With my fears of being to old to hang with younger gals set aside, I packed my bags, loaded the car, adjusted my mirrors and seat and headed off to Richmond. To set the mood for my trip, God comically chose The Doors’ “Roadhouse Blues” as the first tune to play from the multitude of melodies that could have popped out the XM queue. The mellow voice of Jim Morrison telling me to “keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel” seemed like good advice and I laughed at the appropriateness of the lyrics. To my surprise on this holiday weekend, the heaviest traffic I encountered was at the intersection of the road that leads into our neighborhood and US 29 where two lanes of cars were backed up a good two miles in a southern crawl into Charlottesville for UVA’s first home football game of the season. Fortunately I was turning north, so once I made my left turn, it was just me and the open road on a beautiful late summers day.
I arrived just in time to take Maggie to her hair appointment in Carytown. While she was getting her trim, I popped across the street to Penzeys Spices to stock up on a few essentials (if you don’t have a store near you, check out their website: http://www.penzeys.com; their stuff is great! ). Half an hour later I returned with my bag of goodies to find Maggie still in “the” chair. As always, I had my knitting with me and enjoyed listing to her stylist chatter about everything from pregnancy to Miley Cyrus’ performance at last week’s VMA awards as I continued working on a pair of socks for Dave. Later rather than sooner, she was ready and we rushed home to change for the party.
I’d never been to Isolde’s home before. Jan had told me she was renting a room in some guy’s house and I had imagined her living out of some cramped, smelly room in someone’s basement. I wondered where she would be entertaining us. Contrary to my mental image, Isolde lives in a beautiful fully restored townhouse on the fringes of the VCU campus. The house is owned by one of the current residents, Connor, who did all the renovation work with his father. Not only was the home an architectural delight, but has some history as well; having been built by the first major elected by the city of Richmond after the end of the Civil War. I was in awe! It truly rivaled some of the flag-officer homes on Admiral’s Row in Norfolk where I attended parties back in our Navy days.
Isolde greeted us at the front door of this lovely home along with Leslie, one of Maggie’s childhood friends. In the dining room, Isolde had laid a beautiful table with trays of crudités accented with petite champagne grapes, a wedge of Brie, meringues and a bottle of Tott’s chilling on ice, all surrounding a grand arrangement of freshly cut flowers. Leslie popped the top on the Champagne, Isolde charged our glasses and we toasted Maggie. For the next hour or so we caught up with each other, laughing and snacking. Then I cut the chocolate cake I’d brought and the room grew quiet as we savored the dense chocolaty goodness of the flourless cake. Another glass of champagne and it was time to walk to the restaurant to make our reservation.
Before we left, Isolde presented us all with our own tiaras as well as a sash for Maggie to wear that read, “Bachelorette!” I was amazed by how almost all of the people we passed along the way, stopped what they were doing to wish Maggie well; including a bunch of guys tossing a football around in the street! It gave our stroll more of a parade feeling, with Maggie as our queen.
When we reached our destination, and began to look over the menus, we realized that none of us were particularly hungry, but the food looked great. So, we decided to order several appetizers and share. The food was phenomenal and despite our previous snacking and dessert, we managed to clean all the plates. After settling the check, it was back to the streets in our tiaras.
As we walked back to Isolde’s I told the girls that I had been afraid that I wouldn’t have been able to keep up with them because of my usually early bedtime. They all laughed and one by one assured me that their nights of late-night partying were long gone and were usually in bed by ten. It was amusing to think that among these young women, with two of whom I’d held a “grown-up” roll, I was now simply an older woman, not a Mom. It was a nice feeling.
After saying our goodbyes and good nights to our lovely hostess, Maggie and I headed back to her house with Leslie in tow for a quick tour before she hit the road back to Charlottesville. Once she had left, we changed into our jammies and settled into her couch to watch a sub-titled chick-flick about the Danish aristocracy and the Age of Enlightenment. It wasn’t long before her two cats, Rupert and Ivan were cuddled up on her lap and in the crook of her legs. When it ended a little after eleven, we both toddled off to bed.
So, despite my fears that my advanced age has rendered me unable to hang and party with younger women, I learned that going out with your adult daughter and her friends to celebrate is much less taxing than monitoring a slumber party of ten-year olds. It’s so much nicer now that Maggie and her friends’ tastes have moved on from soda and Cheetos to those of fine dining, a good glass of wine and witty conversation. That I can hang with; at least until ten or so.
