<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">I used to see them all the time. </span>

<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">I was fresh out of college and poor, working as a newspaper reporter for a weekly paper in a small, wealthy community. These women were all about town at any time of day—dropping off last month's clothes at the high-end resale shop, running to the multi-million dollar home of a friend for a charity meeting, on the way to the gym or spa or tennis club, and, of course, gossiping in restaurants over lunch. </span>

<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">They were quintessential Ladies Who Lunch, and they had their perfect powdered noses in everyone's business. I knew all about it because I ended up interviewing them for one reason or another, more often than I wanted to.</span>

Ellen, Dorie, Lisa, Marlah and I met for lunch today. For some time now we've been trying to schedule something once a month, or so. We see each other in one way or another all the time, but these lunches provide the only moments we get as a group, all to ourselves. It's pure girl time—no husbands or boyfriends, no needy children, no food preparation or cleanup, no DJ spinning loud house music to talk over.

At these moments, talk is more important than food, of course. Between the four of us (five if Marlah can make it, like she did today), there is no end to the conversation. It passes from person to person like a a delicious flourless chocolate cake being shared around the table. The waves of talk move so quickly they never fully land—we take in delicious bites as the conversation passes by, pressing up and savoring every last crumb until someone looks at a watch and it's time to go.

In today's mix we heard about Lisa's fabulous trip up the coast, Ellen's hilarious work stories about delivering babies with assistance from her least favorite nurse, and Dorie's mother-in-law, who deeply admires argumentative people (she's coming for a week-long visit soon). A couple dozen other topics were swirled in, and we left the restaurant 90 minutes later full of food and complete social contentment.

Although not one of us had time for a two- or three-hour lunch, and  no one was running off to a spa appointment, Ellen's husband insists on referring to us as "Ladies Who Lunch."  There is no end to the pleasure he derives from tossing this label at us, and we go along with it, knowing he means to be endearing, not offensive. Today I decided I had to Google the term, because I wondered if my original, intuitive understanding of it was on or off. According to Wikipedia, it's pretty much dead on:

<!--more-->
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Ladies who lunch is a phrase to describe well-off women who meet for lunch socially, normally during the working week. Typically, the women involved are married and non-working. Normally the lunch is in a restaurant, perhaps in a department store during shopping. Sometimes there is the pretext of raising money for charity.</em></p>
Ach! It's true—about half of the defined requirements can be applied to me and my friends: We're women meeting socially for lunch at a restaurant during the work week. But "well-off" and "non-working" we aren't, and there isn't any shopping happening, let alone a pretext of anything—certainly not involving charity (although we are charitable outside of our lunch dates)!

I pin down the phrases "well-off" and "pretext" as key, and decide there's absolutely no reason to worry that Gabriel's endearment is too close to true to be funny. My friends and I are utterly transparent in our lively gathering. We're not there to get anything ironed out or checked off a list—there are no notebooks on the table. We're there to have the kind of conversation that bubbles up and makes a lovely mess, then we need to get back to work and make some money (lest we one day fail to be able to pay for these little luxuries).

Reviewing the lyrics of the Stephen Sondheim song that popularized the the phrase (from the musical <span style="font-style: italic;">Company</span>), made me feel even less like a lady who lunches:

<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Here's to the ladies who lunch--Everybody laugh.
Lounging in their caftans, And planning a brunch, On their own behalf.
Off to the gym, Then to a fitting, Claiming they're fat.
And looking grim, 'Cause they've been sitting, Choosing a hat.
Does anyone still wear a hat?
I'll drink to that.</em></p>
Caftans? Grim looks? Phew! I'm <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> a lady who lunches. I wonder how we appear to people around us, though. Do we seem spoiled or privileged? Loud and silly? Do we evoke envy or annoyance? (I sometimes feel annoyed at other groups of people, for no real reason—why shouldn't they conjure up baseless annoyance with us?)

It's quite likely, though, in this modest Midwestern town, at the restaurants we choose, with our varying tones of skin and reasonable shoes, that we look about as average as five women can get. And about as lucky. I'll drink to that.

<a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_8FX19ncyFB4/RqBMJqG4lgI/AAAAAAAABmU/qAWFpzjnxBk/s1600-h/lunchladies.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5089151307734357506" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_8FX19ncyFB4/RqBMJqG4lgI/AAAAAAAABmU/qAWFpzjnxBk/s320/lunchladies.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>