where to begin? The webcam captured the party in all its glory. Maybe the after party ..

We headed back from the mother ship to the temporary mother ship, the Aloft hotel in Plano. Someone had booked the totally hip 40th birthday party, complete with late 80's costume effects and a booming DJ act. We think there was a temporary shortage in fish net stockings, as they were all on display for this party. We took all of 2 nanoseconds to decide it was a double-special LCT surprise. John and Tonya succinctly summarized: We single handedly unhipped the party. From hip to unhip in the blink of an eye.

We cheerfully invaded the dance floor, much to the shock and chagrin of the invited guests. Are you RICH? Are you a BITCH? was blaring as we mixed, mingled and everything in between with the birthday girl and her increasingly unhip friends. the invited guests could only do one thing: grab us as dance partners so as to take back the floor.

We exercised a modicum of self-restraint; we left the birthday cake to the invited (and, in some cases, inverted) guests. Bedtime called, so I slid between the sheets around 11:59 pm. The last of the LCTers (Kristin, Greg, Carla, Frank and Susan) closed up the festivities closer to 2 am.

You can take us out of Bucks County, but you can't take us Bucks County out of us. 5:55 am and it was time to get going. I elected myself unanimously as the bon voyage representative. I proudly wore my bucking horse sales t-shirt. My arm, however, was covering up the "b". This lead to considerable study and surprise amongst the company. Too, too funny!!

Slowly over the next 6 hours, several of our company headed first for breakfast and then for DFW or home.

The really good news is Arlene got her wallet back (a collective WHEW has been heard as far away as Billy Bob's, Ft. Worth) and today's extra special event, OAG (orphaned alcohol guzzling) is a GO. Lars got the ball rolling with a bottle of Menage a Trois, complete with cork screw. Tony will lead the group in soaking up all the unused alcohol from our homebound companions. It's all about recycling, no?

Dinner at the Keg will kick off in one short hour. Nap time is over; back to serious socializing. What more could an LCTer want?

About all we missed was (a) the non-posting, long suffering spouse or partner meeting, where they would find lots of company in "why on earth are they spending all that time on this chatboard and internet thing?" lament and (b) the obedience training camp cruise for recalcitrant spouses. It will be on Regent and will be all-inclusive. Details may or may not follow, depending on my memory and inspiration.

Thanks for virtually (and visually) coming along for our weekend. I would not have missed this for anything. Thanks so much to Ngaire, Ken, the entire B&K staff, the Aloft folks and everyone who made the trek. We've truly got the top travel agent team around. They have knocked themselves out for us.

Cheers, Anne