April 28, 2008
Finally! I’ve finally visited Best Friend and her husband!
I was feeling rather low and lonely on Saturday so BF urged me to come visit them. They are two hundred miles away, so I felt my usual reluctance to splurge that much on gas with prices bounding ever closer to $4.00/gal, but she pitched me a sell I couldn’t resist.
It’s hot? We’ll go to the beach.
You have laundry? Bring it with you.
You’re bored? We’ll take you to the Strawberry festival, watch movies, and hang out.
I also still had their wedding gifts and anniversary cake that I’d been keeping in our freezer for them. And magazines for her to read (recycling my Lucky mags). And … I hadn’t seen them in three months. Hadn’t seen their puppy since I puppy-sat.
I threw a bag of overnight things together, gathered my laundry (hey, it’s got to get done somehow!), gathered their gifts and cake, and went to take my hit at the gas pump. $31 later, I was on my merry, spontaneous way up to the Central Coast! The funniest part of the drive was not really knowing anything about where I was headed: I’d just asked her to email directions so I could check them on my iPhone, but I’m crap at geography so I never did really know where her new home was in relation to everything else.
I left at 1pm and got there after 4, so we played with the dog and cleared up some mess in their backyard before heading out to dinner. They had clam chowder in bread bowls and I had a calamari steak sandwich with a salad. I wish I liked clams, their chowder smelled great!
We walked the pier, and then on the beach until sunset, and her husband took about a dozen pictures of us, our dirty bare feet, and the ladybugs that were swarming the tideline and festooning our hands and feet.
We had a truly lazy Sunday: we watched her husband play video games, I played with the dog, BF read her magazine and drank her coffee. Eventually we had breakfast and headed out tidepooling. I made the mistake of dressing for the real beach in my bathing suit, tshirt and shorts, and darn near froze to death out on the rocks! I chased the dog up and down the dirt track for a while to warm up, and huddled in my beach towel for a while until the sun warmed up. We found half a dozen starfish, and the dog pissed off an entire colony of hermit crabs when she went splashing through their pool. She didn’t land on them, just on the rocks they sheltered under, but they all started scurrying around, some waving their claws as though they were scolding her. It was cute.
We had delicious Cajun Bacon Cheeseburgers for lunch, though I couldn’t tell you what was Cajun about it, and spent part of the afternoon cleaning up our mess, the dog’s yakked up lunch because she’d swallowed so much salt water, and going through junior high and high school notebooks. We had good giggles over how silly we were as kids, and ruminated about how things have changed over the past fifteen years. We’ve been together a loooong time …. it’s so weird to realize that we’re old enough that she’s married. With a house. That she lives in with her husband. I know it seems an elementary concept to most people: you get older, meet someone you care about, get married and move out. Or some variation on that theme. But consider the oft-dramatized notion of the best friend as collateral damage of weddings; there’s at least a little grain of truth in that trope. It’s not quite that traumatic, but I have been within walking distance of her/parents’ home for as long as I’ve been social enough to have friends (5th grade). We walked home from school together, went riding, went on field trips, went through all kinds of childhood and pubescent drama, we did everything together for years. We even went to college together. And now she’s two freaking hundred miles away and I have to drive at least 3 hours just to see her in person. I really miss being able to just drop in at her house up the street and hanging out until she got home from work, or knowing that I could call her in a crisis and that she’d be there in less than ten minutes. Now … now we’re adults. It’s definitely taking some getting used to. She’s got a great husband, bless his heart, and there’s no one I’d rather have “lost” her to.
Whoops, this started out as an ode to the weekend, and has transformed into a rather maudlin ode to the passage of time and friendship. Oh well, it’s part of what made the weekend good; remembering our journey up to this point as we both enter new stages in our lives. We talked a lot, and it’s been a while since we’ve been able to do that.
April 25, 2008
My desk is by a different window now, and I’m trying not to get distracted by the gorgeous sun, interesting people walking by, and sometimes gorgeous, interesting people walking by.
Thanks to my top five referrers this week!
1. Ms. E.C. of Not Living on Ramen
2. The smashing FB of Fabulously Broke in the City
3. Repeat contender Sense of Sense to Dollars
4. The one and only Saving Diva of Saving for Home
5. The lovely NtBeachNC of Beachgirl’s Budget Blog
I’ve no idea what my plans are for the weekend stretching out ahead of us, but I hope you all have wonderful weekends!
April 17, 2008
For the last four hours of work, visions of a hotel room overlooking the beach, literally with a balcony right over the sand, sun, and waves were all I could think about. Running shoes, a stack of books, a beach chair, sunglasses and a hat. That’s all I need this weekend. Just get away from everyone and everything, all the crazy at home, the crazy at work; widen that space of time in between work and home into a whole day of just relaxing without anyone chattering at me, asking questions, or expecting attention. Ahhhh ….. that sounds vunderbar!
Friend A offered me a room at her place, Friend E wants me to come visit her out of state. Married Friend has a room for me. That’s all great, and I’ll take them all up on it one of these days. But probably not this weekend. I’m all prickly inside and can’t even muster the energy to imagine being a good guest.
BoyDucky offered me his other free SW ticket to come up and visit this weekend. Otherwise, the next opportunity he and I’ll have to visit isn’t until mid-May. He understands I may really need time to myself so I can make the decision when I’m ready. The beauty of the Green Pass Must Ride is that I can call to make the reservation and show up at the ticket counter with practically no notice and no extra fees to pay.
What to do … what to do …
Ar! The weather this weekend is not looking promising anywhere. I will definitely not be getting my beach day.
January 29, 2008
RX: Three days of unscheduled time, one planned dinner, approximately two-mile walks each day, and quiet conversation.
I’m back at work after three days of good quality time with BoyDucky, our first since September, and boy! I feel GOOD. The exercise was great in the crisply, briskly blowing winds, and the company was excellent. Our jokes about Tony Little’s Gazelle, were later echoed, to our delight, in the movie Juno. At first I feared Juno would be another Running with Scissors because I’ve been living under a Drama Rock and haven’t seen any previews, but thankfully, it was really entertaining. It rather exquisitely balanced the serious against the ridiculous. I don’t mean to knock Running with Scissors, it just wasn’t the funny we were in the mood for at the time.
On Sunday, we visited our couple friends with two kiddies, the idea of which appealed off and on when we were talking about weekend un-plans, and I’m glad we did. We were impromptu babysitters while they cooked up the breakfast foods we brought over, and then played with the kids for a couple more hours. Playing with the kids was my strength training for the day, it was a little hard on my hands and wrists, honestly, and then we took another looooong walk.
Monday was our lunch, movie and window shopping day. As I said, we saw Juno and loved it. We wandered around the downtown area for a bit, drove to the next town’s downtown and wandered around window shopping there. Inevitably, I suppose, I used part of BoyDucky’s gift card to buy two work shirts on sale at Banana Republic ($12, reg. price $34 and $15, reg. price $44). I’ll give him part of my gift card, since I’d just left my wallet at home especially to discourage spending. *sigh* Seriously, self control, anyone?? š
At least it was using gift cards. The red camisole is an addition to my suit rotation – I only have about 4 shirts that are suitable (heehee, “suitable”) and the plum shrug top will be my third professional top. I have a distinct lack of tops that look like they’re meant for business attire, as I trend towards more casual, layering pieces. It’s fine for my office, but not so when I have business conferences. We’ve got this trip to Las Vegas coming up in February, and it would behoove me to start preparing the wardrobe. Hm, I’ll need to factor in dry cleaning my suit into the budget next month! Aish.
I’m proud that we got out and about so much considering the cold and rain. The weather made me extremely hibernatory, especially after the walks, but it was well worth it. Financially, we did pretty well. I remembered to take care of a few bills and deposits while there, we didn’t spend hundreds of dollars on a getaway, and instead of ordering wine at our special dinner, we went home and opened our bottle of anniversary Riesling from last year’s trip to Napa. We enjoyed the 2005 Potter Valley from Chateau Montelena with some leftover dessert cheese, bread and walnuts.
It’d be lovely if this sort of weekend wasn’t a once a year phenomenon.
October 1, 2007
I know I owe a focused post or two, and I promise I’ll get to them soon. It’s just been busy-busy.
We went out Friday night, and I was introduced to the wonders of the gay bar: no scuzzy boys with any interest in girls. Stress free dancing!
I loved my birthday flats which were great after 3 hours of dancing in high heels:
The flowers and balloons are still impressive, but the flowers smell a little funny:
I’m still wondering what kind of impact the no-overtime injunction will have on my budget and whether or not that check is really going to come this week.
Best friend has found a cheaper wedding dress at the same bridal shop, so she went ahead and ordered my dress (we’re going with the strapless number) with the remaining credit of her deposit. So I’ll need to write her a check instead of using my credit card, dangit.
We spent most of Sunday at the hospital visiting BoyDucky’s dad. BoyDucky was told yesterday that they might have to consider buying a hospital bed for his father’s recovery period, and that they run $18,000!!! Dear Lord. I’m hardly prepared for the realities of medical care for my parents, now we’re facing the same for his? There’s a part of me that’s relieved that at least they’ve been making good money for the past 10 years, unlike my parents.
Odd Topic: I can’t help but wonder why I can’t ever get a potential MIL who actually likes me: the first and second things she said to me at the hospital yesterday were chastising me for not learning Chinese “even though I keep telling you that you have to learn. It’s so inconvenient, because you know we’re not going to speak English!” and “is it possible for you to be any skinnier? You need to eat more!” It’s not important, apparently, that I try to get all the other stuff right, like oh, life! It’s much more important that I stop inconveniencing her by learning Chinese right NOW. *sigh* I know, I’m being sensitive. But it’s just so aggravating! Instead of responding (negatively) because she was doing this in front of her nephew and niece from up north, and her sister and brother in law from NY, I just got really quiet. I know that BoyDucky probably wanted to say something, but that definitely would not have been appropriate, especially in front of company.
September 4, 2007
I hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend! Mine was packed with fun and excitement. I feel like we played road trip Monopoly, only without buying property, just talking about it. I see that everyone in blogland has blogged up a storm as well, so I’ll have to take some time and catch up on my reading.
This Saturday was my best friend’s 25th birthday so she and I spent the day with her family up north (two hours away). At 6:30 pm, we jumped in the car and headed for San Francisco. She insisted on driving the whole way, and also paying for gas so I can’t really include gas in the cost of the trip but on the way back we bartered labor for gas. Er, BoyDucky’s labor, not mine. š She bowed to his need to do his Man Duty of driving us home on Monday after we’d eaten lunch in the car. And he managed to win the fight at the tank to pay for one fill-up as well.
As for the trip itself: BF paid for our dinners at Carl’s Jr. in the world’s smelliest town. I’m serious. That town, (Harris Ranch?) smelled to the high heavens and beyond. Even though we’re city girls, we’ve also had our fair share of Cow Town experience, and mucking out stables. This smell was unbelievable. It was so bad that we rolled down the window approaching the order box, rolled it back up gagging, and refused to roll it back down to order for at least 5 minutes. I’m sure the person taking orders must have been annoyed, but she couldn’t possibly have been surprised!
We got into BoyDucky territory by 10:30 pm, so we’d made decent time. The next morning, she and I walked up and down the length of the Small Town Art and Wine Festival in search of some Killer Brownies and snagged a bag of Ends & Edges ($7.50). A stop at the Small Town BART station ($14.80) and off we went to 16th & Mission. Um, why didn’t anyone tell me that Mission District is quite seedy and smells of urine? And is NOT the most efficient way to get to Haight-Ashbury on foot? Well, we never got to Haight-Ashbury. We got as far as Mission & Market Street and gave up on Haight. Instead, lunch somewhere towards the downtown area was sounding really good, so off to Civic Center we went!
I tried to treat us to lunch at Nordstrom’s Bistro (I know, it was no hole-in-the-wall, chock-full of character restaurant, but I needed clean and comfortable after Mission Street) but BF beat me to the check after a glorious white chocolate bread pudding. Little did she know that I was going to get the dinner check. Hah! Lunch: ~ $30.
We wandered for hours, shopping and sightseeing. I played mock tour guide at first, but it was actually a great way to really learn my way around, I’ve only been in the city alone once before and otherwise BoyDucky always navigates so I’ve felt more than a little handicapped.
For a joke, we popped into the Tiffany store in Union Square to take a picture of rings to send to her hubby; he one-upped us and sent back a picture of a receipt for a ring with strategically placed “glare” spots. To add to my authentic aura of a tour guide, she wanted to go the Elizabeth Arden Red Door Spa and look at a price menu. For those of you who’ve been there, (or not), the sign is prominently placed over the door, but you have to go into an empty lobby/hallway to an elevator and go up a few flights. Stepping through the glass doors, I immediately noticed the signs on the wall with the various businesses and the floors they were on, but BF hadn’t. Not knowing this, I pompously announced “Red Door Spa, Fourth Floor” once we got into the elevator. She was floored.
“You DO know where everything is around here, you’ve been everywhere! How can you say that you don’t feel at home in this city when you know where everything is???”
“Er …. I didn’t. It said, it said on the wall.”
“……..oh.”
Our foray into Macy’s yielded a brand new wallet for BF with my coupon and a sale, the wallet was $22 from $34. I like getting people presents they want, need and will use. Forever 21 had a nice pair of brown (real brown, not the brown that turned out to be gray like my pants from Banana Republic), stretchy work pants ($20), and Ann Taylor had a lovely brown/white patterned halter top in XSP. Mine! Unfortunately, BoyDucky distracted me at a crucial moment, and BF beat me to the cash register with my goods.
Parking in Union Square for an hour was $2.50; BoyDucky was kind enough to come pick us up and drive over to the Embarcadero and Osha Thai for dinner so that we wouldn’t have to BART to Embarcadero and back home. I treated BF and BoyDucky to dinner as it was her birthday dinner and I rarely treat BoyDucky, $71 with 3 entrees, 2 drinks, and 1 side dish and parking was validated for 3 hours, so: Free!
BoyDucky got our round of drinks and pool at the local brewery, and our 4-miles-walked day ended at 11 pm. Actually it didn’t, BoyDucky also drove Oakland friend back to Oakland because we didn’t want her to BART home alone at that time of night. She has a lovely apartment in Oakland, and an even lovelier popcorn popper; we got home at 2 am.
Monday was our day of travel. Other than gas, and a couple bottles of water because we were dehydrated ($2), we spent very little else. Eight hours later (thanks to an hour spent in traffic on the 152) we ended Operation: Mini-vacation and BoyDucky retrieval!
All under $200 including lots of yummy food and presents. Not bad, eh?
August 27, 2007
but a girl’s got to eat, and I’m not cooking for a horde of friends and a few strangers each time we want to meet up.
We sent NY friend #2 back to the East Coast with a classy In’n’Out dinner last week, and experienced a rather surreal encounter with some high school acquaintances at the same dinner. We caught up a bit over beers at the pub up the street, and darned if it wasn’t the weirdest thing. Now I can definitely skip my ten year reunion! After all, I keep in touch with all the high school friends I want to, I think, and even met up with those I’d rather have forgotten.
On Friday, we had dinner with Boston friend at a lovely Argentinian restaurant where the drinks were yummy and prices were just fabulous! My swordfish skewers with yellow rice was simply amazing, de-skewered for my convenience and tablemates’ safety, for only $10. The helping of yellow rice was enormous, just how I like it, and moist with onions and bits of bell pepper. Mmmm … I’ll take you sometime, if you come visit me.
Saturday was full of accomplishing: I picked up Old Dog’s medicines, got a little grooming out of the way, went to the bank, got a tank of gas, and discovered the wonderful world of orthotics! At first I picked up the Dr. Scholl’s gel insoles ($6), and Ball of Foot gel inserts ($5) but realized that I really needed orthotics with arch support. So I went and got a pair from Target ($6) so that I could have these (on sale, $17.99):
Honestly, I had really wanted these because they seemed a little more demure and professional:
but they were $30, and anyway, weren’t in either of the Targets I checked so I couldn’t try them on. So the sassy Mary Janes were in. Even better, the shoes and orthotic with arch support were only $25.36. My MyPoints giftcard covered all but $0.36.
Sunday: I got loads of laundry done, went to the mall and returned that shirt to Banana Republic, and something to another store, and picked up a couple somethings. Lunched at Kabuki’s (I wouldn’t recommend it, it was lackluster and didn’t live up the decor) with a friend and his friend, and brought home leftover beef short ribs and chicken teriyaki for lunch tomorrow. Not bad for $15, but not particularly good either.
I also gave my brother an earful for stringing me along for the past couple months, not paying or calling me to explain his failure to pay, and his related immaturity. I always feel like I’m letting him get away with it when I don’t take him to task, and so he got his rightfully earned scold tonight. He’s got to learn about responsibility.
7 days of food spending:
$6, In-n-Out
$18, Argentinian dinner
$15, Kabuki lunch
$?, dinner tonight to see off NY friend #3
