Living the Love Loft Life

Before I talk about the Love Loft, can I just say, "WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO MARIE OSMOND on DANCING WITH THE STARS??" One minute she was standing there, listening to Len talk about her dance....the next minute, she was unconscious on the floor and billions of viewers were stuck watching commercial after commercial. I'm just glad she hadn't dropped dead from a heart attack.....now that I know she's relatively okay, I can profess my love for live TV!!! (Don't try to tell me you won't be looking at YouTube to see what happened. All you people without DVR will be searching the net for that clip.)

And, now--back to the original babbling idea about the Love Loft:


(I dedicate this entry to Spotted Owl, as she is a true member of the Addiverse and a reader extraordinaire.)

This weekend was spent consuming massive amounts of food (both home-made and trans-fattingly processed) and hanging out in Galena with our sisters of the Love Loft. There are no better people on the planet than those in the Love Loft group. The photos here give only an inkling of the fun and food that was had by the twelve members of the outing. It was a sort of homecoming for the Love Loft (affectionately known as the LLL or the Triple L and if you don't know what LLL stands for, you have NOT been paying close attention to this blog OR you've only been reading for a short time--for shame!), as we started the "gang" while hanging out in Galena. Due to circumstances beyond our control, the LLL had to move from Galena, so we went to Lake Geneva...and, since they have now knocked down the building we stayed at when in Lake Geneva, we had to go elsewhere.....

......Why not go back to where it all started? Galena!

U Conn Grrrl secured us a lovely farmhouse for the festivities, while the wife lamented over room and meal assignments. Patty Party Pecs watched in horror as her cheesecake had a meltdown (literally--see the photo) but it was for naught, as it tasted just fine. (Patty Party Pecs was on my "shit list" because she brought her new squeeze a bouquet of cookies for Sweetest day--gag!--but since she brought the cheesecake, we decided not to stone & flog her.) We shopped, we ate, we played games, we watched plasma screen TVs, we ate, we debated over future meals....you get the picture.

How much do I like spending time with the LLL? Let me put it into perspective for you: I don't bring my computer with for the weekend.

THAT is saying a lot. I take my computer everywhere--the bathroom, the car....

For the record: there is no way to lose weight (or even want to lose weight) when eating all this great food and hanging out with such great people. Screw the pleurisy pounds! Who can worry about weight when there is homemade cheesecake to be eating at every meal? Why, there have even been meals served in parchment paper--you can't beat that!

Usually, we keep it pretty simple: cooking, watching hockey, getting tattoos, talking about dogs.....and of COURSE I made everyone look at my Xena/Lucy Lawless scrapbook....but this year.....

....We found a new activity to try out in between food frenzies and shopping events--Alpine Sledding!

Now, we are probably too old and injury prone to be throwing ourselves down the real Alps (no offense to you Lofters who think you are spry and sporty) and there certainly wasn't any snow to be found in the area and the real Alps are kinda far away, so we had to settle for sledding down Chestnut Mountain on a man-made track. You hand some guy your money, you pick up a blue sled, you hurl yourself down the mountain on this bobsled kind of course, you hop on the chair lift and you ride back to the top. If you look closely at the top photo collage up above, you can see a bit of the Alpine Track (right underneath the photo of the cheesecake). I must admit that it was very fun and a clever use of a ski slope during non-ski sloping weather. (And, it's not snowing or cold while whizzing down the slope, so I am all over this.)

The trees were in their full glory, fall colors in full regalia. The Mississippi looked mighty and breath-taking. The weather was absolutely perfect. The turkey vultures were hovering....um, I'm not sure circling vultures constitute a good sign, but there they were....and, I didn't seen any carnage on the course....

IF you look closely in the photos, you'll see three sisters of the LLL riding the chair lift--I was taking pictures to keep my mind off how much I hate those stupid chair lifts. I could have just walked back up the mountain, but that seemed like WAY too much work, so I clung to that safety bar with my sweaty palms and made it back up the hill via chair lift. (Again, this goes back to the trauma of a fourth grade incident at Disneyland. Oh, I need some therapy!) The only injury, I am happy to report: Phlange-a-slam had a minor problem when her hat when flying off her head--the lady in the sled behind her managed to run over the hat, leaving it with a serious case of road rash.....better her hat than any of our body parts.

An extraordinary amount of time was spent trying to figure out the food rotation for the next meeting of the LLL. I can't really tell you what happened as I wasn't listening. I just zoned out and smiled and made distracting remarks. I figured it would all end up the way it originally started....and, after an hour, it basically ended up all the same as when it started. See? Sometimes it pays to be attentionally deficit-ed. To be honest, I knew it would be fine in the end and that no one would ever let the LLL experience a food crisis.

The problem with LLL events, as with all wonderful events, is that they always end too quickly. It's like you go to bed Friday night and it's already Sunday afternoon and time to go home. Ya gotta hate it when that happens. Just when the fun begins, we're back at home, bathing the dogs because they stink so badly after their stay at the kennel and I'm cutting poop out of Freckles butt hair and it suddenly matters that the pleurisy pounds have limited my wardrobe to two pair of pants. Well, there's always February, when we'll gather again in Galena.

Until then, I have to get out off this blog and go vote for Dancing with the Stars. After all, Marie needs my vote!