Fangirl Fridays – Meeting Wench Angela

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Wenches Angela and Kathi at the Oregon Coast
Say what you will about 2017 (mostly not fit for tender ears), this has been a fabulous year for meeting Wenches face to face! I started the year at the Feversong release party in New Orleans with Barb, Anne, Donna, Zee, Merit, Chloe Jane, and Kat. And I ended the year with a visit from Wench Angela’s family, all the way from New Zealand! Because hey, it’s the week before Christmas, cats are partying in the wrapping paper, and my living room looks like a UPS truck exploded, so no one will notice if five more people squeeze in...

The time flew by too quickly and now I miss having them around. So I’ll share some highlights of our adventures as I search for my missing motivation to finish the holiday preparations.



From the moment I opened my front door to Angela’s hug, I was in love with her whole family. They were all so kind and thoughtful and funny and warm and genuine. Several times, her husband Geoff expressed amazement that I was so much like Angela, that we both worried about letting our beloved gardening and household projects languish while we spent every night reading or writing blog posts. But Angela and I weren’t surprised by that. There is, after all, a reason why we’ve gotten along so swimmingly all these years! Probably several, but that’s definitely one of them!! But maybe our husbands understand a bit better now why we love our fellow Wenches and our little book club so much.

Along the coast road, by the headland, The early lights of winter glow*

We spent a beautiful, balmy, and surprisingly sunny day at Cannon Beach and Ecola State Park on the northern Oregon coast, where we looked for starfish and anemones among the tidepools, chowed down on clam chowder, and marveled at the kids’ determination to prove that the water was not too cold to play in. (Brrrrrr.)

Family portrait (with my dog Barkley standing in for theirs)










There’s a place called Downtown, Where the hippies all go**

No self-respecting Portlandian would let her guests miss out on Waterfront Park, Pioneer Square, the Saturday Market, or Voodoo Doughnut.







It was me and you, since way back when, But you can’t make old friends***

What a perfect opportunity to meet a couple of other members of the original SookieVerse Blog — the fansite where we all met online about 7 and a half years ago! Wench friends Rachel and Jane joined us to feast our taste buds upon delicious cuisine and our eyes upon faces that some of us thought we’d never be lucky enough to see! There is nothing else in the world quite like meeting an online friend in person and suddenly forgetting everything you ever dreamed of saying to them if you ever got the chance! Then we introduced Angela to Powell’s Bookstore, a full city block of books and America’s largest independent bookstore. Needless to say, we were enthralled and completely in our element!





Wench Merit and I like to FaceTime when we get the chance, so we made sure to set up a video chat while Angela was visiting! It wasn’t the same as them meeting face-to-face, but it was just wonderful to chat together almost like we were in the same room. Because no matter how well you feel like you know someone online, it’s a million times better to look into their eyes and see their smile while you babble on and on about books or whatever. It’s like a family reunion with a long-lost loved one!

Green Acres is the place to be, Farm living is the life for me

The kids enjoyed exploring the rural amenities because I live in the hills outside the city. We went to the nearby berry barn for custom milkshakes. They rode a quad and tractor, practiced shooting targets, and roasted a few marshmallows while we gals watched The Crown and toured the unimpressive, brown, winter version of my garden. Then thrilled to be in the company of so many like-minded, politically incorrect word nerds, we played a few highly competitive, screamingly funny rounds of Cards Against Humanity. Where Rachel proved adroit at authoring indecencies — absolutely no surprise there, she’s legendary amongst us in that regard — but Angela won the night!!





Happy trails to you, until we meet again****

We’re already looking forward to our next visit, in a few years. If only one of us would hurry up and win the lottery, and buy that Saucy Wenches jet, we could schedule regular gatherings! Until then, we’ll save our pennies and dream. In the meantime, I’ve still got my reservation to pitch a tent in Angela’s back yard if I decide I need to emigrate, so who knows, she might be getting more of me than she bargained for one of these days!

So until we meet again — or for the very first time — Best Wishes for a Saucy Holiday Season and a Happy New Year to all the Wenches and our Saucy Readers!

* Jethro Tull
** Neil Young
*** Kenny Rogers
**** Roy Rogers, Dale Evans Rogers

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