What a marvelous weekend!

Saturday I got up and worked on e-mail/GWW stuff until it was time to leave for the airport. Picked Ken up, came home, ate lunch, and continued working until folks started showing up for the Girls’ Night: Meala, Helen, Ismay, Morgana, Cat, Lena (and Lena’s friend, who’s name I promptly forgot). We hung out and chatted and nibbled on chocolate until we got hungry for real food. Ismay had brought the fixings for salsa, and Morgana and Cat nipped back out to get some bread and cheese and fruit, and avocados for guacamole, and I made cheesy nachos. Thus sated, we went outside and floated into the wonderfully cool pool until we were pruny wrinkly girls. Maren showed up and joined us during that phase.

Then we came inside, and put out three different desserts and two kinds of boxed chocolates that Ken had brought from Korea (“What would a Girls’ Night be without chocolate?” he said), and put out the drinks. We sent Ken away and settled in for some Michael Praed drooling. We watched the first ep of “Robin of Sherwood” (which did cause some MST3K commentary), and fast-forwarded through “Writers Block”, and watched most of “To Die for 2: Son of Darkness” (did some fast-forwarding at the end). We also watched the amazing A-Ha video (“This is not your mother’s A-Ha…”). Donna had shown up during the videos, bearing vampire wine (!), which we cracked open during “TDF2”. (Turned out to be a dry white—not bad, but nothing to write home about.)

In less-than-happy news, Donna is moving back to Baltimore this autumn. Her mom is aging and needs something living with her, and she and Donna are close, and Donna hates her job here anyway. (She moved out here to write for Hollywood, and she has, but jobs have been scarce of late.) It’s not completely awful: she plans to travel back to CA as often as she travelled east while she lived here, and her goal is to move back in about three years. (She’s leaving a bedroom full of stuff here to ensure she never completely moves away. :-) ) It’s the best thing for her to do, of course, but I’ll miss her. We never got together enough, and now that’s really hitting home for me. She gifted me with two boxes of Styx tapes (interviews and the like—there have to be 50+ tapes), a scrapbook, and a big plastic bag full of Styx photos.

Anyway, after all the MP stuff, we watched “The Pirates of Penzance,” featuring a young and very agile Kevin Kline (prompting discussions of how we have to hate Phoebe Cates, and we have to have a KK night, and, um, other things). Several of us have performed “TPOP”, so there was a certain amount of singing along. I even found the entire score in the garage (practically just sitting out! Because it’s something I use so frequently…). We watched “With Cat-Like Tread” repeatedly, because of KK’s agileness. And lo, it was good.

Everyone spent the night except Helen and Meala and Ismay and Maren, I think. People bedded down on floors and air mattresses, and Ken (who’d arrived home before “TPOP”) and I staggered to bed at about 3 a.m.

Sunday morning (well, late morning) was pleasant, with the eating of muffins and comfortable chatting. We watched “With Cat-Like Tread” _again_, and some random other things, I think. It was just so comfortable and mellow. Eventually we ordered pizza, and Ken got up (he’d been awake for some ungodly amount of time the day before—24+ hours—because he didn’t sleep on the plane). We all shot movie suggestions at Lena (which she asked for). Eventually it was down to Morgana and Cat (who’d come together from Ventura) and Donna. We swam again, and lounged more, and played geeks with our Palms, and finally wandered out to CoCo’s for supper. I had a bleu cheese-topped steak, and it was just what I was craving.

Morgana, Cat, and Donna packed up and left after that, after 8 p.m. I hadn’t expected folks to stay that long—had expected to have the late afternoon to work—but I didn’t begrudge it at all. Couldn’t even imagine that. I don’t get enough time with these friends, and if I could have convinced them to stay longer, I would have. I didn’t want them to leave.

Ken and I watched a rerun of the last “Nip/Tuck” (which I’d seen while he was gone), sitting in the dark, curled up on the sofa together. We were hot and sticky, so we went for a moonlit swim (full moon is today). I must say, this pool has proved to be more fun than I ever imagined a pool could be, back when I swam competitively in high school. Ahem. So then we watched the second season 4 ep of “Buffy” with Faith in it (and wow! It was amazing! Sarah and Eliza’s acting was stunning as they pretended to be each other. We caught the credit that said “And Eliza Dushku as “Buffy”, which made us laugh and laugh.), and the first of the two season 1 “Angel” episodes that are set immediately after. Then we eased our way off to bed.