Cray Cray Time

Sooooooo. Here I am. I'm back. I'm tired. I would LOVE a beer right now. I can't make myself get out of bed today. That's my mood. If I had to describe myself in 1 word today, that word would be "blah".

The last day of the S Clan visit involved first a phone call from our bar friends. They were hanging out at Pony so Blondie and I headed up for a few beers before meeting up with some of the S Clan for our play. The play was pretty good - we saw "The Cripple of Innishmaan" (too lazy to look up the exact spelling) which starred Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame. The plot was that a tiny island off the coast of Ireland had some Hollywood big wigs coming to film a documentary and everyone wanted to star in it, including the Daniel Radcliffe character (the cripple in the title). It was a dark comedy, made me laugh out loud several times, with my favorite line being Daniel Radcliffe saying "Why get a real cripple who can't act? Instead get a good actor who can pretend to be crippled". Meta. So meta. Also - I'm bringing back the word "feck" which is what they said instead of fuck. Feck!

After the play, we went to the surf bar in our hood for some fruity frosty drinks. One of Blondie's aunts can't drink for a medical reason, so she loved this place as she could order virgin drinks and still feel like she was part of the fun. And then after that, we went for a french food with the entire S Clan. We all had a lot to eat and drink, laughed our way through dinner, and then we took a quick walk to our jazz club to end the evening.

The jazz club was pretty cool - it was an 18 piece jazz orchestra we went to see, and even I liked it. They only did an hour set but then the club said we could stay for free for their 2nd set if we wanted. We debated about it but then decided we were all tired, so it was back to everyone's hotel/apartment for the night. I said goodbye to the S Clan then.

Because... California, here I come. I caught a flight out around noon - going through Atlanta. Had several glasses of wine in the Atlanta airport before hopping my plane to SF. It was seriously the biggest plane I've ever been on in my life - and due to my status, even though I wasn't upgraded (I was 34 out of 58 on the upgrade list - when I saw that, I had another glass of wine), I got premium economy (comfy seats). So I konked out almost the entire flight to SF. I landed and picked up a coworker who had flown in earlier that day - he was drinking in a bar in downtown SF, and we ended up doing a driving tour around SF before we left the city. It brought back so many memories - from Lucky 13, to Hobson's Choice, to seeing my old apartment building for the first time since we left, to the bison field in Golden Gate park, to watching the sunset over Ocean Beach.... It was nothing but gooey gooey love for the city I used to call home.

My coworker and I made it about 2 hours out of the city before stopping that night. We got up early the next morning and hightailed it through the Redwoods to get to our project site - we had a few hours worth of work to do and tried to bust through that (it was slightly derailed by a young woman who took a liking to my coworker) but after we were done, we decided to play tourist for the day. We headed back to the Avenue of the Giants and tooled around in that area for awhile. My coworker did the drive-thru tree while I took a ton of pics.

After the Redwoods, we stopped at a gem and mineral store. I got a pretty cool pair of earrings - they are all garnets but they are strung together to look like bunches of grapes. And then we decided to hit up a local brewery the site staff had told us about. OMG - northern CA can make some rocking good beer. We had a few drinks at the brewery, chatted with a couple next to us who were getting ready to do a 3-day long hike (my coworker nick-named them the Swingers and then repeated everything they said to me under his breath while putting a sexy tone to it - it.was.bonkers).

After the brewery, we drove to our hotel to check in and meet up with one more coworker. She had flown in that evening, and realized the airline had lost all her luggage. She was doing the training for the site the next day so we had to do a quick Target run to get her some clothes, before we all went for dinner at yet another brewery. We ended the night early as we were all pretty tired at that point.

Training went *exceptionally* well - the 3 of us that were onsite make a really good team, and it shows in our work that we do together. After training, we stuck around and talk to site staff for another hour or so, before saying goodbye and heading back to the brewery for lunch. We sat out in their beer garden, in fecking (hehehehe) gorgeous weather, before splitting up and heading random places (me back to SF, one coworker up to Portland, the other coworker to tool around the Redwoods). I drove back to SF and realized I had made Platinum status when I got to the airport (not because I've flown enough for that, but because they ran a promo that I signed up for and flew enough to get that status). The flight back was pretty crowded, and I wasn't able to sleep very well, but I was happy to be home when we finally landed.

I took Thursday to mostly sleep through the day. Blondie and I split a few bottles of wine when he got home, and then both of us worked from home on Friday. I was still pretty knackered though, so ended up taking a 3 hour nap in the afternoon, before we headed over to our local bar to start 3-day-weekend celebrations!

The weekend was a lot of fun - we partied with our friends for a bit on Friday. Saturday the weather was shit, so we ordered in pizza and ate in bed while watching TV. The rest of the day was also spent in bed watching TV - making me feel like the laziest person ever. On Sunday, I went and got a pedicure, and then my bar friends texted before I was finished and wanted to head out for a bit. So I met them at Pony and got caught up with our bartender there. We stayed for a few hours before heading down the street to another bar we've been wanting to check out (we got followed by creepy stalker guy from Pony - it was random and a tiny bit scary, but after unsuccessfully trying to pick me and my friend up for 15 minutes, he finally left the bar).

After stalker guy bar, we headed back to our local bar and were joined by Blondie and another bar friend. We hung out there for a bit before some of the site staff from my NJ site texted - they were in the city and wanted to meet up for drinks. So we all went back to the surf bar and hung out with them for a bit. And then it was time to pick up little tacos and go home and crash out for the night (12 hours after I started out of my apartment that morning).

Monday was spent recovering, taking it easy, before work started up with a bang on Tuesday. I worked all day on 2 presentations I had to make the following day, and then on Wed, took the train out to Brooklyn and start off yet a new project. We took a break in the middle of presentations and the account rep told me that she thought I was getting yet another project that she had just signed on - so I checked my email, and yep, Chicago. Here I come.

After the presentations, it was time for a late lunch before going to the office to work a few more hours. Thurs was spent being exhausted and busy in the office and Friday it was back to Brooklyn to run a few tests at the site. I met up with some coworkers on Friday night at my local for many drinks into the evening - which was a great way to end the week. And then yesterday it was lazy town in our apartment.

Plans - I'm off to Chicago on Wednesday this week, staying until Saturday. I have a SHIT TON of work get through tomorrow and Tuesday, not sure how I'm going to fit it all in. And I'm 99% sure I'm about to get a Madison, WI, project tossed at me too.

Feck.

--K