Oh my. This weekend. Hoo boy. Here we go....

On Friday, I left work at noon and went over to L's for the final moving activities. They were about to leave to go get lunch, so I went along with them. I found out that the pod L had gotten to ship her stuff had been filled up before I got there, and her apartment manager had offered to hand off whatever she left behind to Goodwill if she just left it in the closet (wow, there was a lot of stuff). So theoretically all there was left to do was the cleaning...but I came in and thought, um, still looks like a lot of stuff to me... In the end, she'd made an appointment with the manager to go through the apartment at 4, and we were pretty much done by the time he came. I cleaned the kitchen and a bit of the hall bathroom area. The kitty did surprisingly well under the circumstances, which is impressive. Though it was pretty funny to watch L's brother try to catch her to put her in the carrier. I was amazed at the amount of stuff they were taking to the airport. I ended up with a collection of stuff that hadn't been packed (some of which L wants back and most of which I don't think she does, including food) that needed to be dropped off at the house. We had to go fill up a tire with air again (I'm now worried about this because it looks deflated again by the time I got home....eargh, already there's a problem?), I realized that I couldn't find my brand new cell car charger and had to run to the nearby Sprint store to get another one....and then found mine when I got to my house. And we had to drop off L's cable stuff. And hit the Ikeda's for some of her brother's favorite foods. So we finally left around 5:30.

L wanted to drive to the Bay Area, but planned on drinking later on. I am very grateful that she did the drive in one last time. The drive into the Bay Area wasn't that bad--only jammed up at one point going by Berkeley. However, L and her brother had hoped they'd have time to shower before we had to leave for the restaurant...hah, no. We got to their hotel around 7ish, which we had to do to drop the cat off, but the new restaurant choice ("This is the kind of food my food eats," L's brother said about #2) was a Vietnamese restaurant in Oakland, which meant it would at best be a 35 minute drive...and in practice turned out to be an hour because hoo boy, is the traffic into SF freaking terrible on a Friday night. No, I never knew this before because I never bloody went to SF on a Friday night before. It was something else I was glad L was dealing with rather than me, because I wasn't even sure which freeway changes to make and it was so jammed in there I wouldn't have been able to switch lanes. Which is something I worry about. Also, for some reason every single Bay Area radio station was sucking donkey balls, so I brought out my mp3/tape deck/iPod hookup doodad for the first time and tried it out. It worked lovely, thanks.

Eventually... very eventually... we made it to the restaurant to meet up with V&C, previously mentioned here. As usual, hanging out with them was quite adorable, and the food was delicious and accommodating to everything. L broke out the wine she'd been given at her office farewell drinkapalooza and I thought, "Oh hell, now I really do have to drive home." Not that that was a surprise or anything, and hell, if I were them I would have gotten quite tanked. But possibly the best thing about that restaurant was that it was literally across the street from legendary ice cream parlor Fenton's! I've only been to this location (there's one in Vacaville I get to more often) twice, but I was surprised that at 10 p.m. on a Friday night it was just as super busy as when you go in daylight. I probably shouldn't have been surprised at that in a city. But we went through the to-go line and got two sundaes and ate them outside. I was pleased to introduce them all to the awesomeness of Fenton's.

And then...alas, it was time for folks to say goodbye. And for me to drive the drunks home, hah. L wasn't too tanked enough to give me directions back, which went well for the most part since the hideous crowds had gone away. So I can say that I have driven through SF...on the highways in the sky and on the bridge, anyway... technically speaking. But things got a little confused once we got into Millbrae again--L was reading off the wrong page of the instructions...and

DUM DUM DUM....YOU KNEW THIS HAD TO HAPPEN ON MY FIRST NIGHT REALLY OWNING A CAR....I GOT PULLED OVER BY A COP. Right on the block where the hotel was, at least.

Mostly I was just thinking, "Crap, my backpack is in the backseat behind me, SOMEONE GET ME MY BACKPACK WITH THE DRIVER'S LICENSE IN IT." And grabbing the folder I've been carrying around with all of the car paperwork in it. I rolled down the window and was all, "Sorry, I'm lost." He did a check on me, wasn't apparently fazed that the DMV paperwork hadn't been done yet, and mostly said I was weaving around while drunk. "Nope, just lost." He was fine with that.

However, this crap had kind of happened around midnight. And I was supposed to call Mom before I left the hotel. And I was naturally rather wigged at the idea of driving home late, at night, with only the GPS and not having people around or the ability to read the instructions I had printed out. There were something like 5 or 6 different freeway changes to get from here to the olde hometowne AND it was going to take an hour... so I was trying not to wig publicly, but I was wigging. And Mom was even more wiggy on the phone about "the crazies" that are out on the streets at midnight. "But shouldn't it be less crazies than during the daytime? Less people to worry about?" I said, trying to be hopeful about it. Mom was all, can't you sleep in their room or something? I was all, between all the luggage and one bed and the cat...well, I suppose I could sleep in their giant bathtub? (Seriously, this was in their room. They got a surprise upgrade. Which was fun for siblings, I'm sure.)

That was the point where L was all, "I will get you another hotel room." Which was incredibly nice of her under the circumstances. So everyone was less wigged out about me doing this, anyway. And I already had my luggage for the weekend, so that wasn't a worry. Of course, I was still trying to get off the phone with Mom at 12:30 a.m.....

More tomorrow.

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