baby's in reno with the vitamin d

I have successfully arrived at my writing retreat, and if I miss any nights posting, you should assume I'm alive because I have several friends here who know how to get in touch with ye olde Iowa. Today was absolutely lovely as a way to settle into SoCal life - I got up, grabbed some coffee from the cafe downstairs, used my massage gun to work out the tightness in my calves and back (a serious upgrade from traveling with a softball that I used to roll against my muscles in an attempt to create the same effect), showered, etc.

Then, I met up with an old VP (I would call her a big boss, although not the original big boss from 2009, nor any of my more recent big bosses) for a ladies' brunch. She started at my former place of employment about a week before the pandemic, and I met her in person exactly once before everything shut down and I assumed I would never see her again. We worked together somewhat closely for a couple of years, although I never reported to her, but she left a bit before I did. We reconnected in the last few months via LinkedIn, though, and she lives in SoCal, so when I told her I would be around we decided to meet up.

It was an absolutely lovely interlude - turns out we have a lot in common, or at least in parallel, and so we chatted for a couple of hours over brunch (overlooking the ocean) and a glass of wine. And then we parted ways and I spent a few hours at the rooftop pool, taking advantage of my 4pm checkout to soak in as much sun (and tuna tartare) as possible.

Then, I reluctantly checked out of the hotel and took an uber to Carlsbad, where we checked into our retreat house. It's the same place some of us have rented for years, so it's pleasantly familiar. There are a few new faces in the group, but all in all I know 12 of the 14 people (including myself), and some of my besties are here, so it should be a good week. We did the usual room selection rigamarole, and then we ordered pizza (which I suggested doing a week ago and got people to look at the menu before we arrived so that we could order smoothly and no one, especially myself, would get hangry).

After dinner, we all shared our goals for the week/year, which was fun but also tiring when I'm still on central time. I usually hit a wall during this exercise, and Grace happened to be sitting next to me for what she and I have previously experienced as 'troll hour' (where I start muttering trollish comments and she mutters back or nudges me to be quiet). But it was still quite lovely, and I'm excited for the week and the year ahead, so we'll see what happens.

Eventually, I came upstairs and unpacked, and now I need to sleep - I want to try to stay on central time just so I get up earlier here, but it's 11:45pm and I'm backsliding. Goodnight!