the ranch, part two.

This should be a Thanksgiving post.

I mean, I'm posting it on Thanksgiving, but it will not contain all of the warm and fuzziness that it probably should.  I mean, it is every Blogger/Facebooker/Twitterer's duty to post things that they're thankful for each day of November, declare how blessed they are, or at the very least post pictures from a pumpkin patch or an apple orchard, right?

This is not a typical Thanksgiving post, but not because I am not thankful or because I don't realize how completely blessed my life is.  There were challenges, but I can say for certain that expressing gratitude feels much easier to do this year than it did last year and for that I am immensely thankful.

So while this isn't a typical holiday post, it is inspired by something for which I am grateful - my trip to California and my time at the Los Laureles Lodge, aka the ranch.  In the spirit of Thanksgiving and with the hope of finishing writing about Elizabeth's August wedding before the new year, it's back to the ranch we go.

I'm sure I don't need to tell you that we woke up after the beach bonfire with a whole slew of stories from the night before.  Some things - like the cab driver's roll call - I didn't even know happened until the next morning. I must've really been into the sing-along because I also missed guests over-pouring their wine glasses in the dark, or guests (ahem, my friends) falling in the sand and flopping around like seals.

Wedding stories - just another reason to be thankful.

While our rooms at the Ranch were stocked full of Sun Chips and muffins from our late-night grocery run, a proper lunch that allowed us to maximize our time in the beautiful scenery as well as rehash all of the evening's transgressions was a definite priority.  We opted to drive south to Nepenthe Restaurant in Big Sur to enjoy magnificent Pacific Ocean views from their treehouse-esque deck.




Only, once again, visibility was non-existent.  We sat outside and crossed our fingers that the fog would eventually lift, but it never did. The place was cool and happening, though ,and our waiter was friendly (until we asked him if we could pay the bill with more than one credit card.  I honestly thought his head might explode.), so we were happy.    




We shared a lot of laughs about the previous night's debauchery, ate some good food, and most importantly, drank some tasty drinks (read: hair of the dog) of the Bloody Mary and Moscow Mule variety. 

After lunch and our drive back to Carmel that included stops for scenic photos and an errand run to CVS (where there was booze for sale. At a CVS!  Right next to the disposable razors!  Again, THANKFUL.), there wasn't a lot of time to do much more than welcome new friends (aka new campers) who had just arrived and get ready for the rehearsal party.





Despite the fact that her wedding was a destination variety for many of her guests, her wedding still had many guests.  Most everyone who was invited to the wedding was also invited to the rehearsal, so family, childhood friends, college friends, San Francisco friends were all on hand to toast the happy couple.



The stories were plentiful and varied from humorous to extremely heartfelt.

Greg even wrote a poem.
I went into my remarks with a, "Make them laugh, make them cry, try not to embarrass yourself or anyone else," mentality. I thought my toast hit on all the appropriate emotions. I even had a woman I did not know come up to me and tell me later that she loved what I had to say.

I'm worried she might've been the only one, though, because just last week one of my girlfriends asked me, "Wasn't it you who brought up all of Elizabeth's ex-boyfriends during your speech at the rehearsal dinner?"

"Um, no," I told her defensively, "I did not."

It was just one.  And I never named him.  And I only used this story to make a point.

Elizabeth and I really didn't know each other that well when we decided to be roommates our last semester at Georgia, which was fine, except for the fact that Elizabeth and her boyfriend broke up days before I moved in.  So while I was pumped to get to know a new, fun girl and make her my friend, she was not really in that mindset. She was in a bad, emotionally low place. 

We laugh about that time now and how we healed her broken heart with Ben & Jerry's, American Idol and the Anna Nicole Smith show.

After she moved away to California, it seemed our visits always occurred during really low lows in my life or really high highs.  The way we met seemed to follow our friendship.  The first time I went to visit her in San Francisco, I'd just ended a four year relationship. Then I whisked into town giddy on romance with Mountain Man.  When that went nowhere, I returned to the west coast for reality television and Elizabeth-time.  

 Our visits are less dramatic than they used to be - and I couldn't be more thankful.

And though I'm embarrassed it took me 32 years to figure it out - watching Elizabeth and Kristof work so easily together, and exists so happily as a couple without the drama that so many of us (me) had confused for true romantic love, it occurred to me that real love isn't cobbled together by a string of highs and lows.



The day-to-day comfort of knowing someone who wants the same out of life that you do, who has your back and will make you laugh and builds you up - that's what solid relationships are all about. It might not make for a Hollywood film or a good romance novel, but off the emotional roller coaster seems to be where all the good stuff happens.

Right in the middle. 

Then again, good stuff also happens at an out of town rehearsal dinner where the wine flows easily.

Considering the groom split his pants before the party even started - (I love you, Kristof!) - I shouldn't have been too surprised that after several (se-ver-al) glasses of wine, and a couple dozen toasts, guests started falling again. Into fountains. And bushes.

There may or may not have been some indecent exposure, and I'm not talking about Kristof.

I'm sure all of the California crowd was looking at us, shaking their heads and thinking, "Who are these Georgia rednecks?"

Country had certainly come to town. And everyone (well, most everyone) was grateful.  

the ranch, part one.

Without necessarily doing new things everyday, which is what I used to blog about before I turned 30 and how this blog got started in the first place, sometimes I wonder where it's going.  What's its purpose?

I mean, I think I'm quite clever sometimes, but my biggest fear is that someone will get to the end of one of these blogs and say, "Yeah?  So what?" 

Perhaps that's why I've tried to look for the larger meaning in just about everything - how can I make this road trip a metaphor for life kind of stuff, which even I recognize can get a little hokey and annoying.  I mean, sometimes a road trip is just a road trip, you know? 

I myself love to read blogs that really have nothing more to say than, "This is my life, these are my crafts, those are my kids."

I do not have crafts or kids, but I do have a pretty good life and I believe it's worth writing about.   I understand that doesn't mean anyone is going to want to read about it, but that's a chance all of us bloggers must take.
     
So full disclosure here (I don't want anyone getting to the end and saying, "Yeah, so what?"), the next leg of my summertime journey that started at my friend Kelly's has absolutely no deeper meaning than, "wild wedding weekend."  So if you came looking for inspiration or profound words about the meaning of life, you may want to move it along.

Please don't leave without at least perusing the pictures of my hot friends and the gorgeous scenery that we partied in for three days.  This was the kind of weekend that was so much fun, I felt sad when it ended because I knew the anticipation of it was over, and even if I did my best to recreate it, I'd never succeed.



But there is a good chance that these stories I'm about to tell, many of which have been watered down for the parents and children who may visit, are all of the "You had to be there," variety.  

I'm going to tell them anyway.  Besides, I know that there at least 20 people (the cast of characters I call my friends) who will think these stories are worth telling.  I dedicate all of Elizabeth's wedding blogs to them.

Elizabeth's California wedding was in her "backyard," since she lives in San Francisco.  To many of her east coast friends, it was a destination wedding that involved a great deal of planning beforehand, most about where we were going to stay.  

Leave it to the crew from Georgia to decide to take over the cheapest hotel on the list - the Los Laureles Lodge.  Elizabeth's tastes have refined significantly since she moved to California, so I had to believe this place met her standards.  Based on the pictures on the website, though, I couldn't help but think the Lodge reminded me quite a bit of the sublet apartment she and I lived in at Milledge Place in Athens, Georgia.  

I was the first to arrive and I texted Trish, since it was she who had been instrumental in convincing us all to stay there.  

"How is it?" she asked. 

"It's fine," I texted her.  "It's cute.  It kind of reminds me of summer camp."

From the gravel parking lot and the outdated, country decor to the wood paneling and screen doors, it really did remind me of camp.  But not in a negative way.  I mean, it certainly wasn't the Ritz Carlton, but it was affordable, it was clean, it was centrally located, and most importantly - it was a perfect place for my friends and I to completely take over.

And that's exactly what we did.

The innkeepers made a take over easy - putting several of our rooms in a row. 

Despite it having the most occupants in the least amount of space, my room - Room 23 - was a popular meeting place.  Sort of like the front stoop on the television show 227, people were always popping in for a visit. 

The instant camraderie and summer camp feeling often led to unsolicited singing of the theme song from the Nickelodeon show, Salute Your Shorts - "Camp Anawanna, we hold you in our hearts . . ." 

We also started calling the Los Laureles Lodge, the "Ranch."

We referred to the staff of the lodge as the "ranch hands," which in my room full of unmarried women, led to endless teasing about someone making a move on one of the ranch hands, and of course, even more singing.

"I wanna man with a ranch hand . . .," (to the tune of "I wanna man with a slow hand . . .") My friend and trip roommate Lisa made up her own version, "A ranch hand's handssssss . . . ," which I think was a take on the country song, "Daddy's Hands," but I'm honestly not sure.

We talked about "ranch hands" so much during that weekend, that when Rick Santorum delivered his speech at the Republican National Convention and made countless references to hands, my phone immediately started blowing up with friends saying, "Did you hear Santorum talking about hands?  Reminds me of the Ranch!"

The first event of the Elizabeth and Kristof's wedding weekend was on Thursday night - a beach bonfire for all out of town guests. 



I'd noticed on my ride north on the PCH that the temperature is quite different in the Northern California along the coast.  Elizabeth's instructions for us to "wear a light jacket," were appropriate, however for us thin-skinned humidity loving southerners, we might've been better off had she instead advised, "Pack mittens and a warm coat.  And a hat. And cuddle duds. And brown liquor."

It was freezing.

Certainly nothing a glass (or several glasses) of red wine couldn't fix, so my friends and I enjoyed the festivities, toasting the happy couple and getting to know Kristof's family, many of whom had flown in from Belgium.

I got caught up in caught up in the excitement (and the red wine) of meeting everyone, I brilliantly opted to wait until the sun went down to find myself something to eat which meant I was blindly grabbing at Mexican food in aluminum containers.

Thankfully, the summer camp similiarities were endless.  There were S'mores.  And a sing-along.

Trish embraced the sing-a-long - and brought a little bit of the ranch to the beach, spiritedly leading the group in favorites such as Green Day's "Good Riddance" and Don McClean's "American Pie."



When the party ended and it was time to go home, we called our cab driver that we'd appropriately named "Captain" earlier in the evening when he picked us up for the party.  

He arrived to take us home wearing the same tie-dyed shirt, leather vest and Captain's hat he was wearing when he picked us up.  We forced him to take pictures with us before piling into his cab. He offered us some of his moonshine (which he may or may not have been sipping on himself), let Lisa borrow his leather driving gloves, and then took us to the grocery store so we could pick up some rations that every summer camp full of immature 30-somethings' needs -- breakfast muffins . . . a variety pack of Sun Chips . . .and beer.



Then, in what is now my favorite cab ride story of all time that Lisa shared with us later, the Captain turned around to make sure all his human passengers were accounted for and then looked down at his center console and counted off his collection of stuffed animals, one by one.

"Squirrel, check!"

"Bear, check!"

"Dog, check!"

"Ok," he said to Lisa, who was riding shotgun, still wearing the gloves, "Everyone's here, we can go."

And we went.  Back to the ranch.

Day 349: Not that Kind of Transfusion

Elizabeth and Kristof were in town from San Francisco, and on Day 349, we all met at Kyle and Greg's house to watch the South Carolina/Georgia game. Friends dropped in and out with their kids and their dogs throughout the day and we flipped back and forth between baseball and football games. It was a daytime get together that lasted well into the night.

I was sure that at some point, after all the games were over and we needed a change of scenery, that we'd head out to the bars.

But no one was really interested in doing that. And I couldn't help but think that in addition to having conversations about life insurance, getting older also meant that we'd traded bar-hopping for staying in and playing games.

But having game night was not Day 349's thing I've never done before. Pretending to be Charlie Chaplin and humming the words to "Here comes the Sun," by the Beatles and having Momo understand it during a riveting and competitive game of Cranium, well, I'd never done either of those things either but what I'm not counting them.

Day 349's thing I've never done before was to try a new drink called a "Transfusion." Andrew told us about them and how good they were and when he saw that we were interested, he wasted no time in going to the store to buy the ingredients to make them. The drink includes vodka and grape juice, half a cup of ginger ale and a lime wedge. I assume they are called, "Transfusions," because their color makes them look like blood, but I didn't care. After drinking beer all day, the cocktail was a sweet and refreshing change.

As Andrew said, "These are money." Indeed they are.

Day 163: A Big 'ol Lie and the Big 'ol Rock

On Day 162 I purposely missed my flight back to Atlanta, something I'd never done, forcing me to lie about it as one of Day 163's things I've never done.

Before leaving for my trip, my schedule at work changed significantly, leaving me with several extra vacation days upon my return. I figured I'd rather spend those vacation days in San Francisco than Atlanta, so I attempted to change my flight before I left.

Delta would let me change my flight, but only if I paid $50, plus the price difference between the new flight and the one I'd already bought. That totaled $450.

There was no way was I going to pay that, so I looked into purchasing a one-way ticket from San Francisco to Atlanta, and again, was faced with a hefty price-tag.

I elected to not do anything about it ahead of time, and see where the weekend took me. No surprise, the weekend took me exactly where I expected it would, to not wanting to leave San Francisco.

So without any other ideas, I decided to play dumb.

I called Delta early on Day 163, took a deep breath, and then exhaled while I spit out a tirade something like, "Hi, my name is Stephanie and I'm freaking out I just drove in from Lake Tahoe and was expecting to fly back to Atlanta tonight and I just looked at my ticket and realized I booked Monday night's red-eye instead of tonight's red-eye and I can't believe that I did something so stupid and I just looked at my ticket and is there anything that you can do please I'm desperate."

Inhale.

I'm a terrible liar, but fortunately I have a flair for the dramatics, so I made sure I sounded as desperate as I possibly could.

The customer service lady was pleasant enough, but either wasn't in a position to help me or wasn't in the mood to try. She read me my options matter-of-factly: "If you want to get on tonight's flight it will cost $473. There's a flight leaving tomorrow morning at 6:30am and that one will cost you $350. Neither are cheap, but that's all I can do, I'm sorry."

I tried so hard to make myself cry, but as I've said before, crying on demand is not my forte. I whimpered, gasped, and panted instead, "Please, isn't there anything you can do? This truly was an honest mistake."

Yes, I know, another lie, but there was a mistake made here. The mistake was booking my flight through Delta who finds a way to screw me over every time.

"Well," the apathetic customer service lady sighed, "I can ask my manager if she can waive the change fee, but you'll still have to pay the difference for the flight."

I asked for her to ask her manager. Every little bit helps, I suppose.

A few minutes later, she came back to the phone sounding surprised, "Well, my manager has actually agreed to waive all of the fees for you, so if you want, I can rebook you to fly out tonight on the 10:30pm flight."

"OhmygoshthankyousomuchIreallyappreciateitIcan'tthankyouenoughI'msuchanidiotandnextime-I'llpaymoreattentionbutIreallythankyousomuch."

Shut. Up. Stephanie. Stop. Talking.

So there it is, I lied to Delta.

I am a liar.

I don't condone lying ever, but in my defense, I tried to do the right thing before resorting to these tactics, and my lie didn't hurt anyone. And now that I'm back to being honest, I think we can all agree that Delta, and every other airline for that matter, has been sticking it to us for years with luggage fees and oversold flights, so it's about time they got what was coming to them. Plus, there was plenty of room on that flight, so it's not like I took the seat from someone else.

I've changed my tune about Delta, and will sing their praises for their willingness to help me extend my vacation. That is, until they overcharge me for something, which I'm sure will happen soon.

So with a secured seat on Tuesday night's flight, I set out to enjoy my last day of vacation and make Day 163's other thing I've never done before visit Alcatraz.

When my parents brought my brother and me to San Francisco in 1990, I said before that all I remember was riding a cable car and wearing a hideous fuchsia sweater. I often wondered why we skipped Alcatraz, one of San Francisco’s most popular tourist attractions.

Though I’ve never discussed it with them, my assumption now, after having been there, is that my parents didn't take us to the world famous federal penitentiary because I was nine, and my brother was 11.

For most nine-year-olds, jail is an ambiguous place where they lock up the bad people. But Alcatraz is the real-deal. From 1934-1963, the Rock housed some of the most notorious criminals including mobster Al Capone. According to the tour, for many of the inmates transferred here, Alcatraz was the end of the line.

Though I'm not sure I would've understood that at age nine, seeing a real-deal prison might've been too much.

In order to get to Alcatraz, I took a ferry across the San Francisco Bay. The ferry ride, the fresh air, and the view all made the price of admission worth it, and I hadn't even made it to the island.

My friend Trish and her husband Mark had visited San Francisco the summer before and told me going to Alcatraz was, by far, the best thing that they did. I also remember chuckling at the pictures of the two of them at various spots along the tour with their ear phones on and the audio player around their necks, looking like the ultimate tourists.

Soon, I was just like them, completely engaged with my own audio tour, listening to former Alcatraz prison guards and prisoners share their real-life accounts of working and living on the Rock. Their stories are chilling.

I wondered about the men (and it was all men who were locked up at Alcatraz) who became imprisoned there. I wondered if their criminal behavior were kick-started by something small, like a lie to an airline, that spiraled out of control. Maybe not (it was 1934, after all), but I had to question whether or not my lie to Delta earlier in the day could be the start of a life of crime for me.

The tour of the prison starts in the shower, a big, open space where all the prisoners were forced to strip down naked to get clean. I suppose if you’ve been sentenced to any time in prison, getting naked in front of your peers is the least of your worries, but I shuddered at the thought.

The cells were much smaller than all of the other jail cells I’d ever been in, which, counting Alcatraz, totals one. I guess in all the prison nightmares I’d ever had, my cell was always much bigger. I could stand in the middle of it, stretch my arms out and touch the walls on both sides. If the showering in front of my fellow prisoners didn’t kill me, the claustrophobia of these cells most certainly would have.

The whole tour was interesting, but there are a few highlights I found most fascinating: Most of the guards and their families lived in compounds on the island right next to the inmates. One of the guards' daughters recalls hearing the inmates' activities as she would walk to school or try to go to sleep. I can't imagine growing up next to one of the most dangerous prisons in the country.

There was also an account of a the Battle of Alcatraz, one of the most violent escape attempts in the prison's history. Five people, two correctional officers and three inmates died in the uprising. Another 14 were injured.

The geography of Alcatraz worked to the prison's advantage in that escapes were nearly impossible; the chances that anyone could survive a swim across the harbor to safety are slim. I imagined the geography also worked to jack with the inmates' psyches as well. I mean, it sucks to be at a maximum security at all. But to be at a maximum security prison on an island with views of one of the most beautiful bays and cities in the country must have been the ultimate slap in the face. I found it a little unfair, though, that even through a small cloudy little window, that they got to enjoy the view at all.

Since I returned from my trip, several people have asked me if Alcatraz is scary, and I wouldn’t say I was ever scared. I mean, prisoners haven’t lived there in many years. But the place is creepy, and I imagine if the walls could talk, they’d have a whole hell of a lot to say.

My brother, who is a huge history fan, has been back to San Francisco several times since we traveled there as a family in 1990, so I text messaged him to see if he’d ever been to Alcatraz. He had not.

My response to him, and my advice to anyone with even a mild interest in history, is, “You have to go. You would love it.”

I was thankful after my brilliant performance on the phone with Delta, I wondered if I was one lie away from a lifetime of crime myself.

After I got onto the mainland, I walked down to Fisherman's Wharf, and ate some clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl. The bread was delicious, but the chowder at the Boston Sail Loft still gets my vote as the best.

I walked back to Elizabeth and Kristof's and started to feel the trip-ending anxiety that I always get when good times are ending, and reality is staring me in the face. Does everyone get this feeling, or is this an indication that I need to make a change in my real-life?

Before getting into a cab to take me to the airport, Elizabeth and Kristof helped me end my trip to the bay the same way I started it: with a lovely view of the city from the window in their apartment, a couple of glasses of red wine (purely medicinal to help me sleep on the plane), and one more generous helping of baratta (my new cheese boyfriend). Kristof, who had been overwhelmingly generous since I'd arrived actually bought me my own package of baratta to take with me back to Atlanta, but I insisted we eat it right then, not wanting to try and smuggle dairy onto an airplane.

My trip was full of things I'd never done before with old friends, and some new ones, committed to helping me reach my goal of doing 365 things I've never done before. Despite the trip-ending sadness, I had to feel good about that.

Day 162: Happy Endings

On Monday, Kristof and Elizabeth had to go back to work, so I set out to see San Francisco on foot, on my own, something I had done before.

Though I know it's not true, I started worrying that this blog had started to be less about me trying new things and more about me just doing stuff alone. True, this experience has forced me to do a lot of things that I've never done before on my own and it has shown me that solitude can be enriching. But while making me a more independent person, I'm also learning that just because I can do things by myself, doesn't mean that I necessarily want to. Companionship is important to me, and I am finding that most things in life are more fun if there is someone to share them with.

Being in San Fransisco for the second time in five months, I couldn't help but think about the last time that I was there with an unexpected travel companion, on a whirlwind tour of California. I'd be lying if I said my new circumstances didn't bum me out a little bit.

But on Day 162, I made new San Francisco memories as the thing I've never done before: I got a foot rub down in Chinatown, I saw the Fillmore music venue and ate dinner at Yabbies.

While covering some familiar San Francisco territory, my friend Myles called. If you've been around the blog for it's entirety (and if you weren't, it's ok, but you should go back to Day One and start reading), you might remember that Myles was at the wedding that I crashed on Day 49. He is an old friend who now lives in San Francisco. We had talked, ahead of the trip, about getting together for dinner when I was in town. He asked me how I was spending the day in the city.

"Well, right now I'm on my way to a spa in Chinatown to get a foot massage!" I said, triumphantly.

"Interesting, you didn't strike me as a happy-ending kind of girl," Myles said.

I laughed because Myles is hilarious and it would be like him to assume that I was going to a shady massage parlor that offers a wide array of "services," most of which I wanted no part. But then I paused, concerned for a moment that maybe that was the kind of place Elizabeth was sending me to. No way, I decided. Her place is legit. I'm not worried.

My conversation with Myles involved a few other jokes about Chinatown massage parlors, but I refused to let any of them get to me. We moved on to talk about our plans for later that night.

After a few minutes he asked me a question.

"Are you by yourself?" This conversation was getting weirder.

"Yes."

"Ok," he said, sounding almost relieved, "I would not go to that place your friend is telling you to go to."

I honestly couldn't tell if he was being serious or not. About 95 percent of my conversations with Myles involve inappropriate jokes, so to hear him seriously tell me that there was a chance the place I was going to could get raided by the INS, was concerning.

After we hung up I called Elizabeth to confirm that the idea she'd given me as thing I've never done before in San Francisco was legit and not creepy. So while I appreciated Myles' warning, I proceeded with my plan and went anyway to Ching's Chinese Medicine and Therapy for a foot massage.

Ching's was in the middle of Chinatown, which was bustling with activity. I walked through the door, which let out a very loud "Ding," to alert everyone upstairs, and within a mile radius that I was on my way. When I got to the top of the stairs, I walked into a normal-looking waiting room. I knew Elizabeth was right when she said this place was less spa-like, more ancient-Chinese medicine-like.

Less happy endings, more painful ones.

One of the ladies escorted me back to a room with two chairs, much like the spa pedicure chairs at nail salons. Only this chair sat lower to the ground, there was no tub at the bottom and I couldn't instruct it to knead my back with a remote control.

That shouldn’t have mattered, though, because Elizabeth told me that while my feet soaked, someone would come in to massage my shoulders too.

I sat in the room for a while, reading outdated issues of Shape magazine. Despite no massagers, the chair was actually quite comfortable. After several minutes had passed, a large woman entered the room awkwardly carrying a large tub full of water. She didn’t say anything, but appeared friendly and smiled a lot. She motioned for me to take my socks and shoes off and put them in her tub full of lukewarm water.

I did, and she left the room. I went back to reading my magazine.

One minute later, she returned to get started.

I can’t remember if I was looking down or what, but the second she touched my foot, I flinched, as if I wasn't expecting her to touch my feet, despite the fact that I has asked, and paid for, a foot massage.

That I chose a foot massage was all because of Elizabeth's recommendation. She sold me when she said while the ladies let your feet soak, they'll massage your shoulders too. Only I forgot that I hate to have my feet touched at all. And my lady didn't massage my shoulders.

Why I didn’t just get the full body massage, which was more or less the same price of the foot massage, I still don’t know.

My lady saved all of her energy for my feet. She grabbed my foot out of the water, held it up and glided her knuckle down its arch. It freaking hurt. Bad. But it also tickled, which confused me. How can something tickle, and be painful, at the same time?

No one ever discussed this with me (the lady and I never spoke to each other), but based on the many charts showing the pressure points of the body, I’m going to assume that the focus of their massage practice was pressure. Lots and lots of pressure.

I tried to lean back in the chair and relax, but I found myself gripping the arm rests, like white-knuckle style. The woman massaging my feet and I made eye contact several times and I thought she’d be able to read the discomfort all over my face, but she just laughed, like the women do at the nail salon when I jerk my leg back from their hands when they tickle me.

The massage lasted a half-hour, and I’d say I was relaxed for a total of seven minutes, the time she wasn’t touching my feet, but massaging my legs. My feet did feel better after she was done, but I wished I’d made a wiser decision about what kind of massage I purchased.

When I was done, my happy feet took a long walk to Fillmore Street, near where we had eaten the night before. I took my time, poking my head into several shops along the way, dodging the intermittent rain. This trip was my first experience with rainy San Francisco weather, which I had managed to avoid the last two times I'd been there. I found myself confused by the rain there, because it always seemed to downpour while the sun was still shining. The showers never seemed to last very long and the rain was friendly.

Not dark, ominous, I'm going to ruin your walk rain. Sweet, gentle, I'm here to cool you off San Francisco rain.

I walked down Fillmore until I got to the Fillmore, one of San Francisco's historic music venues. Unfortunately there were no good shows happening while I was there, but I still wanted to check it out.

Later that night, Elizabeth, Kristof, and I met Myles, who lived in the neighborhood, for dinner at Yabbies Oyster Bar. Ahead of us meeting him, Elizabeth sternly said to Kristof that we all needed to be on our best behavior at dinner. The conversations we'd been having over the weekend needed to be toned down, as we'd all reached a level of comfort with each other was one that an outsider might not be okay with.

Within five minutes of our arrival, however, after I assured him that there were no happy endings at my foot massage, Myles set the pace for inappropriate. Soon jokes were flying out of our mouths at record speed like we'd all been best friends for a lifetime. The door had been opened for an "anything goes" kind of conversation that my mom would be ashamed of, but one that I'm still laughing about.

We finished the night with a couple of drinks at a local bar, and I wasn't feeling as bummed anymore. I'd manage to get a happy ending out of this day after all, just not the kind you find at creepy massage parlors.

San Francisco on Dwellable

Day 161: Prime Real Estate

We woke Sunday morning to a beautiful day at Lake Tahoe. The sun was shining and there were only a few clouds in the bright blue sky. A perfect day for a lot of things, including driving back to San Francisco. I was bummed that we couldn't stay and ski again, convinced that with just one more day, I'd master not only the mountains, but the ski lift as well.

Several of us took a walk around Cynthia's parents' neighborhood, enjoying the sunshine and our last minutes in Tahoe. I spent some quiet moments feeling thankful for the weekend I'd just had, the new friends that I'd made, and most of all, for not killing myself on the slopes. I decided then that I wanted to make ski trips a yearly thing. I really want to be a skier.

Sometime mid-morning, we loaded into our cars and headed back to the Bay Area. I was surprised at how tired I was on our return, despite us going to bed early every night we were there. Skiing whipped me!

When we got back to Elizabeth and Kristof's, they both asked me what I wanted to do for the rest of the day. What I really wanted to do was whatever the two of them normally do on Sunday afternoons. I didn't want to disrupt their schedule just because I was in town.

Plus, Sundays, for most people, are sacred. My friend Momo and her husband, for example, have been known to outright refuse to make plans on Sundays, not wanting to jeopardize an opportunity to relax, or to spend the day doing whatever they want. They're not trying to be rude, they just want their Sundays to themselves.

It's not just Momo, though. Even the most social individuals that I know use Sundays to hide out, presumably to deal with the anxiety that their weekend transgressions might've caused. Others that I know concoct elaborate "Sunday Funday" plans, determined to soak up all 48 hours of the weekend. Regardless of how people choose to spend the day, Sundays, I know, are not to be messed with.

I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but I knew I didn't want to make Elizabeth and Kristof run me all over town doing touristy things the day before they had to be back at work, therefore ruining their Sunday.

But Elizabeth refused to let us sit around and watch DVR'ed episodes of "Toddlers and Tiaras" or "RuPaul's Drag Race," much to my dismay. She suggested we instead capitalize on the beautiful day and take a walk on Baker Beach.

Baker Beach is a bit of a ways from Russian Hill, so we walked to catch the bus. On our way to the bus stop, we passed an apartment building in Kristof and Elizabeth's neighborhood that has some units for sale, one of which had caught Kristof’s eye a long time ago, after he'd started looking for a place to potentially buy.

"Let's go check it out," I said as we climbed the hill.

They refused, at first, not wanting to spend one of my days in San Francisco apartment hunting. But truthfully, I couldn’t have been more excited. I love real estate (is that weird?), and though not actively looking to buy a home, I’ve been known to go "house-hunting" in Atlanta from time to time with my real estate agent friends. I like to see how houses are laid out and I like considering how I'd renovate or decorate them if they were my own. As evident by some of the homes I've viewed, I also like to see what kind of freaks I have living in my neighborhood. There are a lot.

Anyway, the opportunity to use this beautiful day to look at some big city real estate was as much for me and my curiosity as it was for Elizabeth and Kristof trying to find a place to live.


Day 161's thing I've never done before was to go apartment hunting in San Francisco and take an X-rated walk on Baker Beach.


A nice, relatively young guy met us at the door when we entered the apartment building and then he took us up on the elevator to the unit.

San Francisco real estate, like a lot of other big cities, is expensive. I'm not sure how it stacks up to places like New York, Boston, or Los Angeles, but I've visited enough friends in these places to understand that we were going to be dealing with big prices and small spaces.

The apartment we viewed was on the 7th or 8th floor, I think, and though I have no concept of how many square feet it was, it was a two bedroom, one bathroom place with a living area, dining room, kitchen and terrace. I think it cost near $800,000. That's a lot of money anywhere, but it's San Francisco, so I wasn't terribly surprised that a place so small cost so much. I was astounded, however, that they would ask that much for this place.

First of all, the apartment was dirty. Don't most people that are trying to sell their house spend a great deal of time keeping the house neat and tidy in case potential buyers decide to stop in unexpectedly for a viewing? Whoever lived in this space looks like they packed their things in the middle of the night and left town without telling anyone. I would have assumed that the things left behind, the creepy, antique-looking paintings, broken dishes and dusty mirrors, would have been removed by the company hired to sell the place.

Not to mention, the apartment was in need of some serious updates. The kitchen alone needed a makeover to bring it out of the 1970s time warp. The bathroom was the size of a half bathroom with a shower, suited only for individuals less than six feet tall.

The worst part of the apartment was that the view the real estate company had advertised was not existent. Not from this apartment anyway.

While we milled around the place, the nice gentleman who had greeted us downstairs left and was replaced a woman. An all-business, judgmental, not nice real estate agent who took one look at us and either assumed there was no way any of us could afford a place like this, or simply was a bitch and didn't want to help us.

To be fair, I couldn't afford this place, but she didn't know that, and how dare she assume.

Kristof became suspicious, after checking out the view, that the apartment we were in was not the one he was interested in viewing. After going back and forth with this rude lady, we came to the conclusion that the apartment he wanted to see was either not for sale anymore, or this lady just didn't want to show it to us.

She also didn't want us to show ourselves out, so she escorted us onto the elevator, with her client in tow and personally showed us the door.

Elizabeth doesn't tolerate rudeness of this magnitude, so even if she and Kirstof had loved that apartment, I could see her refusing to buy it on account of that woman sucking. Words of wisdom to real estate agents in San Francisco: Do not cross Elizabeth.

We caught the bus to take us as far as we could go, and then we walked the rest of the way to Baker Beach. I recognized the view immediately. This is the spot that countless pictures of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge with the white capped waves crashing against the rocks beneath have been taken. The view was spectacular, and I was surprised I hadn't made an effort to enjoy it on my other trips to San Francisco.

We walked towards the bridge, fighting the wind that was blowing wildly and the weird foam that was blowing in off the waves. As we approached the bridge, Kristof turned to me, slyly smiling, and said, "Now this is the naturalist part of Baker Beach."

I smiled and nodded, unsure exactly of what he meant by "naturalist" in this context. Luckily, I didn't have to wonder very long. When I looked up towards the bridge I saw a tall man, likely in his 60's, standing as naked as the day he as born.

Elizabeth turned to me, "This is the naked part of the beach."

Clearly.

Sure enough, the beach's website even says, "The northernmost part of Baker Beach is frequented by clothing-optional sunbathers."

Though I don't particularly enjoy being naked myself, I understand the freedom people feel without clothes on, and I loved that these men were embracing the nudist lifestyle. What confused me though, was that I didn't find the weather to be suitable for nakedness. The wind was brisk and though the sun was shining brightly, I certainly wouldn't have wanted to be in a bikini out there, much less in my birthday suit.

Is nudity weather-proof? Like, if you like to be naked in public, does it not matter that it's cold outside? Clearly this man, and his friend, who was also naked but sitting down, were not bothered by the cool wind.

After we left our naked friends we walked through some other parts of the Presidio, a National Park of which Baker Beach is a part. For 200 years the area served as a military post for three different armies. Now it boasts some of the city's most beautiful views and wooded areas. We walked through the greenspace, passing the Presidio golf course, talking about the 1990 San Francisco earthquake.

There was some discussion when we left the Presidio as to where we should go for dinner. Should we pick up dinner and take it back to the house to watch the Oscars, or should we just eat at the restaurant and then return to the house to watch them? I love it when these are the biggest decisions that I have to make.

The discussion lasted for a while, long enough for us to walk through some of the nicest, most exclusive neighborhoods in San Francisco near the Presidio. We tested our limits to see how long we could linger by someone's yard, checking our their view or staring into their windows.

We talked about what we were going to do and how we were going to get there to do it so long that we ended up just walking all the way to Pizzeria Delfina. We arrived starving and had already decided during our afternoon-long walk, that we deserved to eat whatever, and as much as we wanted.

So, we did, starting with more more baratta (my favorite cheese ever in life), meatballs, and fried cauliflower. The idea was to order a lot of food so that we could take whatever we didn't eat back to Elizabeth and Kristof's, but that didn't happened. We polished off all of the appetizers and two entrees (a pork dish and a pizza) right there.

Since I hadn't eaten since breakfast,I could've eaten anything at that point, but I'm so glad we were eating here. The restaurant was bustling with activity and the food was wonderful.

Besides the baratta, my other favorite thing about the restaurant was the wait staff's t-shirts. The owner of Delfina, concerned about the negative (and sometimes untrue) reviews his restaurant was getting on Yelp.com decided to confront his critics head-on and have the one-star review comments printed on his staff's t-shirts.

Some of the t-shirts said:

"This place sucks."

"The pizza was sooo greasy, I'm assuming this was in part due to the pig fat."

"The service was bitchy."

Damn, this is a good idea. I wish people were also forced to wear their worst reviews on their clothing. My t-shirt might say:

"Shares a little bit too much. Could stand to be a little more aloof."

"Can be flaky at times. Spreads herself too thinly."

"Tends to be sensitive. She shouldn't dish it out if she can't take it."

What would yours say?

After dinner we took a cab back to Elizabeth and Kristof's to settle in to watch the Oscars that Elizabeth had taped. We started with the red carpet walks, judging everyone's outfits before getting to the real show.

A couple of hours into our viewing party, Elizabeth attempted, as she had all evening, to fast forward through some of the commercials. Only in an accidental, but hilarious turn of events, the DVR fast forward button got away from her, and she skipped ahead to the end, revealing to all of us that Hurt Locker had seemingly won the award for Best Picture. Frantic get back to where we were, she reversed. This time, the rewind stopped for us to, again, accidentally, see Sandra Bullock accepting her award for Best Actress.

"Agh, make it stop!" Elizabeth yelled, throwing the remote at Kristof. Elizabeth likes the DVR remote about as much as I like ski lifts, apparently, previously and by accident, erasing the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics.

I was hysterically laughing, considering we'd been suffering through the music tributes, the awards for animated short films and light direction, just to make sure we didn't cheat ourselves of the full Oscar experience. When, thanks to a tricky remote, we were able to, within 30 seconds, get all the answers that we really wanted anyway.

Elizabeth felt bad for destroying the build-up and ruining the ending, but I wasn't mad at all. In fact, I was grateful. DVR is a beautiful thing.

We jumped around to learn who won the other "big" awards and quickly put our Tahoe weekend, the Oscars, and ourselves, to bed.

Day 160: A Northstar Blur

Day 160's thing I’ve never done before was to ski Northstar resort in Lake Tahoe.

I thought after going through the nerves of skiing again for the first time on Day 159, I’d be raring to go, feeling confident in my abilities. But since we were going to a different mountain, with different runs, I felt like I was starting from scratch. The anxiety and nerves were the same.

Helping to add to the nerves, I fastened my boots too tightly, causing my feet to fall asleep before we even got started. This was an easy problem to fix, but I had to play helpless child asking for Chris and Kristof to help clip me into my skis.

The first run of the day was less than stellar. We started on one of the easiest green hills, which also happened to be one of the most crowded. There were several ski schools in progress and at one point I had to make myself fall on purpose to avoid crashing into a ski train of 5-year olds.

Day 160 was not off to a great start.

We decided to go somewhere else for our second trip down the mountain. I had, all weekend, blindly followed the more experienced Tahoe skiers wherever they wanted to go. And so far, it was working for me. So when they said we’re going up higher on the mountain, I trusted this must be a different, less populated but still easy, manageable run.

As we started making our way down, I knew right away that this was not a green run. It was steep and felt much like the yard sale run from the day before.

Elizabeth and I both needed a lot of encouragement to get us down the mountain, but we made it. Eventually. When we got to the bottom, Cynthia, Chris and Kristof all smiled and announced that they had accidentally taken us down a black diamond.

Accidentally took us down a black diamond run?

Part of me was upset. That’s like “accidentally” taking your newly licensed driver for a lap in the Daytona 500. Not. Cool.
But most of me was completely pumped at the thought that I just skied a black diamond run. So what if the only way I made it down was because I was tricked? This little threesome was smart, because had they told me about their discovery midway, I would've likely dropped to my knees and barrel rolled all the way down.

Later we discovered that what they thought might’ve been a black was really a difficult blue. I was less impressed with myself and decided I’d remain suspicious of these three claiming they are taking us down easy slopes. Because to them that apparently means challenging us to go down mountains they know we don’t want to.

We spent the rest of the morning skiing (and Kristof snowboarding) together as a group of five, taking a break for lunch at the Summit Deck and Grill, the highest point at Northstar resort. The restaurant was crawling with skiers, so the people-watching was in full effect.

The bathroom was also crawling with people, especially kids, and the line didn't move very quickly. I couldn’t help but think how short the lines would be for the bathroom at Boots ski resort for adults without any little kids’ butts to wipe.

Chris and Cynthia headed straight to the bar, which was outside and made completely out of ice, and started ordering Bloody Marys for all five of us. I know drinking alcohol and inexperienced skiing has disaster written all over it, but they said that’s what skiers do when they take a lunch break, so how could I not participate and get the full experience? That would be like cheating on the things I’ve never done before list. Plus the Bloody Mary was prepared on a bar made out of ice, with garnishes like a fresh green bean and a piece of shrimp and I just had to have it.

We opted to share two entrees, a decision that I was not in favor of at first, because I was starving. But considering I didn’t pay for food, it was brought to me while I did nothing but relax and enjoy my delicious Bloody Mary, I refused to complain. How could I?

The meals included a Renaissance fair-style turkey leg and bratwurst, along with red beans and rice and a salad. I had always wanted to try one of these turkey legs, curious about where the super-sized turkeys yielding such large legs live, and thankful I didn’t have to actually go to a Renaissance fair to taste one (there are things that even I won’t do for this blog). Once again, the team didn't let me down, because between the tasty food and the garnishes on the Bloody Mary, I was full.

I was also feeling super confident in my abilities as a skier and I was starting to feel the child-like fearlessness I had been longing for. Thank you, Bloody Mary!

After lunch we decided that finally, Elizabeth and I would take on the easier slopes by ourselves and Chris, Cynthia, and Kristof could go down the runs more suited for their level. They went left, and we went right, down a long blue run called East Ridge.

Like usual, we descended down the slope carefully, and slowly. We did well. No falls. No yard sales. When we reached the bottom, we headed towards the lift to go again. My technique on the ski lift since the first day’s mishap had not, sadly, improved. I don’t know why I can’t seem to get the hang of it. I’m either sliding into other skiers or not moving fast enough to keep the line going.

Elizabeth and I shuffled towards the lift, prepared to head to the top of the mountain for the first time, just the two of us. When the operator motioned for us to move forward to where the chair lift "picks" us up, I couldn't quite get there in time, despite Elizabeth's urging me to, "Get up here!"

The edge of the ski lift hit me right in the middle of my body, so while my right butt cheek was on it, the left cheek, actually the entire left side of me, was not. A little scary at first, but I honestly thought that even as the lift was moving I’d be able to wiggle over to the right with ease. Unfortunately, gravity is real. And she’s a bitch. Once my skis lifted off of the ground, my ability to just scoot over became close to impossible and soon I was half-dangling from the lift as it continued ascending to the top. Elizabeth grabbed on to me and with all of her strength tried to pull me back on to the lift. I, too, was trying to pull myself back onto the lift, determined, again, to keep the lift from stopping. Whether or not I would hurt myself if I fell was secondary to the embarrassment I sensed would come if I was responsible for stopping the lift.

The next 30 seconds were a blur. A terrifying blur. Elizabeth's refusal to let me fall worked, though, and within that 30 seconds (the longest seconds of my life), I was sitting, normally, on the chair.

I think it bears repeating: I. Hate. Ski Lifts.

Completely mortified and so tense my hands were shaking, I started to laugh. I glanced at Elizabeth who shot me a look like, “Seriously, get it together and stop putting me through this.” The terror and the embarrassment were awful, but I paused to be thankful that what had just happened, happened with Elizabeth. She was as nervous as I was, which was comforting, but she had enough sense to grab on and not let go, and she didn’t yell and scream dramatically calling more attention to the situation than necessary.

After mildly composing ourselves, Elizabeth turned to the other two guys on the lift and said, “Bet you’re glad you got on the lift with us!” They smiled, but didn’t seem very amused.

We tried to charm them with our sparkling personalities and a lot of self-deprecating humor, but they were either not interested, still pissed about the chair lift incident, or simply just quiet.

Elizabeth decided she’d try another tactic to gain their friendship: tell them about Boots, and ask them what they think.

So she threw it out there, “So…you guys seem like legit, real-deal skiers (flattery always works), what would you think about an adults-only ski resort?”

We definitely didn’t get a huge response from them, but they warmed up to us a little, entertained our business plan and even gave us some feedback, pointing out, like Kristof had, the fact that skiing is a family activity.

Had we said, “How about a ski resort with only good skiers who can successfully get on and off the ski lift without too much drama?” they probably would’ve been more receptive.

We finally reached the top and I’ve never seen two guys happier to get away from me in my life. Actually, that’s probably not true, but they vanished pretty quickly.

Elizabeth and I skied East Ridge several more times with only a handful of mishaps, none of them super memorable, but one that proved chivalry is alive and well in Lake Tahoe.

At the end of the day, we met the crew at the top of the mountain and skied down to the bottom for our apres ski trip to the bar. Along the way, Cynthia led Elizabeth and I to the right of East Ridge down a mini-mogul run. I hesitated, but only briefly. Moguls, even little ones, are fun, and using the pizza technique is possible, regardless of what the professionals say.

Cynthia's generous parents threw a Tahoe-style dinner party for us, some of their friends, and a couple of Italian exchange students from their church on Saturday night.

Cynthia's mom made jambalaya and her dad mixed up Cosmopolitans. The party was festive, the mood was friendly, so at some point, someone decided to let everyone in on our million-dollar idea, Boots Ski Resort.

Cynthia’s parents smiled and laughed. They strike me as supportive, nice people who would support their daughter, and her weird friends, in whatever insane idea they came up with over dinner.

The Italian exchange students nodded and smiled, but I don’t think they were really into it. There is also a good chance they had no idea what we were saying.

While I assumed our idea for an adults-only ski resort ala Sandals was a big joke, the idea kept creeping into conversation. The more it came up, the more I kept thinking about it and wondered if the others were thinking what I was thinking, "Boots really is a great idea, and we should make it happen."

And then Cynthia's mom's friend brought us back to reality, "Where are you going to put this little resort? Are you going to buy a mountain?"

D'oh.

I guess there are still some details we still need to work out.

Northstar on Dwellable