Saturday Evening in Dayton

My Fridays and Saturdays at Hamvention are so similar that it is hard to remember what I did each day. Up at 5 AM to get ready, grab breakfast and get to the Hamvention before it opens to the public. Then staff the booth most of the day with breaks to attend any presentations that interest me or to visit other booths.

The only differentiation is what I wear and what I do in the evening. As I wrote yesterday, Friday, I wore my white blazer and pencil skirt from Fashion to Figure. Saturday, I wore my JB by Julie Brown Kole shift dress. Friday evening is my group's annual banquet and Saturday evening is a cook-out at the home of a board member who lives in the Dayton suburbs
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There is nothing to add about my daytime experiences at Hamvention that I haven't already written about in my previous posts. However, I will describe my evening at the cookout Saturday evening.

What I Wore Saturday Evening to My Board Member's Cookout ― The same outfit I wore when I drove to Ohio on Thursday. i.e., blue skin-tight jeggings from Dress Barn, black tunic top from Avon, black patent heels from Payless over Victoria's Secret bra and panties, a forgotten company's waist cincher and Berkshire nude thigh-highs. I accessorized with silver door-knocker earrings from Napier, silver dangling heart bracelet, black watch and a black hobo bag, all from Avon.

There are usually 30 to 40 people at the cookout. The majority are male and it seems that every year, there are new faces from the ham radio community, who were not in attendance at previous years' cookouts. Most of the females in attendance are wives of the hams and they kind of take over the kitchen.

When in Rome, do as the Romans, so I hung out in the kitchen with the ladies, while the guys hung out around the gas grill. The girl-talk was a pleasant break from the wall-to-wall ham radio talk of the previous 48 hours. One woman was surprised when I told her I had been a ham for over 45 years; she had assumed I was the wife of one of the hams at the cookout.

The only women I remember from last year's cookout was the hostess and the woman who was shooting daggers at me all night. Of course, my hostess was present this year, but the dagger lady was absent.

The handful of other women who were present were not in my memory, however, one of the women, a neighbor who was helping our hostess, remembered me and decided to welcome me into the club of women in the kitchen.

"Another woman!" she exclaimed when she saw me.

She became my best friend chatting with me throughout the cookout and introducing me to everyone else who joined our kitchen cabinet.

I had a wonderful time. It was so affirming to be treated as a lady by the other ladies. They had nothing to lose if they decided to ignore the me, unlike the sales ladies I encounter when I shop, who will lose sales if they ignore me. The ladies at the cookout welcomed me with open arms and it was so very, very nice!

Wearing Boston Proper

Actor Mehdi Dehbi femulating in the 2009 French film He's My Girl.