Top: The Jewess’ (bride-to-be in middle) Bottom: Black Power
Title Note: I’m channeling my best Kelly (from the show ‘Misfits)’ voice.
This weekend has been, in the words of Samantha Jones- or more appropriately whomever wrote her lines-Fabulous! Again the women I met, including the two additional lovely ladies that came into town yesterday, are so warm and loving…you can tell that this group of women have been friends for years and for me just getting to know them each over the past couple of days, I feel totally embraced and welcomed!
So I wasn’t planning on documenting the whole weekend but I couldn’t resist finding a way to plug in a phrase I heard last night over dinner at City Café (great food btw): ‘check the eggs’. You’re probably like wtf does she mean check the eggs? Well while talking to the other two sistuhs (wink wink) they told a story about how they were visiting a friend in a predominately white area of Long Island and their local friend informed them that when black people were in the store, the code for ‘negroes in the shop’ was ‘check the eggs’. Now this sounds like some old ass throwback shit but no I believe this event took place sometime in the 90s. To be honest I thought it was funny because it’s ridiculous and because they knew about this ‘secret’ phrase prior to entering the establishment so to hear it upon their arrival was quite classic! This and many other hilarious stories were shared throughout the evening that jumped off Alys’ bachelorette party night 2.
First stop was the hotel suite where the bride-to-be was gifted with lingerie and made to guess who they came from. There was also a candy and mini Kahlua grab bag and the bride-to-be gifted her guests with different baubles, mine is this pretty navy flower that doubles as a hair pin or a brooch. After the gift exchange we then moved on to dinner at City Café in Baltimore’s Mount Vernon neighborhood where again we had an amazing dinner full of good conversation, warm vibes, generous libations, lots of sharing and plenty of boisterous laughter. Despite all of this fun and laughter we noticed a ‘disturbing’ trend, we black women managed to segregate ourselves on one side of the table. We had, as Alys said the ‘Jewess’ on one side and black power (say it like Chapelle’s Clayton Bigsby) on the other! Had we somehow purposely segregated ourselves, pulling from centuries old habits? Nah, turns out none of us black power chicks wanted to be trapped on the banquette side should we have to hit the restroom, so it was just a strategic move for easy access to get up or (insert Gargamel laughter) maybe old habits die hard! After our dinner, which ended up turning into musical chairs anyway, we decided to keep it local and walk around the corner to lounge spot Red Maple: a low lit rectangular shaped space complete with low banquettes situated next to searing fireplaces in the front, leading up some steps to a bar area where the banquettes (sans fireplaces) are situated against the wall all the way to back, dropping off to the dance floor which is the fish bowl to the outside patio aka smokers lounge. I would have been more than happy to provide entertainment for the revelers on the smoking patio except the Saturday DJ spins house music which no one was particularly interested in dancing to, since throughout the night and over the entire weekend 90s music overall mostly pop and operatic hip hop (these chicks were rapping in operatic tones ya’ll!) was belted with no regard to anyone in the immediate vicinity. We had another Whitney Houston memorial sing-a-long on the smoking terrace to ‘Didn’t We Almost Have it All’ while I found out later inside the rest of the crew was remembering Michael Jackson also in song. You can see, we needed some straight up music we could sing, dance, and reminisce to so we shook the spot and decided to round the corner again, this time hitting the dance party at the Hippo, one of Mount Vernon’s established gay havens. We made the right choice, although the Hippo doesn’t have the gorgeous ambience of say Red Maple, and the music was clubby (not my fave), for the most part everybody was on their feet dancing and the vibe was high-tempo. The DJ kept everybody on their feet and I recognized and could sing along to the music. We also managed by default to work in the age-old bachelor/bachelorette stripper theme without the annoyance of real strippers in the go-go dancers (one guy one girl) who danced slightly above the crowd anchoring both ends of the dance floor. Ending the evening at the Hippo was the right move; Alys and her girls got to party and since we all admit to not being on the scene all the time (we do have a couple of mom’s in the crew) this weekend was a nice departure for all us (for me I have a serious homebody disposition). I had tons of fun and have even been invited to Philly where as of last week I knew no one. I really can’t wait to celebrate Alys and Ian with these chicas come summer; in the meantime keep it gangsta ladies!
Cija's Quips 