By PAWNEE ANNIE

Our Friday morning ladies’ coffee group meets regularly every week. Our attendance can be up; it can be down.  Sometimes, as many as eight women attend. Other times maybe only three or four show up. But someone always appears.
We never seem to run out of things to talk about. It’s amazing all the IMPORTANT tidbits that are chewed on during this group time.
I shared my latest swimming experiences since Mathilda and I have moved to the city pool for the summer. We are still swimming laps. Now don’t get all impressed! The floating “backstroke” is one of our strongest suits!
A week ago, I developed a case of “swim ear” which is an earache from bacteria. Now, I wear ear plugs by choice.
Here’s my ritual — enter pool, take off swimsuit cover, screw in ear plugs, put bubbly swim hat (pink) over hair, and position blue goggles over eyes. There!
While perched on the edge of the pool, ready to slip into the deeper end, I espied a couple in the water to my right, huddled by the ledge watching me. They were smiling at me. I couldn’t imagine why?!
I slid into the water, surfaced, and paddled to them. “I look like a Martian, don’t I”… They nodded and laughed.  
Sadie listened and then chortled. “Why didn’t you wave at them too!” as she lifted her arm, showing the loose flap under her upper arm. “Oh, shoot! I didn’t think of that,” I replied,
Our next significant topic was the wind and the “big rain” a week ago. The town ladies reported a half inch, but some areas received four to six inches. It hailed and rained buckets west of Great Bend and north of Larned.
Freda commented that Cow Creek was running over its banks. I thought that sounded funny. I imagined someone fleeing and yelling, “Help! Cow Creek is running wild!”
I know. I harbor dark thoughts and strange humor.
 Do you remember Gladys, whose patio umbrella blew off the table several years ago and got hung up in the drain troughs on the side of the house?  
She and Oswald wrestled with a ladder while attempting to free it before the stem could break a window. The wind was blowing a torrent of rain, and Gladies’ “nighty” blew up her back as she stood on the ladder reaching for the umbrella while husband Oswald held the ladder.
Well, the same scenario happened again during last week’s storm. /The wind upended the NEW umbrella. This time Gladys had clothes on!
Our conversation then drifted to the Supreme Court decision that homosexuals can marry and be recognized as married couples in every state.  And, Harriet added that many couples don’t even get married today! They just live together.
Flo agreed. She recently remarked to her husband Arnold, “What’s the advantage of marriage anyway?” — and he answered, “Heck if I know!”
She then told us an old story of her friend Claribel’s remarks to her spouse, Shorty, (mainly to see if he was listening, we think) Clare teasingly threatened, “I am leaving you and taking the children, and everything that you have!”. He replied, “Be my guest!”
We then remarked that idle threats don’t get us anywhere really.
Between the six of us at coffee that morning, we have been married for a total of 283 years. So any threats we make don’t really have much fizz at this point in our lives!
Gladys recounted how she reacted one time when the children were in high school, and how during a frustrating and emotional moment with her family, she fled in tears from the house.
Angry and distraught about everything, she hid in the back of her employer’s business downtown while her children drove up-and-down the main drag looking for her.
She had hidden her car behind the building in the alley, and as she sat there watching her children drive up-and-down the street searching for her, she rested in the back room until midnight. Finally collected and sane, she went home.
I think she was hungry.
How on earth we got on this subject I will never know.
Soon, we changed the subject again. After all, there is much to discuss when we meet only once a week!

“Woman’s View” is Judi Tabler’s reflection of her experiences and events. She is a wife, mother, writer, teacher, grandmother, and even a great grandmother.