TLBC

So. The Banshees. Who are we and how did we get such a title?

Well, in full disclosure, the full title of our group is TLBC, aka the Twilight Lovers Banshee Club. When I reconnected with my college friend, Tara, I found a woman who loves Twilight (and New Moon and Eclipse and Breaking Dawn) as much as I did. And so did her friends, Heather and Wendi. I actually got to know Heather and Wendi first by trading Twilight-related internet links on FB. And I liked what I saw of these ladies. They had the same sense of humor that I do.

For instance, we all died laughing over the snark in Cleolinda's Twilight wiki entry and her Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn recaps (which I've linked for you there. You MUST read them if you've read the books -- they're hilarious). I mean, we all love the books, but we can appreciate the ridiculousness of the storyline to outsiders (this is called "horrifying the Twilight noob").

So anyway, we are interested in other things besides Twilight, and for Tara, one of those things happens to be the band, Kings of Leon. She found out they were going to be relatively close to us and she suggested an overnight road trip to the concert, with a day of shopping at outlets on the way home.

I somehow convinced Mr. Daddy to let me go, and we were off! This was the first real girl's trip I'd ever been on and it was so much fun. Tara's GPS found a nice little local Italian restaurant for dinner before the concert and as it happened, one of Tara's friends (I'm going to call her Susan) happened to be in the area for work and she joined us there.

Now Susan works for a fairly well known restaurant chain handling sexual harassment claims. She regaled us with some outrageous stories including one story about a manager who received, um...let's call it "special treatment" from one of his employees on his birthday. We all died laughing and Tara and Heather, in particular, have really great laughs. Not obnoxious, but exuberant. These stories, combined with the general air of gaiety brought on by our "freedom" made us a somewhat boisterous crew. For the record, we were not drinking at all and I really don't think we were being obnoxious. This wasn't a fancy pants restaurant and it wasn't particularly crowded. If I had been watching us from another table I probably would have thought "Those girls sure are having fun. I wish I had girlfriends like that."

But there was something about us that bugged a man sitting near us. Every time one of us would laugh he would give us the stink eye. Then he progressed to making very passive aggressive comments loud enough so that we could hear him. And that's when it happened. "Good grief," he sniped. "They sound like a bunch a banshees!"

And unfortunately for him, that set us off again. A couple of us (I'm not naming names but you can't bet your bippie that it wasn't nonconfrontational me!) wanted to say something to him, but he had his small daughter with him and ultimately nothing was said. I don't know what his deal was, but I'm guessing this man has some kind of issues that was so bothered by a group of women having a good time. I bet he drives some kind of flashy sports car, if you get what I'm sayin' (wink wink, nudge nudge).

Anyhoo, we didn't let it bother us and we went on to have a great time at the concert, but we have since dubbed ourselves The Banshees. I wanted to get a TLBC ring made up, kind of like Elvis' TCB lightning bolt ring but so far we haven't gotten past the design phase (which I thought I had a copy of but can now find nowhere. Oh well, it's pretty easy to recreate.)

I'll leave you with a couple of photos from the trip -- and I literally mean a couple. I took my camera and I think I took maybe one picture. Which wasn't even any good.

Here's me and Heather, rockin' out.

and here's me, Heather, and Tara before the concert (Wendi didn't actually go to the concert, she just went along with us for the good time).



And it was. A good time, I mean.