaming at the top of her lungs, "HEEEEEELLLLLLLPPPPPPPPP!"

Peacocks don't care if you stay up until 2:00 a.m.  They think they should scream their bloody heads off at 6:00.

 
 We played a game to kind of break the ice and get to know each other after dinner.  It involved sometimes having to sit in each other's laps.  And the drinking started too.  I actually stuck with Sprite and Ginger Ale, but 2 hours after we arrived, someone had to go buy more wine.

There was a screened in porch and we spent a lot of time out there over the weekend.  By 10 or 11, most of us were bra free, in our pj's and already felt like we had known each other for a lifetime.  We all talked, there were some tears shed, we shared dreams, struggles, fears, and also funny stories until we cried from laughing so hard.

On Saturday we toured Nashville and met some of OFM's sponsors. (One of the owners of one sponsor stayed with us for the weekend, Cutie Pie stayed with us, and two other locals were there all weekend.  They are all awesome!)  Two other locals came and spent the day Saturday with us.  We had lunch at Pa's Country Meats and I stocked up on stuff there, we went to a thrift shop, we stopped in Dixie Sales and Graphics and bought personalized goodies, and one thing I bought was this mug which says "What we Say on the Porch, Better Stay on the Porch":





We also stopped in the Nashville Farmer's Market which was ADORABLE and I bought some barbecue sauce as a souvenir of the beginning of my weekend:












Here is the farmer's market:



We eventually made it out to Horse Creek Winery where we had a wine tasting and drank wine slushies (which are the bomb diggity if I'm being honest).  They were prepared for us:





I bought mix so I can make my own slushies at home:








When we got back to the lodge, we were going to drink blueberry margaritas and pain killers (OMG, they are so yummy) and do this......an inflatable water slide:


Sadly, the inflatable water slide had a bit of a gash in it.  OFM's Mister came out with some duct tape but it was beyond repair so a bunch of grown women sat around in their bathing suits in a hunting lodge decorated with dead animals and drank a lot and we turned Catch Phrase into a drinking game which involved a few people doing shots out of a cap from the tequila bottle.  I had a margarita because shots make me barf.

OFM had an art table set up for us so after a wine tasting, a gigantic wine slushie, a blueberry margarita and half of a pain killer, I painted pretty much the worst painting of my life but enjoyed every second of it with some new friends:






We were supposed to all cook dinner together, but around 8 or 8:30 we all kind of said "F*&uck that, let's order some pizzas."  We did have a nice salad because we are a healthy group of ladies.

There is a bunk house right next door to the lodge and the owner likes to have himself a Saturday night poker game in the bunk house.  We saw the guys leave at some point.  We were all out on the screened in porch when they left and eventually we were all liquored up, and somehow the subject of sex toys came up because OFM does sex toy parties (you may remember when I hosted one for her a couple of months ago and Amanda came to visit me and that whole weekend went not as planned because my niece ran over herself with her car and all that).  Well, let's just say that the sex toy conversation got a bit loud and rowdy and it was full of laughter and we were all having ourselves a great time and suddenly, out of the corner of my eye I saw something.  And I said to OFM, "Um, there is someone with a flashlight headed over here from the bunk house."  And we all got quiet as a nice young man opened the door to the screened in porch to tell us the poker game was over and he was locking up and heading home.  "So, have you been sitting outside all this time?" someone asked.  He shyly nodded his head as he looked down at the ground.  "Did you happen to hear what we were talking about?" I asked.

"Good night, ladies," he said as he kept looking at the ground and left.

So yeah, we gave that guy probably the best night he's had in a while even though he was sitting guard at a men's poker game.

By the time I left that lodge on Sunday morning, I felt like I had met 13 of the most wonderful friends that I will have for a lifetime.  In fact, I think I'm getting together with one of them after work tonight!  I can't believe how much I missed them after I drove off even though I had just met them less than 48 hours before.  We are soul sisters and have built a tribe of fierce, strong, caring women.

It was a weekend filled with love.

I think it was the deodorant I was choosing that made him want me

For those of you who are friendly with me on Facebook, you may have seen that I had an interesting interaction while grocery shopping last week.  Karen in VB mentioned in the comments of my last post that she wanted to hear more about it. 

I vary the grocery stores I do my shopping in.  I frequent Kroger, Publix and Trader Joe's.  Last week I decided on Kroger.  This is the same Kroger where a half-blind, drooling, homeless lady followed me all over the store asking me to buy her dinner one night (I did) and that was the same night a man was frantic to find Nutella because he had just recently tried it for the first time and he yelled to me as he waved his hands all around in the air like he just didn't care, "I NEED NUTELLA!  WHERE IS THE NUTELLA?  I JUST HAD IT FOR THE FIRST TIME AND.....I NEED MORE!"  I couldn't blame him one bit.  Nutella is good, y'all. 

It is also the same Kroger where I asked an employee if she could help me find an item one night and she walked me all over the freaking store and never could find it.  She said she had only worked there for about 8 months so she didn't know where everything was yet.  (?)  And then I saw her again later and told her I had finally found the item I was looking for and she pointed to her name tag, asked me to call their headquarters or go to their website or something and tell them how helpful she was because then she'd be in the running to win a new big screen television.  Yes.  Let me get right on the horn to tell them how helpful you were in dragging me all over the store for absolutely no reason since you never helped me find what I needed.

It is the same Kroger where I once overheard a man trying to impress a woman by telling her he had a super fancy bottle of champagne at his house and invited her over to share it with him.  "I paid 28 BUCKS for that bottle!" said ol' Mr. Moneybags.

It is not, however, the Publix where I was walking through the produce section when a guy came running up from behind me, jumped in front of my face and exclaimed, "I think you are a lot like Wonder Woman!" before walking away.  And it was not the Trader Joe's where a lady recently danced and sang and shook her moneymaker at me when I motioned for her to go ahead of me when we almost collided our buggies in an aisle.

No, it was Kroger.

I was almost done with my shopping when it all went down like this:  I had just grabbed some beef from the meat department to make some stir fry and I was partially up an aisle right off the meat department where I was checking my list to make sure I wasn't forgetting anything before I grabbed some shampoo and deodorant and went to check out when I heard a man saying rather loudly from the direction of the meat department, "Do you own a restaurant around town?"  My back was to the meat department by that time and I didn't turn around.

"Excuse me, young lady.  Do you own a restaurant here in town?" he asked again loudly.  I still didn't turn around because I don't own any restaurant.

"Young lady, where do I know you from?  Do you own a restaurant around Atlanta?"  I turned around to see exactly who it was that was annoying some poor "young lady" to discover the man was looking directly at me.  And so I said, "Are you asking me?"

"Yes.  Do you own a restaurant somewhere around town?"

"Um, no.  I don't."

"Hmm.  I know you from somewhere.  You're in the music business, aren't you? "

"No, I'm not."

"Well, I think I've seen you performing around town, haven't I?"

"Uh, no.  You definitely have not."

"Well where in the world do I know you from? "

"I have no idea.  You don't look at all familiar to me."

"Stand right there, please. I want to come shake your hand and meet you," he said as several shoppers were standing in silence watching all of this go down.  I stood there by the shampoo as he came up the aisle to where I was and shook my hand.  He introduced himself and asked me for my name.  He insisted again that he thought he's seen me performing my musical talents somewhere around town and I assured him I have no musical talent whatsoever.  He asked me if I shop in that Kroger a lot and I told him I'm in there on a fairly regular basis and he said he's in there all the time so maybe he's just seen me in there.  I told him I was sorry, but I felt like I had never seen him before in my life.  He then said, "Well, it was nice to meet you." And he walked away.  I turned my back again and started moving up the aisle a little further when I heard him coming up from behind me again saying, "You know what?  I'm going to surprise you here."  And I wish I had thought to say, "You're going to pay for my groceries?" but I wasn't that quick so I just stood there.

"I am in the music business," he said.  "I'm an instructor and a performer."  I told him that I'm pretty sure I'm un-instructable when it comes to music and he said he could probably teach me.  I told him I paint from time to time so I have a creative outlet already.  He went on to ask me if I've heard of a certain business and I told him I have heard of it.  He told me they have a warehouse not far from the Kroger and on Saturdays he sometimes performs there and sometimes his students perform there and people come to watch and then they hire them to play at parties and events and stuff.  He told me celebrities come by and hang out and local politicians visit regularly and no one bothers them and everything is super laid back and casual.  And then he invited me to come sometime.  He asked me if I had a business card.  (I don't.)  He then asked if I had a pen because he wanted to give me his card but wanted to write his personal email address on it.  (I didn't.)  He then asked a random lady walking past if she had a pen.  (She didn't.) 

"Are you going to be here in this aisle for a while?" he asked.

"Well, no, not for a while.  I need to grab one more thing and then I'm checking out and I'm outta here," I replied.

"I'll find you," he said.  "Like I told you, I'm in here all the time.  The guys in the meat department know me very well and they'll have a pen I can borrow.  I'll come find you in a minute."

And he walked off and I moved up the aisle a little further and I was picking up a thing of deodorant when he approached me for the third time.

"My god you're beautiful.  Here's my card and I've written in my personal email address.  Please email me.  I want to get to know you.  I'm begging you.....just email me," he said.

"We'll see," I said.

"Please.  Please email me.  I've got a few good years left and I want you and I to get to know each other really well over the years," he said.

"We'll see," I said again.

"Email me, please.  I'm so glad I met you.  Come out and listen to some music."

"We'll see.  Have a great night," I said as I turned and walked away.

I told my brother (the cop) about it this weekend when he stopped by my house.  He said he'd be glad to go with me to kind of check this guy out.

I waited about four days and then I emailed him last night.  I told him I might come out and listen to him perform sometime and asked if I could bring a friend or two with me.  He responded less than an hour later and said he'd love for me to come out and he was really glad to hear from me.

Now y'all, I have no desire to date this guy because I am guessing he is significantly older than me.  But I think he could be a really fun friend to hang out with and get to know.  I also don't really know what is going on with Hot Brazilian right now (it's a super long story that I don't really want to get into on here but I'm still committed to HB and until I know what is going to happen with that situation I don't plan to date Mr. Music Man or anyone else for that matter).

But that's a little story about getting picked up over a stick of deodorant.