6.25.10 - San Diego so far...

For reasons I've forgotten Renata got a frequent flier ticket recently, so she paid for half of my trip to come visit her for a long weekend in San Diego. I haven't spent more than an evening with her in probably over a year, so this is very exciting.

Being the genius that I am, I booked my ticked for today, Friday, at 7:20am instead of in the evening, but I'm sort of glad, because it just means more time to hang out with her. Jack was a sweetheart (shock, I know, *happy sigh*) and got up at 5:45am with me to take me to the airport. The flight was remarkably short compared to going to MO. Renata couldn't meet me as soon as I landed because she had to finish watching one of the World Cup games involving Brazil (dork), so I sat in an airport Starbucks and had a non-fat chai latte (courtesy of my birthday gift card from Merlene!) and relaxed. It was very pleasant.

Anyway, she picked me up and we hung out at her place by the pool, catching up. Later in the afternoon we intended to go with her roommate Carly to enjoy Renata's birthday present to me, which was a kayaking tour! She's very original, Renata.

We took Carly's car, and got there in plenty of time for our new appointment. Everyone who worked at the kayak tour place was very friendly. We went out with a group of about 10 kayaks, plus the tour guides. I was nervous at first, though trying to hide it. Renata manages to get me to try new things because she's so excited and I don't want to spoil it, and then I almost always end up having a blast myself once I get over my nervousness. That's what I kept telling myself, anyway, as we walked in bathing suits in the chilly wind towards the GIGANTIC OCEAN.

The scariest part was when we were first going into the water. The guides had warned us to steer straight into the waves or we'd surely tip over. We waded in to our knees before getting in the kayaks, and the water was freezing. I was thinking "How did I let Renata talk me into this??" I said that out loud to her, actually. When we started paddling we immediately got turned sideways, and it was nerve-racking trying to get back on track, but we figured it out without falling over.

After that it was completely awesome. The waves were only near the shore and beyond it was just large, gentle swells. The water was actually warmer than the air, and very pleasant. Our guides told us all sorts of trivia about La Jolla and the area, including how the $48m homes at the edge of the cliffs come with contracts where the owners acknowledge that their houses will fall into the sea within 20 years. Supposedly one such home fell in 2 years ago, and the man only had a 2 hour warning, *and* he got fined for polluting the ocean.

We kayaked over to some cliffs and saw the sea lions, and then we went one kayak at a time into a cave. All very cool. The hardest part was kayaking back to the shore, because it was far and Renata and I are incapable of paddling in a straight line. We were laughing a lot about it though.

6.19.10 - My birthday continued

Woke up, went to Safeway, bought the ingredients for spinach sausage loaf, went home, set the bread dough to thaw. Jack helped me clean up a bit while we listened to excellent music. (Recently I have really enjoyed "Teenagers" by My Chemical Romance, and Jack and Neil love "Rag and Bone" by White Stripes.) Then I spent around 4 hours reorganizing my dad's massive never-before-organized living room book shelf while listening to Ken Burns' documentary on the Civil War. This was pleasant in several ways. History is more fun to listen to than to read, with people reading out loud from the letters of the past, using the same accents and verbiage, etc. McClellan sounded like a complete idiot, btw. It was also nice to go through all of Dad's books and realize how many good ones he owns. I love books. I picked out a few to borrow, and I felt like I ought to have a rolling ladder to swing across the shelf while singing songs from Beauty and the Beast.

Anyway, when I finally finished that I made spinach sausage loaf and used the extra bread dough for cinnamon rolls. In the course of doing this, Morgan, and then Henry, and then Doug came over. We all ate and drank and joked and of course, played lots of Tichu. Henry and Morgan had never played before, but they did well. Henry especially picked up quickly (Morgan had to leave early), and ultimately it was Henry and me playing Neil and Jack. We got stupidly good hands, to the point where it was hilarious to even lay down our cards because we were so crushing Neil and Jack.

We finally wrapped up the game near 1:30am. Well worth it. Overall a great birthday.

PS - Forgot to add: Jack got me a gift (already in addition to the wonderful dinner!) It is a 100-page scrapbook for me to fill up, and he said he wants to help me with it. It came with a note and was all very sweet. I like him. :)

6.17.10 - My birthday

I get several texts, tons of FB messages, and a few calls wishing me happy birthday. All were very sweet, but my favorites were

1) Sola. Julie dialed for her and then put her on, and she sang me Happy Birthday in her adorable voice. I told her "You're the first person to sing me 'Happy Birthday' today!" "Thanks...for saying that." Very, very cute.

2) Mom, calling to tell me she prayed all day that I'd have a good day, and that she is so proud of me. It was a short but sweet conversation.

3) Angela, giving me a Chuck Norris quote on my FB wall. "Team Chuck Norris can never be defeated. It will live on because Chuck Norris can never die."

4) The following IM convo with Neil:

Me: do you think tonight you could put microsoft office on my computer as well as the recording software?
Neil: HAPPY FRIGGEN BIRTHDAY!
Me: lol
Me: thanks
Me: ...is that a yes?
Neil: Yes! Because it's your birthday!

I also received cards from Mom, Grandma and Grandpa Benoist, and Jack's grandmother! And I got this shirt, which I love, from Julie:

So I went to work, learned about minipreps and a few other things. My boss, Chaomin, let me go early. Jack came to pick me up and we hung out at his place, windows open to the beautiful weather. He worked more on the puzzle (he is tireless) and I put music on my laptop and just generally relaxed. Then he showed me how to change the oil in his car, which turned out to be less complicated than I expected. Jack left to get gas, and I continued adding to my music collection. After 20 minutes or so, Jack still wasn't back, and I fell asleep. I'm not sure how long he was gone in total, but when he returned he had gotten his car washed (the inside is already immaculate :) ).

Then he busied himself getting very dressed up to take me out to dinner. I didn't know where we were going but I did know that he was wearing a suit, so that's exciting. He took me back to my place to get ready, and by the time we actually left for the mysterious restaurant we were both starving, which works out well. He drove a backwards, convoluted way so that I couldn't guess where we were headed, and it worked at first. Ultimately he had to drive past the actual restaurant looking for parking, and so I spotted it--Rivoli's! It's the same restaurant where we celebrated our anniversary dinner, and we both had really liked it.

So we wined and dined at a corner table where we could sit next to each other and observe the rest of the restaurant. It's a very intimate, relaxed setting. We had great talks, including wondering whether or not you ought to tell your kids Santa is real, ha. When they brought out dessert (pineapple and raspberry sorbet with honey ginger cookies) they had one thin candle in it, and they *did not* sing me happy birthday--so it was the best of both worlds. :)