rolling in the deep

My day started off well and descended into a veritable swamp of annoyance. I drove down to the glorious south bay to train with Alyssa, who had a gift for me - or rather, Equinox had a gift for me, since I've apparently spent enough on personal training and massage to merit a v. nice new gym bag. It's the most expensive gym bag I've ever bought, given how much I've spent there, but c'est la vie. Our training session was good, and I was sad when we parted ways; I really haven't been home enough to make any progress toward my goals since April, which is both amusing and frustrating - I'm looking forward to settling down again at some point, even though I'm not sure when that point will be.

After showering and drying my hair, I made my first attempt to pick up my dry cleaning, only to discover that they were closed for an hour - annoying. But, I got over it because I had lunch plans with my friend Becky, who is also a writer, and whom I met during my historical fiction class a couple of years ago. She works for one of the local newspapers and just finished writing her first novel, so we had a lot to discuss. And, we discussed it at the new incarnation of Joanie's Cafe - they just opened today in their new location, and I'm happy for them. They're clearly still working the kinks out, since the service was slow even though it's all the same people (I think they kept forgetting that there was a corner they needed to check around, since they seemed to forget about our existence at several points in the meal), and my cobb salad for some reason had olives instead of bacon, but otherwise, the space was nice and I think it will be a good move for them. And, it was great to see Becky and catch up on our writing lives, which was a nice interlude in the stress of trying to get ready for my trip.

I left lunch and made my second attempt to pick up my dry cleaning - only to be told that even though it was supposed to be ready yesterday, it had somehow not arrived on the truck last night. Boo, hiss. They told me that it might be on today's truck, arriving sometime after five p.m. This was bad news, since there was a dress in that dry cleaning that I intended to wear at the wedding, and I didn't have time to drive down again tomorrow to try to pick it up. So, I messed around Palo Alto waiting for the dry cleaner; I went to the mall, got some travel sized moisturizer from Sephora, got two pairs of flat walking-around shoes, and stocked up on unmentionables at the Nordstrom annual sale (which I got to access early, since they value me so much and all). The stocking up on unmentionables was a good thing, since the sale will be over when I get back, but still. Then I ate at Chipotle so that I wouldn't have to try to scrounge up something to eat upon getting home, and then I went back to the dry cleaners.

And the dry cleaner then told me that the dry cleaning delivery truck had been in an accident, and wouldn't show up until at least ten a.m. tomorrow. So, I gave up and will wear a different dress at the wedding, since I don't have time to deal with it. That of course meant that I drove back to the city at the height of rush hour, increasing my aggravation, but I managed to calm down while talking to Terry (and to my brother, who called to discuss [censored]). Terry and I watched some episodes of "Bones" while I took care of vital things on my laptop like buying train tickets, answering multitudes of emails, paying bills, etc. And now, I should really, really sleep - Chandlord and I leave for the airport around 4:15 tomorrow afternoon, and then our adventure begins! Goodnight!