Chaos Attraction

Cornish Christmas and Nevada City

2007-12-16, 10:40 p.m.

Despite me having taken off from work around noon or so so we could leave early for Cornish Christmas (6-9 on Friday)...well, we didn't leave until 4:45 p.m. After a bit of squabbling over the directions, we finally found the hotel around 6:30.

Honestly, the Grass Valley Best Western? Is really nice. Cranked up the heat, free breakfast, free Internet, pets (kitty on the front counter!)...and the lady behind the desk helpfully called a taxi for us to get over to Cornish Christmas, because apparently parking is a bitch. That's oddly enough, more stuff than I got at the Hilton.

Cornish Christmas was pretty cute. Mom wasn't too into it (I gather she expected more costumery, but that was more on the people working booths than the general population), but it was cute. I got a nifty sea opal/hematite wire necklace and some Swarovski Christmas tree earrings, Mom got some of the same earrings and some shea butter and I forget whatall else. They had all kinds of foods around, and interesting stores to wander through. I actually went in a "mercantile" that wasn't at Disneyland (har) and a few other funky stores. Could have had more crafts on the street, I suppose- this one I'd say was something like 50% food booths.

There was a photo booth- your picture taken with the Grinch. I was tempted, but there was a long line of teenagers taking their pictures there already. I have to say, this is the most teenagers I've ever seen at a craft-related event before. Yes, I'm aware that's because "there's nothing else to do."

We heard about Auburn having a "country Christmas" event along the lines of the other two, but it was on Saturday night, right when we had to go to dinner with my relatives. *sigh* Coulda had a trifecta, dangit! Too bad we didn't hear about it until we drove past a sign announcing it on the way up here.

Oh, and by the way? It really wasn't THAT cold Friday night. Seriously, it was warmer than where I live already! I didn't even have to wear gloves, for crying out loud. So, woot!

On Saturday, well...it took a long-ass time to get out of the hotel room. Like, 1 p.m. (Ouch. We were still here when housekeeping came by.) Mom was freaking out about presents that we were supposed to have wrapped and done by the time we met the relatives for dinner. She forgot the name tags, she made panicking phone calls as to who got what DVD's...meanwhile I'm all, hey, can we have lunch, and I DID want to go around Nevada City today...

Nevada City is very cute. I've enjoyed running around Sutter Creek, Placerville, etc., but NC has the best stuff to look at.

We ended up going to Ike's Quarter Cafe, a Cajun-themed place my shrink recommended. It was pretty good, I had my first po' boy. I also enjoyed people-watching there because, well...there's more hippie-types here. The way people dressed was interesting- big furry boots (I don't mean Uggs), long hippie skirts worn with legwarmers (I want to try this look now, especially with a side-slit skirt), ponchos and shawls. It was cool.

Then we wandered the streets and had a good time. There are a lot of awesome hippie stores here, and I went to the two my shrink also mentioned, Asylum Down and Yabobo, which had tie-dye, musical instruments, cute shoes, amusing stickers, a rooster belt buckle that said "Cocky"...all kinds of fun. I got a beaded butterfly barrette in Asylum Down. We went in a lovely glass shop where they gave us free tea and said that the weather was lovely right now, but they were going to pay for it later. (Apparently snowing is due to occur on Monday. Near miss!) I found a fairy-themed store, Tanglewood Forest with a giant tree in the middle of it- the sign says "The forest is open." I got a really wacky blue and green star tree topper that was so cute I couldn't pass it up. I found the bead store in town- uh, yay there. I also ended up buying a hat- purplish-red one that's surprisingly warm. Which was a good thing because colder weather did kick in that night.

At 5:30 we met up with Aunt Susie, Uncle Brad, and Kristen at Friar Tuck's, which had fondue. I had cheese fondue for dinner. They served it with bread, apples, mushrooms, broccoli, celery and carrots. The cheese was good, but I have decided that vegetables do not go well with hot cheese. The apples with it were scrumptious, as was the bread, but the rest...eh. We all had chocolate fondue for dessert (with pound cake, apples, strawberries, banana, pears, and pineapple), which was REALLY AWESOMELY GOOD. Yum on that chocolate.

Amusingly enough...they spent almost the entire time talking about other vacations they had gone on. Again. Though this time it was about Disney World, which I want to go to anyway, back East (ditto), and Malaysia...well, I'll skip that one. Uncle Brad got approached by a "comfort lady" (i.e. pimp), which was an amusing story to hear about.

Eventually we did the present exchange, then they left and Mom and I wandered around some more down the streets (most stores were closed though) for a bit, then we went back to Grass Valley. She did stuff like run to the bank and buy an enormous amount of crap (tons of flavored candy canes, MORE wrapping stuff, a humidifier...it got kind of random) at the Longs across the street.

Sunday (uh, today by the time of this posting), we go to Victorian Christmas! Woo hoo! I dearly hope we get an earlier start to get out of here- checkout's at 11, and I hear we need to park somewhere by 11 on that end of town as well.


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