Rockin’ and Bowlin’

Hoo boy. The weekend was long and jam packed with things to do. Yesterday was stressful (in that self-imposed way), as I went slowly crazy and Bethany watched with glee. I decided to redo the apartment. This had been coming for while – I had been feeling the need build up in me, but it suddenly hit full-force. Beth and I redid the living room, making an actual entertainment center out of a bookcase. The TV, VCR, digital box, and stereo are all in one place! Using one extension cord! I moved most of the yarn out of the living room and into a Cost Plus basket in the bedroom. Moved Adah’s personal chair back into the living room next to the working yarn, shown here:

and best of all, got rid of five huge bags of books. I finally found the gumption to get rid of all the wonderful books that I’ve loved passionately yet know I’ll NEVER read again. I had to leave the dream behind. Sigh. When I was a kid, I read the same favorite thirty books over and over and over again. I thought it would always be that way, gain a new favorite, read it four times. Now I have over sixty books in my to-read pile, and more enter the house every week. I’ll never again be that summer-vacation, watermelon-eating, Gone With The Wind for-the-seventh-time-reading little girl…..

Also this weekend: Went to a surprise birthday party Saturday night where we scared the pants right off the intended victim – she just gaped at us (and I can just imagine – who the fuck are all these people in my darkened living room?). I was the only person over thirty in the room. One lovely girl was aghast when she learned I was thirty-one. Right reaction. Wrong method. No, it’s okay, I had to soothe her. I’m all right with it. I like being thirty-one, really…. Honestly, it’s not that bad….. I had been up for twenty-odd hours at that point, and everything felt like such an effort.

Drove into the City again on Sunday night to attend K and R’s knitting. The fog was banked at a distance, and we leaped from the metering lights to the height of the Bay Bridge with such abandon…. Only to slam into traffic again at the island. But it was a gorgeous night to have the top down. Knitting was actually held south of the City, in San Mateo of all places because one of the girls has a swimming pool in her complex. Right on! Bring on the swimsuits and the wine coolers, said I.

I found my way to SM (stop it!) pretty well, but when I exited the freeway, I got a little lost. Well, ahem. Made my way on accidental surface streets through Burlingame (which prior to this trip I had just thought was an alternate landing strip for stray SFO flights, but it turns out to be quite charming in a small-town softball way) all the way to Millbrae. Twenty-five minutes and innumerable eucalyptus trees later, I found I had missed the imperative turn-off long before.

Knitting was good, when I finally got there. I’ve started Bonne Marie’s LoTech Sweatshirt in a camel-colored cotton. It’s actually just kinda dirty beige, but I feel better calling it camel.

Monday was spent running around with Bethany, shopping at Chain Stores From Hell (we won’t mention names, but I got the sweetest lamp – I promise I won’t go back), shooting, and reorganizing my house. Bethany is a saint. She took me at my stressed out (but where am I going to put all the photo albums?) whiny worst and made me into a calm, cool, collected gal who only had to walk to three different stores to find a bulb that fit in said Chain Store lamp.

Then I went bowling in Albany. I’ve been to Albany perhaps twice in my life, and I think once was on accident. It was surreal. Rock’n’Bowl. More like Hip-Hop’n’Bowl, with crazy action lights that were trying SO HARD to be cool, and a big video screen (to which I was glued, since I ain’t up on my Mary J. Blige). Every once in a while, a chintzy smoke machine would send gloopy steam over the lanes. It was dark, and the neon balls glowed. The lanes were full of either people wearing too-tight clothing who missed the lanes entirely, or guys who chucked the balls in seemingly arbitrary arcs and made strikes every time. I bowled one game for a whopping 138 and WON! I was trounced soundly in the other games. I suck. But every once in a while, I’d hit something good and stick with it.

B met us there, and I think she was as shocked as I was that she made it over the Bay Bridge. She was, I’ll admit, super cute, bowling way better than I was (after she warmed up), and she even came home with me afterwards. Of course, this was because I had taped last week’s Boy Meets Boy, which we watched before she set out valiantly in a westward direction. (Spoiler: Dan was SO straight!) I KNEW I taped that episode for a reason. Girl trap. Didn’t work all that well, as she left afterward. Gawd, I hope she made it home. If SHE ended up in Millbrae, I’ll know I gave her the swimming-pool directions, and not the City ones. Dang. Hope she made it home, ‘cause it’d be nice if she came back over sometime (said coyly, scuffing toe on floor).

The East Bay rocks. It DOES! (well, at least it rock’n’bowls, and that’s something, ain’t it?)