A Tradition Grows: Chick Cabin Weekend

The exact date? We’re not really sure. All we know is, DD mumbled an epiphany while sunbathing by the pool at Sharon’s first bachelorette party back in 199-something. There we were, blissfully ignorant of skin cancer, all greased up and recalling punch lines and misadventures from Kim’s baby shower the previous year, held at my family’s cabin in the Angeles National Forest.

Eyes closed, DD put her right check down on the towel and sighed: “Why can’t we do that every year? Why do we have to wait for someone to get married?” Somehow, amidst all the busy tanning, I heard her. Quite soon, we were scribbling names on a Self magazine subscription card and expanding upon our idea.

There are but three main rules for Chick Cabin Weekend:

No kids
No men
No work

After nearly a decade, we have developed a philosophy of sorts:

Do What You Want Because Right Now Is Very Good

This past weekend was Chick Cabin VIIII, the annual meeting of some of my best girlfriends. Nearly every era of my life is represented here by brilliant, hilarious and beautiful ladies. Finding these precious gals is always a matter of mutual recognition and somewhat immediate love and respect, not to mention luck. I always apply the same formula: I start talking and whoever laughs is my friend. It’s like a trick outing.

There’s McShmoinkles and Miss Liberty from the Macromedia Dot Com Fun Bus; Susie P. from the early 90s LA (mis)adventures; Magical Heidi the poetess from my college days and Airman Fraser who I met in Pop Warner Cheerleading – Rebels ’79, I think.

There’s old-timeys like DD who goes back to second grade and My Dear Friend Lisa who I can recall in first grade Sunday school at the wonderfully generic, Lakewood Village Community Church. (Ironically, everyone we know who got married there eventually divorced.) Let’s not forget the indomitable Deputy Six Gun, a firearms aficionado, mother of two and former stoner/surfer/ska chick who just keeps evolving. She used to tease me in high school about being a cheerleader, “F**ckin rah-rah!” We still cackle at this.

This was the ninth year of CCW and it held a profundity that has been building for some time. The gang is getting older now, ranging in age from 35 to 48, and the topics are shifting a bit. This is an intense collection of wives, mothers, daughters, sisters and, when are together, girls.

We each lay bare the joys and disappointments in our lives. Family relationships, maternal concerns and, of course, men are the topics of the day. Not to mention career struggles, sex jokes and the recently unavoidable, political issues. It is usually me and Heidi ranting about the dark stupidity of the current administration, which is getting easier for them to see every year.

Mostly, we sit around and watch Kim tell stories and be hilarious in general. This year, she created the perfect man who had a hinged spine and a boob on each knee. “You could just put him in the closet and he could entertain himself for hours,” she reasoned over Pina Coladas under a pine tree. The laughter gets so high and loud that I picture a Google map view and a circle of frightened wildlife running in all directions. As it is the same weekend every year – between Mother’s Day and Memorial Day Weekend – it’s probably on the town agenda to warn the locals.

Though we have made another side rule, no cell phone conversations in the cabin, technology has creeped in nonetheless. Miss Liberty brought along her laptop to show and take photos and lo and behold, WiFi! Not sure how we fell so far, so fast but here we are – in the photo – trying to understand why we can see Britney Spears shaved snatch. How does one not know? I mean, isn’t it drafty? And where was her mother, we wanted to know. Even Paris tried to clamp those idiot legs shut and when Paris Hilton is your good taste compass, you can stick a fork in yourself – you’re done.



Yes, big, big issues of the day are shared, depicted, debated and accepted. There is beer, weed, hummus, hiking, hair-do’ing, smoking, photo-shooting and 10,000 laughs late into the night. It is a golden collection of memories made. Saturday evening, a perfect example - seven women stretched out on boulders in the moonlight, staring at the stars and enjoying the rare silence, alone in our thoughts but together, always.

And because you boys are kind of cute when you’re optimistically stupid - yes, there is LOTS and LOTS of naked pillow fighting.