…And I’m back

Did you miss me?  I hope not too much.  Eventually I will get caught up on blogs (I keep saying that, don’t I?), or at least I hope to.  You people are very prolific!  Every time I go away, I dread the sight of my Google Reader.  True to form, you people had posted almost 70 blog entries while I was sans computer, and that doesn’t even count the folks on my Diaryland list!

And no, I didn’t take my computer with me.  Keeping up with everyone and my email would have taken too much time away from my friends that I went to visit.  I do have to say that I have iPhone envy after seeing Craige’s.  She was able to read our Flickr discussion board, check her email, post photos to Flickr, and send texts — all from the same device.  It was so cool.  I think it’s a good thing we have Sprint instead of AT&T, else I would haev purchased an iPhone for myself by now.

I had entirely too much fun this weekend.  My roommates and I found the perfect morning and bedtime routines at the hotel.  We helped to cook a couple of meals over at Catie’s house, which were absolutely delicious.  Now I seriously want to poach chicken for tacos and fry my own tortillas.  We drank a few too many cocktails, played Guitar Hero to our heart’s content, and got in a quite a few rounds of Apples to Apples.

As if that weren’t fun enough, we spent Saturday exploring Santana Row, which is a really awesome outdoor mall in San Jose.  I limited my purchases to the Japanese stationery store, where I got a pink (shocking, I know) fountain pen with a couple of refills, a tote bag that folds up into itself that came in handy as I hauled my big camera all over the place, a really neat change purse, and a green pen for Gracie.  I did go into the Paper Source and Anthropologie (which had the cutest orange hooded wool coat on clearance that was just a tiny bit too small), as well as Crate & Barrel and H&M, but the thought of lugging all kinds of crap home with me on the plane did a great job of reining me in on the purchasing.  Amazingly enough, the cash I had in my wallet wasn’t burning a hole in my pocket either.  Usually it does, which is why I rarely carry cash and instead only use my check card.

What’s even more shocking is when we went to the mall to check out the Sephora for our makeup-applying lessons later in the afternoon, I walked out of that store with nothing more than a refill on my foundation.  Usually I walk out with at least three things, so this was seriously unlike me.  I spent so much time helping my friends out that I ran out of time to look for myself, and besides, nothing was really calling to me.  When you have as much makeup as I do, buying more tends to lose its appeal.  How many pots of bright teal eyeshadow does a person need, anyhow?  I did convince Kimmy to buy some Urban Decay eye shadow primer, which is amazingly awesome (so try it if you haven’t yet, or contact your local Mary Kay supplier to try theirs, which is also awesome) and does a great job of keeping one’s eyeshadow on one’s eyelid, instead of creasing or melting away during the day.

On Sunday, we all traipsed up to the Alameda Point Antiques Fair, which is held every first Sunday of the month.  That was the whole reason to our having our shin-dig this weekend, to go to the fair.  What’s making me giggle is that the information on the website says that everything must be at least 20 years old, yet Catie’s husband told us that he’d found a Sirius radio receiver there one time.  I loved wandering up and down the aisles of the antiques fair, looking at all the crazy things people had for sale.  I don’t have my photos up yet, but if you check back tomorrow, they should be posted. One thing that seriously cracked me up was this wooden nutcracker that was carved to look like a topless female Indian.  To crack the nut, you inserted it between her thighs and squeezed her legs together.  I kid you not!  I have the photos to prove it.

As if the items for sale weren’t intriguing enough, the people-watching was seriously awesome.  I wondered if some of the folks at the fair owned a mirror, and if so, did they check it before they left?  I also loved to see what people were buying.  One guy bought a stuffed goose that was mounted to a rock, I guess to go into his home’s yard.  Another guy was carrying around an enormous replica of a beer bottle.

I bought two antique cameras, a Brownie and a Kodak Duaflex.  Both feature viewfinders that require you to look down at the top of the camera to compose the photo, instead of holding it up to your eye and squinting the other one shut.  They were $15 a piece, which seemed rather reasonable, though I probably should have tried to haggle the seller down to $20 for both.  I hate haggling, though.  It’s just not my thing.

We got so much sun on Sunday, too.  Initially I thought I’d be cold in my football jersey and jean jacket, but as the day wore on, I started to sweat.  I wasn’t going to complain, not after all the snow we’ve been getting here in Rhode Island!  And as if I didn’t appreciate the sun enough while in San Jose, it’s been snowing all day here today.  Lovely.

After making our way home (which caused Catie to admire my driving skills, since I kept up with her through annoying California traffic), we got ready and headed out to dinner at this awesome Spanish restaurant where we gorged ourselves on two different kinds of paella and sangria.  I was the only one carded at the table, three weeks before turning 30, even though I wasn’t the youngest one there!  If you’re going to card one of us, you should card us all.

Yesterday’s flight home was very uneventful.  I got on the plane at 10:45am Pacific time and debarked at 10pm Eastern in Providence.  We made two other stops at Los Angeles and Nashville, but I was on the through flight.  One good thing about it, though I didn’t get off the plane for nine hours, was that I had very short layovers.  It’s surprising how quickly they can turn a flight around and get back into the air.

But now I’m a tiny bit sick, and ME is horribly congested.  Every time I decide to take her in, though, she starts sounding better.  We’ll see how it goes, and whether she needs to go to the doctor.  I know there isn’t much they can do for her, but at least it would rule out something more serious.

While I had an excellent time with mah ladies in San Jose, each and every one of them, I have to say I am thrilled to be home.  There’s just something about sleeping in one’s own bed!