In February / March 2021 timeframes, one Bapu (a term of endearment for a good male friend) was yearning for a group outing, somewhere close but far enough.
For the past 12mths Covid had put a fear of God in people, both here and around the globe. A couple of shots of the Covid vaccine made us little less fearful and gave us little more courage, to explore ideas for a trip, somewhere close.
Whilst working in Newport News, Virginia, from 2016 to 2018, with one other Bapu, we had often talked about taking a trip to the Outer Banks for a long weekend, but it never got off the ground. He rekindled the idea for just such a trip – Outer Banks is approximately 8 hrs from Central New Jersey.
It afforded a perfect opportunity to make an overnight stop in Virgina Beach, approx 6 hrs from NJ, and 2 hrs from the Outer Banks. I had an ulterior motive for making that suggestion – to go for dinner at Il Giardino, a very good Italian restaurant.
The notion of a group outing with a larger circle of friends, 9 to 10 couples, was and has always been appealing, and so an invite was extended to gauge interest. More to come on this front.
Whilst I have known one couple since the mid-90’s and others for approx 20 years, others in the group have known each other since they were in diapers (ok, there were no diapers in those days) – I exaggerate, since their college days.
When you know someone for a long time, one becomes aware of:
- Their quirks and idiosyncrasies (though not all),
- The chemistry between individuals and couples, and
- The cliques that exist within the group.
This makes for an interesting dynamic when all are huddled together in one house for a period of a week.
One of the Masi’s (a term of endearment for a female friend – wife of one of the Bapu’s) found a week-long house rental on the beach – a very nice, big 3-story house with 8 bedrooms.
The idea was enthusiastically accepted, and the final group count was 15 people.
The date was confirmed, Sept 4th to 12th, the house was booked, and there was excitement in the air whenever one met.
After a brief group texting session on What’sUp with the other Bapus, we all agreed that the guys would do the cooking (this meant 3 of us would cook, and 4 would be sous chefs). In turn, I excitedly texted to the larger group that Bapus would be happy to cook, giving the Masi’s a break from cooking.
We were expecting a resounding endorsement of this idea. It was an offer they could not refuse.
Well, I got an onslaught of texts, where a few took umbrage to this idea – from my husband cannot be cooking all week to why was such a decision made by just the guys. 😢
I readily retracted our suggestion. Be happy, cooking! 👨🍳👩🍳👨🍳
I briefly digress to discuss my ongoing 30+ years of research on the female genome. 🤫🤫🤫
I publish below three of the findings. The rest are part of my PhD thesis, still a work in progress, as there is so much that I still do not know.
- When men who are close friends get married and their wives do not get along, more often than not it leads to the end of their close friendship as couples;
- When women who are close friends get married, even if their husbands do not get along, the close friendship between the couples continues. Guys tend to tolerate each other without causing trouble in such situations;
- On a different note, when a woman has money, she tends to manage it carefully and save some for future needs. On the other hand, men often spend money freely and without much thought. I witnessed this first-hand from my experience working in microfinance, where I encountered women from different backgrounds, ages, cultures, and levels of education in various countries across three continents, and they all behaved the same way.
To be continued …
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