Categories: General, Tags: Julia Quinn, reading
I recently got snookered into re-reading the Bridgerton series by Julia Quinn. Which, I don’t have a problem with per se, but reading romance novels does tend to leave me depressed at the end. Giggly during, of course. I could just stop, I suppose. But they’re so delightful. They play a vicious, cutthroat version of Pall Mall (basically it’s croquet for those unversed in the parlance of historic romances). Plus they’re sarcastic and lovingly snarky; my favorite kind of people.
As any of you who have been on the Houseboat with me know, the one thing I lament its not having is a slide. A slide in to Lake Shasta! How awesome would that be? Then I could go off the 3rd deck without fear! I could rival Garren in my ability to hook my leg over the railing and….go down the slide!
As any of you who are acquainted with Adam will know: if you want something he will provide it. And thus, I arrived at his mom’s Napa house to discover: A SLIDE!
I went down it many, many times. And thanked my lucky stars for the provider which is Adam.
This is my illicit story which I probably really shouldn’t be posting but it’s too good to pass up. Also this story is kind of inferred from what I vaguely remember in my drunken haze. Only the photo is irrefutable.
At our 4th or 5th winery of the day–Jefferson Cellars, or something like that–I was pretty drunk. Mostly because I kept drinking Jason’s tastings as well as my own. No. Not mostly because of that. That was only like three tastings. It was really just the aggregate of all my tastings and champagne in the car.
Point is: Erica was texting with Jolie who wanted something scandalous to happen on this wine induced fog of impaired judgment. Her example was that Erica and I should make out in the stretch yellow Hummer. Well….we weren’t in the Hummer at that particular moment so we made do.
The Jason element was a genius move on Erica’s part. And Jolie’s reply was immediate and laughingly asked what else she should request if we were going to oblige her so quickly and in a most amusing manner.
Later that evening Jolie texted to ask if we did anything else sordid that Jason endorsed.
My reply: “Erica and I made out all day long, Jason’s thumbs are SO tired.”
On Kristen’s birthday morning I paced back and forth in front of the glass door leading to her and Gene’s sun-porch bedroom working up the guts to walk inside. I am a Nervous Nelly, ever unsure of my welcome–especially in the wee hours. But of course I was graciously accepted as I came bearing gifts.
My present this year for Kris was a hand-made ticket redeemable for admission to “New Moon” at a place and time of her choosing. Which, let me tell you, is a concession for me since it means I probably won’t get to see it the day it comes out. But considering that it’s her 30th Birthday and I couldn’t buy something actually expensive or nice or join her on a trip to Vegas, it was really the least I could do. Plus my ticket had a picture of Edward and Bella as Barbie dolls on the front. You can buy them as Barbies. BARBIES. So ridiculous.
And then the STRETCH. YELLOW. HUMMER. arrived. To grant you a good visual of how awful this looks, please see the below evidence of our trip.
I highly recommend going to look at a bigger version of the picture to get a gander at some of the priceless facial expressions. Erica’s in particular. Though Kim is probably flashing the middle finger behind her back too. And Kristen on the end looks like a model.
Categories: General, Tags: Erica, kristen, The Office
Our first night in Napa for Kristen’s 30th birthday, Adam busted out the bottles of wine. By the time we’d (7 of us) drunk 6 bottles, people actually started arriving.
At this point, I was very, very drunk and Erica pointed out that we didn’t have a bed yet. So I busted out the brand new inflatable queen that my mom purchased that very day and we started to blow it up. We sat and waited. And looked at pictures of Erica’s crush on her IPhone. And waited. It wasn’t working. I attempted to read the directions. Mind you, I was drunk, but I think the lighting was bad too because it was hard to read–all blurry and things kept moving around….OK, I was just drunk. After re-reading the the 1 sided, 1 page of directions multiple times I finally figured out that you needed to charge the motor for 24 hours in advance of using it; not just plug and blow. I relayed this information to Erica. She was frankly disbelieving. I read the directions a couple more times to discover that you could use the lighter volt thing in a car for a measly minute and it would be inflated.
We carried the mattress to the car. DRUNK. Plugged it in and it was loud. So loud. But 60 seconds later we had something much more unwieldy to carry back inside. So giddy at this point I barely managed to make it in the front door before dropping the back end and falling on the bed.
“It’s so firm!” I wheezed out between giggles.
Kristen came tearing around the corner and yelled triumphantly, “That’s what she said!”
Categories: General, Tags: books, Pages, Pleasant Hill, San Francisco
On this last day of September I was looking back at my book journal (where I keep track of my obsessive hobby) and thought I would share. Sept is a big book month what with the 4 day San Francisco Public Library Big Book Sale on the last weekend. There was also a smaller Pleasant Hill Library book sale at the beginning of the month. Plus many new books by beloved authors came out this month…well, as you will see it was busy.
Stats:
Books Read: 48
Books Bought: 30 (3 gifts, 3 returned)
Books from Library: 17
Books Given: 1
Money spent (approximately): $75 ($20 back from books returned)
Favorite Book: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Other Worthies: Dreamfever by Karen Moning, Grimspace by Ann Aguirre, The Five Sisters by Margaret Mahy, Start me Up by Victoria Dahl, The Fire Cat by Esther Averill, Everyone Else’s Girl by Megan Crane, and Hounds of Rowan: The Tapestry by Henry H. Neff.
Least Favorite Book was a toss up between: Improper English by Katie MacAllister, Blue Diablo by Ann Aguirre, Meridian by Amber Kizer, Someone to Love by Kasey Michaels, or The Runaway Duke by Julie Anne Long.
Books remaining on To-Be-Read-Shelf: 19
Number of Boxes of Books for Sale: 5 (Sigh. Powell’s anyone?)
Not my tattoo, but it could be.
The problem with thunder and lightening happening less than a mile from your house is that when it startles the skunk outside your bedroom window, he really lets you know it.
