FREE THERAPY

There's a noise in my head.  It's sadness and tears; it's concern and caring; it's singing and dancing; it's giggles and laughter and the shout of "BUNKO"!

When the twins were two and Jillian five, my good friend, Ginger, asked if I would like to become part of her Bunko group.  For those of you who have never heard of Bunko, and therefore must have been born on another planet, here's what Bunko is.  Bunko is a game of dice played by twelve people sitting at three separate tables in groups of four.  There’s a “head” table; a middle table and “the pits”.  A "game" consists of rolling the dice counting and adding all the one’s first and when the head table reaches twenty-one the first round is over.  Winner’s move to a higher table and losers go to the pits.  Then you play for two’s and so forth up to the sixes - end of game one.  A Bunko is when you roll three of a kind and score twenty-one.  Bunko is completely mindless and fun.  The way we play is each person puts in five bucks and at the end there are cash prizes.  For those of us unemployed…..it’s payday, so in my book a win at Bunko is a big month for me!!!!!!!!

Anyway, when my friend Ginger asked me to join Bunko I was curious and excited to meet eleven women I’d never met before and participate in this game I had only heard about from just about every woman I met.

But let’s back up.  I met Ginger at the same real estate office that I met the Scotsman back in 1986.  She’s a petite red-head and one of the sweetest, funniest, brightest and most charming people I’ve ever met.  Ginger says, "I've never met a stranger" and she's right.  Everyone she meets loves her.  The girl from St. Louis is exciting to be around!  Before Ginger was an amazing realtor and many years ago, she was a kindergarten teacher.  That tells you something about her doesn’t it?  If you have the love and patience for children and children love you in return, then you are somebody really special.  Who doesn't love their kindergarten teacher?  She's one of my favorite people in the wide, wide world and we spend time in our gardens together and hiking and just, well, playing!

Ginger as a "flapper" for Halloween!

So there I was at my very first Bunko at Ginger’s home meeting my new best friends for the first time.  Little did I know how these friendships would grow and change over the next eighteen plus years.  Let me tell you about the girls.  The names have been changed to our "alter-ego" names.  My alter-ego name is Sophia!.

When I was asked to “audition” for Bunko (which unbeknownst to me that’s what I was doing) another gal was auditioning too.  Her name is Victoria.  She’s an accountant which translates to left-brained, exacting, brilliant, logical and beautiful.  In other words, everything I am not!  Victoria’s got the most fabulous head of blonde-wavy hair you could ever want to see and  lives in an amazing home she has decorated beautifully with her fireman husband and two adorable, polite, children....a boy and a girl much younger than my own.  Victoria enjoys guide-dog training and usually has a couple of these beautiful dogs around the house.  She's quite the package!

Victoria looking like a western barmaid!

Then there’s Trixie!  What a kick.  Trixie’s down for a good time ALWAYS smiling and laughing and sweet. Trixie is a terrific listener and good advice-giver.  She's a petite brunette – sometimes and sometimes a blonde!.......Or maybe...let's just see at the next Bunko!  She’s got this quirky side to her in her hair-dos and style of dress that I love!  She's employed in a nine-to-five but her real love and passion is design.  Trixie makes beautiful mosaic tile stepping stones, mirrors, wall hangings, etc.  She has a true artist's eye.

 

That's Trixie and her daughter Audrey on the left.

Trixie’s daughter Audry is also a Bunko "babe".  Audry is tall, model-thin, gorgeous and FUNNY!  She LOVES to laugh and have a good time (but who doesn't right?).  Like her mom, she’s got the best attitude and always comes from a good place.  Audry is quite a few years our junior but fits right in with us oldies.  We share a love for music and technology bringing our IPODS and dancing to parties!  Her husband is a real sweetheart and their kids?.......Dogs!  P.S. You shoulda seen her in a thong by the pool in Vegas!  Yowza!

Crazy dancing fun!

Then there’s Roxy.  Roxy is a very petite dynamo from Australia and don’t kid her about her accent!  I'm serious!  Roxy is always down for a laugh and has the best attitude....even in the face of adversity she finds something to laugh about.  She owns her own business, landscape design, and is always out there having new adventures and exploiting new ideas.  She's a wonderful mother to her only son, a high school student, and a great friend.  We can usually find Roxy on a garden tour, at the nursery, or perhaps having a late afternoon Bloody Mary while working on her YouTube videos!

Roxy with Jani while Jani was undergoing treatment.

Pele' is another realtor in our group.  Pele' is Hawaiian born – absolutely beautiful, dark skinned and dark hair.  She makes me pee my pants laughing with her funny stories.   She's got a fantastic home which she and her husband have remodeled up in the hills above a beautiful valley with stunning views!  Her dining room with it's gigantic table is to die for!  A wonderful mom and a grandmother - we love her and her sweet sweet husband.

Pele' and Ginger!

Athena.  Just like her name.  Tall, blonde, fabulous.  Athena is also a brilliant realtor who’s made a very good living buying and selling real estate.  She lives with her handsome Greek boyfriend and together they make a stunning couple; him dark and exotic, her fair, lithe and elegant.  Athena would give the shirt off her back to help you AND she’s a very confident and competent cook to boot!  Bunko's at her home are an exciting, culinary delight.....especially Thanksgiving Bunko!!!  Athena has one daughter and claims her S.O.'s two children too!

Gorgeous Athena!

Bobbi Jo from Alabama.  Yea, say it like you really want to. With the strongest possible southern accent you can muster!  She's a fire cracker!  The queen of zingers.  Bobbi Jo is sexy and funny.  She tells the best stories that keep you in stitches!  Bobbi Jo has a beautiful sense of style and her home is spectacularly painted and decorated.  And the girl can cook a southern dish!  Just recently married with no children Bobbi Jo IS a southern dish!

Our Southern Belle!

Gypsy is our curvacious sensual girl with long dark hair.  She's a very talented aesthetician and all-round queen of making you feel good at the touch of a finger.  Literally!  Gypsy owns her own successful day spa in our little downtown.  A real business woman she is funny and sweet always with a big smile.  Gypsy is married to a cutie-pie sweetheart of a fireman and they live in a charming home that's quaint and inviting by a little creek in the woods.  Gypsy can make some mean Mexican food too.  Spicy!

I'll bet you can figure out who Gypsy is based on my description!

Isabella is our newest member and someone I feel a real affinity with because unlike all the other women in Bunko, we have children about the same age and we are going through the college experience together.  With beautiful brunette chin-length wavy hair Isabella is one sharp cookie with insightful business acumen and she makes me laugh!  AND she sings!  She can get a group of girls into singing and dancing (wine helps) and a BLAST is had by all!  The girl fits right into our Bunko group so nicely.

Ms. Isabella!

Uma, our tall drink of motorcycle-riding mama!  She's got about the curliest black hair I've ever seen on a white girl! and a smile that's ear-to-ear and a giggle that's infectious!  She can use the F word in a sentence more times than a sailor and make you laugh the whole time she does it!  She always has great stories about her boys, the grand kids and her own grand adventures on the back of her husbands' motorcycle.  Hot-tubbing at Uma's house is a must!

Uma in her sexy motorcycle outfit!

Lydia is someone I got to know pretty quickly after joining Bunko.  She would do anything for anyone.  No questions asked.  Lydia has a very distinct style that completely suits her and owns about a thousand pair of earrings to complement every outfit!  Lydia’s a freakin’ trouble-maker though!  She's full of ideas and somehow pulls off making EVERYONE else fulfill her ideas!  For instance, if she doesn’t like the way a piece of furniture sits in your home…she’ll rearrange, or better yet, get everyone else to re-arrange every item of furniture you own.  And she’s usually right!  All the while she’s sipping her vodka and Redbull with that gleam in her eye and we're sweating like dogs!  I guess you'd call that the power of persuasion?  Lydia and her husband have two grown children and three grandchildren!

Lydia, Margarita and me in our pool.

Lydia’s former business partner came to join our group shortly after I did.  Her name is Margarita and when you same her name, please roll the R’s and after you say it you have to say AY-YI, YI, YI, YI, YI!   She's a hot tamale'!  and I pretty much couldn’t love anyone more.  I felt an instant chemistry with our Portuguese Margarita.  When we are together we laugh – end of story!  She’s completely bright and a former model who has still got it!  She’s hysterical; she dresses impeccably and is one of the nicest people I’ve ever, ever met.  She’s had quite a life too.  Margarita has lived all over and traveled all over the world.  She owns a home in Cabo that she has graciously received me in and shares with everyone.  She's a wonderful mother to her only daughter and lives about two and a half hours away in a lovely home in the mountains with her significant other.  Any day with Margarita is gonna be a blast!

Margarita's birthday!

And some of the girls with tickets to go to Margarita's Cabo Villa!

Candy.  What to say about Candy?  She’s perfect!  She’s another one of those really good listeners who offers wonderful advice.  Completely non-judgmental, our down-to-earth Ohio girl, fits in everywhere.  Candy could have dinner with the flippin’ President sipping wine and talking politics and he would love her - probably find a cabinet position for her!  She could sit in a bar in the middle of the desert with a bunch of truck drivers drinking beer and have a blast.  She’d beat them at poker, pool and corn-hole too!  Blonde, beautiful and married to a dark, handsome French Man, Candy is unfailingly polite, funny and a dear, dear friend who successfully raised two grown men ("her boys") both attorneys.

Check her out!

And last, but most certainly not least is Christina. Christina is my oldest friend in California.  We met in 1979 just six months after I moved to California and Christina and I had an instant rapport.  We enjoy “styling” our homes and anyone elses home that will let us!  We love gardening and art and fashion and cooking and gardening and wine-tasting and music and gardening and mountain biking and games and hiking and traveling and well, everything!  Did I mention we have gardening in common?  We’ve vacationed together with our spouses and always have an easy companionship. There was never any doubt that Christina would fit right into Bunko.  What’s not to love about Christina?  She and her husband raised two beautiful and talented women and live in a lovely home with a spectacular garden on a hillside close to the San Francisco Bay.

Ginger, Christina, me and Roxy on a garden tour!

Did I name them all?  No.  There have been women who have come and gone from Bunko.  Like Susan, Joan, Roni and Penny.  Women grow and change.  Some never really feel comfortable with our group.  Others just feel the need to head in another direction.  No worries.  Some have to move like our sweet Debbie (WHO I MISS SO MUCH!). And then there are those we’ve lost.

Trixie’s best friend Joanie (her real name) was in Bunko when I first joined.  The girl from Texas with the long grey beautiful mane.  Joanie had a natural look about her that was really quite stunning.   She could spin a yarn and have us all on the edge of our seats laughing joyfully!  There are Joanie-isms we still say today!  I’m speaking about Joanie in the past-tense because she passed from emphysema almost ten years ago.  Joanie was sweet and funny and very kind.   A tiny Texas-two-steppin' girl with a big heart, big smile and gracious way about her.  She is missed and will always be fondly remembered.

I love this picture of Joanie

And Jani (her real name).  Jani was my best friend.  She died of metastatic breast cancer in 2005 after an incredibly brave battle of five years.  Talk about a woman who could make you laugh?  She could do it.  Jani had the best sense of humor and had everyone in stitches!  We spent a LOT of time together working in our children's school and carpooling.  Jillian is the same age as her middle child, Lauren, and the girls were in classes together from elementary through high school.  In fact they "walked" together at graduation just weeks before Jani passed.  Her son, Jackson, is the same age as the twins and we were room parents for their kindergarten class.  We taught P.E. to that Kindergarten class too and laughed constantly planning activities for the kids.  Our kids were all on the same swim-team.  We hiked and shopped and mountain biked with our friend Christina.  We traveled together as families to the beach and a cabin at a lake in the mountains.  We shared a couple of Thanksgivings together; we picked out our Christmas trees together.  Our beloved dog, Gracie, was born at Jani's home and fostered by her and her family.  Jani graduated from the California Culinary Academy and taught me so much about cooking and especially baking.  I never bake a single thing without thinking about her.  I miss her so much.  She was a soul-sister to me.

Jani and her daughter, Jessica, with me at the Lake beach

Jani had filled Joanie’s spot in Bunko and needless to say, we have never, ever said that we were filling that spot again.  These two women were real blessings in our lives and through them we learned a lot; first about living and then about dying.  We were so fortunate to have known them.  They had such generosity of spirit and kindness of heart and are missed.  We think about them and talk about them and laugh about them and cry about them still.  The picture below was taken at Candy's house at Joanie's last Bunko and one of Jani's first.

Back row:  Athena, Lydia, Jani, Audry, Victoria and Pele'.  Front row: me (Sophia), Candy, Ginger, Trixie and Joanie.

If you are counting then you've counted more than twelve beautiful, fabulous women.  You see, Bunko has pretty much turned into one giant, noisy, therapy session.  FREE THERAPY!  In fact in the last several years I can only think of maybe three times that we've actually played Bunko!  It's only an excuse now (like we need one!) - it's where we're headed every third Thursday of the month.  Or maybe to Vegas together or the mountains or Cabo!

In Vegas baby!

We have dinner, we drink, we smile, we giggle, we laugh.  We listen, we support, we grieve, and we cry.  We dance, we sing, we celebrate and occasionally we'll break out the dice and play Bunko!  But mostly we love.  We love each other like sisters.  Sisters from other mother's that's what we are.  Soul sisters.  How lucky are we?

Just hanging on a sailboat.

Silly girls!