This spring, after I suffered a nasty bout of depression, my mom declared I needed one child-free weekend every month. She offered to look after Mark so I could look after myself, and I gratefully agreed.
This month's adventure was originally a trip to the Big Bear Oktoberfest, but slowly evolved into a trip to San Diego instead.
Though the calendar says fall, the weather screams back "SUMMER!" Seriously. It was a nice, crisp autumn day when we arrived in San Diego:
There was a chill in the air, as the offshore breeze cooled us down to about 80 degrees. Brrrr....
I spent the weekend with my friends Michelle and Nicky. Nicky was a wonderful hostess, plying us with food, drinks, and allowing us to sleep in late. As frazzled mothers, Michelle and I appreciated this a lot.
We didn't really have any big plans other than to just catch up, which we did over the most fantastic lunch.
Nicky took us to an amazing resturant inside a trendy Pacific Beach hotel. We sat outside, basking in the sunshine, and staring at all the shirtless, buff men walking by on the beach path. (Seriously, San Diego, what do you put in the water? Protein powder??)
Our lunch was slightly marred toward the end, when a fly dive bombed Michelle's champagne cocktail. I immediately covered my drink, and endured a good 10 minutes of heckling from Nicky and Michelle over it.
"It's not gonna happen again," Nicky chastised me. "It was one fly, and now we got that out of the way. What are the chances another fly is gonna land in your drink?"
Apparently, the chances were slim to none. But exactly one minute after Michelle received a replacement drink, a kamikaze fly splashed into it. This time, I was the one snickering.
We lingered over lunch a long time. When we finally left, we strolled down the boardwalk, enjoying the sun. We stopped to look at the cute little cottages on the pier, and at all the people sunning themselves on the beach. We watched people roll by us on skates, skate boards and bikes. We even watched a crazy dude teaching tourists to hula hoop.
It was wonderful. We had nowhere to be, and nothing to do, and we loved every minute of it.
Eventually, loud, thumping music and laughter lured us into a nearby restaurant. It was filled with twenty-somethings drinking energy drink and vodka slushees, and watching college football. This was my crowd--like, twenty years ago. I couldn't hear a thing the girls were saying over the music, but it didn't matter. I had a front row view of the beach and the boardwalk, and I quietly took it all in.
We walked back to the car, but got distracted once more along the way. We ambled in to another beachfront bar, where the bouncer carded me (bless his little heart!) He stared at my ID a little too long, until I finally told him, "Come on, I'm 43. Do you really think I'd lie about that on my ID?" He laughed and agreed if I was gonna to fake an ID, I'd probably shoot for a lower age.
This place was hilarious--more twenty-somethings, apparently all on a pub crawl. They also had funny cardboard cut-outs, which we just had to take our pictures with.
Nicky opted for a photo op with the President. But lest anyone be offended, there was also a cut-out of Mitt Romney...and Fabio.
Huh, I didn't even know Fabio was running for office. (Sorry for the blurry photo--as Fabio might say, "I can't believe it's not better." ;-)
We stopped by one more bar on the way out, to say hi to some of Nic's friends. But Michelle and I were definitely done, so after a brief stay, we cabbed it back to Nicky's, ordered pizza and called it a night.
And the next morning, when I picked up my boy, I was completely relaxed and happy to see him. Ah, these weekends are just what the doctor ordered. (Dr. Mom, that is.)
No comments:
Post a Comment