i am home home home home and boy do i ever have shit to do.
tampopo was good, by the way.
kevin is also good. he makes me happy.
so. trip to san francisco. it was what it was. thanksgiving break is a giant waste of my time; having basically a waste of a week two weeks before the end of the quarter is a *terrible* idea. yeesh. basically all i was able to accomplish for my mounting debts of schoolwork was a bit of the reading. that's nothing.
on the upside, i completed most of my christmas/birthday shopping, spent time with family, and ran around san francisco for a few days, which is pretty cool.
tuesday night we ate at mel's, this greasy spoon diner across the street from the hotel, and margot showed us around. wednesday my mom, brother, and i went to the goodwill on geary and wandered a bit while margot was in class. she met us at a bagel shop, where we were sipping beverages, and got thanksgiving dinner foods at whole foods. we took a taxi to embarcadero square (or center, or whateverthefuck the mall is called) to see
bowling for columbine (again for me). a good time was had by all, but then we were ohsohungry. we wandered around the mall for awhile and decided against eating there, then took a cab up the hill and ate at a little greek place. it was gooood. mm, falafel. there was something weird and crunchy in the salad dressing on mom's and margot's plates, though, and when mom began to complain to the waiter by saying, "there was something in the dressing..." the waiter replied, "thank you, it's dad's secret recipe!" and walked off. hee.
thanksgiving morning, we headed out to get coffee for me from not-the-bakery-across-the-street-with-horribly-weak-coffee and ended up in chinatown. we did a lot of shopping, since chinatown was far from closed down that day, unlike every other part of town. however, we ended up brunching at the stinking rose, which was delicious and amusing, because we hadn't meant to walk to north beach, and instead of chinese food, we ate there, and the last time i tried to go there, i ended up deciding i didn't want to and we ate chinese food. anyway.
thanksgiving dinner consisted of an assortment of deli items from whole foods, all cold because we didn't bother to use a microwave (i thought this was fine; everyone else felt some things could've used a little heat). things i ate were pita with bab ganouj, poached salmon, shrimp, chicken satay skewer (i remember having these before and they were much better, alas), green beans with onions, tzimmes (sweet potato and carrot thing), potato bread, crazy wild rice stuff with boiler onions and cranberry and pecans. the only traditional thanksgiving item was, of course, pumpkin pie, because we all love pumpkin pie. mom admonished me to NOT get the vegan kind, though. dinner was eaten on the floor of our hotel room while watching third rock from the sun. yeah.
later that night, mom and i watched
my big fat greek wedding on ppv, which was amusing enough. mom had already seen it twice in the theater and loooved it. i was not unimpressed, but i wasn't impressed either. it had its good points, but it could've been much stronger. anyway. oh, also, tbs was airing
the american president which, for some reason, is one of those movies i can't. stop. watching if it's on tv and i'm sitting around. i saw the first hour of that twice or so.
friday the family went out to the haight by bus and walked up and down the street. we went to amoeba and i wanted to die. i bought some christmas presents, ones i knew specifically what i wanted before going in, and then people were still milling about so i whined at my sister that it's not fair for me to be here with money i shouldn't spend on myself when there are ten thousand things i want to buy in this very store, and she let me lead her through the rock vinyl section to give her pointers for what i might like as a gift. she got bored after the second row, though, and i wasn't even rifling through everything! after that, we ate pizza at some very slow but slightly hip restaurant on haight street and headed downtown on a bus. mom and paul got off at the hotel, but margot and i continued and made out way to castro, where we did more shopping and bathroom-hunting. it was fun. it was there that i decided i needed to get an octopus plant for my kitchen to eat the damn gnats.
mom's friends kimmy "sissy" and george were hanging out at the hotel with mom, so we talked to them breifly, then spent forever in the computer room, then walked around and settled on a hole-in-the-wall thai place for dinner. yummy. paul was at the symphony and unable to complain about the food. success! he got burger king after the concert left out and we were walking home.
saturday mom wanted to go to sausalito. we were kind of bickering, especially margot and i. we went on the ferry, we walked around a bunch, mom couldn't find the shop she remembered and wanted to go to again, we ate some fairly light lunch, we headed back to san francisco to figure out how to get to the airport. ultimately, we took a cab again, and waited at the airport for two hours because it took five minutes to check in and get through security.
mom got the work-over at boarding, though, and was pretty irritated about it. we were surrounded by children and at the back of the plane. paul wanted the window seat, so i was in the middle. coming into seattle, there was extremely thick fog hanging low over the city. we flew way north and turned around and descended very slowly. the tops of some downtown buildings and the space needle were poking out over the haze. on the ground, kevin picked me up, and my uitcase latch was broken inflight. grr. oh well, that's what i get for using a $2 old case from goodwill.
today i need to do work, mountains of work. until my birthday, life will be dominated by these mountains. i like mountains, but they are awfully cold and make it hard to breathe.
listening: luna - sleeping pill
