Viva La Bank Girls!

This weekend was a whirlwind! Abe had the kids Friday night and they spent Saturday with his mom as I attended my choir "retreat" at church. It was a great chance to do some intensive work on Christmas music, and on Saturday, we ran through the whole program and I got my first chance to see my script acted out--the actor did an amazing job, and it was a little bit emotional for me to hear my words spoken by someone other than me.

After the retreat concluded on Saturday, I drove to Champaign, Illinois to join a Bank Girl Weekend that was already in progress. The Bank Girls are the girls that I lived with during my senior year in college 9 long years ago. We lived in, well, a renovated bank. (Thus the clever name.) There are 10 of us that still regularly get together once or twice a year: this weekend, Marcy and Tiff were unable to attend, but the rest--Sarah DV, Ellen, Sarah M, Blaza, Ann, Stephanie, Noelle and I--were there, and man, did we have fun. Stephanie was our host for the weekend. She is currently working towards her PhD in History at the University of Illinois, and of the Bank Girls, she is the friend with whom I have the most shared history; we met when we ran track together in our freshman year of high school (we never made that mistake again), roomed together in Olson Hall, room 144, and lived together at the Bank. We have now officially been friends for 17 years!

Here are some highlights of the weekend in IL:

• Thai food. I have been craving it for quite a while now, and it was great to have people to partake with. I had the Pad See You with Beef. Yummmm...


• Blaza getting drenched with ice water while waiting for her thai meal.


• The three-hour drive to the Thai restaurant that was only actually 5 miles away from our hotel. Steph is still learning her way around Champaign/Urbana...slowly.


• Baker's Square Pie. I had Cherry. Blaza had Apple. Everyone else had some sort of Chocolate or Chocolate/Peanut Butter. (because apparently we were still hungry after stuffing ourselves with Thai food? Of course, when we get together, food rarely has anything to do with hunger)


• Staying up late talking and reminiscing about the Olden Days. And laughing so hard we almost wet ourselves.


• Blaza chasing down our retreating cars on foot as we unexpectedly switched restaurants on her.


• The Mall with Ellen. {Though here are the elements I did not enjoy: 1) The sparkly, effeminate, foreign man ("More turkey, Mr. Chandler?") who massaged stinky Cherry Blossom lotion into my hands and then threatened to spray me with scented glitter so I could be sparkly like him, 2) The long and confusing trek to find a bathroom so I could wash off the stinky lotion, 3) The overwhelmingly poopy smell of the bathroom once I got there, and 4) The lack of towels in the bathroom, whose absence required me to wipe my stinky wet hands on my pants, thereby giving me wet pants.}


• Cooking with Steph. She was planning a little dinner party at her studio apartment and making some very special homemade sauce, stuffed manicotti, meatballs, and strawberries and ice cream. I'd be lying if I said it all came together smoothly; I'd be telling the absolute truth if I said that the whole experience was a comedy of errors that had us laughing so hard we were crying.


• Catching up with my dear friends. There are all sorts of things happening with us right now, and probably the best part of the (short) weekend was getting the chance to break into smaller groups and have more intimate, meaningful conversations.

It is amazing the we are still friends after all these years. I hope these friendships will endure for decades to come!