Going North

David never ceases to be amazed at how long it takes a group of ladies to organize an outing. If where to go for dinner takes a 10 minute convo, it stands to reason that planning a weekend getaway would take ten times as long. So, for weeks, we went back and forth, mostly about location:

Vegas?
Nah.
New Orleans?
Just went.
Miami?
Next time.

And then someone suggested Montreal.

Close.
Hip.
Speak a different language.
Serve French fries doused in gravy and cheese cruds.
Done.

It delivered on all those things. Except for the primary consideration. Montreal isn't what I'd call "close" to New York, unless you're comparing it to a drive to Mount Rushmore. I realized this as we sat in the car, on hour 9 of our raucous, wild girls getaway. Apparently, its only supposed to take six and a half hours but when its 106 degrees out and cars actually catch on fire on the highway, it slows the flow of traffic a bit.

We talked about sex.
We talked about careers.
We talked about the things we hate about our husbands and the dumb fights we have over and over again.
We talked more about sex.
We talked about kids and car seats and what to pack in a lunchbox and how long it takes them to go to sleep and whether or not they should have developed a conscience by age four.
We talked about old boyfriends.
We talked about our weddings and where we bought the dress and if we wore a veil.
We talked about our mothers.
And we were still only halfway there.

I'd say between the trip there and back, we squeezed in approximately 100 therapy sessions.

Montreal was charming - hotel was SWANK, the kind with zebra skin stools and toilets enclosed in glass stalls for no apparent reason. The endtable was carefully laid with large bottles of Grey Goose and Maker's Mark, the which probably cost a months' mortgage for a shot.

"Oooh look! A baseball cap with the hotel name on it!" my friend Miriam exclaimed.
"Don't touch that cap! Its not included! Its a trap."

The only real hitch was that our room was located directly, and I do mean, directly above the nightclub. I should have realized something was up when I saw the box of earplugs on the nightstand. Of course, I was too scared to touch the earplugs for fear they weren't included in the room and I'd find a charge of $32 EAR PLUGS on my bill upon checkout.

When we turned in at what I thought was an impressive 12:30am, the nightclub was just heating up and the bass was causing the bed to vibrate. I stuck the earplugs in, put my head under a very plush pillow and promptly willed my ears to cease functioning. That worked pretty well until I woke up a few hours later to a massive, white noise which sounded like our room was getting crushed in an enormous garbage disposal. It went on and on. It occurred to me that maybe something was amiss. But then I fell back asleep and when I woke up, we were still there, so I guess it was some rave-related incident.

The next morning my friend Gigi woke at 6 and went for a run before having a leisurely, European-paced breakfast with Miriam. I continued to sleep. When they rolled back into the room at 10:40, they were aghast to find me in bed. Ten hours? Sounds about right.

Once I'd had some coffee to shake off the post-sleep-binge fatigue, we were off to sight-see.

Notre Dame. Check.
Musee des Beaux Arts. Check.
Viuex Montreal.
Poutine. Check.
Canadian flags for the children? Check.

Another night of dreaming about garbage disposals while getting a bass thumping. Next morning, we were up and in the car by 9, ready for another marathon of talk therapy.

It wasn't how the boys would do it but it was just what the doctor ordered.