The Wombats Take Montreal

11 ladies + 1 bald driver + a brand new 12 person Econo van + a border to another country= Trouble. And that starts with T and that rhymes with C and that stands for cool. Or that starts with T and rhymes with D and that stands for dumb...depending on how you look at it.



We give thanks every day for the blank slate that the dirt roads give us, allowing us a space for artistic expression.





And we give thanks everyday for the creative husbands who use a bar of soap to advertise to the drivers of Northern Vermont that we are a bunch of Wicked Wombats Gone Wild!



Who love ACTION. I'm not sure if that was our goal in driving over the border to Canada to dance like we were in college again, but we sure as hell didn't get any "action".




It was E's 43rd birthday...officially making her a 'cougar', except that she's married with a gorgeous son and not looking for a younger lover, except in her dreams. I'm glad she chose to hang with her peeps on this night.




And we danced in the van with our dishpan hands.




And we rocked in the van with our lily white skin.



And I pulled the fur coat out again and luckily no one on the streets of Montreal spit on me, or ripped my $25 Goodwill purchase to shreds, or stole it from the coat check.




And then we ate...like Ethiopians.


With our hands. Not the hands we wipe our butts with, but the other hand.



We used them to shovel spicy love into our mouths. And then we burped that spicy love up as we danced our feet raw.



We snuck bottles of tequila into the clubs because the French speaking bouncers who unhitched the red carpet ropes for us didn't check our bags.

And we pretended like we were 18 (well, maybe 23) and sexy, although I felt like I was towing my age around me like a piece of toilet paper stuck to my heel.

It was after 12. The streets of Montreal were just starting to come alive. And the 11 of us were just starting to drag our feet but we hit one last bar. Koko. Again, the red carpet ropes and the thump thump thump of the base. White drapes, walls, tables, chairs looked bright against the black of the suit jackets, faces, boots, short skirts. We sat, ordered Bailey's, yawned, looked haggard- except for the half who drank that tequila and they were moving their asses and their arms in everybody's faces.


And then this:

Katy leaned over to talk with Supa Cath, right over an open candle, and poof...flames. And thank goodness for the doctor and her reactions because just as if she were clapping off her "clap on, clap off" night stand table lamp, she clapped Katy's fiery hair out. And then the smell of singed hair. And the tufts floating to the floor. I was standing over her smoking head.

Katy took it well. Because if it were me I would have bolted. Done. But the event seemed to have smoldered the night anyway. And so we hobbled back to the van, where Paul Bunyan was waiting so patiently for us.

A slurry of desserts were passed around and then zonk- all was quiet as we headed south back to the border. No one looked at our individual passports this time but we still pulled into Burlington at around 4 a.m. I pulled the bed sheets over me at 5 a.m.

Cancun, Mexico. Senior year in college. Kissing a random boy in a bathroom. The sunrise on the balcony after that. This is the last time I remember being up that late. And now...three kids to wake up to.

Next time ladies. My main room. Furniture moved aside. Same old thump thump thump, minus the foreign faces watching us wiggle our jiggle. And when the clock strikes midnight and we all have our poopy faces on, or one of us burns our ass on the woodstove, then we roll out the camping pads and fall fast asleep. With eight hours of sleep under our short skirts we'll be able to head to the mountain with our 12 spawn and enjoy a gorgeous ski day, without the snap of a crankyass mommy. All in the name of ACTION.

All in favor say Yay? Yay.