Estrogen fest 2005

Estrogen fest 2005…September 21, 2005


Every Labor Day weekend the women of my family gather for our “no men allowed” weekend.
This year we named it Estrogen Fest.

For some reason, my mother decided it would be a grand idea if she hosted it at her house. I don’t believe she will ever do it again. Normally we meet at my Aunt Janie’s house in Midland. We fend for ourselves, and we accept that. That’s part of what brings the women to this weekend, to get away from taking care of everyone else and just not care. We sleep wherever we can find space and we eat whatever we can throw together at the last minute. It is simple that way.

But my mother is a care giver. She wanted to take care of everyone this year. I think she went way over board, but that’s just my opinion. She went as far as picking bedrooms for people, leaving shampoo and conditioner in their showers, bought each person a toothbrush, and cooked just about every meal herself. Luckily the house next door was available because we had overflow even the blow up beds were taken. My parents have a huge house too! I think that she didn’t have a very relaxing weekend as everyone else did. She planned out everything. And packed the two fridges full of food and alcohol...we ran out of alcohol the first night.

What do we do on these weekends you ask? Well I will tell you; we don’t care. We rarely leave the house, unless we run out of beer and liquor. We wake up whenever we want to, eat as much as we want to, drink until we fall over, smoke like chimneys, and bitch until we feel better. And then we start all over again! I mention that WE smoke...when you are around my family and you are a non-smoker...prepare to become a second hand smoker. We are able to talk about men, because they have all run away if they are within a 10 mile radius of our cackling. And I mean we are loud. I am seriously surprised that no one called the cops on us this year. Mom and dad live in a very nice neighborhood, and we were seriously out of place there. Mainly we stayed outside in the backyard, around a very small table, as people began swarming in, the circle of chairs grew wider and wider and the table shrunk under the weight of ash trays and beer bottles. You’d think we were a bunch of beer swilling men from the sounds of it! We always laugh, this is a given whenever my Aunt Janie is involved, she is a riot. I am sure she was relieved we weren’t having the weekend at her house this year, she let loose. My stomach muscles hurt when the weekend was over...and my head...


This year the players were:
Janie 60 something-my Aunt
Jill 40 something-my cousin, Janie’s daughter
Candace 40 something- Jill’s best friend who comes every year
Sara 20 something- Candace’s daughter
Pat 60 something-my aunt, Janie’s sister
Luanne 40 something- my cousin, Pat’s daughter
Kristin 19- my second cousin, Luanne’s daughter
Her name escapes me 40 something- Luanne’s friend
Amy 30 something- married to my cousin Chad, Pat’s daughter in law
Janice 60 something- Pat’s best friend since they were 7
Sandra 40 something- my cousin, her mother was married to my dad’s brother
Sarah 20 something- my sister
Kristie 20 something- Future sister in law, her brother is Nathan
Laura 30 something- neighbor
Jean 30 something- neighbor
Leslie 40 something- neighbor
Lynette- mom’s sister, my aunt LuLu
Mom
Me

The ones who were too chicken to come:
Shellia 60 something- my aunt by association, lives with Janie
Sylvia 50 something- Shellia’s sister
Jackie 20 something- my second cousin, Jill’s daughter
Kay 60 something- Sandra’s mother, used to be married to my dads brother
Michelle 30 something- is now married to my dads brother. If they both would have come, much drama would have ensued.
Oh yes, mark my words, they will be punished next year for not coming this year.



Last years Labor Day festivities were overshadowed by my grandmother’s death, she died less than a month before. So one of the things we all did while were there was help clean out her house. Honey would have wanted us to have things, before it was all boxed up and sold. There were many tears in-between the cackling last year.

Before leaving we all took one last look at one particular room of her house that we lovingly called The Red Room, for just that reason, everything in it was red, in true 60s décor. Let me give you a little background on the Red Room; whenever you stayed over at Honey’s house, the grandchildren all slept in the Red Room. We all had to endure the glowing red corduroy bedspread and matching curtains, but there was one thing in that room that always brought us joy; the caveman. Sitting on the desk in the red room in the same spot he had been for more than 30 years was a little statue of what was supposed to be a cupid, but he looked like a caveman so that’s what he was dubbed. Caveman was the source of many late night conversations between the girls when we were little, and was our first sex education tool. Let me explain; mister caveman held on tightly to a big heart that covered the front of him where his pants would be...if he were wearing any! I don’t know how, but eventually every one of us discovered that if you lift up on the heart, it reveals a very large male organ. Now when you are 7 or 8 this is a frightening sight, and usually evolves into “is that what one really looks like?” and then the obligatory giggling and sometimes erupted into screaming, and crying, and running from it flailing about. Very traumatic experience for all of us I am sure.

Mister caveman was passed over time and time again during our dig through Honeys house; no one wanted the poor guy. Somehow a vote was cast and mister caveman was handed on, to me...yay. I made it a rule that he would be passed on again the next Labor Day weekend, and that no one could have him twice because...well, yeah. But I felt better taking him, and not leaving him behind, he was a part of my past after all, and was basically a part of the family. He has been in a box for a year now. This year caveman had a prominent position in the center of the table; surrounded by all of us, I’m sure he was happy just to be out of the attic. Another vote was cast and it was unanimous that Caveman would now reside with Sarah, and was appropriately given as her wedding shower gift from all of us. I took one last picture with him, to commemorate our time together. I will miss him so.

All in all it was a great weekend with these women. As far as I can remember....

(¯`v´¯)
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(¸.•´ (¸.•´ .•´ ¸¸.•¨¯`•. jenni