Oh, Darlings, What A Wild Weekend!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                               Sweeties, I am telling you, for a weekend getaway, there is no wilder place than Villa St. Martha, in Dowingtown, PA, where my 97-year old father was visited by moi, Monsieur and my sister. And while he seems to have slowed down somewhat, the spirit continues.

                               He certainly gets about, what with being bussed into town to shop, social activities that make the place seem as active as the editorial offices of VOGUE, visits from all of us, and other familial members, Tea With Sister Berenice, the Rosary with Sister Barbara...I am telling you, it just goes and on!!!!!!!!

                               Saturday, we all headed out on an excursion.  It started with--now don't be shocked, lambs--lunch at the Olive Garden!  I know, I know, it is distinctly Middle Class, but what could I do??? Besides, I have never been to one IN MY LIFE!!!!!!!!!!  What is one experience?????????

                                 You know how they always advertise the soup-salad-bread sticks lunch on TV??????????   They are continually hawking that, darlings!!!!!!!!!!  Well, I have to say, it is actually good, although I have to say, if you have high blood pressure or are on a low sodium or salt free diet, eat at your own risk, or skip this one, because each item is loaded with so much salt you taste buds just explode.  Maybe it is a scheme in tandem with the medical industry--feed them, then hand them over to the doctors, to make their money by attempting to straighten out these health issues!!!!!!!!!  You have to wonder, girls!!!!!

                               However, much more was going on here than meets the eye.  Because the room we were seated in seemed to have been taken over by a convocation of nuns!!!!!!!!  I cannot recall when I was in one  place with with so many nuns.  Maybe not since my First Communion!  Or Confirmation!!!!!    And let me tell you, these were not REAL nuns, like those pictured above.  There were nuns showing a bit of  hair, with their short length veils, a bit of leg in their clerical power suits, and I am telling you they were chomping down on what was put before them, like there was no tomorrow.  Maybe these were Rebellious Nuns, stepping out on the Reverend Mother!  I had a feeling that if I had walked over to any of them, and done a chorus of "Maria" from "The Sound Of Music" in my nun contralto voice, I would have been decked right in the kisser!  As my father, a devout Catholic himself, remarked, they probably own the place!!!!!!!!!!

                             It just figures!  A Catholic villa, my Catholic father, and a convocation of nuns!!!!!!!
How apt!!!!!!!!!

                              From there we went on a variety of shopping excursions, which included a stop, of course, at Barnes and Noble, where my father bought a book by Newt Gingrich (at this point, each of us realizes we are not going to politically change the other!!!!!) while I bought Lynn Povich's book, "The Good Girls Revolt,"  and Jonathan Evison's potentially exciting adventure novel, "West Of Here."  After some other store stops, including a pharmacy, where we picked up some Neosporin  for my father, we trooped back to my sister's house, chilled out for an hour or so, then finished up with dinner near Exton at The Lion's Share Diner.  It was not Le Bec Fin, darlings, but my father loved it, and let me tell you, he scarfed down every bit of his three scooped dish of chocolate ice cream!!!!  And he is Mr. Count Your Calories, though don't ask me why!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                            Girls, it was an exhausting day!  But a good time was had by all, and when we dropped my father off at Villa St. Martha, while he had been glad to see us, I think he was as glad to be back in his more familiar surroundings!!!!!!!!!!!

                             As am I now, darlings, writing you all from home!  But if you think a weekend at Villa St. Martha is not wild, you just try it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                              And don't you dare collide with any nuns!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!