…you’re all eagerly awaiting me to write about my fab chick get away. You are, aren’t you? I knew it!
Ok, so yeah it was two weeks ago and all but I’ve just been too freakin‘ busy with, like, real life to actually sit down at the computer for any length of time. I mean, the kids had to be fed, laundry done, a @*$&%! Harvest Festival to be planned for my kid’s school, and the husband medicated after being left in charge for the better part of a week. The usual drill.
So, since I don’t have the time to really go into depth about the awesomeness that was Chick Trip 2007 I’ll give you bulleted highlights. Ready? Let’s go:
#1 – Any vacation that starts off with you seeing one of your favorite people (who now lives in Bend, Oregon which is way too far away for you to see regularly) waiting for you to unlock the door at a beach condo is immediately kick-ass.
#2 – So Jenn and I arrived hours before everyone else and proceeded to drink a few beers. And eat dinner at a quaint place on the beach. And drink a few more beers. And go grocery shopping. And drink a few more beers. And get settled into the condo. And I think we drank a few more beers although there may very well have been some tequila-quaffing in there as well.
And you know? Somewhere during all this grocery shopping and dinner eating we ended up sitting together on the beach in the dark wondering if the water would actually feel cold if we hadn’t drank so much beer.
#3 – Lori, Maria, Pam and Colette all arrived on the same airport shuttle driven by someone who is about to become our new favorite person: John Rubio.
John is a recent immigrant from Tijuana, Mexico and has the unique distinction of being the only person from Mexico to ever warn me about drinking the water. In San Diego. Without any sense of irony whatsoever.
#4 – During all this time the creepy landlord Maurice has been coming into and leaving our condo. He had a perpetual load of laundry going in our unit at all times.
Maurice is the one taking the photo. Yes, he was that close to us all freakin‘ weekend and we did nothing about it. Probably because we were perpetually drunk. Well, at least I was.
#5 – You know, I could sum up the entire weekend but it would read like “woke up, ate breakfast, did some stuff, started drinking, went to sleep”. So let’s just say that we summoned John Rubio to take us everywhere because his shuttle was cheap as hell and he was a kick ass driver. I mean, how many times have you been picked up at the San Diego Zoo and just when you think it’s weird that you didn’t arrive at your condo twenty minutes prior your driver turns to you and says “Hey, ever been to Mt. Soledad? We’re almost there.” Or, “Wanna see La Jolla? I take you there.” Or, “No, that smell is not the brakes. Must be something else.” as you are careening out of control down the face of a steep hill at a speed that’s roughly equivalent to the space shuttle just before it re-enters the earth’s atmosphere.
…and he never charged us any extra for all the little side trips and sight-seeing he took us on despite the fact that we wore out at least two sets of brakes.
#6 – How about a few zoo pics? Our friend the orangutan:
The sun bear:
…and my maternal favorite:
#7 – The rest of the trip was pretty much a blur. I think there were two days in a row that I woke up thinking “I know how I’ll get around that no-glass-on-the-beach-thing! I’ll pour the tequila in a water bottle!” So we did the beach thing, the swimming thing, and get-the-cops-called-on-us-thing.
#8 – So when Sunday morning finally rolled around Lori, Maria, and I found ourselves at the airport hung over. Ok, so I was probably the only one who was hung over but I like to pretend that they were too because it makes me feel a little less like I belong at the Betty Ford. At any rate, some guy sits down across from me with a Cal Guard shirt on and we chat him up. He asks us about our weekend, to which my tequila-stinking carcass responds with something that makes him raise an eyebrow and wonder aloud if we should be arrested or sent to rehab. After a moment of silence I, the eternal dumbass, try to change the subject by asking him “So, you’re in the Army Guard huh?”
And he answers, “Yeah.”
And me, being Thou Who Has No Concept Of The Seven Degrees Of Separation Or Consequences says, “Oh yeah? My dad’s in the Guard.”
“Oh yeah? Where?” Mr. I’m-Wearing-An-Army-Shirt asks. So the Queen of Dipshittery (that would be me) answers,
“In Stockton.”
“Which unit?”
“G Company? Something-something battalion? He does chinooks, I’m sure you’ve never heard of him.”
“What’s his name?”
I should have stopped there and feigned retardation or something. But I didn’t. Instead I damned my father to the reputation of having a daughter who looked every bit like she had been the main attraction in Tijuana the previous night by answering, “Steven Armstrong?”
“Oh! Steve! Yeah! I’m his commander.”
…and then the guy hands me a card that says “Nader S. Araj Maj NGCA” and a bunch of other acronyms that could only have been produced by the government, thus proving that he must work for the military because no other organization on earth could ever come up with that many letters that don’t spell out anything. Fuck.
