don't you want to feel my bones on your bones...it's only natural

I made it to Los Angeles perfectly on schedule, although I did not go to the gym this morning -- I'll have to confess my sins to Alyssa when I see her on Saturday. I don't know whether the lack of gym attendance, the french fries I had with my lunch, or the pasta I had for dinner would upset her more; regardless, what's done is done, and I'm not expecting to have the most healthy week anyway (although I'm guessing that California Thanksgiving will be healthier than Iowa thanksgiving, if only because I won't be tempted by my favorite french onion sour cream dip and my mother's mashed potatoes -- although on the other hand, my family doesn't really drink and Terry's is more "festive", so maybe I'll just divert my caloric intake to alcohol instead of potatoes).

So I made it out of Palo Alto at noon and was parked and at a cafe a mile away from Terry's house at exactly seven p.m. -- not bad, particularly since I stopped for almost 45 minutes at Casa de Fruta and another 20 minutes at the last stop north of the Grapevine to get gas and wait in an absurdly long drive-thru line at Starbucks. Terry had some school stuff this evening, so I got in 45 minutes of writing while lingering over my pasta, and then she met me there and had dinner while we caught up. We came home, I gave her a bottle of wine for hosting me, she was excited about the wine but had lost her corkscrew, and so we went to the grocery store in our pajamas to buy a corkscrew (thus looking a bit deranged, but as that's how I usually look, I'll take it). Then we came back to her place and drank some of the wine while watching three episodes of "Bones", the show that she successfully hooked me on despite my many protestations that it's stupid and unwatchable (as usual, I was wrong).

Tomorrow promises to be fun; we're going to the gym in the morning (in hopes that she can get me in with a guest pass, since my membership is club-specific rather than all-California), and then I'm writing for a few hours while she does some school stuff. Then, I'm invading her afternoon with her sisters, and we're apparently getting mani/pedis and doing other girl stuff (which I could desperately use, since my toenails are devoid of color for the first time in years -- having a house hovering just this side of freezing has made painting my toenails difficult, since they're usually buried in either slippers, fuzzy socks, my down comforter, or all three when I'm home). It's going to be quite an interesting sociological study to see someone else's Thanksgiving traditions -- particularly Terry's family, since she has four siblings and, as I mentioned, they are "festive". So, I'm super psyched, and I will report back on my findings over the next few days.

Now I need to go to bed; Terry gets up at the ungodly hour of 5:30 (which I do not understand or approve of, and may need to take into consideration when her friendship lease is up for renewal in a couple of years), and while I don't have to get up then, I still have to get up around 7:15 so that we can make it to the gym by eight. I don't think I've gotten up at 7:15 since my days as a paid, productive member of society, so this should be interesting. Goodnight!