A Girl...

Full Glass, Cup Runneth Over

Late last week I sent Simon an email--subject line: "schedule"--that contained a list of upcoming activities, including picnics and out-of-town visitors and band gigs and sake tasting and photo outings and conferences and weekends with old friends and baby due dates. Never in my life have I been so busy, but also never in my life have I enjoyed it as much--so much, in fact, that when unexpected events and impromptu invites come our way at the last minute (unplanned! unscheduled! eeek!) I find myself hopping onboard with alacrity. Where did she go, that sociophobic do-nothing of a girl?

(Honestly, I still love staying home and covet my alone time (even when "alone" includes Simon), but these days I'm feeling much more comfortable with the fact that the balance of Stay In and Go Out is swinging dramatically toward the latter.)

There are some people out there, often referred to as the Cool Kids, who will talk about how they spent their weekend all non-chalant and casual-like, as if it were no big deal that they hiked to the top of a mountain carrying an orphan on their back and then, at the summit, taught said orphan and any surrounding tundra squirrels how to read. Nietzsche. I am not one of those people. That's to say that I don't climb mountains or tend to illiterate orphans, and also that when my life is even remotely exciting, I want to jump and shout and invite everyone I know over to our house to see a slideshow of eight hundred photos from our latest adventures. Or, you know, invite you guys into our virtual living room and direct you to Flickr. My hope is that my enthusiasm doesn't smack of showoffiness but as something honest, and that's all I'm going to say about that lest I convince myself that everything I type here is completely obnoxious and self-involved and that anyone only ever visits to point and laugh. That said, my weekend was out of this world. Won't you come look at my photo album?*

Friday Night

Simon calls me at work around 3 and asks if I want to go to a baseball game. Turns out it's the Oakland A's versus the San Francisco Giants and that the tickets are free and that they are for seats in a LUXURY SUITE. We show up and ride the special elevator to the special stadium level and then locate our LUXURY SUITES (plural!), which just happen to be smack dab in the center of center field. The place is stocked with food and drink (all free!) and we get new custom ballcaps. When Mark Ellis hits a grand slam in the eighth for the home team, our tickets become redeemable for free pizza, and since we are the last ones to leave the suites at the end of the night, we also score a logo bucket, a magazine, and a handful of limited-edition baseball cards. Simon was just happy to finally put his mouth directly on the bottles of free wine. Oh, and each suite had its own private bathroom, if you can believe that. On the way home we stop at Albertson's to shop for ingredients and then we make pasta salad at midnight.

Saturday morning

We attend a half-birthday at a park by the lake, fittingly called Lakeside Park. We get a late start and are in a rush; on the way, we listen to "Lakeside Park" by Rush. When we show up, there are boxes of fried chicken and four babies in attendance. Over the next four hours, there arrives a box of birthday cake and approximately fifty more babies. Okay, maybe only ten, but still TEN BABIES. We steal one and declare it to be awesome. We toted our picnic supplies in an honest-to-goodness picnic basket, out of which we also pulled a beach ball, a toy airplane, and a bottle of bubbles, none of which we shared with the babies.

Saturday afternoon

Fat Stan's parents were at the picnic and Simon invited us over to their house to see if they kept him bound and gagged in the closet. We found him neither bound nor gagged but instead purring contentedly on a special blanket on the couch, enjoying the breeze from the open window--the window to which his deluxe cat perch is affixed. I suspect they have hired a houseboy in a loincloth to fan Stan with a palm frond while he snacks on moist kibble, although that can't be confirmed. Simon tied him up for old times' sake.

Saturday evening

We clean the house. Shock. Awe.

Saturday night

MLE and Hulk are in town from Denver (visiting friends and family and checking out their wedding locale! squee!) so we meet them at our favorite pub for drinks. We are more than happy to leave the house as our mariachi neighbors have hired a d.j. for an impromptu block party, at which the special guest appears to be some sort of industrial-grade STROBE LIGHT. I kill them all. We get to the pub and Simon makes me play chess while we wait for our guests; I let him win (aka lose horribly) but fall madly in love with my 50mm lens. My favorite bartender is working--the one who has promised to throw me a Hobbit-themed party on the bus he has outfitted as a medieval castle and named Excalibur, except the "r" at the end isn't an "r" but an "s." While I'm introducing him to MLE and Hulk, he gets distracted by the need to do some choreography to "Kung-Fu Fighting." We drive MLE and Dan back to their car (Moxie Crimefighter) but, as we have only three available seats, MLE rides in the back like a dog (in a skirt) and we all talk about they ways in which our respective mothers would kill us if they knew what we were doing. (It was only five blocks! We went really slow!)

Sunday morning

We arrive at the BART station at 8:24 a.m. That's about six minutes earlier than we get up for work, where they pay us to get up that early. We head to the city, where we meet MLE and Hulk in time for Bay to Breakers, the fucknuttiest footrace in the whole entire world. You can read a formal description here, but you really need photos to understand what it's all about. Mine are here. Simon's will be here later tonight. Hulk's are here. MLE says: "It's the slowest I've ever traveled four miles." I say: "Where are all the naked people?" Hulk says: "More boobies, please." Simon says: "Is that devil pig humping that giant can of beer?"

After the "race," we lunch in the Haight and then go for a promotional ride in a new Scion because for filling out a survey they gave us a free hat and T-shirt and CD and a $30 gift certificate to the local music store. Some days I fear we love free stuff more than we love each other. We walk and walk and walk and walk and walk and walk and see people peeing oh just everywhere. When we get to City Hall, we see an intimidating gang of hula hoopers (intimidating via West Side Story, all kick-ball-changes and snapping) and a flock of wild lapdogs running around in flock-of-birds/school-of-fish formations. We ride BART home with people completely passed out from drunkenness even though it's only 3 p.m. I want to tie a big red bow around the city and put it under a Christmas tree. Or, for something a little more "adult," slosh it into a martini glass and drop in a cherry.

Sunday afternoon

We stop at an open house for a 3BR/1BA property we saw on Craigslist and pee in the 1 BA. It has a HUGE yard and a HUGE workshop and nice living areas and unique architectural details and a washer and dryer so help me god, but alas the bedrooms are tiny and the neighborhood is no improvement on our current one and there is no way we could get even our double-sized mattress up that (cute! quirky!) narrow stairway. Also, it has termites. But can't I forgive that for a sunporch?

Sunday evening

We watch TLC and HGTV! We nap! We have salmon and salad for dinner! We watch a movie! We vow to contact our senator and area representatives in hopes of making the three-day weekend a permanent fixture in American society because we need that extra day! We fall into an exhausted heap and a sleep so deep even the car alarms can't wake us.

*Sorry, but all the photos are marked "Friends Only." To see them, sign up for a Flickr account. It's free and easy and you won't get spammed, I promise. (I'm not selling anything, I just prefer to keep things close.)