Come back to Texas

I'd love to say for my last day I did something awesome, but not really.  I did go to Saratoga and do 1 last wine tasting at Cinnabar.   To take advantage of the weather for the last time, I went to one of the places on Santana Row that has a rooftop bar.  I got to drink a glass of wine, listen to some classical guitar, and watch the sunset.  A perfect way to end my stay in Califonia - if only Mark were here! 

What I'll miss most about California:

1. Hanging out with David and Tim

2. Trader Joe's

3. the weather (although I do enjoy a few really hot days!)

4. H&M

5. Baja Fresh

Au Revoir, Mark!

Mark left for France today, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't totally jealous.  To add insult to injury, my parents also left for Sweeden!  To get a European feeling, I visited the Rodin museum on Stanford's campus (made me feel smarter just being there!).   Later in the evening I decided - what the heck, I'll go back to the drive-in.  I ended up seeing Shrek and How to Train Your Dragon.  Shrek was really funny - I especially loved fat Puss - he cracked me up!  HtTYD was also really good - I knew it got good reviews, but I really enjoyed it - super cute, too.  I loved the drive-in - wish we had more of those!

The days go by so fast

I had a list of things I wanted to do in California, and since I only have a few days left I'm trying to get as much done as possible.  I went to Overfelt Gardens, which is one of the places I've been meaning to go.  Big disappointment!  Most of the ponds were drained, and there were hardly any flowers.  I did get to see a goose and some goslings, though.  Mark and I went to Tied House for dinner and our last night together for awhile.  Garlic fries are so good - IDK why they aren't popular anywhere else!  Overall a good day!

Marky Phelps

Tuesday was a crazy day for me - I was all over the place!  I finally got to have lunch with Mark at Invidia, and it was more exciting than he thought it would be! :)  Afterwards I drove around and finally found Mission Santa Clara (see previous post), and followed some random people around to try to find a bathroom.  After that, I drove to Los Gatos to check out the cute downtown.  It was an odd mix of boutiques and J.Crew/Gap/Williams Sonoma stores.  I also found another Powell's candy store and stocked up on some goodies. :) Then I picked Mark up from work, and we went to SJSU to swim.  The pool is heated, but outdoors so it feels good when you're in and cold when you get out.  I ended up swimming some laps with Mark (Katie-style - look for it in the next summer olympics :P )  and got a pretty good workout.  I took 1 picture of Mark before the lifeguard told me no pictures (check out the contraband below - ha!).  Despite excercising, I thought it was fun!  Luckily I negated the calories I burned when I got home and had dinner...b/c you know I'd hate to lose any weight. 

Below: Cork tree, cork tree up close, mission, birds of paradise, Marky Phelps

Peace that passeth all understanding

Like most Christians (or people of any religion, probably), although ever present, my faith ebbs and flows.  Lately I haven't felt really close to God - I know he's still there, but there has been something missing on my part.  I visited the Mission Santa Clara de Asis today and felt complete again.  The mission is from 1777, and it was the first mission in CA dedicated to a woman (woo!).  They still hold regular church services and have those scary old fashioned confessionals.  At the front of the sanctuary there's a book where people write their prayer requests.  There were so many, and I stood there for about 15 minutes reading them.  One of them really touched me, though.  It was in a child's handwritting, and said something to the extent of: "Please help my mommy get through this hard time, and please let the baby in her tummy live.  I already love him."  There were also several asking God to give them direction in their lives, help them find jobs, etc.  It was very moving - I am so glad I decided to go check it out!  It never ceases to amaze me - when I am feeling down or lost, God always finds a way to remind me why I am here.

When in doubt, read my favorite verse:

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart; on your own intelligence rely not. In all your thoughts be mindful of Him, and He will make straight your paths."  - Proverbs 3:5-6

Crazy dog lady

Move over, crazy cat lady(s) - a new breed of need-something-to-smother-in-affection animal lovers has come to town!  Presenting the crazy dog lady! 
California seems to have a knack for breeding crazy...I have seen a few crazy dog ladies, but this woman today changed her dog's outfit TWICE in the span of about an hour.  Dogs are not people.  They do not want to wear clothes. Period.  I hope the dog rips off the outfit and pees on it. 

Anyway...this is my last week in California, so I'm trying to make the most of it!  

 

This mug says, "why do dishes when you can do daiquiris?"

The pic was taken with my cellphone so it's hard to read!

Mark and I checked out the Egyptian Museum and saw some cool stuff

Now I know where flies go to die

So after staying up until 4:00 the night before, we woke up around 12:00 and went to breakfast with Anna, Mariana, and Shraz (I have no idea how to spell his name, ha!).   I love Maudies and I hope this won't discourage anyone from going there, but we got a table next to the window and there were like 50 dead flies - and some others trying to escape.  It was gross...but I still ate my delicious food b/c there were no flies in it - I promise!   Then we got to the airport and found out Mark's flight was delayed several hours...and that there was a direct flight to Oakland that had seats.  The irony is we bought a ticket for Mark in case he couldn't get back to San Jose non-reving b/c he had to be back at work.  As it turns out, his flight was later cancelled.  Ha!  So we got on the Oakland flight - I was seated in the middle which I don't usually mind except I ended up between 2 married older people.  The wife kept yelling at the husband OVER ME.  Pleasant!

Below: San Franciso's artistic way of stopping skateboarders.  So cute!

Above: Bay Bridge

Since we ended up in Oakland, we took the train into the city and had dinner with David and Tim (love those guys!) and walked around a bit before they dropped us off at the Caltrain station, then took the Caltrain back to San Jose to get the car at the airport.  On the train I was subjected to listen to awful conversation from teenagers, one of which said: "If this train, like, didn't make so many stops, we'd get there like so much faster." - DUH.  Also their friends across from us made out the entire time.    When we finally got to the tram stop that would take us to the car (yep...another mode of transportation!), I had a kind of awesome moment.  So you know when you have an idea of what a book character should look like?  This is before they ruin it by making a movie out of it...anyway, I *saw* a character I've been following for a little while now.  It was amazing - almost to a "t" what I pictured this guy to look like.  Crazy!  Too bad I didn't get a picture. 

Bonus picture: I uploaded the pic of the asian guy from my phone - however, it doesn't capture the true essence. 

"I was concerned that the rolls wouldn't be good, but luckily they were really good"

Saturday was Aaron and Candice's wedding.  Aaron is a good friend from school,  and he and Candice are kind of like me and Mark at a few years delay, so I was happy to see them get married!  The wedding was outside, though, so everyone was pretty hot - A & C must have been dying under all those layers! I was thrilled to get to see some of my best OT friends - Aaron, Anna, Mariana and Laurie.  We were pretty hungry by the time the reception started, but we ended up being the last table to get food...so as we waited in line, Aaron came over to chat and talked about how good the food was.  He mentioned that he was concerned about how the rolls were going to be. At the time nobody thought anything of it, but then the more time passed the funnier it got.  Just a trivial thing to worry about on your wedding day!  We danced a little bit, ate some yummy cake, and snarked about the other wedding guests.  We had orignally planned to meet the bride and groom in downtown Austin (their idea!), but they never made it out (no big surprise!).  We ended up at Mean Eyed Cat again and Mariana's boyfriend met us there - very fun, and Austin met Dallas and it was fine.  Duffy had also been to a wedding that night and showed up drunk and fun as always.  Anna and Mariana were staying at our apartment, so we all headed back to our house once the bar closed around 2.  Instead of going to bed like normal people, though, we opened a bottle of wine and stayed up until 4 AM - that's crazy late in Katie time!  Mariana called her boyfriend Papi, and had to explain that that is not the same as Papa.  Somehow Anna thought it meant neighbor??  We also watched some You Tube videos  and laughed a lot.  It was a great night!  Unfortunately, I left my camera at home so I have like no pictures. 

"Do you have 30 seconds for the oil spill?" "No, I hate the oil spill!"

I was so happy to be home!  MereCal and I went to the Drag and looked around the shops and did girly stuff.  Then we got ready for bar tab night!  So here's the thing - during the 10 week trivia tournament, there was a cumulative count - so whichever team had the most points at the end of 10 weeks won a $300 bar tab.  TToA had their sights on this prize, and won.  Unfortunately, I was in Dallas and had little to do with this win...but I was there for 1 of the weeks!  During the tourney, the bar (I won't name names) changed ownership and I guess the previous owners forgot to tell the new owners about this agreement.  So Duffy, our friend and trivia host, was trying to arrange our bar tab.  First they said No b/c the World Cup was on (which we had a field day with, b/c the WC games were on in the morning and we wanted to come in that evening...and the bar was empty), then they didn't want to do it at all b/c it wasn't their agreement, so Duffy negotiated $200.  Most people wouldn't complain about $200, but you have to consider: we're some of their most loyal customers and they're trying to screw us over.  So we get to the bar, and we ask to meet the manager, tell him thank you, etc.  He comes over like 10 minutes later and clearly just wants to get away from us... doesn't make eye contact and tries to dash off ASAP.  As he's walking off, Mark is like, "Hey, by the way, we were told $300, what happened?" and he's like, "Well, uh, it was supposed to be $250 but Duffy said $200...I can do $250 if you want."  - Whatever, we take the $250 b/c that's not bad. Plus we had a $20 gift card frp, trivia another week.  We ordered food and drinks and were there for several hours having fun.  The manager made fun of us b/c we were there so long and hadn't spent our whole tab, but he didn't realize we were playing it smart.  See, we discovered that Lonestars were $2, so we ordered like 40 of those.  Total bill: $272.40.  Woohoo!

During the evening, someone in our group stole mustard and may have eaten it from the bottle (which is about the grossest thing I can think of), and then someone else in the group stole that mustard from the first person and also ate it from the bottle.  Double gross.  We also ended up at Mean Eyed Cat with Duffy, and drank Boone's - yay!  At the very end of the night we went to Donn's, because Jerry Jeff Walker was like 1 table away - so cool!  Made home about 2 - of course it was only like 12 to my body, but still pretty good for me ;)

^ Making fun of the fact that it says "open early for the world cup"

Home sweet home

Yay!  I managed to make it back to Austin without too much trouble.  Flight was at 6:30 AM, and since I checked a bag I had to get to the airport at 5:30!  The line was so long that by the time I got to the counter they said the bag might not make it on the flight.  (Spoiler alert: it did.)  I had a layover in San Diego, and ended up with a 1 hour delay.  It was 7:00AM and people were drinking beer - wow.  There was a crazy obnoxious kid 2 rows behind me who talked REALLY LOUD the entire 2 1/2 hr flight.  He was cute when we took off - "whoa! We're flying!!!!" and landing "WHOA! It's so WINDY!" but the rest of the flight it's like seriously, shut up.  Also, the kid was like 6 so way too old to be acting like that and why didn't the parents tell him to talk quietly?  My awesome Austin bestie had off work, and so she offered to pick me up - YAY!   When I got home I found out my car wouldn't start...so I ended up walking to 7-11 to get something to eat.  It's not a long walk, but it was pretty darn hot!  Long story short, Camden came to my rescue as well as my neighbor,(and my dad via phone!) and we eventually got it started.  I picked Mark up from the airport at 11:30, and then we went to bed - I didn't realize how awesomely comfy my Austin bed was until I had something to compare it to! 

I always wanted to see my name on a marquee

Today I went with Lori and Isabella to a shopping area in San Jose.  Lots of cute stores and such, but by far my favorite was Powell's sweet shop!  It's one of those old fashion candy stores, but it was fun seeing everything with Powell on it!  (if you didn't know, Powell is my maiden name).  It was fun hanging out with the girls!  I spent the rest of the day getting ready for my trip back home to ATX!

Would you call this stealing?

As I mentioned in my previous post Monster, I've been doing a lot of reading.  I recently finished The Hunger Games, loaned to me by Lindsey.  Today I was bored, so I wandered over to Borders and decided to take a peek at the next book.  Cut to me an hour later 50 pages in...but of course I am not going to buy the book.  So if I go to Borders or wherever on a daily basis and read the book, is that stealing? :)

Other books I also looked at:

My Lobotomy by Howard Dully which looks fascinating

SH*t my Dad Says - pretty funny

Urban Hiking

Mark and I went for a 5 mile hike today around the Almeden Quicksilver Mines.  It was very scenic and covered a very large area - all within a few miles of San Jose! 

Animals seen today:
Lizards - lots
Stellar Jay (very pretty!)
No rattlesnakes! 
No ticks!

"Oh yes, it's so lovely now it's almost a shame to bury it."

We started the morning off by driving to Monterey Bay and going to the aquarium - supposedly one of the best in the world.  It was pretty neat - there was a huge exhibit on sea horses and a giant tank with huge tunas.  I didn't realize they got to be like 500 lbs!  There were also otters (so cute!) and lots of other neat stuff.  We spend awhile there, and then went to Islands for lunch - again, very good!  Then we drove up the coast on 1 to take in the beaches of California.   So we pulled off onto one beach, and I saw a big pile of...something?  As we got closer, I figured out it was a dead seal/sealion on the shore.  Gross!  And then the wind blew, and yes, it was definitely very dead.  I had to laugh, though, because it reminded me of one of my favorite episodes of Frasier, "The Seal Who Came to Dinner".  Anyway, we tried to splash around in the water but it was very very cold. 

Tim was having a party at his house, and at the same time his upstairs neighbors were also having a party...so at times we would migrate upstairs and they would come down.  It was very interesting to see a house in San Fran - very different than Texas homes!  I also followed one of the upstairs guy's dogs, and I walking in and declared I was "Alice in Wonderland".  It was a good party - lots of fun, and I got to meet some really cool new people. 

Animals Seen today:

Marty the cat

lots of fish

bears

otters

Davexiety

Something I have always wanted to do is go to a drive-in movie.  I finnnnnnally got to go to one!  The way it worked was you could watch 2 movies for the price of 1, so we saw "Killers" and then "Iron Man 2".  Killers was pretty bad - not horrible or anything - but it's ok b/c I was really distracted by the setting.  From where I was, I could see Shrek very clearly, and also kind of hear it from the other cars, so I watched part of it, too.  We watched about 45 min of IM before we decided to go home and go to sleep because we had to get up early the next day.

Oddly familiar

Happy 32nd Anniversary to my parents!

I wasn't feeling great Thursday, so I didn't really leave the house during the day (I finished Hunger Games instead :)  ) and I was itching to get out that evening, so Mark and I went to the historic rose garden and then dinner and then to some mall.  This mall was reminiscent of Richardson Square Mall circa 1995, but what was even weirder was the bathroom.  Does anyone remember the bathroom that was down an eerie white hallway at RSM?  It was really creepy, and I was always afraid to go down there.  So anyway, this mall also had a creepy hallway bathroom.  Nice! 

Also, the other day I went into a yarn store (I know, right?) and I seriously had had a dream awhile ago and the store I was in looked just like this yarn store.   So weird.

Anyone know what this fruit to the right is?  I couldn't figure it out.