August 26th, 2007. New England Mamas.

Whew!

We are home. We have napped (some of us are still napping). And I'm here, all jazzed up from talking with some very inspiring gals. Women who are excited about writing and living and like chatting it up.

In some instances (when fueled with a couple good shots of scotch, for instance) I can be a very affable, witty, charming person. Then there is me, stressed out, waiting for my husband's pager to go off any minute, hauling me away prematurely from these women I've wanted to meet for so long. Then, it's a different story. Then, I felt the smile glue to my face, my short term memory evaporate, and my heart start up with the fight or flight response. Luckily, I did neither (start a brawl or run out the door, that is).

Miguelina had a beautiful, warm smile that greeted us and pulled us in as we entered the restaurant, which was a fantastic distraction for me. I walked in with the Impling and Dr. Science unexpectedly in tow. Turned out Dr. Science was on call, attached to his pager, but determined to spend time with the Impling. So instead of dropping us off as we originally planned, we decided to have lunch together. As in, he and the Impling would play around while mom tried to keep her foot out of her mouth for the duration of the lunch. I think I mostly made it. Foot out 25% of the time? Maybe I'm being generous.

Every time I am inspired to meet up with new people, I think this time will be different. I won't, for instance, repeat myself, or blather on and on about my family, or go for an easy escape from the meeting-for-the-first-time-awkwardness by chatting with any toddlers in the area. Major Bedhead knows how well I did with the redundancy, and probably half the women know how well I did in the family arena. And I had at least one fantastic exchange of silly faces with Binky's little one, and I only colored and spelled with MB's little one for a relatively short amount of time. Honest.

But in the midst of it all I had a blast, and regretted not having the chance to talk more with these awesome women. Guess we'll just have to plan another meet-up, eh? No kids, drinks, and no husband on call.

I'm ready.