in the beginning . . .

What is funny to me (us) may not be funny to you, so let this be a lesson . . . call it the too funny disclaimer . . . there are absolutely no guarantees to follow; just like beauty is in the eye of the beholder, humor either is or isn't in the heart of the recipient. Some folks laugh at just about anything while others practically have to have an engraved invitation to crack a smile. I suppose we are somewhere in the middle. (we being group therapy) As you will see, I will also be we, not because I have multiple personalities but because I am the voice for our club. I will consult with our members from time to time to insure every one's voice is heard, but for the most part, I will be flying solo.

Let's get back to this notion of what is funny to some is not funny to others. Funny is a pretty broad category if you think about it. Funny can mean hysterical, side-aching, belly-laughing, tear inducing, wet your pants, can't hardly breathe funny. Funny can also mean enjoyable or amusing, entertaining or smile provoking. We want this BLOG to be "too" funny!

I have a dear friend, not quite old enough for Group Therapy, but will certainly be welcomed once she is age eligible, who is a gifted, published writer of extremely humorous works. Her BLOG is at the top of our list of favorites. (check out her link under My Blog List: SWAG: Southern Women Aging Gracefully) Her humor is completely derived from her life. It is real and easy to associate with and we celebrate her.

Now, for too funny: let us know what you think by posting comments. We may need a little time to become established. Just like a fine wine that needs to age, we may also need time to grow and mature in our technique. Follow us, tell your friends to follow us, become a member of Group Therapy and laugh at life with us. Here's our first chapter . . .

Life-long friends

I am blessed to have many people I consider friends. But I only have two people who are life-long friends. I have know both of these girls since we were 9 and 10. I still think of them as girls because in my heart, we always will be. They know everything about me that is truly significant. We don't talk every day, but they are part of who I am every day. We make up the founding membership of the Group Therapy club. (There is also an honorary founding member who has been 50 for almost 20 years. She would have been one of my life-long friends had she been born in 1961 instead of 1941.)

One of the funniest stories we will ever share is the time we traveled to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. It was a trip that had been planned and dreamed about for years. Not so much the final destination, but the trip itself. 

[As an aside, from now on, I will refer to us by our screen names. They are not original and it won't take the educated reader long to see where we stole them from. We aren't necessarily trying to embody the characters associated with these famous names; instead, we just thought it would be too funny to try them on for size and live life large, if only for 7 days!]

My life-long friends, Samantha and Charlotte, trusted me with most of the planning and execution of this adventure we wanted to experience. We all work, but I work from home so I have a little more flexibility from day to day. Plus, I can be a bit of a control freak so I assumed the role happily. Once our destination was chosen, I set about the task of scheduling flights. I'm no novice when it comes to travel. These tickets were secured 2 months before the departure date. Because this trip was intended to be a celebration for Group Therapy and turning 50, my sweet father offered to pay for the flights. Because I booked so far in advance, I thought the tickets were very reasonable. I was so proud to think that this trip was going to be fabulous but relatively inexpensive for us. We were using my time-share, which meant the total price, for our room, was $169 for the entire week. The tickets were a gift, so all we had to pay for was food and drink and whatever we wanted to splurge on while in Mexico.

The day finally came. It was Saturday and both Samantha and Charlotte arrived at my house, as planned, to head to the airport. Photos were taken to begin to chronicle our adventure. We sipped on Cosmos on the way to the airport, in our matching attire. Once we arrived we were sure to attract attention. We were on our way to paradise and we didn't care who knew it!

Group Therapy

It is also important to mention that our honorary club member went along for the ride, but not in the traditional sense of the word. Just suffice to say she had a wonderful time, didn't need a suitcase or a passport  and her name isn't Miranda.

Flat Anne (no relation to Flat Stanley)

Okay, where was I . . . oh yes, arriving at the airport. We made a splash from the moment we stepped out of the car. After checking our heavy bags, we made it through security without a hitch. As we were making our way to the gate, we only had two pressing items to contend with: should we have another Cosmo or switch to beer? We wanted to pace ourselves and still had several hours till we touched down in Cabo. We all agreed that landing drunk in a foreign country wasn't smart. So, beer it would be!

We found our gate and relaxed, knowing that in one hour we would be boarding our flight and headed to this much awaited, much anticipated and of course, much deserved get-away! Charlotte was about to go buy three beers when Samantha said, "How long will we be in Las Vegas?" None of us had been to Las Vegas and we had already talked about getting our picture made with something indicative of Vegas while waiting for our connection. I pulled out my iPad to use a new App I just had to show off and plugged in our flight numbers from my boarding pass. As the App came to life I saw the little plane icon on the screen fly straight across the United States and veer north, not south. (This APP is designed to let you visualize the route of your flight and give vital information about connection times, airports, etc.) Our itinerary was set to fly to Nashville first, then to Las Vegas and on to Cabo San Lucas. So why was the little plane flying to California not Mexico? I asked Samantha to look at her boarding pass to confirm the flight number from Nashville to Las Vegas. Maybe I had entered the wrong numbers? After careful comparison, we realized that we were all three scheduled to land in San Jose California, not Mexico. My first thought was, no freaking way! There was absolutely NO WAY, I, the seasoned traveler, could have booked our flights to California. Several hysterical, surreal moments passed, only to be followed by the sobering realization that we were indeed, booked to land at the airport known as San Jose California or SJC and not San Jose del Cabo or SJD. What a rookie mistake! What a nightmare!! What do we do??? 

To be continued . . .