Tag Archives: travel

On Thanksgiving Eve

misty road

I wrote this Wednesday evening, as we drove to the Big Trees area of California. Since we’ve been here, there has been no cell service, so forgive this late posting!

Jonathan and I are on another road trip.

This time we’re driving down an old California highway, through forest and field, to my aunt’s cabin. It’s dark out, but the moon is full enough* to illuminate the surrounding scenery. We’ve been talking about work and the last time either of us had been down this road, between bites of cheap-o pizza.

“I haven’t been down here since I dated…”

“Yeah, I know. The guy you were kind of a jerk to.”

“…..yeeeaaaaah. I still feel bad about that.” And I do. He was a really nice guy, and I thought I loved him. Only problem was, I was kind of definitely a jerk to him. I was a stupid teenager who didn’t know what she wanted in a relationship, or how to be clear the relationship I was “in” wasn’t a mutually exclusive one. Oops. I’m over that now.

Jonathan pops in a cd, and starts singing along in his adorable pseudo-falsetto singing voice. He hasn’t quite discovered how to utilise his proper singing voice, but he’s so cute when he gets into the song that I just smile and shake my head. At least this time it isn’t Katy Perry**. We’ve been harangued by fog off and on, and there are patches on the road so thick you can’t see 50 feet ahead of you.

We drive past an open space, with a house in the distance. The lights are on, and the warm glow spills out into the darkness, creating a small island of gold in a sea of inky black. I like to imagine the family inside is gathered in the living room, with a fire roaring in the hearth. Maybe they’re baking a pie in preparation for tomorrow, or maybe they’re sitting down to a brutal game of Scrabble (in which Dad pockets an extra “E” when no one is looking, and Mom wins thanks to her collection of harlequin romance novels that use a million different adjectives to describe the hero’s pecs). In any case, I hope they’re warm, and happy, and thankful for family and food and friendship.

The fog is back, thick as last night’s pea soup on the back porch in 30° weather, thick as thieves***, thick as the hair on an Armenian man’s arms…or back. It’s hauntingly beautiful, settling over the trees and hills like a soft grey blanket. At one point there is a break in the trees and I see a bank of low mountains, tops shrouded in mist, their flanks disappearing into an ocean of cloud. The sky above is clear and the stars are shockingly bright; it seems like the same stars I see at home have tripled up here in the clean, crisp air. The moon hangs over the scene like a spotlight, and a passing jet leaves a vapour trail that captures some of the moon glow and creates a spear of light against the dark sky.

I turn back to the road in time to see Jonathan start to swerve and hit the brakes in a panic. Adrenaline explodes from some part of me, deep in my chest, and I instinctively reach out my left arm in a soccer-mom fashion to protect Jonathan. The moment of fear is over as quickly as it started, and I see a furry lump dash off to the right.

“Stupid raccoons.” I mutter. “I hate those fuzzy morons, but thank you for not ruining my car.” Jonathan nods in his self-satisfied way and goes back to his singing. I hit a raccoon once, barely a year after I had first gotten my car****. It was near Christmas, and I was driving down a back road to my mom’s house, when this thing the size of a dog darts out in front of me. I didn’t have time to even touch the brake. CRUNCHthump and it was over…for most of my front end. I turned around to see where the raccoon had gone, but it had disappeared. For all the damage it did, it may have been made of steel. Cracked radiator, broken fog light, broken bumper mounts, ripped off gravel shield…grand total for repairs: (including a minor paint touch up) $1635. Thank goodness for full-coverage insurance! The adjuster who came to inspect the damage said I got off lucky; many of the cars he saw that had hit raccoons had to be totalled. Those things are definitely not on my good list, even more so since they harass my cat.

We’ve now been in the car nearly three hours, twisting and turning through roads and valleys and tiny towns I have never heard of. The temperature has dropped as we’ve increased elevation, and so has the cell signal. We get to the neighbourhood my aunt’s cabin is in, and start to navigate through the maze of streets. We miss a turn, and I panic: no service, how will this stupid Apple maps app recalculate?! But I am surprised to see that it does, and after a few more turns we reach her street. After nearly passing the house in the darkness, I spy her outside waving at us. We park and unload our stuff, stepping gingerly down the slippery wooden stairs.

It’s a cute little place, with wood panelling everywhere and a spectacular view that we cant see because it’s dark out. The heater in our room is humming and it’s toasty warm. I yawn and stretch and climb in between the clean sheets, and decide to torture my brain with a few Lovecraft stories, wondering where the heck he came up with these fiendish, terrible ideas. After thoroughly creeping myself out, it is time for bed, for tomorrow we feast. Bring me some ZZZs and then bring me some pie!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone (even you, Canadians, though your Thanksgiving was last month). I am thankful for my loving family (no matter how strange they seem to be), my amazing friends (“real life” and on the Internet, near and very far away), my job, my pets, my car, my clothes (of which I always seem to accumulate more and more…), my health and sanity, and of course my wonderful husband (even when he doesn’t share the Xbox or farts so much it’s like walking into a gas chamber).

What are you thankful for? Please don’t tell me it’s the Black Friday deals!

*Waxing quarter, to those lunar lovers out there.
**I lied. it wasKaty Perry. I walked into our room last night to find him singing along and dancing to “Part of Me” while he was putting laundry away. “What?! I’m not ashamed of it!” He protests, when I look at him with my “seriously?!” eyebrows.
***I never really understood that phrase, but I needed something to put there. Feel free to educate me, Internet.
****A silver 2007 Volvo S60 inline 5 turbo charged monster that looks tame but has a lot of torque. Especially when I stomp on the gas, as I am known to do sometimes…

Look up!

look up

look up

I’m sitting in a metal tube with 35 other people.

We’re hurtling through the sky at an incredible velocity, thousands of feet above the skin of the earth.

Looking down I can see sensuous green snakes of water, coiling and writhing back on themselves in wide wet swoops.

I can see blocks upon blocks of city streets, packed and buzzing with the lives of the people that live therein.

I can see miles of blue sky dotted with white puffs of water vapour. Pillows of cloud skid along on an unseen track, buffeted by the invisible air currents.

I can see all sorts of beauty from here in the sky, and it is wondrous.

I know that if I were outside in the blue, I would choke on the lack of oxygen. I would also plummet 35,000 miles to a rather gruesome end.* But I also know it would be quiet. Silence would press upon my eardrums. The sun would beat down on me, unhindered by the screen of cloud, and I would be warmed by its rays.

Maybe I’ll go skydiving one day.

* “A quick drop and sudden stop!”

Yeah, THOSE Wheatons. AKA The Best Night Ever.

Nerds

This is the final installment of our San Francisco wOOtstock story. You can read about our drive down here, and about my near-breakdown here. Have fun!

Date: Sunday, January 29, 2012.

Location: San Francisco

Setting: The living room of a spacious apartment, on an inflatable mattress.

It’s Sunday morning, and I am awake. I didn’t get to sleep until shortly after midnight, and didn’t sleep well afterwards. The inflatable mattress we had brought with us had sprung a leak sometime in the recent past, and was slowly deflating. My protesting back attested to this unpleasant fact.

Another unpleasant fact: My husband was snoring. Loudly.

I took this as my cue to get up and start getting ready for the day. I figured a good place to start would be to paint my nails, since I didn’t want to meet the Wheatons with un-manicured claws. That would never do! I settled in to my task and was half-way through when Jonathan woke up and got ready. Being the manly man he is, all he had to do was ruffle his hair and brush his teeth, and he was ready to go.

Now, you ladies know that once you start painting your nails, you are STUCK where you are until they’re dry. You can’t go to the bathroom, you can’t do your hair, you can’t do diddly squat! This can be a problem when you have an impatient husband who is hungry RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND AND WE HAVE TO LEAVE NOW!!!!

Then we went to [REDACTED CUZ IT'S BORING] Then made our way towards Chinatown.

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After locating a perilous parking spot on a ridiculous hill*, we put on our walking shoes and set off in search of cool things. If you’ve never been to Chinatown in San Francisco, I highly recommend it. There is some awesome architecture, and if you’re up to it, some excellent food. Unfortunately, having stuffed ourselves with French toast (again), we didn’t eat anything.

We wandered around Chinatown for several hours, and were lucky enough to stumble upon a Chinese New Year celebration in the streets. Tristan was drawn toward the sounds of firecrackers and drums, and we discovered two Chinese dragons marching up and down the streets, bowing and bestowing blessings on the local businesses. It was pretty cool; it’s not everyday we get to see cultural events like that.

We eventually found our way out of Chinatown, and hiked back up Sacramento St to where our car was parked. It was still early in the afternoon, so we decided to go check out the cathedral a few blocks away. I had never been in a cathedral like this before. This place was massive; soaring buttresses and stained glass everywhere. It was absolutely silent as we walked in, and only a few other tourists and some people sitting in the pews.

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Even if you’re totally anti-religious, you can admire the architectural wonder that is a cathedral. This building was only a couple hundred years old, and may not have been as intricately detailed as say, Notre Dame, but it was still awe-inspiring to walk around in it.

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Ok, ok. Let’s fast forward a couple hours, since all we did between approximately 4:00 pm and 6:00 pm was wander around.

Now it’s a little after 6, and Jonathan and I are seated at a large table at the Top of the Mark lounge. I have to give Anne props here, since she was the one who suggested it. This place was swank…fancy cocktails and “light dining”, which means when you want food, you get the fancy, itty-bitty portions that sometimes end up costing more than your car.**

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See that hotel in the background? Yeah, we were at the very top. It was so gorgeous!

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Confession time! I was beyond nervous. I was about to meet a lady who I had only spoken to on Twitter, who was married to the Nerd Emperor†, and who was friends with all of the performers we were going to watch later that evening.

I guess you could say I had ALL THE NERVES!!! I was jittery and shaky, and I kept touching my hair. Jonathan kept laughing at me, telling me to calm down. He thought I was cool, surely she would too. We were messaging back and forth on Twitter, her letting me know they were on their way, and me telling her we had a table and were just hanging out, enjoying the awesome view. THEN she tells me that Bonnie Burton is joining us as well, and I tell this to Jonathan. He is now very excited too, because Bonnie works for LucasFilm, and he is a huge Star Wars fan. I predict this evening will turn out to be awesome.

The ladies arrive, and I immediately spot Anne in her (totally cute and not Waldo-esque) red and white striped sweater. Guys…she’s gorgeous. She’s got perfect hair, a sparkly white smile, and she’s absolutely hilarious. She gives me a big hug and introduces me to Bonnie and her friend Debbie. Funny story – Debbie lives in the next town over from me, and, get this: her brother is my next door neighbour. SMALL FREAKING WORLD! I couldn’t believe it.

We get fancy drinks and finger foods, and chat about what Ryan has been up to at his new job (awesome stuff, FYI), Bonnie’s taxidermied animals, and the upcoming JoCo cruise. I present Anne with the bottle of home-made lemoncello my mom sent with me, and we all take simultaneous iPhone pics to post to Twitter. My phone battery is at 20%, so I remind myself to use it sparingly.

It’s nearly 7, so we have to rush out of the hotel and down the (crazy steep) hill to the Marines Memorial Theatre, where w00tstock is happening. We’re a loud, happy group; chatting and giggling and walking silly, because that’s what you do when it’s a steep hill and you can just about lay down backwards as you walk.

We make it to the theatre right before the show starts, and Anne instructs us to meet up with her at intermission. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was excited! As you can expect, w00tstock was amazing. Wil, Paul & Storm, Adam Savage, Chris Hardwick and Grant Imahara had us all laughing till our sides split and we wet ourselves. Well, Jonathan and I didn’t wet ourselves, but I can’t speak for the rest of the audience.

One of my favourite parts of the show was the new song performed by P&S about George RR Martin. I hadn’t read the books yet, but I had heard so many good things about them (I have since bought them and am currently in the middle of A Clash of Kings) so this was a funny little teaser that made me want to read them even more.

Here, enjoy!

At intermission, while the other nerds were using the bathroom and buying t-shirts, Jonathan and I caught up with Anne and Bonnie and Debbie, and were escorted backstage to the green room. There we see Wil, Adam, Paul and Storm, all laughing and joking with one another. Anne introduces Jonathan and I to Wil, and he shakes our hands with a smile. Bear with me here, because my brain is fuzzy due to awesomeness and I’m terrible at writing dialogue.

Wil likes our ThinkGeek 8 Bit Life shirts†; several of the other audience members told us they liked them too. I ask Wil if he liked the custom Palomino Blackwing pencils I sent him for Christmas, and he said he did, and that he uses them a lot. I sent them to him when I sent a jar of home-made apple butter to Anne, I figured he would enjoy them when he wrote stuff, since they’re supposed to be superb at writing things. This makes sense, right?! AAAHHH.

Sorry, I was overcome with how the crap do I write this without sounding like a dingbat-itis.

ANYWAYS. The show was amazeballs. I highly recommend you go see it, if you have the chance. It’s funny, and smart, and relevant to nerd interests. After the show we got to go backstage again, and we hung out for a while, until everyone decided to go to a little bar just a few doors down. We ordered pizza and chatted with people, and Jonathan lost spectacularly to Chris Hardwick at table shuffleboard. My phone was officially dead by this point, that’s why there are no more pictures!

We hang out at the bar with the cool geeks until just after 1 in the morning, then we head home. I wake up in the morning to no fewer than 14 text messages from Jeff, and this blog post. The rest is history.

Thank you for tolerating my crazy long post. Sorry it took so bloody long to get it up :)

-A

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*So many dang hills. So many dang STEEP freaking hills. My calves and butt ached for days afterwards.
**This may be a slight exaggeration.
†AKA King of Geeks, Ruler of All Things Awesome, Supreme Mugwump of Table Games, and Dominator of Dice.
††They light up depending on how close Jonathan and I are to one another, it’s really cool.