This past Saturday night I had the pleasure of spending the evening in the company of three wonderful ladies known as the Divine Sisterhood of the Traveling Blender.

"It's incredible," the sisters will tell you. "But wherever we are, there's a kitchen appliance that makes perfect margaritas!"

The Traveling Blender never fails to churn out a communion of fruity, intoxicating goodness - lime, strawberry, or the special late-night version favored by the Sisterhood: the "No more mixer, let's just throw the rest of the tequila and ice in there and call it good" flavor.

There are always rituals when the Sisterhood meets. First is the much anticipated Clothing and Accessory Exchange, a rite which involves an offering of apparel and jewelry that each member has deemed too awful to ever be seen in again, but which will look amazing on one of her beloved Sisters.

After the exertion of the first ritual, there is another margarita communion, accompanied by the holy inhalation of chips, salsa and chocolate chip cookies, as the Sisterhood believes the body is a temple that must be filled to capacity at every given opportunity.

This is followed by the all-important Playing of the Chick Flick. A little-known secret about the Playing is that the Sisterhood never actually watches said flick. The movie is simply a device for enabling the most venerated tradition of the Sisterhood: Embarrassing Drunken Confessions (EDCs).

"That happened to me one time," a sister will tearfully say when a female character in the Chick Flick has had her heart figuratively ripped from her body and impaled on a fence. At this point, the Chick Flick is muted, and the Host Sister acknowledges that the EDCs have begun. EDCs can vary wildly in subject; common themes are "Men Versus Pizza," "Why My (Relative/Co-Worker) Can Kiss My Ass", and my personal favorite, "No Really, I'm Over It, Really."

While EDCs can be exhausting and tend to deplete the stock of intoxicants, all Sisters understand that this cleansing is essential, and eventually leads to the uninhibited closing ceremony: Dancing to Salt-N-Pepa in the Kitchen.

Because after all...being with the Sisterhood is as good as a shoop any day.

Posted: Monday, May 10 2010 at 11:02 AM

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