This Was Why I Ignored You

So I left at the butt-crack of dawn (let's not mince words - it was FOUR, that's 4! AM) and flew to San Francisco. The airport is built more vertically than horizontally and I ended up in International arrivals because of my airline. Bee finally found me on the third pass whilst ON THE PHONE WITH ME, but hey. We drove into 'Frisco with an eye to lunch at Fisherman's Wharf. Which was scrumptious! But first:



Stop it Willows, you're not the boss of us! AND YOU'RE NOT OUR MOTHER! (Shouldn't there be an "s" on that since we're not, you know, related at all?) [Yeah, probably.]

This is the second of our company's recently acquired GPS units. The first was named on a convention in which I was not present. She is now called "Stella" and the name seems to have stuck. The new unit is not quite as seamlessly human-sounding, and the poor thing had quite the time of it with all the Spanish names she was forced to pronounce. Also, acronyms are not her specialty - she called the UPS store the "ups" store. As in "he one-ups me by claiming his GPS unit can't read the word 'route'." Still, she was a trooper. So her name is Willows, after one Catherine Willows, famed former-stripper and CSI agent with equal parts motherliness and 'tude. This was based, almost solely, on the way she said "recalculating" when we missed a turn. It was exasperated, dejected with our failure, miffed at having to work twice as hard because of us morons, and just plain motherly. The other factor in the name was that, although we wanted to name her after the actress, we were relatively certain we wouldn't pronounce "Marg" correctly. Who needs that kind of embarrassment after letting down a GPS unit?

We arrived and decided upon The Franciscan for lunch. You know, our parking had to be validated, right? It had nothing to do with how nice it was or with their amazing view of the harbor. It wouldn't be me if I didn't tell you that their sole was delicious, although so lightly seasoned that the olive oil stood out a BIT much, but their asparagus was SO GOOD and their pasta side with sun-dried tomatoes was perfect. I had no idea how much I missed asparagus. I never make it just for myself and Hubster doesn't like it. Sadly. Anyway, YUM!



Go eat at the Franciscan now!
After that we walked and shopped the amazing jewelry, chocolate, trinket, and clothing shops there. We had dessert at the Eagle Cafe, which has no website but does have a delicious warm apple tart a la mode with caramel sauce drizzled on the plate and espresso drinks at the ready. Highly recommended.

In the afternoon, which was really evening in our bodys' time zones, we started lagging, and headed back to the hotel, which was quite snazzy. Their outdoor hot tub chased away the traveling blues and we quite enjoyed our movie selection of the evening, Memoirs of a Geisha, which wasn't as good as the book but sure did look purdy! Oops, time for another picture!



Go enjoy these flowers now!
The next day our set-up hours went quickly. We retired early, having dined at Maria Elena's in Alviso. The concierge told us about it, and apparently, it's a hot lunch site for Silicon Valley peeps. We saw some be-suited fellows dining there, so it doesn't seem all that far-fetched. Also: tasty. The next day, hours were longer and our brain matter was starting to stew, despite the energy boosts in our Jamba Juice smoothies. We ended up vegging out over Thank You For Smoking. GO SEE IT NOW. Oh, it was hilarious, irreverent, star-studded, and pithy. Our fav lines? "Please don't ruin my childhood." and "Michael Jordan plays ball. Charles Manson kills people. I talk." And then there was this tidbit, in which the character of "Jeff Megall" is played by ROB FREAKIN'LOWE. People, this movie has it all. As well as some swearing a brief sex scene, in the interests of full disclosure. But you will never laugh so hard, see:

Jeff Megall: Sony has a futuristic sci-fi movie they're looking to make.
Nick Naylor: Cigarettes in space?
Jeff Megall: It's the final frontier, Nick.
Nick Naylor: But wouldn't they blow up in an all oxygen environment?
Jeff Megall: Probably. But it's an easy fix. One line of dialogue. "Thank God we invented the... you know, whatever device."

I'm making it sound boring here. Just see it. And soon, 'cause it's not exactly burning up the box office, unfortunately.

Anyhow, we trotted home on Sunday, and I got to see some of Hubster's relations in Seattle on the return trip's four-hour layover there. I had massive ice cream sundaes, dance-dance revolution demonstrations, a tour of their home, and a brief driving tour of Seattle. It was much too fast, but lovely. I took the red-eye out of that great city and back to this one, arriving home at around 8:30am, exhausted and ready to play the truant as my lone "weekend" day was wasted with long naps, lots of kitten cuddling, a few household chores like painting the cabinet doors, and then more sleeeeep. Unfortunately, Bee was not so lucky and ended up stuck in Phoenix for 24 hours because her flight's delay made her miss a connecting flight and the next flight was full to brimming. All my laziness seems even more indulgent under the circumstances. Now that she's back home, we're living the same reality, hundreds of miles apart: unpack from this trip, repack for Thursday's trip, and commence craving delicious food we can't have from the one, the only In-N-Out Burger, the California original.



Go eat there now!