always...and never

Crazy weekend. It started on Friday, with dinner at Bella Luna w/Terry and Claudia to (belatedly) celebrate Terry's getting hired and all of us moving in together. The food was great, and the wine was very nice, and I think we all had a very enjoyable (if a little too grown-up-feeling) evening.

Saturday morning, Claudia, Ayla and I took Terry to the airport to go to the East Coast with her sister and aunt for a week. Then, we headed to Half Moon Bay, where I had a barbecue to kick off the month of fun before I leave for India. The barbecue was great--I grilled a lot of meat (steak, chicken, hamburgers, hot dogs), and I ate steak with a knife/my bare hands straight off the grill, which probably horrified some but was so amazingly tasty that it was worth it. The day was as perfect as it could have been; it was a little windy and chilly, just like Northern California beaches always are, but the sun was shining, it didn't rain, and the waves were gorgeous. Almost all of my favorite people were there--some of the mafia kids (with whom I got to play 'Cooked or Dirty' again), some of my freshmen from Loro my senior year (I had a blast watching them terrorize children with their death-kite--they managed to clothesline a kid, which was hysterical), some of my friends from freshman year (well, actually just John and Adit, with the important, but much later, additions of Sri and Vidya), a few people from Mirlo (Shedletsky, Tammy, and Emma, as well as Peter, whom I haven't seen for at least two and a half years, but I invited him on a whim and was v. happy that he came), and some other people whom I'm probably forgetting. It was a fantastic, memorable day, and I'm glad that it happened before I go to India and several of these people graduate and move away.

I didn't get home from the beach until after seven, and I napped for a little bit. John dropped by for a quick visit, and then Tammy and Shedletsky came over. We'd intended to spend the night on the beach, but it was too cold; so instead we watched some Animal Planet until about two, and went to Denny's. We were so lucky that the time changed last night, since it was an hour less that we had to sit around and wait for the dim sum place to open. So we sat at Denny's until after 5am, drove to Millbrae, picked up some refreshments at Safeway and some magazines at Walgreens, and had second breakfast at Peter's Cafe in Millbrae. It's across the street from the dim sum place, and we always made fun of it because we can see it through the window and it looked like it had seen better days. However, it's open 24hours, and the food is surprisingly very tasty; everything we got was great. Around eight a.m. we realized that we were incapable of sitting there another two hours waiting for dim sum to open; so we parked my car half a block from the dim sum place and tried to sleep.

For those of you who have been in my car, you'll realize that a small 2-door Pontiac is not conducive to restful slumber. Claudia didn't sleep at all, although Tammy, Shedletsky and I each managed to pass out for awhile. We woke up at ten, only to discover that the place doesn't open until 10:30. However, we were all very glad that we woke up early, because we had just happened to park on the street where all the workers at the restaurant apparently park--and as they all arrived to work over the course of the next twenty minutes or so, they walked by us, much to our chagrin. We're sure several of them saw us, but judging by how quickly the place filled up, we probably looked like we were just waiting for them to open. Thank goodness they probably couldn't guess that we had actually slept there for two hours after staying up all night to get our much-needed shrimp fix.

Dim sum was tasty; we didn't play the game, since we only have Claudia's turn left before the end of the round and it didn't seem fair to make her play on a mostly-full stomach, since this was our third breakfast in seven hours. We drove home, and I promptly slept for about four hours. I had preexisting plans to see 'Sin City' with a coworker tonight, and luckily I was able to drag myself out of bed and get to the theatre. I really liked the movie, despite the fact that the plot was pretty loose, because the graphics were great and some of the characters were interesting. I also really like Clive Owen, for whatever reason; he's menacing, but he's also trying to protect what he believes in, and that's hot. I apologize again for encouraging a viewing of 'King Arthur' last summer, but I do like Clive Owen, and I can't regret it too much.

Next on the list for the month of fun--my parents are coming next weekend! I've also got a couple of people I want to have dinner with this week. Expect a screening of 'Sahara' in the near future, for those of you who are lucky enough to be on my movie list. India is only three weeks away!!