April 4 - a date I'll always remember

As my friends know, I have this weird calendar brain - if you tell me your birthdate, I can tell you what day of the week your next birthday will fall on. Completely useless and pointless, but a good party trick. I also remember key dates in my life, and I'll always remember today's date - April 4 - for two events.

Five years ago on April 4, 2004, I departed with about a dozen girlfriends for the Dabbs Railroad Hotel in Llano, a couple hours from Austin, for the best bachelorette party/bridal shower ever. We had the whole place to ourselves for 24 hours, and we had such a blast. I had friends there from Austin, Houston, New York, Amsterdam and Long Beach, and I'll never forget what a special time it was. I can't believe we didn't get a pic of the full group, but here are several of us with Gary, the greatest host ever (on the left, sharing my feather boa). That's Bubba in back. No seriously, his name really is Bubba. And yes, I'm wearing pajama bottoms, a red slip and a blue feather boa. It's funny to think that four ladies here are either currently pregnant or just had a baby. There must have been something in that cowgirl coffee that Gary prepared!

Thank you again to Christine and Tammy for such a great outing! Here they are in their honorary bridesmaid hats.







And five years before that, on April 4, 1999, I departed Austin on an Amtrak train bound for New York City. It really doesn't seem possible that it has been ten years since I left Austin. It remains probably the saddest day of my life, because I left Eric on the station platform, and I was a sobbing mess. But it was an amazing two-day journey, and disembarking in Penn Station in NYC was one of the most thrilling events I've ever experienced. Fortunately, Eric joined me full time in NYC within six months, and the rest, as they say, is history. I don't have any shots from the big departure, but I did find the invite to my going away party.