Mensa Int’l Phoned To Retract Your IQ

Alas, one of our Chicago tribe sisters stayed home this year because her youngest is still breastfeeding. We have only two rules for Tribe: that no significant others may attend, ever (regardless of their gender), and that children can only be present if they are still sucking the teat, and only if they are not yet walking.

Though we no longer purposely set a "theme" for our annual August time together, one usually organically emerges. This year's common thematic denominator is the fact that every one of us is embarking on incredible times of our lives and careers after a very transformative year from which, as Jen suggests, we are emerging as from a metamorphic incubation.

It has been both fun and moving (our typical cadence) to recap one another’s respective past year and to discuss the year ahead.  Each tribe sister has had a monumental year of new and exciting adventures, all of which have transformed us in one way or another and made us better women. The amount of gratitude we each have for the past year's experiences is palpable.

The other less profound, but highly affecting, theme is one that Barb and I believe we may have initiated in our cognitively-challenged post-wreck stupor.

We are 8 successful professional women who are usually on our respective games within conversation, strategization (I know that's not officially a word, but it's par for this week's mangled vernacular) and all forms of communication. Our collective IQs and use of common sense are impressive– typically.

I am going to liken the unfolding communication of our week together to the scene in Being John Malkovich when John Cusak's character attempts to talk to the receptionist on the dwarfed floor of 7 1/2 where she cannot comprehend anything he or anyone says, and continually responds within various levels of confusion and "I'm sorry, I have no idea what you just said to me."

This week even the most articulate of the group come across as though we are speaking gibberish, getting grossly tongue-tied and using incorrect words in attempt to convey profound nuggets of wisdom. We can't complete sentences without falling into breathless laughter at how insanely inarticulate and mush-brained we sound. When Barb begs someone to please begin "interpretating" her words so they make some sort of sense, a few of us nearly fall into the fire pit. At that time I have no idea that the icing on the cake will be her later walking at a pretty good clip into the closed sliding door (and this is with Barb not drinking a drop of alcohol all week).

A simple command like "Hey Jen, will you put a pack of Stellas in the cooler before we go down to the water" is misinterpreted as "Jen, throw those eggs in the freezer, will ya."

The more astounding layer of our collective stupor is that Jen, realizing that actions such as throwing eggs into a freezer are bizarre, just shrugs her shoulders– no questions asked– and carries out the insane command.

There are constant looks of bewilderment and consistent utterances of "WTF did you just say?"  or "Oh my god, WTF did I just say?"  We are beginning to think there is a gas leak or that remnants of the Orkin solution sprayed days ago to rid the lake house of mosquitos is slowly leaching into our skin and brain cells.

Simple functions such as running a drip coffee pot we've used in previous years leaves all 8 of us staring in wonder and confusion as if we are cave women discovering fire for the first time.

As we convey some of our stories to Kriste's mom and dad at the farmhouse for the Witches Dinner they host each year, Kriste's dad incredulously exclaims, "My god, some of you charge clients $400 an hour, yet you can't operate simple machinery? The world is in trouble." He doesn't know the half of it.

Simple 2 grade math seems like advanced calculus when we try to count how many years we've been meeting for official Tribe. We argue like sisters as we attempt to figure out the milestone years that we will celebrate with longer stays and more elaborate events. We spend a good 3.5 hours discussing this one topic, and I'm not really certain we yet have it down pat. What we do know is that Steph and her desire for a mariachi band playing during our sunset happy hour cruise will forever be met with eye rolls and a collectively emphatic “No.”

Again, Barb and I feel somewhat responsible. After the car wreck, we both exited the car in a stunned brain fog that seemed to last indefinitely. It all began when I thought that my face was caved in and bleeding. I approached Barb to ask if my face was in fact gushing blood, but what came out of my mouth instead was, "Is your face bleeding?"

As you can imagine, Barb began frantically touching her face and staring into her hands as I came at her with my tongue-twisted inquiry. "Oh my god, I don't know!  Is it?!"  she exclaimed.

I knew my words had come out wrong, but I wasn't exactly sure how to rectify things. The whole scene was chaotic. I truly think this set the tone for all of Tribe. We all shared a collective stupor that would not leave us until we drove away with Lake Crystal at our backs and headed to our respective homes.

My own return trip to Seattle entails a 30-minute tarmac delay complete with an adorable 4-year-old girl singing the nauseatingly popular track LET IT GO from the movie Frozen in perfect pitch and melody, at the top of her lungs. It is so cute that, despite the passengers' apparent collective loathing of the tune, she is given a semi-standing ovation after she repeats the refrain half a million times. The guy next to me is so annoyed that I make certain to stand and clap louder to make up for his grumpy Scrooge-esque posturing.

Finally, after the little girl's Tony award-winning performance, I buckle myself into my seat, close my eyes and recall (sort of) the night Colleen arrived to Tribe.

Unable to keep my eyes open to greet Colleen's 1:30AM arrival to the lake house, I abandon the blazing fire at the fire pit to go to bed, leaving the rest of the girls strict instructions to have Colleen wake me, kiss my lips and tell me goodnight.

They did, and Colleen willingly followed their relayed instructions.

I, apparently in a deep deep REM sleep, scream a distressed and terror-filled "Mom! Mom!," as Colleen's beautiful face instantly pulls away from me, turning from loving endearment to startled confusion. Steph says it was like a scene in a slasher film. (I do not wake from my deep sleep for any of this)

Barb apparently does wake from her deep sleep in warrior defense mode to ward off my apparent attackers. We'd survived a brush with death only days before, so our nerves are apparently a bit on edge.

My strange night-terror, though a perfect preface, doesn't, however, fully prepare the 8 of us for the hilarity of a week of out-of-the-ordinary antics and verbal faux pas that could make for award-winning reality television.

I've threatened to next year install drop cams in the living room and at the fire pit. As we all enter the second half of our lives, I have a strange feeling that the tone that was set for this year's Tribe may become everlasting as we age.

We make a very loose agreement to get tattoos on our 25th anniversary. I have a strange feeling we will regret this decision. But if we do, I vote that we ink our skin with the word of the year, "Mecca" - which, by the way, I inadvertently used over the weekend to describe something "epic."

That just says it all.

Speaking of epic, Jen and Nicole will be getting married in Chicago this year, and Roni and Mike will finally tie the knot, too. Sweetness and beauty abound. (Now I have to resume working on getting Mom and Dad to hand over Gram's engagement ring for that inevitable future engagement of my own. Hmmm, maybe I should first think about getting a girlfriend).

Until Tribe 2015, have a mecca year!