when life leaves you high and dry

I had a perfect day in the city of sin, except for the fact that I'm old and so turned down an 11pm invitation to go to karaoke with Adit. I got up this morning, grabbed some Starbucks from down the street, and did a tiny bit of day job stuff. Then I showered, made myself up, and took a (hilarious) lyft to the other side of the city for lunch at Beach Chalet.

Ocean Beach is my usual meetup place with Veronica, Grace, and Barbara; we used to go to Cliff House, but Cliff House has been lost to time, so we went to Beach Chalet instead. We had far more to discuss than we could cover in two hours, but we're going to see each other again in the coming months (including a Tahoe retreat if people don't move to Duluth first), so this was a nice little appetizer.

Then I got a mani / pedi at my favorite nail salon in the whole world (Silk), and it was great - I hadn't seen them in forever, but they still remembered me and it was nice to hear how some of them were doing. And then I dashed to the Page to meet up with Katrina. Katrina and I have chatted occasionally during the pandemic, but it was far more fun to do it over margaritas (even if outdoor seating here reminds me that San Francisco is totally frigid and I was shivering at five p.m. - note to self that it's 95 in Denver, which is one thing Denver has going for it (until it snows in September)). So we caught up for a couple of hours, and also got some takeout guac from Little Chihuahua to add to the margaritas, so that was great.

Then I came back to my hotel, switched into jeans instead of a jumpsuit and added a sweater under my jacket, and met up with Chandlord. We walked to North Beach and purposefully chose a mediocre restaurant, which was truly mediocre - my wedge salad wasn't a wedge of iceberg lettuce and instead was a bed of romaine, and Chandlord's pizza was bad enough that she abandoned the leftovers. But the restaurant set a v low bar for the conversation, which we exceeded, so I think the night was a success.

Then we walked back to my hotel and laid on my bed and talked until I was starting to fall asleep. And now I need to sleep for real so I can get through tomorrow's round of engagements - goodnight!