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
July 8, 2007
I’m back from a very nice weekend with BoyDucky. We just hung out with friends and each other. All in all, it was Quite Relaxing.
This trip, I only took one backpack of clothing and few very necessary odds and ends like my book, an extra book, my iPod in case I ran out of reading material and my planner which is attached by umbilical cord. It was an effort to save my shoulders from the duffel-slump that’s caused by dragging a 40 pound duffel around the airport, and to prevent me from accidentally shopping. It worked, until I saw this beach towel (the middle one) and the 60% off headline in the ad at Mervyn’s:
Sadly, it was not at the lowest end of the sale price range (4.79) but neither was it at the high end (13.97). I’m ashamed to say I still wanted it. So, as penance, I’m going to return the pink flowery dress, and embroidered sleeveless shirt that I bought from Macy’s on sale last week. I don’t NEED them, I just really liked them. Still, they’ll go back so that I can indulge in this childish impulse buy instead. *tsk*
May 7, 2007
Long distance relationships rarely acquire the sort of tedium that you experience in a non-LDR from spending every moment together, and there’s always a sneaking suspicion that you’re missing out on some of the more precious moments and underlying nuances that reveal your beloved’s personality. Getting a date is much more complicated than just making a call and confirming dinner reservations, even more so as a working gal on a budget; if the bills aren’t calling, the work deadlines are. We tested a rather reasonable compromise this weekend, though, and it was a rousing success!
I flew up late late Thursday night after work. Friday was a work-from-home day (just not my home) to eliminate my normal 2.5 hour commute, and maximize BoyDucky time. It was so fun! He took a half day while I kept working until 3:45 which is absolutely unheard of. We tried to watch Spiderman 3 even though I knew it was a hopeless quest because we were trying to hit a last minute matinee: of course it was sold out. That was ok, though, rushing to the theatre like a couple of kids trying to make the movie before curfew was fun. Since there is NO WAY I was ok with spending $10.50 per ticket, we skipped the theatre.
He introduced me to the wonders of Draeger’s and their amazing wine selection, so we cruised the aisles for a couple of hours. A bargain bunch of spinach, three cookies and a lemon bar later, we had dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant down the street. Their pho wasn’t half bad, and their eggrolls were small but tasty!
Daily subtotal: ~ $20
Saturday, he indulged my need for a (free) mini-facial at Origins, and even underwent the ordeal himself so that we could both get the free full-sized cleansers they were giving away. Like senile old coots, we completely forgot that we’d decided to try for the matinee of Spiderman 3 again before dinner with his family, and instead lunched on soup and sandwiches from Boudin Bistro to while away our overbudgeted hours.
Confession: We went into the Guess store because they had those beckoning 70% off! signs. I couldn’t resist. I’m not admitting that I didn’t try too hard to resist. But come on! 70% off!? It wasn’t that it was a Guess store, it was the 70% off. And then I way overspent on a pair of really comfortable, fits-perfectly jeans that turned out to be 50% off, not the promised 70%. In my defense, I’ve been wearing the same pair of jeans to work for weeks. And they aren’t even really comfortable, so it’s been fat-pants-day for … a while. On the other hand, I was originally so proud of only spending $15 on my last pair of jeans that turned out to be less than comfortable several months later, perhaps spending a little more for a pair I can get LOTS of wear out of will average out. BoyDucky feels like it wasn’t as world’s-end for me to spend that much as I did, but he later felt properly ashamed for encouraging me to spend beyond comfort level.
We had dinner with his very Taiwanese family, so I did my best to intuit the conversation and pretend I didn’t understand when they were asking when he was getting married. That’s always the logical question that follows, “How old are you, 30?”
Dinner ended so early that we even had time to squeeze in a movie rental.
Daily Subtotal: $14 (B), $60 (me)
Sadly, we only had time for brunch and stop in at a friend’s baby shower (there were babies, babies, everywhere!) before I had to fly home. It’ll be nice when I don’t have to go to the airport to go home anymore. That’s a point to the pro-marriage team. Still, I have miles to go before I sleep.
We’ve concluded that we both understand that we have jobs and responsibilities, and if the only way we can spend time together is to be in the same place and working, we’re ok with that. So, we’ll give ourselves a chance to be together a little more, even if it’s with respective laptops. Weekends have always been a complicated affair of cramming work during the week so we can cram a TON of social stuff into a couple days, this should be more relaxing.
