(rest mouse pointer over each photo for caption)

We got up Friday morning at the buttcrack of dawn and arrived at the airport by 6:30a to catch our 7:45a flight. Mr. W gave me the window seat. As we descended over San Francisco, he scrambled over my lap and peered excitedly out the window, pointing things out. It was endearing, and it reminded me of a large dog overpowering and standing his front paws on someone in a car seat to look out a car window at a passing car or another dog. I made a note to give Mr. W the window seat on our flight back.

We shuttled over to our hotel near the Civic Center in SF and got there before 10a, when we were told we can’t check in until closer to 3p because the entire hotel was booked solid for the weekend. (We would find out why on Saturday.) We walked around Chinatown, looked at the shops, I relived my childhood in Asia, we grabbed dim sum, walked to and around Embarcadero.

I thought about calling college roommie Diana at 9a to tell her we landed, but I figured she’d either be scrambling to get ready for work, or she’d be at work, so I’ll call her later. I also figured as soon as she settled in at 9:30a or so, she’d call me to check up on us. I had my cell on, and we did our tourist sight-seeing thing. I was a bit surprised when we walked back to our hotel at 2:30p and I hadn’t heard from Diana yet, but Mr. W and I were tired from our hours and hours of walking, so we checked in and took a nap. I figured she’d call me closer to the evening to finalize plans for meeting up with everyone for dinner. At some point the hotel room phone rang, and I remember groggily forcing Mr. W to pick it up even tho he had to reach over me (and he was napping, too), and I remember him writing some number down on a pad of paper and saying, “Call Diana,” but I looked at the clock, figured we had plenty of time before dinner reservations at 6:30p, and went back to sleep. 3:30p-ish, the hotel phone rang again. It was Diana, and she sounded frantic. “Didn’t the hotel give you my message?” she demanded. I didn’t know what she was talking about. She started saying that when she gets to our hotel she was going to totally yell at someone about that. Turned out my cell phone had no reception the entire time it was on and Diana had been wigging out all day not being able to get a hold of us and she checked the flight and it didn’t explode in mid-air, and she checked the hotel and they said we hadn’t checked in but that they’d tell us she called when we did (the 1st phone call).
[here is where I’d insert a group photo of the dinner when/if Jen emails me one, hint hint]
Diana and Jen picked us up at the hotel and we took a traffic-congested drive over to one of Diana’s favorite restaurants, an Asian fusion place called The House. We got there about 10 minutes late, ordered some appetizers, Brad and Val got there 40 minutes late due to the very bad traffic, and then Mike and Christi showed up a full hour late. I had been in touch on the phone with everyone to check on their progress, and apparently the traffic was horrendous everywhere in the city. (I blame this all on USC, by the way.) These friends had been driving 2 hours or so to meet up with us for dinner! I felt horrible and really honored at the same time. Dinner was delicious, we had good wine, even better company. I kept laughing. It was impressive I was able to keep any food inside my mouth. “So this is Wilco-Mike,” Mr. W said. Mike stood and shook his hand. “And I only know you as Mr. W,” Wilco-Mike said. It was hilarious realizing that they had heard about each other primarily thru my blog and it was like the old BBS days when at the meet, we’re finally able to connect faces to names to screen names, and it was like, “Oh, so YOU’RE Dark Knight,” while thinking He totally lied about his physical description. Ew.
[I’d like to insert a photo here of Fuse, Jen. 🙂 My camera was out of battery at this point.]
After dinner we hit up a martini bar in North Beach called Fuse and there were a few rounds of shots going around. This shot called a Chocolate Cake was delicious! You scrape the sugar off a slice of lemon without biting into the lemon, do the shot that really does taste like chocolate, then bite into the lemon. More laughing and antics. I loudly presented Jen with two tickets Mr. W and I had been given off the street earlier, for “free IQ and personality tests” offered by the Church of Scientology in SoMa (South Market Street area). It was hilarious because of this entry that Jen wrote a few weeks ago. Diana’s mystery date showed up soon thereafter and told us how many panicked phone calls and emails Diana had with him about her inability to contact us all day, we had more drinks, and then split.

Brad, Val, Jen, Diana, Diana’s Date, Mr. W and I went to a club called the Velvet Lounge, where we did some dancing, Diana and her date did a bit more drinking, and the night concluded for everyone but Diana and Date at 11:30p (we griped about being “too old for this”) and Brad drove everyone back to their respective residences). I hear that Diana and Date did quite a bit more partying and hitting up different joints after that.