2/13

Urg. Post-vacation fatigue. It was a packed three days. Friday nite we flew out on the red-eye, arriving at SFO 5:30 a.m. I flew with three of the girls but not Connie, who for some strange reason was booked on a United flight with the oldies. So Jennifer's sister and boyfriend picked us up and dropped off me and Jeaneen at Royal Pacific Motor Inn (described by Jen and Rene as a dump, it's actually a great place to stay if you are very low-maintenance like Connie and myself.) Jennifer and Rene continued on to Holiday Inn and Connie, Jeaneen and I checked in and unpacked and were about to take a nap when Charlie called us for breakfast. So Connie had pancakes and I had the "American Breakfast" at the Chinese owned diner down the little alley -- two eggs, bacon and enough hash browns to make you sick. And a tiny glass of orange juice. We decided we could nap for an hour before we had to meet Connie's sister Heidi at SFMOMA. The nap was a mistake, and we dragged our miserable bodies downstairs and took a cab to the museum.

It was the funnest cab ride I've ever taken, actually my first SF cab ride ever because we rugged low-maintenance folk (cheapos) take MUNI or walk under normal circumstances. But these were totaly abnormal circumstances, we had been deprived of sleep and then drugged with hash browns, fallen into a temporary coma and then dragged off by the Itinerary Police to get cultured. Anyway the cab ride was lots of fun, quite a bit like a real-life Crazy Taxi spin, we caught curb and air and got there in less than ten ker-r-r-r-azy minutes. We got there before it opened, in fact. It opens at 11. So while we waited for Heidi and her friend Ting we ducked into a food court for warmth and then wen tto the gift shop to wait for them. I tried on a necklace with a blown-glass pendant.

Finally Ting and Heidi showed up and we took a million pictures in the foyer under the direction of photography buff Heidi and architecture major Connie. Honestly I don't really remember much about our excursion except wandering from floor to floor looking for benches to sit on because I was so tired. Connie kept giving me strawberry-flavored White Rabbit, Ting kept saying things like "Why would anyone want to photograph their dead son?" and I kept trying to take secret pictures (got yelled at by the guard once or twice.) I wasn't trying to photograph the art, I was trying to shoot this girl who from behind looked exactly like Kelly Osbourne (though I guess that's not really a difficult thing to accomplish if you've got a good pair of scissors and some strawberry jello powder.) The four of us and Kelly were in the August Sander exhibition and I was inspired to take a picture of Kelly standing by her dad, this guy in a gray suit. But I had to use the flash and so that was the last photo, because a guard started following us around after that.

THe only other clear memory I have is the aerial bridge you had to cross to get from the stairs leading to the fifth floor to the actual fifth floor floor. Just use your imagination on that one. It was great. It seems like an ordinary walkway but then you look past your feet and see down to the first floor. that was quite a jolt.

I'll have to go back another time when I'm not so tired. I think I would have enjoyed the August Sander exhibit a lot if my head wasn't packed with oatmeal.

We went back to the gift shop, where i put my head down on an $8000 space-age desk and slept while Connie, Heidi and Ting raced around looking for souvenirs for Connie's in-laws. Then we left and I hailed a cab (with my arm! cross that one off the list of things to do before I die!) and we flew bck up to Chinatown to meet Connie and Heidi's cousin Adam and his girlfriend, whose name I forgot. We walked around looking for a dim sum place (like that time I was up there with Nir, all the dim sum places in Chinatown disappear when you actually want to eat at one) and we settled at a restaurant near our place (aka The Dump) and didn't actually eat dim sum. Connie and Adam's girlfriend ate noodles, Ting ordered something in Mandarin that she couldn't explain, and I did somethign strange and ordered shrimp fried rice but it was the best fried rice ever. It was so good. Adam's girlfriend ordered Singapore mai fun for him which was actually what I had been craving but since it wasn't on the menu and since she had ordered in Mandarin I didn't know they had it. I got it a couple of days later at the Hakka place two doors down from The Dump, but they used udon or something and that killed my craving.

After lunch Adam and gf took Heidi and Ting back to Santa Clara and Connie and I got ready for the pageant. I had brought up about three possible tops and three possible bottoms but none of them matched AT ALL. Fortunately I had also brought up two Chinese jackets which acted as band-aids for the most hideous of ensembles. I loaned the nice, comfortable and tame one to Connie and wore the scratchy, red/gold/black/etc. one over a lace shirt and punky Parasuco jeans which I am too short for, with boots and peacoat. I was dressed two-fifths proper. Kam, a former contestant, and her boyfriend picked us up in a van and we drove over to the Palace of Fine Arts (which was great, but secretly I had been hoping for another cab ride. Whee!)

We got invited to a pre-pageant reception, where we pigged out on a spring roll buffet and wished Darah, our delegate, the best (though it was obvious she would do just fine). Took some pictures, and I fell asleep on a cocktail table reminiscing about the last time I was in that lobby (I believe I was running around with a 'fro, crying my makeup off. It was ten minutes to showtime. I was hysterical. Hey ... you really do look back on these things and laugh.)

Eventually we were seated, accessorized with Darah buttons and fan-fans, a whole row of screaming Hawaii (or at least pro-Hawaii) people, delirious from travel and jittery even though we knew she'd win. I was also rooting for Fala Chen from Miss Asian America and a cute girl named Jenny Wei (who won the talent scholarship). It was a fun show (though the entertainment was sort of ... long.) She won, and she acted properly shocked which was kind of cute and then we all piled out to the lobby where I found my former housemother, Mommy Penny, who along with some other people were there to support Fala. I gave her some Kona coffee that I brought from home ("it's like gold!" she squealed.) Also got to see some of the other friends I made two years ago, which was really fun.

But it was really late and the next few days, according to the Itinerary Police, were packed, so I declined the invitation to step out and Connie, Jeaneen and I went home to The Dump, but before we could crash I had to buy toothpaste so we walked up to Walgreens, less than a block away, and bought snacks, toothpaste and a beanie for $1.99 that made me look like a robber. Then we crashed.

Jeaneen checked out the next morning, and Connie and I walked to Fisherman's Wharf (CrabFest!!) to see the sealions and eat clam chowder in a bread bowl. Yes, we're hokey like that. She continued to agonize over what to get the in-laws, and I bought a bracelet that I lost a few days later. We walked on to Ghirardelli Square, loaded up on chocolate, took more pictures, walked back, sat on the beach, scored fresh crab for $6/lb and ate it on a bench a few yards away from a silver man taking a snack break. After that, I think, we went looking for the block of little theatres I remembered from my solo trip a couple of years ago. It was nowhere to be found, and everyone we asked said something different. So we started on a new mission, looking for Grace Cathedral, with nothing to go on but a hunch and a misprinted map. Every time we saw a spire we would run toward it, sometimes for blocks. We eventually found it, and Connie took pictures of the famous gilded doors and one of me skulking on a ledge to point irreverantly at the Cathedral name. (After she stopped screaming at me to get down, she snapped the picture.)

It was midnight by then. We walked back toward The Dump, stopping at Starbucks for 2-for-1 sandwiches and caramel apple cider. We rested our feet for a really long time. Connie had a long phone conversation, either with Benny or her dad, and then we left and walked the rest of the way home. We went to sleep.

Next morning we got up a little earlier and walked toward Market Street. I had to have another apple cider so we stopped at another of the city's bazillion starbucks(es) and got cider and a bagel (Connie had coffee and an organic yogurt) and we skipped down to the Shopping Centre (it looks retarded spelled that way!) and shopped. I wish I could say I bought fun exciting things but actually I only restocked my Bath & Body Works supply and even Victoria's Secret was pretty boring, just stocked up on basics. We walked up to the Imposters store at Union Square, where they had a cute Tiffany-knockoff heart charm bracelet that I was going to buy except as I told Connie it seemed kind of lame to buy myself a Valentiney gift, but later I thought about it and realized nothing ever stopped me from buying myself occasion gifts before. How dumb. And it was only $30.

I dragged Connie to the Union Square Victoria's Secret thinking I might find somethign a little racier than 100% cotton, but no luck. I bought more cotton so the walk wasn't wasted, adn we caught the cable car back to Chinatown.

We ate at Mon Kiang, the Hakka hole-in-the-wall with the terrible Singapore noodle, and set off to find the historic Alhambra theatre. Like the previous night when we went off in search of the theatres and Grace Cathedral, we walked up streets and down streets, consulting our raggedy map and gettign more and more lost. When we finally stumbled on the theatre, which was described in something I read as a warmly furnished historic theatre featuring classic children's movies most of the time, we found that it had been turned into a gym. We were puzzled, then outraged, then amused in a hysterical sort of way, so we tried to document out absurd finding with a few photos but the guy at the desk said -- get this -- "This is a historical building. You cannot take photos in here, it ruins the interior." I took stock of the weight machines and treadmills and politely as I could pointed out to Mister Deltoid that the interior had already been ruined. So we glumly set off in some random direction and ran into Russian Hill bookstore, where I bought "The Life of Johnny Reb," and "Lost Love: A True Story of Passion, Murder, and Justice in Old New York" both used. The guy there rang me up and offered his opinion on which Civil War books and films I should read and watch, and in what order. He seemed so hard-core that I was too ashamed to tell him that my interest in the Civil War is about as deep as an MGM studio backdrop of, say, Atlanta burning. But since I'm trying to delve a little further into this culture by reading more than Gone With the Wind, I dutifully took notes on Gods and Generals, Gettysburg and every written history he saw fit to mention. I thought I should contribute something to the conversation, so I told him about "Confederates in the Attic." He looked at me blankly. I took my scratch paper, thanked him and left.

We walked home, stopping at the pizza place near Big Al's (The Dump is located in the "Pornish" area of Chinatown, kind of the charmless bottom of North Beach, Little Italy) so I could get a slice of stone-cold cheese pizza for dinner. Brought it back to the room. Connie ate her sandwich from lunch. We talked and packed, showered, went to bed.

Next morning I called my Aunty to tell her I was takign a cab to her place so my uncle wouldn't have to come get me. Connie and the rest of the tour left on a shuttle to the airport (they were going on to Vegas, where Connie would be meeting Benny) and after I sadly (and somewhat enviously) said goodbye to all of them, I jumped in a cab and sped off to my Aunty's house. Well, not really. The cab driver, whose name was Yuri, didn't know how to get to my Aunty's street. Neither did I, although I knew that it was very close by. A small street close by. Well, that didn't help. He whipped out his map and studied it for a few minutes before declaring "Ah. Ha. Ah." And we drove around in circles, and he consulted his map some more, and my suitcase and I got there $6 later. I was being cynical and thinking that he probably knew I was blank on how to get there and so he purposely played dumb, but even after I left him with a 40-cent tip he helped me get all my stuff out on the curb and even waited in the car until my Aunty shuffled downstairs to open the gate for me.

My Aunty sent my poor old uncle to Leavenworth for dim sum takeout, so I talked to her and played with the baby till he got back with the food. I was fully sick by then, having lost my voice the day before, and so the baby and I were coughing, sneezing, tired and cranky together, but after lunch and a full hour of my uncle's war stories (which usually I love, but I was just so tired) I fell asleep on the sofa, even with the baby (who was refusing to take a nap) toddling over to poke me in the face every once in awhile. At 2:30 the airport shuttle came to take me away, and my Aunty tried to give me money for the shuttle, the porter, cough drops, etc. and I was sad to leave the couch and the baby and my Aunty and Uncle even though the visit was only a little longer than one morning long.

I checked in, bought magazines and went to find the Jamba Juice so I could get a Kiwi Berry burner, which tasted so awful I asked the girl to make a new one, which was a good thing actually because I was forced to try something new. The mango. It's very good. I got the mango with Immunity Boost, though it would have made more sense to get the Coldbuster because I was already sick, but I can just never order that thing, it sounds gross. It sounds like something somebody sneezed in.

I called my mommy from the gate about an hour before boarding. I read my magazines and tried not to think about not liking flying. I finished my Jamba Juice and parmesan pretzel and I was full and sleepy but it was obviously going to be a full flight so I tried not to get my hopes up about napping. My seatmate was nice, though. It was an extremely turbulent flight, but before takeoff I had made a deal with God that if I could just get home to my puppy and everyone else I missed, I would not skip work the next day like I was planning to, and I would not get mad at any of the crying babies or their parents on the flight, and I would fill out the agriculture form honestly. Okay so I was a little silly. But you know, I don't fly well anymore, and I'm not sure why ... I've flown since I was four, I fly somewhere at least once a year, and I used to love it. I used to think it was so much fun. Now I can't wait to touch down, and if it were at all practical I'd take a slow boat just about anywhere. rather than fly. But anyway, it was silly and it's kind of weird but not only did those cranky babies not annoy me in the least, I felt this inner peace and natural nice-ness that didn't evaporate when we landed safely. I still have it. It's so strange. No road rage. (Of course, it's only been two days.) Anyway I did go to work the next morning (so tired I wanted to cry) but I did not fill out the agriculture form. (What did I have in my possession? Like I'm going to say here.)

Anyway, vacation over, back to work, etc. Connie's back in SF, still on vacation, and I hope she's having fun. I also hope Benny has a better flight back than I did, as his fear of flyign borders on a phobia.