Pre-London, Post-Panisse

It's been four days since I wrote a post about the jauntiest exercise craze to never actually become a craze, but totally involving the most aggressive white pants/camel toe combination to ever reach 14 million views on You Tube, Prancercise! If I were looking to leave a true legacy, perhaps I should have made that fine work of art my final post. In some ways, that would have been extraordinarily satisfying. Because who goes out with a post about prancing? 

I would.

But if I would have done that, I wouldn’t be about to tell you about last Friday, which involved boarding a private San Francisco bay cruise while wearing a startlingly resilient tattoo of a co-worker's face?

Redacted to protect the innocent!

Have you ever woken up to your husband looking at your forearm and wondering aloud, "Who is that you have on your arm?" I can no longer answer that with “Me neither!” Instead, I am say that it didn't even phase him that I would have a temporary tattoo of Our analytics guy’s face on my forearm. To his credit, Phil just wanted to know who he was gazing at and why it was his day. Can you blame him? 

I do weird shit all the time. Sporting this tattoo for most of the weekend hardly even cracks the top ten. Either does being asked by my vice president to sit down because the seas were rough and she thought me and my male Asian work twin (who were engaged in highly excitable fountain pen and golf talk) were dangers to ourselves? So what if we could barely keep our balance as we rolled over big waves? We were wearing coworker face tattoos, wearing sailor hats, drinking G&Ts and talking about important things  

But if I had left off blogging after that, then I wouldn't be able to scream from the bloggy blog-tops (because that's a thing) that I'm going to London in TWO DAYS. Or, that last night I crossed dining at Alice Water's phenomenal and IMHO-not-even-a-little-bit overrated restaurant, Chez Panisse, off my freaking bucket list. 

But seriously... who knew that stupid otherwise tasteless gourds had delicious freaking blossoms?! Alice Waters, your super niche, edible garnishes that come off of otherwise tasteless vegetables that I hate are a delight. (Feel free to steal that name the next time you're tempted to write "squash blossoms" on your menu, Alice. It'll add panache for sure!)

Floating fried in a pool of corn divinity

Maybe I should make a temporary tattoo of stuffed squash blossoms in corn chowder? YAS.

Did I mention that I consumed this food in a cozy haven of arts and crafts goodness? All wood and stained glass and cutouts? Yeah! And did I also mention that I decided to kick off Krissy's birthday month three days early? 

<Pauses to admonish her son for yelling "suck my balls" at his friend over ye olde Xbox chat.></longsufferingmomsigh> 

And I'm back... Did I mention that it took me two hours and twenty minutes to drive to Berkeley? Yeah! I mean no. That part definitely sucked. 880 is definitely the second worst, soul sucking piece of asphalt on this planet. It's the dementor class of freeways, inflicting feelings of extreme despair upon anyone who is forced to drive it's gray, potholed length.

I could take this description of Dementors from the Pottermore article on the subject and substitute 880 for "dementor" and I think it'd still ring true.

Dementors don’t care who you are or what you’ve done. They can see through disguises, and tricks won’t dissuade them. As Dumbledore points out: ‘It is not in the nature of a Dementor to understand pleading or excuses.’

You know what also sucked? Getting busted by Valkyrie for being eight minutes from her house without calling? But still worth it! Sorry, Valkyrie. You understand. I know you do. And yes, I'll come back and we can drink red wine out of a box like LADIES.

But the food! And the lack of day-after regret at having put all of the food on my tongue. And the great shop talk and travel talk and book talk with my dear friend Jane. </contentedsigh>

Sometimes I am dumbstruck by how lucky I am. Like, unbelievably lucky. And as I kick off what I think might be my finest decade, I know this whole month will serve to remind me of how fortunate I am to be so privileged, to be born in this body in this area of the world, and surrounded by so many awesome sights, smells, tastes, and people (not to be confused with smelling and tasting actual people). For those of you who suffer my crazy all of the time and somehow still manage to stomach me (God, I really need to stop making creepy allusions to cannabalism, don't I?), I can't wait to spend the next month celebrating my commitment to being next level weird (and committing myself to not accidentally developing a fascination with needless cannibal allusions) in your presence for another 40 years.