A couple weeks ago, Mini-Mo and I piled in the Civic and made yet another road trip to South Florida. The week started off with a rather "big" meeting with a client there. Once that was finished, the rest of the week was a party-thon of sorts - fitting, I guess, as it was the reunion of the "Fillies". Let me 'splain... 

My sister-in-law, Diane and I shared a townhouse (nicknamed "The Filly Palace") in Houston in 1983 with our friend, Nan, who since moved to Seattle several years ago. We were all young, single twenty-somethings from Iowa doing the "Urban Cowboy" thing and soaking in the "big city" life (yes, we went kicker dancing on occasion AND rode the bull at Gillie's...). It was really a fun time - probably too much fun by most standards, but hey - we were young. Our resilient young bodies seemed to know no limits when it came to partying. We could stay out most of the night, drink the boys under the table, eat jalapeños and still show up at our jobs the next morning relatively unscathed. Oh, youth... wide-eyed, energetic, elastic, foolish youth... I do miss it sometimes.

So, shortly after I arrived in FL, Nan flew in on a red-eye (so appropriate in this case - ha!) Nan is now married with three kids, as is Diane with two kids. Of course, my kid is grown up (?) now and both husbands have long since been eliminated (no - not murdered, just divorced), so I'm the only one who's relatively unattached to immediate family responsibilities. Regardless, that week was Spring Break for Diane and just plain vacation for Nan. Since I had finished my business duties, I made it just plain vacation for me, too. While Diane still had a household to maintain despite the break, Nan and I seized the opportunity to be complete derelicts. OK, not complete - it could have been way worse. But we did some beach days where the beers emerged at high noon and didn't go away till the wee hours. Compared to our "normal" lives, that's fairly derelict and therefore SO delicious. Yes, it was the Fillies Redux to some degree - the party just seemed to continue, tho still much tamer than those earlier days, when people who were 50 or thereabouts were considered "really old".  By the last day, we were all showing signs of wear... but along came Cousin Sharona, who in her unique way breathed new life into the party. Sharona is over 50, but she shamed us all that night and was the last one standing, albeit a bit of a wobbly stand.

Yes, good times. By the end of the vacation, Nan and I were both looking a bit ragged, and both mumbled of the need to return home to recover from all the fun. Diane was right in there with us during "prime time" party hours, but since she is obviously much more able to exercise good judgement and self control than some of us, she emerged from the week with way fewer battle scars. 

So even if we are a bit less resilient now and - well, just older, we still found the Filly spirit and drank it in with gusto for a few days. It was a rare treat, indeed, and I look forward to the next reunion (tho I really need at least a year to recover from this one, I think... yep, old.)