Even more fabulous than I knew....

It's been a very tough month. My office in is chaos with the first dramatic changes in decades and I feel insecure, conflicted, and unhappy with what's going on. So I planned a WOW meeting for tonight and asked the ladies to email me 3-5 interesting facts about themselves that we might not already know. I enjoy our gatherings, but I've been exhausted, having survived a week of asthma attacks from shredding 25 years of papers and just wanting to coccoon and be alone. I do fight that, my tendency to crawl under the covers and pull them over my head. But I had made plans and the ladies were coming over and I was gonna enjoy myself, no matter what! So, just like every time, as they start to walk in, I am delighted and immediately I feel joyful and happy to be in their company. We visited and munched and our dear Jessica made us watermelon margueritas, which were like, I don't know, a godsend to the weary and stressed?
And then we went outside and I started to read from the ladies' lists and here's some of what we found out about each other: (Start each line with "and who said?")
- I was on Wheel of Fortune and won all three days and on Who Wants to be a Millionaire and lost after the first round.
- I've been involved in numerous organizations, some for 30 years, that try to advance nuclear safety and abatement, environmental issues, human rights, women's rights, and population issues.
-I had my 15 minutes of fame when Inside Edition (the TV show) came to film a weight loss group I was leading.
-I married my first husband after 12 days and my second husband after two months.
-On vacation, I met someone in a sail surfing class and we went into the water and had sex right in the water in front of people all around us who thought we were just hugging him in deeper water than I could stand.
-I started college in 1992 and graduated in 2001 with a degree in philosophy and met my daughter's future husband in a class.
- I walked into a strange neighbor's house when I was 19 one morning after being drugged up at a Doors concert the night before, met a sailor there, married him a few months later, and moved to Hawaii.
- I enjoy reading and knitting, have a very quiet serious side to me, and delivered my son in the front seat of my Ford Falcon on the San Diego and Hollywood Freeway.
- I have been married three times, have a lover almost 20 years my junior, am not monogamous, and don't want to be.
- I speak five languages, was born in Greece, grew up in New York City, and have lived in Los Angeles most of my life but still consider myself a New Yorker.
- I went back to school at the age of 43 for a few classes and ended up with a degree in horticulture.
- I have three children, all born in June, two years apart.

Ya think ya know someone?!? These women are amazing. They're beautiful, good company, intelligent, fun, and caring human beings. I'm honored to get to know them. And the news? Rachel reported that her son's wedding, the first time both sides of the family have gathered since her separation, turned out wonderful, just like a dream, and she had a great time. Bev is planning a singles travel club to give out information on how to travel single and allow singles our age to meet others with the same interest. Pam and Carole are both struggling with difficult (and smelly) fellow employees. We met our new "member" Mikki who is, like us, fun and with lots of stories to tell. Sue is dating a nice guy that she likes and she's taking it slow and easy and enjoying him immensely. Pam is NOT going to meet the guy she calls Mr. Cheater and is considering how she still is drawn to "bad guys." And me? Thanks to Bev's push, I did talk to a guy from online last night and had that kind of conversation that you always hope to have on a first meeting - I enjoyed him, he listened to me, we had similar interests, and maybe we have similar quirks. And we laughed! And then I woke up to a funny email from him....nice.

So, it's not so bad being female, fiftyish, and single. We are having a ball!