The Rubber Band Effect

It's funny, isn't it, how you tend to not see someone for a while and then you run into them and spend lots of time together, then you become distant and unresponsive again?

That's how it is with my blog. Sorry blog. I really do love you. I just think you deserve more creativity than I can give most days.

And instead of giving you half-assed posts, I withdraw completely and you must think I've abandoned you.

On the contrary. I adore you and if the mundane is better than nothing, well, then here I am.

So, Handsome and I had a wonderful four day trip to NoCal to visit Cousins W and T and their spouses and kids. This family I adore so much. They are close in age and wry in spirit. They also make Handsome nervous or uncomfortable. I think because the two cousins are brothers to each other, there is an impenetrable field around them that Handsome has never felt nor been able to breach.

First we flew into Sacto and hopped in our rental Ford Focus (which was both quite adorable and very fuel efficient. Handsome loved it because "it's American, dammit!") We drove to San Francisco to meet a girlfriend who I went to kindergarten with and haven't seen or spoken to in, oh, about 25 years. She looked me up on Facebook a couple months ago and I thought a quarter century just too long to go between visits.

We met Francis in the City and walked to the Ferry Building which is like an enclosed open air market, full of shops carrying fresh cheese and fresh bread and fresh smoked meats and fresh organic vegetables. I was in heaven. Had I $500 and 3 hours and no restrictions on my flight back, we would be eating like royalty right now.

We settled on a seafood place and got a 1/2 bottle of wine and sat out by the San Francisco Bay to eat and drink and catch up over the last few decades. It was beautiful. There are some people that you can connect with again after forever has passed and you just feel comfortable with them. Francis is like that. I found and showed her some pictures of us when we were three or four and she laughed, just like I had when I saw them.

It was easy to be with her. I think we all need more people like that in our lives. Francis and her husband actually met in college in Colorado, about half an hour from where Handsome and I live now. We were 30 miles away from each other for several years, and had no clue. Strange, isn't it, how the universe plays these little jokes on us?

We should've gotten bread while we were in SF. We didn't, forgot, were in a hurry to get to Sacto for the surprise birthday celebration for Cousin T, who was driving with his wife and kids from Los Angeles. Apparently we missed rush hour (Hallelujah!) but beat the LA cousins by about 5 hours. D'oh.

Cousin W and his wife are renting a house that has a squat little orange tree and a tall grapefruit tree in their backyard. The oranges were as big as grapefruits (and so were the grapefruits!) and we had fresh juice every day we were there. Of course, I mixed mine with champagne and called it the thickest mimosa ever made. Surprisingly, it was the first time they had made juice from their fruit. They would buy a box of California clementine Cuties for $10 (!!) but hadn't ever eaten the fruit growing in their own backyard.

The surprise was pulled off without a hitch. Cousin T was excited that we had made the journey to come celebrate his birthday with him. The impetus for us was that Cousin T and his wife and kids are preparing to move to Australia. I figured the plane trip to California would cost far less than a trip to Australia, and we can afford it right now, so we'll be saving up some money before we can spring for the Australia trip. However, how freaking cool will that be? Flying out there will be our only expense - we will stay and eat with them while we are there.

The weather was great, kind of cool but not frigid like Colorado. And everything was so GREEN, it was such a fresh scene. The kids were fun, they tend to socialize with each other more than with anyone else. We went bowling, I bowled a 115 my second game (woo hoo!) and that was fun.

Ate, drank lots of wine, enjoyed some other recreational activities and really fell in love with California again.