I somehow managed to squeeze out a lovely day despite the drudgery of my afternoon. I woke up at eight (and I'm totally unsure whether I hope that this becomes a habit or that I never get up at eight again) so that I could shower and make it down to Palo Alto by ten a.m. for the third day in a row -- you'd think I was employed down there or something, given how often I'm going down. I wasn't training with Alyssa today, though; I had brunch with Laura and her husband and son. We went to Joanie's Cafe (per my suggestion, of course), and the Joanie's people looked quite confused to see me with three people they had never seen before, since I usually am there by myself. Laura, as you may recall (or as you were refreshed when I mentioned the plan last night), was one of the directors at work for a couple of years, and we became quite close during my six hellish months before I went on leave in 2008. She lives in Texas now, but they were doing a college grand tour for her son, and they made time to have brunch with me between Berkeley and Cal Tech.
It was wonderful to see her; she seems happy in her current role, and we had a great conversation and life and work and everything. After we finished brunch, I took them on an impromptu tour of Stanford, which they had not planned to officially visit -- but once I was done with them, I think I managed to catapult Stanford to the top of her son's college list. Of course, Stanford can sell itself all on its own with the gorgeous campus and perfect weather, but I did talk up its winning points. And, I took them to the library, which is one of my favorite places of the world, and they agreed that it's pretty special. We also walked through the new science and engineering quad, which was built after I left, and it seemed to impress her son since he wants to go into computer science. Really, I'd be happy as long as he goes anywhere but Cal (sssssss), but I'm glad that my alma mater passed their tests with flying colors.
After we parted ways, I went over to zee log cabin and cleaned for a few hours. I had some junk removal people come and clear out the garage, which was worth the money since I simply don't have time between now and the conference to haul a bunch of different kinds of giveaways/recyclables/refuse to a variety of different drop-off points. I also cleaned the bedroom, closets, hall, and living room, and loaded my car with as much stuff as I could fit. The only things left to do are grab my remaining patio chairs, clean the kitchen, and take a few last things out of the house, but that's all stuff that I can tackle on Tuesday.
I left the cabin around 4:30 and went to the grocery store at the end of California Avenue, where I bought cream, bacon, and hamburger in an attempt to get back onto my crazy weird diet for a few days before leaving for New York. I also used their Coinstar machine to exchange all my loose change for an Amazon giftcard (because the giftcard gives you the full value of your coins, rather than giving Coinstar the 9% cut they take if you get cash). As it turns out, 'loose change' is probably a misnomer. Basically, every time I've moved for years, I'm just dumped my big bowl of loose change into a ziploc bag and stowed the bag in my car. So, after sorting through several bags of change and removing all the euros, pounds, yen, rupees, rand, schillings, Singaporean dollars, pesos, etc. (and the euros and pounds were a not-insignificant amount), I took all the US change to the Coinstar. And the end amount was...
...$89.86. That's a lot of freaking change. Granted, there were 13 dollar coins in there, but I also had 47 quarters, 406 dimes, 256 nickels, and 1171 pennies. Needless to say, it was worth going through the minor inconvenience of taking them to the sorting machine. After I finished with that, I stopped by Philz Coffee in Palo Alto to get coffee (obvi), then drove back to the evil city. I sat in traffic for a bit on the approach to the bridge, which is always frustrating since I'm not trying to get on the bridge, but c'est la vie. I made it home around 6:30, did a bit of procrastinating on the internet (mainly looking at hat stores in San Francisco since I'm tempted to get a fascinator to wear to the awards ceremony), and then showered and redid my hair and makeup for dinner.
Dinner was a lovely event; Terry and I walked over to a restaurant called Mezes, which does Greek small plates, and met up with Lauren (aka Subz) for a wonderful girls' night out. I can't do girls' night out every single night, particularly not if it always involves a bottle of wine, but tonight was great. I love Lauren and missed her while she was in Michigan, and I'm glad that she's back and that she'll be pseudo-neighbors with me and Terry (the place we had dinner tonight will be about halfway between us or so when she moves into the house that she and Nathan are currently renovating). So, we had a great time (and a great malbec, much to the chagrin of tomorrow-Sara, who will mildly regret it), and we have grand plans to get together more often in the future.
Terry and I made it home around 10:30, and now that I've stayed up until almost midnight (does 11:23 count as almost midnight? it will once I spend the next fifteen minutes brushing my teeth, washing my face, unearthing my bed from the pile of clothes currently covering it, etc.), I think I'll go to bed. My main plan for tomorrow is not to drive anywhere at all; other than that, we'll see what happens. Goodnight!
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