The "F" in Fantastik

Last weekend, the Femme Fantastik met in Seattle for the wind up of our two year tour. It took me a week to recover. No, seriously, we had a great reception everywhere we went. At Ft Lewis, we were the happy recipients of tote bags by Burberry as Thank you gifts. The military knows how to do it up, for sure. At Borders in Tacoma, we found a whole new audience. For whatever reason, Lori seemed to really attract a much older, male, caucasian demographic this go 'round. One of them shared his special talent with us. He could write that we were beautiful and intelligent upside down and backwards. How does one figure out that they can do that? We had to think long and hard about the invitation to dancing we received. In the long run, we turned it down. He didn't really want US to go, just her. Oh well.
The book club that evening was fantastic, too. They were patient while we joked with each other and told some of each others secrets.
All of these were great, none of them were the highlight for me.
I also visited the first Starbucks and watched fish get thrown at the market in the rain. (Yes, it was hard for me not to notice the cold, rain and the tiny bit of snow, considering I'd left sunny, 100 degree temperatures.)
But the thing that topped it all was hanging out with the Femmes. Femmes after dark? We found a place that stayed open real late, ordered some appetizers and a few martinis. After I stopped dodging Reshonda's bullets--she hates to eat at a place where its hard to pronounce what's on the menu--we settled in.
I haven't been joining the Femme authors on a lot of things this last go round, but this is the part I like best. We're all different as can be, but somehow the chemistry makes our own brand of Sex in The cIty.
The martinis got lower and we shared out stuff. We caught up. We gave each other advice. Laughed at the countriness, the goofy, the fashionista, the diva and the realness among us. (Betcha can't guess who is who..)
We shared what we love about out marriages. And what we hate.
What we loved about being single. And what we hate.
What we love about motherhood. Our jobs. Woman stuff.
The cool thing is, it might be months before we are all together again, but I know that we will pick right up from where we left off.
Over the course of the two year Femme Fantastik Tour, we formed a bond. A good and real friendship. And that's quite a feat, considering that as women, we spend so much time taking care of the other people in our lives, that we forget to take care of us and at some point, we stop making new friends. You stop sharing yourselves with others not already close to you.
In reality, there is not much you can hide when you share hotel rooms, long car rides, and bikini waxing stories.
We shared all those things, and more, and despite all the STUFF we found out about each other, we were able to put aside our competitiveness and discover that we like each other, despite our strange relationships,our countriness, prissiness, goofiness, divaness, shoe fetishes, jewelry-joneses and frankness. Now that is FANTASTIK.