Just make sure you remember throughout all this that it's entirely possible I'll write about something that's already happened again without remembering what was what day, or get things out of order, or just generally get every detail wrong. It's to be expected after waiting a third of the year, or else it better be. I mean, if I made mistakes the _week_ after the trip, by now it's all mush.
First, corrections from previous posts: Rho called Wednesday, not Tuesday. Vel was around to talk to him. I think that’s it, actually. You probably won't remember that I even said that, but I wrote down this correction immediately after posting it and then failed to continue with enough other stuff to post it, so it's been floating around since then. With that, it's now time for...
I woke up early. Relatively, that is. Vel was getting ready to take off and all, and nobody wanted to just wake up and have her already be gone for the rest of the trip. The goodbye was rather uneventful though as I recall, not really much was said by anyone, and Vel floated around and kept floating around until I started to wonder, but then I looked around and she was gone and for some reason it surprised me.
I think Thursday was Bebop day. Thus the general lack of interesting pictures (except some bizarre foot artwork...) and activities. Bebop does actually fill up most of a day - last year it was Sailor Stars, this year Bebop. Yes, we finished it all. I can no longer remember if we packed up and left that evening after Bebop and maybe some other movie, or if that was the next morning. I'm thinking it was that night actually, because I remember bringing all my stuff outside in the dark, swinging the bungee ball at Leslie some (in big wide arcs at full extension that are hard to avoid and have a lot of bopping power, but unfortunately easy to dodge inside of and counterattack with, say, tickling. Especially when they start teaming up on you). After giving that up I went wandering off in search of someplace without people's porch lights on (I guess it's fashionable to leave them on in those beach houses for some reason, there were a lot more than I'm used to) and enjoy the crisp, cool night air and perfectly clear, starry sky. I mean, after all, it's a sight I rarely get access too up here you know. Portland actually had a record-tying 38 straight days of rain through October and November.
Whatever the case, when we left it was to return to the other house of Shellie's in San Jose (basically, home base for most of the trip). Now I'm sure it was that night, because I remember sleeping there, or rather waking up there, before all the stuff tomorrow. And I suppose we then stayed up half the night playing cards, listening to music, and such. I don't remember for sure anymore, but it's basically a given, that's our time filler activity.
It was getting so close to leaving time! I was sad... but, decided to make the most of the days left, and got up ready to enjoy more freakish adventures. Everybody seemed to enjoy Bebop, but was ready, after a day spent on one couch or another, to go do some stuff. Shortly after we all got up Shellie's mom came over to take all of us out to lunch. She's really nice, and put up with us very well, found out where a lot of people were from, not sure if she figured out _exactly_ what was going on, but either way she took it all in stride. We went to a retro diner with diner-style burgers. I love those. My quest for the burger with an egg on it was finally at an end, they had 'em! And big strawberry milkshakes, too. Mmm... I still remember that much *l*.
After lunch she dropped us back again, but we didn't stay long, we packed everything and left the base for good. It barely fit in the cars. We had to contract additional help and leave some foot... that should read food, but I'll leave it because it's an amusing typo... leave some foot... ack, stop that! We couldn't bring all those things you eat, I don't think. But this was judged a better option than leaving behind Leslie to make space.
I'm sorry Guerin, but you just don't drive as fast as Brian. It was a good try though. We _were_ the first ones there, but Jennie had to leave her car behind, so Brian detoured to bring her along. She also got into a minor scrape in the act of doing so, but the damage wasn't that bad as far as I know, and she wasn't injured, so. And Brian was still only about five minutes behind us, and well ahead of Shellie's car. So now it was myself, Guerin, Brian, Jennie, Shellie, Jennifer, Leslie, Eric, and Mike, with all our gear, taking over Shellie's apartment and probably really annoying the hell out of her roommates. It was kinda neat, actually, we filled her entire room with our stuff. Then we went out to the bus stop in order to go Do Stuff.
First thing we hit in SF was the wharf. Or maybe pier. Or dock, or some kind of place where there's water and a museum and stuff. And big stone steps. Leslie and Jennifer stood up one and leaned on my shoulders, that was kinda amusing, since they were a good two or two and a half feet each. It was already kinda dark (where did this day go? It doesn't seem like we did all that much...) and from there we went to Ghirardelli square. I think we got on another downtown bus, or maybe it was close enough to walk. Either way, we found all sorts of things there. The first store didn't actually have chocolate, but it DID have all sorts of nifty carvings out of wood and stone, all made by the shop's owner. There was some great stuff there, we spent about an hour looking around, and Tannen took some promo-ish photos and promised to email them to the owner guy. I ended up buying this little stone egg thing that I still find very very cool. It's about an inch and a half high, if it would stand up, and it's a variety of demi-transparent colors, but the nifty thing is it's divided into eight separate sections by a red line cut into it, and each section is quite different in color. Well, except the tip, the top four or all reddish pink, but the lines divide the colors completely. There was also a nice little wooden owl I thought was neat, but I passed on that, I was running out of spending cash and I _did_ want to get some chocolate.
So then we proceeded to the actual Ghirardelli store. I went to browse in the chocolate, and half the group (the half that knew this was available) snuck off to get milkshakes and nobody told me a thing. So I got a few free samples (by just going around a few times *l*) and bought a box of chocolate orange squares (mmm... one of my absolute favorite flavors) and then went to look for them and eventually found them all at a table finishing big, delicious looking desserts! I was shocked and hurt and stuff. Anyway, then we started walking back, at least as far as where there was a bus. When we made it home we didn't do too much I don't think. I had some taffy and I think I put in "Grave of the Fireflies" after most everyone was falling asleep because noire wanted to see the end of it (we had watched the first half hour earlier and never resumed). That is one sad movie. It just goes from bad to worse. I swear this is true: the happiest moment in the movie is when they die in the first five minutes. It's all downhill from there (in flashback form, see). But in addition to that it's a really really good film, so I think of that as a feature. During this time there was some comment made about short people that caused noire to attack me and injure herself and then blame it on me, and I really really wish I could remember exactly what it was. I was so proud of me at that moment, too... I'll keep trying. After the movie we went to sleep too. This was a good day.
Waking up again, this is the one night I think I recall being uncomfortable. It was quite crowded. As usual we lazed around all morning, took turns getting ready, and then lazed around some more. But before too long we did all get up and take off again, this time down to the tourist-filled hell of Fisherman's Wharf. Okay, it wasn't really _all_ that bad, but I somehow completely lost the rest of the group and spent about two hours wandering around looking for them inside the arcade *g* and eventually out on the other places you could go see (like where the sea lions all were, which was very nifty) but didn't see anyone again until we all met up at 5:30 back where we started. By this point I was very tired of walking (back and forth looking for people for roughly five hours... I feel it was pretty justifiably so), and perhaps a little irritable, though nobody said anything. We made one quick stop where Jennie bought everybody little gifts (I ended up swapping jellybellies for chocolate band-aids *g* I actually said I generally _don't_ like jellybeans much, though some are good (coincidentally almost all of the green ones...) and everyone keeps remembering it the other way around. I'm thinking I may just have to start using the "allergies" excuse eventually. I was very thankful though, it made me feel _much_ better, though I still elected to go back to the apartment instead of continue on to Chinatown for dinner.
Jennifer was the only other person who decided to go back, so we ended up stopping by a taco bell and getting food, then making our way back (I think we had Shellie's key) and watching yet another (the last) movie from my stack of goodies, Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro, which is a wonderful old action/comedy about a famous heroic thief (grandson of storied French thief Arsenne (sp?) Lupin, but somehow japanese *l*) that feels a little like Inspector Gadget, but at the same time is a lot more serious AND more funny. We were most of the way through it when everybody else came back, but I guess you won't hear about what they did, since both the storytellers were also the only people who didn't go along. Anyway, the rest of the night was spent on the computer group chatting or trading the chat seat, talking, playing cards, taunting people with "Devil Chips" (which I opened after dinner) and so on. When we all went to sleep though (which might have been as early as 1 or 2 am for once) I made sure I had a little more space and an actual pillow this time.
The end creeps closer. We awake, and we don't do much. We definitely drove back to San Jose. There were a lot of driving pictures involved. We were going to spend the last night at Jennie's, we had to figure out everyone's share of the two week food cost, and as a result the big event, the only event I can recall, was bowling. Oh, besides dinner that is, which was at a little restaurant that I can't remember the name of but which is roughly comparable, I guess, to Appleby's. The food was pretty bad though, and they heard us saying that so they surprised everyone by making the desserts already ordered be on the house (argh, I passed because I didn't want to add to my bill when the regular food wasn't all that great) and THEN Cindra dropped by and picked up the tab for EVERYONE anyway. It was big, and she deserves a big round of applause for that, that was a really wonderful thing to do. In fact, it was so wonderful that some people (Jennifer) tried to stop her, but it was too late.
Actually, the high point of the visit was when I swiped a helium balloon from the lobby on my way out. Pun just now seen, and not originally intended, but I think I'll let it stand... *l*
No! I just remembered what else we did! We drove out to the lighthouse and walked on the road, took pictures by the tunnel, got that great shot of all of us (except camera shy but picture happy dk) on the bridge by the sign that says only 5 people are safe on it at once *l*. I can't believe I almost forgot this event, this was one of the best parts of the entire two weeks. We ran around, we climbed on things we weren't supposed to climb on, we looked around this landmark and we whacked my head into car ceilings (I to put a pillow on it during the ride out) and it was great fun. I raced Guerin up the hill. He and a few others got documentarified by a guy who was making a sort of tourist video about the lighthouse or something. Never heard what happened since with that, in fact, if anything did. The lighthouse itself is very very neat, too, because it's built in such an amazingly neat location. The bridge you see crosses this rather large chasm to a rocky pillar out by the shore. It's great, except for the rangers and regulations and modern architecture (they couldn't make it a tourist location without making it, you know, unlikely to collapse and spill groups like ours to their deaths on that distant rocky shore. Very bad for publicity). That was a long aside. Let's just forget that it was in the middle of a sentence. If not for those things, it could be right out of some overdone adventure movie or fantasy novel. That was where we spent most of the afternoon, and definitely accounts for all the missing time. I feel so much better now.
Anyway, bowling. I almost didn't participate. I really don't generally like bowling. I'm not bad at it, I mean, no worse than the average non-bowler, but I don't like the facilities in general, and the shoes specifically. On the other hand, I said to me, "look, moron, tomorrow you're going home and it's boring old summer vacation again for you. What are you going to do besides sit around and tell about how you didn't go bowling? Oh, I know, sit around and sleep." I yelled at myself the whole time they were working out the money arrangements. In a more general sense, the message was "It's been 16 days and you still can't lighten up, when the risk is just that you'll do bad at a game and your socks will smell like the [ ] of a monkey that recently swallowed a whole lemon?" That finally got me moving, and then I joined in and screwed all the calculations up at the last minute. I also thoroughly enjoyed myself. The activity of bowling itself I rather like, really, I just sorta wish it didn't have all the trappings.
Oh, before I get too far, on the way over I also had fun messing with noire's head over my travel CDs that I was listening to and sharing. Let the record show that this was highly amusing to me. Most of the music from them is now a part of Project Listen, in fact, which I guess will stay up as long as Mike wants it to. It's not all anime music (and plenty of the anime music is really good and non-vocal), btw, there's all sorts of nifty stuff if you look around.
Anyway, bowling was amusing. The pictures really say it better than I would though. Between people's amusing form, and all of us laughing at ourselves for being so bad and snubbing Mike for being so good it was great fun. We got all sorts of people back, just about everybody we were introduced to during the trip reappeared - Erin and Anna and Brian who was away for a while that afternoon. I tried to keep the scoresheet, again, but somehow all my little collected records mysteriously disappeared between then and the trip home. Mysteriously, yeah, like certain pictures kept disappearing from Tannen's flash card. The downside to digital photography, I guess.
I need at least one memorable moment, so here it is. Jana in frame 1: "Okay, but I'm really terrible at bowling you know, I'll be so far behind... *mutter mutter mutter*" She walks up to the line, flings the ball forward before letting go so that it arcs through the air and slams down with a very loud THUD before continuing to roll. She turns her back and walks dejectedly back to the bench as everybody's eyes go wide because she just got a very slow moving strike.
Fast forward: sometime later than that noire was trying to mimic the performance, and even though she had a gutter ball I did my best wide eyed look as she's walking back. She didn't completely believe me, but she did in fact light up a little and spin around to see it hit absolutely nothing. Then spun back and thwacked me. _I_ thought it was funny...
Brian, Anna, Erin, and I think Guerin all went home for good that night, and then it was just the freak crew at Jennie's house again. I ended up sleeping on the cushions that were removed from the couch in making it into a bed, wedging a shoe under either end and draping a sleeping bag over the top. It worked. We slept. Last night in California...
Packing is so sad. Or rather, repacking is. The day was to be spent basically dropping freaks off in succession and saying goodbyes. We'd all be happy if it could go on forever, but we knew of course that it'd happen eventually. So first one group delivered... Mori? to an early morning departure, while everyone else was still packing. Then the remaining freaks set out to the bus station to get Leslie where she needed to be. I think we stopped off at Jennie's family's establishment though... Café Matisse? I apologize if that's not the name *l*. She offered to get everyone drinks, but I forget who took her up on it, we sat around and talked for about ten or fifteen minutes and then had to take off again. We waited in line with Leslie there and then snuck out back and watched her board and depart and waved like crazy people until the bus was out of sight.
From there it was, I think, to lunch at Burger King, just to pass the hour or so until we needed to be at the airport so I could make it onto my flight. If it had been, say, a month later we would have had to leave immediately but as it was we had time. At the airport I checked everything in, and then we all stood near my gate and milled around saying goodbye until they called my number, at which point I went to get in line and everybody ignored me *l*. I was so hoping to be desperately waved after like we did to Leslie, too... I mean, best to finish off on a memorably freaky foot, right? They all sort of just walked away...
I was so sad.
And it was all over...
Until next year, when we'd dang well better put something together on the west coast again. I wish I could go to DC, but if I can't I hope we can get enough people to do something like this again. At long last, The End.
*lmao* word count of my entire tale, just so you know (heh, including this sentence): 17,111
Jarihn