My Time in the Big House

I spent the weekend with my roommates from college. Dana's family has a farm outside of Asheville, and we end up meeting there once or twice a year for a weekend. I drove up on Friday and arrived about 2 o'clock. Honey and Laura came from Charlotte, and Dana was coming from Winston-Salem; their drives were much shorter than mine, but i still beat them, even with my 4.5 hour drive.

On the way up, it snowed as i was coming through Asheville. That was nice. I arrived and read until the girls got there. (Dana's step-father, Randy, and her mom, Leah, were already there, so they let me in.) The farm consists of two houses - the main, or "big" house, and a guesthouse/office, or the "little house." We usually sleep and hang out in the little house, which has two bedrooms, a full bath, and a kitchen, in addition to the office area and a large main room, complete with pool table, computer, and television. Randy and Leah love to cook, so they often make meals for us, which we eat in the big house. Our constant companion while there is Burns, the family's golden retriever.

On Saturday, we started drinking long before we ate dinner (a delectable smorgasbord of leftovers) and stayed up until about Midnight. I thought i was planning ahead when I decided to take it easy on Friday night, so as to not have a hangover for our spa day Saturday, and so as to be able to blow it out Saturday night. Alas, Honey and Laura did the opposite. I felt pretty good Saturday morning, although I woke up at 7 am out of habit, but that allowed me to have a cup of coffee sitting alone on the patio and overlooking the fields with Burns. We drove up to Blowing Rock for the spa, and had the pleasure of a spring snow day. It snowed the whole time we were there, while we ate our spa lunch, had our scrubs and massages, and as we had margaritas and mexican food in town. It was still snowing as we started back down to the farm.

Saturday, we ate so much at the mexican place, and Randy had planned a dinner replete with a special garlic mail-ordered from God Knows Where, that we had to actually fake hunger when we got back to the Farm, which was unfortunate, because the meal was excellent. Randy's mother joined us for dinner. "Nana" is 93 years old and still a pistol. She and i chatted about being Georgia crackers. (That's Nana in the picture with us girls. From the left: Laura, Dana, Nana, me, and Honey. Nana is from Statesboro, in Bulloch County, and she says "shrimp" exactly like my Grandma did.) Even after Nana left, Saturday evening was pretty laid back - we had drinks after dinner, sat in front of the fire, and talked for hours.

I just love these girls so much - it is fun to see them and my time with them is never long enough. Luckily, though, the whole weekend was for Honey, who is getting married in two weeks, so I will see them all again in Boca Raton!