passion...schmassion

Day 10023: Wished You Were There...

It's been a while since I blogged a good long, lengthy blog worthy of being a procrastination tool. As Binny dearest so eloquently quipped, "more postings....meee boored at work.
get to it." And so I shall.

Here I am, sitting in Crappy Tire, a tent in my lap for a desk, writing this out long hand. My hands, dirt and grease smudged, trail grimy fingerprints across every page of this sketch book as I wait not-so-patiently for the biannual tire change to be completed. And then afterwards, I'm off to find an open-late car detailing shop so that I can have my baby cleaned inside and out, so I can save a few bucks tomorrow and not have to spend $138 at TD Tower to get it done. Afterall, now that I'm a downtown-er, it's that much more convenient for me. It's odd how quickly I've adapted to the lifestyle.

This blog has been a long time in coming. I've been to heaven and back, seen much of my California-golden-girl tan fade back to winter-white paleness and I have yet to tell all five of you faithful readers all about it.

My week began in a red wine-induced haze. End of busy season firm party combined with a welcome home party for the Sista combined with a self-styled going away party hosted by an equally elated, heavy-handed-red-wine-pouring KC equaled major trouble. Hours spent in not-so-solitary confinement in the dungeon-like stall of Leftbank's potty-room (broken toilet seat and all) and an equally fuzzy car ride, only to be continued with a nap on my own surprisingly comfortable bathroom floor. Needless to say, with less than 4 hours of me "power snoring" (per Triscuit) before it was time for our flight, I was still "slightly" hammered in the morning. on the plane. to minneapolis. turbulence *ugh* and all.

Some hours later, I recovered enough to direct us out of the airport, onto a shuttle bus and to Dollar-Rent-a-Car, where I had managed to reserve a little white Neon for only $14 a day. (ed note: sorry about the free advertising, but hey, when you get such a super deal, you just gotta brag about it... but watch out if you bring the tank back half empty... that's where they try to screw you...)

Day one of heaven...the perfect beginning:

Arrived in San Diego 2:30, found Sista's place, checked in, saw bed, crawled into bed, fell asleep. 5:30 cracked an eye open, Triscuit snoring away next to me as happy as can be. Poked him, muttered "We should go do something...we're on vacation" and promptly fell back asleep... "power snoring" I'm sure. (note sarcasm...) 7:55 Triscuit rolled over, and over, and over (gotta love a king size bed), said something about dinner. I said two more minutes... and woke up 4 hours later to turn off the lights, and dive back under the covers. What a perfect beginning to a great vacation.

Day two of heaven...how to get places without a map:

Sixteen and a half hours of sleep later, we woke up at the crack of dawn to find that on a Sunday morning, nothing is open. Aimlessly drove around suburbia SD looking for grub and found a nice little smoothie shop with magazines. Chilled with my tango mango reading excerpts of Barbarella. Felt just like I was at home, catching up on the latest Smitten. Ahhh... that is the life.

Armed with a mapquest map, we somehow managed to find our way to Mission Beach. Tried rollerblading on the supposed beach paths, went the wrong way and hit crappy rough pavement, gave up, and had a nice long walk back up the beach. The waves licked at our feet, the sand sucked greedily at our toes, the sky was a brilliant cloudless blue, the breeze just salty enough to whip our hair around our pinkening faces. Lunched watching the Leafs lose to Philly. Tried rollerblading again, but apparently, 3/4 in the afternoon is when the people come out, and the boardwalk was packed. And so we drove to La Jolla.

La Jolla beach... multi-coloured million dollar homes lining the shore, private clubs, multi-coloured beach umbrellas...an incoming tide that threatened our path to safety...

Again, mapless, we managed to find the La Jolla cove that I remembered from a trip way back when. Found a semi-secluded spot and watched the sun sink it's fiery redness into the dark depths of the ocean... until there was barely enough light to guide our climb up the rocks. (And climb, we did, as our path was blocked by the tide so we had to "boulder" our way up the cliffs. Really not as bad as it sounds... not even purple block grade, but definite pinch power required!) Stood for hours atop the cliffs, just looking at the stars. That moved... okay, so they were really planes, but I could've sworn they were really shimmery stars.

Day three of heaven... fashion valley (need I say more):

Late start. Watching three girls pack and leave can be really tiring! :) Plans to go to the beach went astray the moment Tricuit said, "Hey, let's check out Abercrombie on our way..." And so our marathon shopping day began...

He:

Robinson May... 1 white, 1 blue Quicksilver t-shirt, long sleeve linen shirt... white squirrels t-shirt (ick)
Abercrombie... 3 long sleeve shirts (yummmm), shorts, 1 yellow t-shirt, 1 "wishes do come true" with pix of ice-cold beer delivery truck t-shirt
Robinson May (part 2)... 1 very pretty pink skirt (for me!)

She:
Abercrombie... 1 pink long sleeve shirt, 2 tanks
J. Crew... 1 purple, 1 turquoise 3/4 length button up, 1 tank
Some shoe store... cute black sandals
Robinson May (part 2)... 1 white, 1 baby-blue sweater, white/blue/green skirt, black/white skirt, cute pink top, flowy white lounging pants

...did I ever mention that I don't usually like to shop? Actually, it was me in the change room and Triscuit doing the shopping for me. I love having a personal shopper! :)

Day four of heaven...the happiest place on earth:

Disneyland... need I say more?

Tomorrowland - Star Wars ride, Honey I Shrunk the Kids movie, Space Mountain closed until 2005 (boo), some kid's motor raceway thing that Triscuit made me drive even though he was the one who wanted to go on the ride... "How come I always have to drive?" ...whiney boy...

Some-other-land - Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Critter something or rather...

Storybook land - Fantasy land? - Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Alice in Wonderland, Snow White's Scary Adventure, Pinoccio (was that a ride?), It's a Small World...

New Orlean's Square? - Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribean - closed... boo..., Tarzan's Treehouse... did you know that they have a canoe "ride" - twenty people in a canoe paddling their guts out... sound familiar???

Adventure land - The Jungle ride on that boat thing, Indiana Jones with the scary bugs...

Toon Town - Roger Rabbit, Chip and Dale... mail boxes that talk, cartoon boats... meeting Mickey... *swoon*

Other memories... goofing around to take pix, deep throating pickles, slushy mishaps, taking the train around, and around, and around the park... and watching the Leafs lose the series in OT at the ESPN Zone... boo

Did I ever tell you that I'm not so good with names? Disneyland isn't as big as I remembered... especially since the longest time we ever waited in line was ten minutes...

Day five of heaven... er... I mean... um...

Del Mar with it's beautiful miles of fine, fine sand - perfect for sand castle building and getting messy in. Just like a kid again. Got there early in the morning and watched the true hard-core surfers go out and catch some waves before going to work. Ironically, the only two Canadians were wearing hoodies to protect against the morning breezies, while all the bronzed Cali-ans sauntered past in tanks and bikinis... lol.

Brunched at some place recommended by Sista for it's salmon hash... Americans sure do love their hash. There's salmon hash, corn hash, chicken hash, corned-beef hash, spam hash... you name it, they've hashed it. Weirdos.

Beached a little more, burnt bright red and drove to Sin City. Triscuit threw a hissy-fit at the wacked out American pay-at-the-pump gas stations. Silly boy. Bad temper. Boo...

Met up with Posie, LZ, JC and Larry at the Bellagio and welll... read January/February archives on Sin City... same old, same old...

...to be continued