Girl’s Day Out

Kathy Anderson: OK. My name is Kathy Anderson, and I am a retired music teacher.

Brittany Anderson: Hi. I’m Brittany Anderson. I’m in seventh grade, and I’m 13 years old. I live in Maple Park, Illinois.

KA: Her two older brothers and my husband would make bird houses. They would go to Menard’s. They would go into town. They would go to lunch, which would kind of be a surprise because when they would come back you’d say, “Why were you gone so long?” And they’d say, “Oh, we just stopped for lunch.” And they started, you know, hanging out a lot together, the three of them.

And that’s when one day Brittany said, “Grandma, I think we should have a girl’s day.” And I said, “Yeah, the boys go, you know, and they’re with Grandpa. Why don’t you and I do something together? How could I refuse that?”

BA: My favorite thing to do on girl’s day is probably shop and go out to different places to eat.

KA: I love to take her to different shops, but I think the best part for me is the drive in the car. I enjoy talking to her. I enjoy the drive, you know, just sharing things together, making memories, the moments that we can just be in the car because there’s no place else to go.

And so we can share those moments together. And every place in Wisconsin, you have to drive a long distance if you want to get someplace. I’ve learned that since I’ve moved from Illinois. So when we drive to a shopping mall, it’s 40 minutes. We have 40 minutes of conversation, 40 minutes of memories to make.

BA: We don’t really plan our girl’s days. Well, we kind of do, but it doesn’t happen very often. But it happens, like, once in a while. We have at least, like, every month.

KA: Well, because Brittany still, you know, she lives in Illinois. So when she comes up, we don’t plan them, do we?

BA: No.

KA: No.

BA: They just happen.

KA: They happen. There’s a place we stop sometimes. It’s kind of our secret place where no one else lets you get it, but I do. What is it?

BA: Starbucks?

KA: No, not Starbucks. At the Dairy Queen. What do you get at the Dairy Queen that usually is kind of our secret? We keep it…

BA: Like a coffee drink. It’s really good.

KA: And we don’t tell anybody about it, do we?

BA: No.

KA: Because it’s our secret.

BA: The most important thing, like probably just like to talk to grandma and tell her how you feel because then she knows more about you. This thing is tiny.

KA: OK, here we go.

BA: It’s cold.

KA: Yeah, I know. But you know what? It doesn’t have what I anticipated. I thought it was going to be…

BA: Now you just have to actually buy, like, glitter glitter. When you put it on this, that works.

KA: Here, here, here.

BA: Now I smell like Memaw.

KA: We can wash it off. There you go.

BA: I have my own brush upstairs.

KA: There you go.

BA: I need some more. I can still see glitter.

KA: Yeah, well, it’s sticking. It’s like paste.

BA: I get some on your chin.

KA: You gave me a blush beard.