Back!!

Ok, so its been forever since I've updated this thing. Yeah, I've had a lot going on recently. Here's a brief rundown of just the last week:

Saturday: Hit up the Wine Mine's two year anniversary party. We partook of the BBQ and $1 tasting. I came home with 5 bottles of wine for under $50. My new favorite grape is the torrontés. So light and delicious on a hot summer day. Believe me, Saturday was definitely a hot summer day. DJC and I were supposed to start cleaning the house. We didn't.

Sunday: Despite the outrageous Bay Area heat, we spent nearly all day cleaning our house. His father was due in town the following day and we had accumulated sooooo much stuff over the years that needed to go. Somewhere in the mix of everything, I needed to study for my first final, pharmacology. I didn't get much studying done, but thanks to a mad sale at Kohl's, our house looks pretty nice. BTW, thanks to square pieces of foam, I DOMINATED the slip cover on the couch. WOOT!

Monday: Laundry. Finishing touches on cleaning. Studying...in theory. Dinner in San Francisco at Farmer Brown with DJC's dad. Man, what a great night. If you live in the area and like cool restaurants, Motown tunes spun by a live DJ, unique drinks and good food, you really should check out Farmer Brown. What's interesting, though, is that it was nearly empty. We didn't have reservations and we were seated right away. In past visits, its been so crowded that we can hardly move around, especially near the bar area. I guess the economy is such that SF's hipsters prefer to drink their shitty cans of PBR at home now (which really isn't a bad thing). Anyways, dinner was great, complete with red velvet cake at the end. Oh, how I love red velvet cake!

Tuesday: More studying...this time for real. I staked out an area of the local Starbucks and didn't move for several hours. Later that night DJC and I headed out to a farewell party for JZ, who is now in Hawaii for her Masters. The party was held at her father's house up in the hills and was just breathtaking. Recently, they had added a new full kitchen to the garage, which opened to a lovely open-air patio/BBQ area with plenty of comfy seating. JZ christened it the "garage-mahal". So clever and funny she is. I will miss her dearly. I guess we'll just have to go to Hawaii one of these days to visit.

Wednesday: Took the pharmacology final first thing in the morning. Bombed it. I needed at least a 90% on the final to maintain my A in the class. Needless to say, I ended up with a B+ after a dismal 82% on the final. I wanted an A in that class so badly. I just wish I would have budgeted more studying time instead of spending hours dusting and vacuuming. Oh well. The rest of Wednesday was wonderful, though. we picked up DJC's dad and took him to La Note for a late brunch. Mmmmmm...pancakes. Wednesday night, we traveled out to the East Bay to have a delicious mexican dinner with my parents. We ended up at my parents' house for dessert...port, brie, fruit and American Idol (Adam, you were ROBBED!!). It was a great night.

Thursday: After picking DJC's dad up, we met up with BL, who had brought his Ferrari up for service. But before that, there was some high speed frivolity to be had in the Berkeley hills. DJC's dad had never ridden in a Ferrari, and he was thrilled with this part of his trip. After many twists and turns, all four of us settled down for lunch at the Paragon Cafe at the Claremont Hotel. It was a sunny day, and there was nothing on the schedule but soaking up the rays on the deck, and enjoying a few cocktails (white grape martini!!) and each other's company. The food was so-so, but it didn't matter. Later that night, we hit up Swig in San Francisco for a night of Below Zero beats and a tasting of Ploom's innovative products. I'm not a smoker at all, but this stuff was pretty cool. It was like a small, hand held vaporizer for tobacco and herbal pods that produced zero smoke. As we puffed away, we all commented on how we were standing in a very small circle and no one was blowing smoke on one another. We liked the flavor called "Gold", which tasted of honey and cognac. Again, it was an excellent night.

Oh yeah, at some point on Thursday I took a tumble down the back stairs of my house. It hurt my pride more than anything, but I did hit pretty hard. I laughed then, but Friday morning was a different story.

Friday: Seeing as that I did nothing but eat for the past week, I hit the gym. I was SORE from my fall (back, right hip and ribs), but I tackled a 90 minute class of kickboxing, dance and yoga. It hurt, not gonna lie, but it also felt really good. Check out the new video from my gym!! Its awesome, although the music leaves a little to be desired. The rest of the day was spent doing things that I didn't have time for earlier in the week.

Today, I'm catching up on the blog thing. Sorry for my lack of posts. I promise to get back on track this week after my lame communications final on Tuesday. We're heading back out to the East Bay today for a birthday BBQ for my mother...and then, at some point I should try to care about this next final and study a little. We'll see how that goes. LOL. Talk to you all soon!!