Summer Shindig 2016

It seems that for me, most every summer, there is ONE really big event, and several other events of various sizes and importance.  Last summer, two HUGE events took place in July for us, family reunions of sorts.  That's not counting all the other events thru out the year.

To some extent, I feel like staying home and not doing major traveling this year; or at least not this winter, spring, or summer.  Perhaps this autumn, we'll see.  In part, to recover from the last several years, which have had both scheduled and unscheduled big events.  Death is seldom scheduled, nor is it usually tidy.  And then there is the various surgeries and other happenings. Rest and restorations seems to be vital at this time

Another reason that I want to hold off on traveling is because we have a few events already scheduled for this summer, that I really need to be right here, at home, in Starkville, Mississippi.  I have guests coming.  I would be a very poor host indeed if I were to leave home when they are due to arrive, don't you think?

Now, long time readers might remember that I do have a childhood friend from Catawissa, Pennsylvania, where I grew up; she and her family come to visit us every four years and we go to visit them every four years, so it comes to every two years, we are either coming or going.  This year, they are coming here.  Not sure if their kids are coming this time, as the oldest is graduating high school and the younger is not so found of it here, or anywhere, really, that doesn't include his own bedroom with the tv, gaming consoles, internet, and rest of the set up that is in his home there.  The international community of one of his massive online role playing something or other would notice his absence and perhaps perish.  He has his routines and I can understand.  Besides, adults, ew.  Parents, ew, shudder.  Adult friends of parents, *retching*, ew, shudder.

Also this summer, there is the Crew.  The crew is a group of girls that I've known since ten or twelve.  To some extent, most of us have kept in contact with each other, in some way.  Some of the contact is rather sporadic, and honestly, I think the last time I was in contact with one person was most likely twenty years ago when we both became newly fledged Southerners.  I had relocated to Valdosta, Georgia to work on my Master's and she had moved to New Bern, North Carolina to teach, meeting and marrying the love of her life and settling in, planting roots, and raising children of her own.  She doesn't FaceBook, might not eMail, doesn't seem to answer her phone, so I sent a letter.  A very loooong letter to her.

In the autumn of 2014, I finally joined FaceBook.  I reconnected with many of my highschool and VoTech graduating classes, since that was our 25th reunion.  That's when I found two other members of the crew, one of whom is located in Wisconsin and has been for years, since she became a librarian.  The other was one of my best friends for many years and has lived in Virginia for quite some time.  Her youngest is about to graduate high school and for some reason, this knocked me on my ass and because it all of a sudden really settled in how old we have become, how much life has occurred for each of us that the others of us have not been a part of, and how fragile our time can be {just two months later, my mother would be dead and suddenly, I realized that I am no longer a child, not even an adult one; but a full fledged adult and not entirely successfully adulting most days at all}; I thought, I would love to actually get together with the rest of the crew and catch up, do some remembering sure, but get to know these people who were once some of the most important people to me, who now are not quite complete strangers to me, but have had families, work, travels, adventures, concerns, interests, etc that are completely new to me.

And then a fourth member of that group of girls my mom called "the Crew" joined FaceBook as well.  She is the only one of us to stay in Pennsylvania, though not in the same area we grew up.  Still a few hours from our childhood homes is a hell of a lot closer than a few hundred, or in my case, a thousand miles.  So that's five of us.

The six person is the one person most of us have kept in contact with over the years.  Tho she does not FaceBook either, she does eMail, and at times, can be reached via phone and also snail~mail.  She may at least get those messages, even if it takes her awhile to respond, she does keep informed at least.  She lives in Ohio and has since graduating college.  We see each other from time to time, talk with each other more often, and eMail more frequently than that.  I know that if I really needed her, she'd be there.  So I'd sent her eMail in autumn 2014 as well.

Of the six of us, there are at least four of us, and possible all six, who will gather at my home here in Mississippi.  Just us "girls", without spouses and kids, for a weekend, a week, or however long they should decide to stay.  My husband's five adult children did all have their own rooms, after all, and their mom had a room stocked with material, yarn, and other crafting supplies.  So four of our rooms are guest bedrooms.  And it would be fairly easy to temporarily convert another to a fifth.  So we'd have enough room for all six of us, without stacking ourselves like cord wood, or sprawling sleeping bags on the floor, as we had lots of times in our teen years.

So that's to be the major Summer Shindig for 2016.  A reunion of good friends that haven't seen each other in years.  I've been brainstorming and planning, we'll probably have roast a pig, catch some sites, but mostly visit with each other.  I'm very excited.