pantship

the sisterhood of the powersuite pants

once upon a time, four little women lived all together in two small rooms on the campus of rice university. like characters in a book, each girl had a unique personality, and at times it seemed like the only things these roommates had in common were heads full of questions and hearts full of hope.

the little women lived together for three years, and during that time, they shared everything– secret crushes, personal milestones and even more personal disappointments, late nights full of books and giggle-inducing delirium. then, one day, it came time for graduation, and the four best friends had to say good-bye as they spread across the earth– one to sacramento (then utah and back), one to texas, one to boston (and then paris, and then london, and then new york), one to atlanta by way of houston then chicago.

together, these girls were known as the powersuite, and ten years ago, they looked like this:

and today, i am pleased to report that even though they are not so little women, they remain, both in character and in friendship, the powersuite girls:

LORDY just looking at those two photos side by side brings a little squee tear to my eye. because yes, we finally had a reunion, and yes, it was just as wonderful and amazing and magical as i imagined. the four of us hadn’t been all together since julie’s wedding in the summer of 2005, and even though a lot of things in our lives had changed, we quickly discovered that the foundation of our friendship remained rock solid. i guess that’s pretty much how kindred spirits roll.

sofia and julie are both married mommas, and amber just got engaged, so as you can imagine, we had a LOT to talk about. but before i launch into GabFest 2010, i need to just get something out of the way before my pants explode.

meet the new LIGHT OF MY LIFE, julie’s little baby girl, CORA NAOMI:

AND YES, SHE IS WEARING CUPCAKE PANTS. BECAUSE SHE IS PERFECT.

even though hanging out with the powersuite girls was obvs my main motivation for making the trek out to sacramento, i have to admit, i was cray cray excited about spending some quality time with little cora. esp. cos i intend to be the best auntie posh i can be, and everyone knows you can’t be a good auntie without copious amounts of cuddling, giggling and spoiling.

not only is cora absolutely beautiful and totally adorbs, she also… get this… HAS A TINY ORANGE NOSE!!! I AM NOT KIDDING! apparently, she ate too many orange things (carrots, squash, etc.), and so now her sweet little nose is like, straight up Hi-C. check it out:

another of cora’s many super precious features is her penchant for doing “the wiggle,” or, as i call it, “the bobblehead”:

cora spends a lot of time playing with her music-making toy table, which makes me secretly hope that she will follow in her auntie posh’s footsteps and dj at her college radio station, then spend her life taking over the music at every party she attends.

i also see it as my duty to expose cora to as much sparkle and glitter as possible (unfortunately, she’s still too young for cupcakes). it only took her a few minutes to become extremely enamored of my sequined purse, which made auntie posh v. v. proud!

oh cora naomi, I LOVE YOU SO MUCH! i promise to be a good aunt to you and send you my favorite books and music and if you ever want to come visit me when you’re older we can have a slumber dance party and i’ll let you use all of my glitter make-up and then i’ll tell you funny stories about yr mom!

and thus ends the cora segment of this post! ok! i will force myself to move on! even though it is really hard and you guys i have so many pictures and videos because she is the SQUEE-EST LITTLE PANTSER EVER AND GAH!

ANYWAY! powersuite reunion! awesome! yes!

i arrived in sacramento on thursday, and julie and i picked up amber and sofia on friday night. just picture the airport scene from “love actually” but with more squealing and jumping up and down. when planning our trip, julie suggested that we spend saturday driving around the napa and sonoma area, aka california wine country, aka me going, “i totally feel like we’re in ’sideways!’”

our first stop was the beringer winery, which features the super swanky rhine house:

I KNOW, RIGHT? dang, german wine guys were total ballers!

the four of us had our own private tour, which included five tastings and made me feel super rich. here’s our first group shot of the reunion, and it’s probably my fave from the whole trip, just cos look how happy we are! and the sunshine! and the wine!:

we walked through some old tunnels where GET THIS YOU GUYS: KEANU REEVES FILMED A SCENE FROM “A WALK IN THE CLOUDS.” WHAAAAAT?!!!! the benefit of being there with college roommates was immediately clear, cos when angel, our tour guide, shared this little tidbit, all of the girls completely understood why i shrieked like the teenage swimfan i was (am?) and didn’t give me a hard time about it or make reference to keanu’s inability to act like the rest of the world who does not understand his PURE BEAUTY.

the rhine house itself was really classy, and my favorite part was the cray cray amount of stained glass. check out these guards on the front door, which just so happen to feature frederick beringer’s face!!!

dude, when you can put yr own face on historical-looking figures in stained glass, you KNOW you’re rich. i can’t wait to have my own mansion some day and install, like, stained glass scenes from “you’ve got mail” and “step up 2″ but instead of meg ryan, it’ll be MY FACE.

here’s sofia and me, poshing it up:

after beringer, we drove around enjoying the scenery until we spotted a white monastery-looking building on top of a hill. it turned out to be sterling vineyard, so we parked in the lot and ate our picnic lunch amidst this view:

SO PRETTY!

i think the main reason we decided to tour sterling wasn’t cos we’d heard the wine was amazing (it wasn’t), but because you got to RIDE A TRAM TO THE TOP OF THE HILL!!!!! all of us were pretty stoked about this development– well, all of us except for julie. see, julie is a civil engineer, and certain structures (bridges, TRAMS, carnival rides) make her nervous, i guess because she knows way more about structural integrity than we do, and in this instance i have to say, ignorance is bliss, cos i had a GREAT time riding the tram, while julie closed her eyes the entire time. to distract her from thoughts of imminent death, amber decided that we should sing our favorite powersuite song (that we composed), masterfully titled, “boys are stupid”:

oh that video makes me happy! julie, on the other hand, watched it on my flickr and wrote, “We were over water?!?!?”

even though the wine was pretty meh, our visit to sterling was totally worth it, cos check out this gorgeous view:

and then there was THIS beautiful scenery:

given the fact that my name is sarah pants, of COURSE we had to take another group picture. and yeah, it turned out pretty dang great:

no offense to the internet, but i totally wish i was back there soaking up all of the gorgeousness and wine and friendship instead of typing this entry. but c’est la pants!

for our third stop of the day, we decided to switch it up a little bit and have some CHAMPERS!*

*amber would now remind me that champagne can only be from france, so in reality, korbel makes sparkling wine. the awesome thing about this is that not only did she mention this fact while we were there, she ALSO brought it up back in 2001 when we drank some “champers” to celebrate our impending graduation, an event captured on the video we watched later during the reunion. like i said, it’s good to know that the core of our characters hasn’t changed a bit. amber, you will always be my favorite cosmo pants!

the best thing about the korbel tour wasn’t the tastings (gross) but YOU GUYS LOOK!!! it’s the largest champagne glass in the world!! AND the largest bottle of “champagne” (amber, those quotes are for you) in the world!!! holy crap!

i wish i could’ve stepped into the picture to provide you with some perspective (that glass really is huge, like, just a bit shorter than me), but they don’t let people back there. probably for good reason cos if i had the chance, i’d sneak in a barrel of OJ and then HELLO WORLD’S LARGEST MIMOSA!

we tasted four kinds of “champers,” and all of them were gross. but because we are posh and refined, we still took a classy picture:

since we were so close to the ocean, we decided to drive to the beach, even though the weather had turned a little rainy and mean. we didn’t mind, though, cos we had the Official Powersuite Soundtrack (a mix of our collective favorites that i gave to the girls back in 2001) on the stereo! and when “intergalactic” came on, we were suddenly transformed back into 20-year-old girls busting some seriously ridiculous moves:

YOU LADIES ARE SO LUCKY MY MEMORY CARD RAN OUT! GAH! otherwise that video could’ve been a lot more embarrassing awesome.

we finally made it to the beach, which was beautifully haunting in that dark, stormy kind of way. in my mind, i always connect julie with the ocean (and the mountains), because she missed them so dreadfully when she was stuck in houston. as we stood together in the sand, my mind flickered to a day right before graduation, when we drove to galveston (with ray and seth!) and danced in the waves and wrote “rice seniors 2001″ in the sand. of course, the pacific ocean is just a BIT more beautiful than galveston bay, but the weather left something to be desired, as communicated by this picture:

oh powersuite, i’m so glad you haven’t lost yr skills for making awesome photo faces! pants world, if you’re ever around sofia, ask her to make a serious face and then hold it for the camera. i will bet you a million dollars that she can’t do it, an ability that i took serious advantage of back in college. exhibit a:

i don’t know about you guys, but salty air always makes me a hungry pants (HA HA JUST KIDDING. i’m *always* hungry), so when we reached the cozy confines of the restaurant (i forgot the name! girls, remind me!), i was v. v. happy. and when i asked amber to take a food picture with me, she smiled and said, “of course!” i will let you, dear reader, decide if she smiled cos she loves me, or cos she’s known me for over 12 years and finds my food photograph consistency remarkably comforting in the midst of life’s chaos and change. probably a combination of both!

the next day, after a leisurely morning of trying to make cora do cute stuff (jared had to remind me that babies AREN’T like trained monkeys, and i’m like, “yeah, duh, babies smell way better!”), we headed out to old town folsom, which is super charming!

we stopped for lunch and of course i made everyone take portraits with their supremely delicious gelato. since i spent four years training them by constantly pulling out my camera, i was happy to see that they haven’t lost any of their photogenic-ness. YOU’RE WELCOME, POWERSUITE!

as you might suspect from the name, old town folsom is full of antique stores, which are in turn full of some really crazy shizz. unfortunately, i didn’t locate any dance cards, but i DID find a LOT of creepy dolls. such as this golden monstrosity:

GUESS HOW MUCH IT IS! GUESS GUESS! YOU’LL NEVER GUESS!

are you ready? 950 DOLLARS! I AM NOT EVEN JOKING.

and then there was this jolly green giant dude, who had a weird soft body, and i think something was supposed to happen when you pressed his thumb, but i was too scared to find out so i left the store immediately.

we wandered into a christmas store (dad, just be glad mom wasn’t with us cos i think she would’ve gone on a major rampage in this place) where i discovered a shelf of ornaments that were OBVS made for me. i mean, hello?!!

it was then that we decided that we should each get an ornament to have as a memento from our trip! and then when we put it on our tree each year, we can be all, “oooh! this reminds me of the powersuite! yay i love them! and also i really want a donut now.” well, maybe that last part is just gonna be me, cos I GOT A DONUT ORNAMENT! we actually tried to pick them out for each other, which made us laugh so hard that the cashier lady was like, “what are you girls gigglin’ about?!” and i felt like we had been caught looking at dirty magazines or something. anyway! here’s a shot of us with our new powersuite reunion souvenirs:

sofia got a rubber chicken (i won’t even get into this, but trust me, her reaction when i showed it to her was enough to seal the deal), amber got asparagus (cos she likes it!) and julie got a tomato (ditto). yay!

we headed home, where amber and i again tried to make cora do stuff, specifically this really hilarious snorting thing that makes her sound like a baby pug:

we also watched the video from our senior year (converted to DVD), which features highlights such as our annual christmas party, lip synching to the “josie & the pussycats” soundtrack and playing “do, dump or marry” on the night after graduation (and we thought we were being so scandalous! awww!). there were definitely a lot of “wow, we were SO young!” but mostly i just marveled over the excitement and straight up CONFIDENCE gleaming in our eyes. the video reminded me of how it felt to be on top of the world, to have the post-college horizon stretched wide open before me, empty and inviting. honestly, watching these glimpses of our collective past was bittersweet, esp. seeing how easily we fit together, how much we took our friendship and our shared existence for granted. but by the end, i was simply filled with gratitude for the gift of these girls, because those faces on the screen are still with me, and i strongly suspect they will *always* be with me (but it’s especially nice see them all in the same living room!).

for our last dinner together, we headed out to the tower cafe, which sits right next to the old tower theatre and across the street from the original location of the first tower record store.

tower records always reminds me of “empire records,” but unfortunately our dinner did not end with the successful hiring of a shoplifter and a rock show on the roof. instead, our last night together was EVEN MORE AWESOME THAN THAT. because we just talked and laughed and OMGed, and then we talked and laughed and OMGed some more, like we were back in the powersuite, giggling over boys and trying to pretend like we didn’t have studying to do.

when we arrived back at the house, amber gave each of us a new simple diary, which is different than a regular diary cos each page is full of whimsical little questions that you get to answer about yr day!

this way, even when we’re far apart, we can still be on the SAME PAGE (GET IT?!!). the diaries really are the greatest things ever (thanks amber!!), and we had a blast reading over the funny questions and laughing ourselves silly:

i feel the need to point out that julie had consumed NO alcohol that day… she’s just naturally, awesomely giggly!

the next morning, before we began departing (sniff!), we used the timer on my camera to take a few group shots (which you’ve already seen in this post!). of course, i couldn’t resist the opportunity to secretly video the girls, esp. when they started singing “twinkle, twinkle, little star,” to calm poor little cora, who was v. upset about being left out of all of the photos:

as you can see, cora didn’t enjoy her little serenade as much as i did!

and then it was time to say good-bye and return to lives that suddenly seemed v. far away from our little oasis of a weekend. it was so easy to fall back into step with each other and forget that we’re actually 30-year-old women with lives of our own, lives that don’t contain daily doses of julie’s smile and sofia’s laugh and amber’s grace. but even though i was sad to leave my little women, my heart was content with the knowledge that those girls i knew and treasured and leaned on are still there, just with a little less babyfat in their cheeks and a few more responsibilities.

really, i think it all boils down to the fact that our differences were there from the beginning, and they’re what made our friendship stronger. the fact that time has only deepened those differences makes the traits we value in each other all the more precious.

and that, dear pants world, is the story of how the powersuite reunited, celebrated and bid farewell with the hope of another meeting in the not so distant future.

in other words, they continue to live happily ever after.

© 2010 Poshdeluxe.