marry me juliet, you'll never have to be alone

I had a lovely day, although I'm crashing hard now. I slept a little fitfully last night, which is not a surprise since my advanced age makes it hard to have more than one or two drinks in a night. But I got up early enough to walk to the nearest Philz for coffee, do a bit of writing, and then shower and pack up all my stuff. Then I drove down to Woodside to meet Shedletsky and Bride of Shedletsky for brunch at the Village Pub.

Village Pub sounds like it might be lowkey, but it's definitely not a Village Inn. It's actually part of the same restaurant group that owned my beloved Des Amis before it closed, but Village Pub has been a mainstay forever (and has had a michelin star for twelve consecutive years). They have a three-course brunch offering, which was truly excellent - and we opted for the additional fourth course, which was a perfect risotto covered in shaved truffles. I did oysters for my appetizer, then the risotto, then a perfect french omelette, and then a chocolate souffle, along with my share of a bottle of sauvignon blanc. When I type all those dishes together, they don't match at all - they were spaced out with plenty of time in between each, so it was almost like four mini-meals (or real meals, since the risotto and the omelette both could have been a single meal in their own right).

So we have a very leisurely almost-three-hours hanging out and catching up, and it was a delight to see them. When it was finally time to part ways, I went to Stanford Shopping Center to check in on my old haunts. The mall continues to get more upscale, but it was also absolutely buzzing compared to most malls these days. I also got some interesting intel from the guy who rang up my purchase at Anthro, and I enjoyed wandering around in the sunshine, so it was a worthwhile way to spend an hour.

Then I drove north, checked into my new hotel, unpacked, and zoned out for quite awhile. I finally rallied to grab a burger from the bar (which was fine but extremely subpar compared to my brunch experience) and do a bit of work. And now I'm going to go to bed and hope that I can get a million things done tomorrow morning. Goodnight!