This One's For The Girls

While finishing lunch today at a trendy old Louisville corner cafe, Stacy and I were listening to a conversation three attractive 50-something ladies at the table next to us.  From what we overheard, they were planning a Sweet Potato Queen party.  For those not familiar with this, the Sweet Potato Queens are women's clubs, similar to the current trendy [silly] Red Hat clubs.  The Sweet Potato Queens (referred to as SPQ's for the duration of this entry) originated in Jackson, Mississippi in the mid 80's.  They were a group of friends who put on big red wigs, green sequined short dresses and majorette boots and performed in the town's annual St. Patrick's Day parade.  Every SPQ was called Tammy, too.  The head Queen, Jill Conner Brown, has written 4 books so far about the SPQ's.  Very funny reading - I don't think the men would like them, but I recommend them as required reading for women.  After the first book was published, the SPQ hoopla spread and soon groups of women all over the country were forming their own SPQ Wannabe groups.  From the conversation we heard today, the group of women at the cafe were SPQ Wannabe Wannabe's.  They even referred to their group members as Tammy.  The woman who arrived second had taken on the role of the head SPQ.  She got out her planner book and notebook, and was barking orders to the other two and telling them what to bring to the party, and even how much of it to bring.  She told the woman who came in last to bring a dessert and two bottles of wine.  The woman asked about wine glasses and the head SPQ said "no glass" so we deducted the party might be held at one of the SPQ's pools.  

The bartender at this cafe was a Queen himself, but not of the Sweet Potato variety.  He knew the head SPQ, and came over and said hello to her and was just beside himself, making a fuss over her matching pants, jewelry, and sweater set. She quickly informed him that the pants did not "come" with the sweater set.  The Queen was still giddy over how her big jeweled necklace was the exact shade of blue as her matching Garanimals sweater set.  

I am proudly a member of a similar group, the Divas.  Our group is very elite - only two members, Stacy and me.  It's not that we're stuck up and snooty and don't invite anyone else; it's just that other women just wouldn't get it.   We think it's cool to start a girl's society, but why ride on someone's coattails? The Divas are much more fun because WE make the rules - we don't have to go by someone else's.    I will give the women today props - they each had notebooks out and had taken great pains in planning this upcoming SPQ event.  The Divas plan; just not extensively as these women.  Our menus are usually scribbled on a Post-It note or on a scrap of paper from our purses.  The Divas would not have just had dessert and wine, either.  I should give them benefit of a doubt, because we both had to leave the cafe and couldn't stick around to eavesdrop more and see what was on the rest of the menu.  We would have had champagne, and it would never, I repeat NEVER, be sipped from a plastic glass.  We would probably drink it out of the bottle before we would use a plastic cup.  (Our glasses of preference are Bacaret crystal flutes, in case you're interested.)  The Divas would have had dessert, but it would have been followed by cheese, shrimp, guacamole, and Cheese-It's, to name a few of our party staples.