Second meal out as Val, with a new sister in the MKE area

[Valerie Louise]

Hello again ladies! Another chronical of what, for some of you may be passe', but for me, has been wonderful.
I recently posted about an event I was able to attend with the Chicago based Chi Chapter group, where I was able to go to my first public dinner as Val, with an experienced sister as a guide. One of the girls who responded to the post is Tracy Irving, and I'd had suspicions from some of her other posts, that she was local to me, here in the Milwaukee area. I PM'd her, she responded, and we got linked up through this site! I gave her my number, she reached out, and the texting began.
The Milwaukee internet services pretty much came to a standstill because of the volume of out chats in the next week. I suggested, based on the fun I had last time, that we meet for a lunch or dinner. This led to an exchange of "Well, what are you going to wear"?, terrabytes of photos of clothes combinations and preferences, and frantic last minute purchases as we set the date for a lunch, which was ?earlier today. We settled on skirts and tops as the uniform of the day.
This morning I started getting ready about two hours before heading out. I described in my last post how rushed I was in Chicago, and last minute makeup failures. This time, since I was able to get ready at home, was a little better, but once again, the awe I feel towards women who do this every single day got a bit deeper. Since it was a lunch, I didn't try the lashes, which helped. I used some of the paint them yourself acrylic nails, and the press on sticky pads (remember this). Hands looked awesome, all ringed out. I did forget mascara. I found a better beard cover than the lipstick I was using. I have pale skin, and black hairs with a lot of grey. I went with an orange colored concealer from Neutrogena, which I stippled on the beard area, then covered that with a concealer in my shade from Elf. The better color correction made a big difference.
I was still going to be a bit late for our meet in the parking lot time of noon, but I got to the parking lot of the medium sized restaurant we'd selected for this first time out, safely. Our texting barrage continued, and Tracy was going to be a few minutes late. This gave me some time to wrap some tape around my Walmart wedding and engagement rings to keep them together and stop spinning, fix up my purse a bit, and watch the comings and goings for the restaurant. In the main, seniors and middle aged women were the clientele, probably because of the outlet mall nearby.
In short order, Tracy drove up, and we got to see each other for the first time. Her makeup was excellent, with a nice blue and white floral top, a black, below the knee skirt, and black sweater. Nothing left to do but go inside.
We got to the reception podium, but no one was there immediately. A middle aged couple was just leaving, and the wife clocked us as she went by with a double take. Then, the receptionist arrived, I said ?Two?, ?Booth or table??, ?Booth? and off we went, past other diners to our table. The server was a woman who acted like nothing unusual was before her (neither of us pass upon any lengthy gaze). We got our salads, and chatted like two old friends. Here I was, again, as Valerie, in a public restaurant, eating a nice meal with a like minded sister. It is so much fun I can't do it justice in words.
I gave the waitress a healthy tip (because I think we?ll be back), and then we started discussing going shopping. For me, this was amazing ? we were acting ? normally! This is what you do after lunch, right? Shop! I was thinking hitting the outlet mall, but like me, Tracy is a thrifter, so we followed each other to my usual thrift shop, which was on the way home for both of us. Along the way in the car, I noticed the nail on my index finger was gone. Couldn't find it, so I pried the rest of them off before we got to the store. I later found it, but was disappointed I lost one at the time. I'm using small superglue spots next time. Arriving at the shop, we started working on an outfit based around a cute brown A line skirt Tracy found, and that was challenging ? you know, brown is hard to coordinate sometimes. There we were, two women pulling an outfit together with a lot of other folks around us, no problems! Time flew, and we had to make our way out of the store after paying for Tracy's items, and on to home. We promised to do something similar again soon. This is getting easier, but as others have said ... its addictive.
Its so wonderful to now have a local sister, and I expect we will have a lot of fun improving our fashion sense in future meetings. If you live in the Milwaukee area, or Southeast Wisconsin, please give me a shout by PM. We'd love to meet other sisters, and possibly get our own local group started.

Here's a pic Tracy took of me at the restaurant (I didn't look very nice here, but hopefully it was just my pose)
IMG_4040.jpg