The University where that guy that I like so much teaches at has a long weekend every October and it's known amongst our group of friends as St, Michael's weekend...because forever and a day ago he was the one who recommended it.
Officially it's just Fall Break...but whatever it's called is fine because it's much, much needed.
The weeks leading up to it became a comedy of errors of sorts. We made and canceled more plans than I can even keep track of...originally we were all going 'home' to Boulder for Homecoming with our great friends and then boys bailed and our friends had a conflict. Next up was San Francisco, which was a cheap flight but it just wasn't jiving with me. There was Napa, because hello...wine AND changing leaves sounded amazing but the hotels were all booked. For a few days we tossed around Colonial Williamsburg, which seemed crazy for a 4 day weekend but my free airline tickets only got us part way there and we're drowning in college tuition bills.
So yeah. It became complicated. And, quite frankly, made me grumpy.
And then we got a last minute email that Colbie Caillat was playing at Humphrey's in San Diego. Cheap tickets, great hotel prices and the most perfect venue/location ever and we basically ran out the door after spending an hour inputting 12 Ticketmaster vouchers into the system...and each voucher had like 85 teeny tiny numbers and I've suddenly become blind as a bat.
But hey...the tickets wound up being free and right about now I'm all about anything and everything that's free.
And when I talk about the perfect venue...this is the view from our hotel room balcony.
Perfect.
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We worked all day and then hopped on the 5 freeway at 5:00pm for the drive south...which pretty much meant that we were starting out our little getaway in a happy harmonious sort of way.
Not.
But cocktails were waiting...as was Colbie.
And soon...we were there and all was well in Buschland.
The concert was great...totally low key and almost like she's in the backyard with you. The weather was perfectly chilly...enough to need a sweater but not enough to be cold. Autumn took so long to arrive and we're savoring every minute of it before it becomes winter...but who am I kidding? We live in SoCal so winter isn't that much different.
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Before heading home we popped into Con Pane for a savory bread plate and huge mugs of hot coffee.
Yum.
The rest of the weekend was rather mellow and sprinkled with some work stuff and some fun stuff. Dinner with friends one night. Cocktails most nights...or, truth be told, every night.
And the pumpkin cranberry crackers from Trader Joe's are SO GOOD!
We did some house stuff and played with making our kitchen table smaller since our houseful is currently smaller...but then I realized that there are still always a lot of people gathered here for various meals during the week, so nevermind.
We strolled through Rogers Gardens and hit up BevMo and Costco and caught up on laundry and went to sushi one day. It just felt...relaxing.
I ended up making a real, honest to goodness eggplant parmesan one night. A slow roasted marinara came first and then I did the unthinkable and fried, in olive oil, the eggplant the way my Grandma used to...and the smell of it brought back so many great memories of her cooking.
I normally bake mine but truly, it's just not the same.
Eggplant parm is probably one of my favorite things but I don't make it very often...and I should. My boys have no clue that it's 'meat free' and I'm not telling them until they're like 40.
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And then Sunday came and that guy that I like so much had to work, so real life creeped back in. But that's ok...real life is good too.
In the middle of the night I was woken up by a foreign sound....raindrops! Lots of them! I'm currently sitting at my kitchen counter and the sound of them, in between the sound of my keyboard, is so lulling. And the smell...I love the smell of the air after the rain.
This morning was crazy because of it...lots of people are suddenly 'sick' when the rain comes so there was a lot of scrambling and early morning phone calls to make everything work out. But, like it always does, it did and now I'm facing a mountain of emails to wade through.
Supper tonight, in honor of the rain....meatloaf, mac n cheese and a veggie of some sort. Mmmm....I can't wait.
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