My brunch started snowballing after I fixed the first things. Originally I just wanted some cheese & crackers and a small tomato, but I ended up adding olives, half an avocado, and two leftover slices of veggie pizza.

Ah well, at least it was all healthy food.

Organic medium. t /Lefty Californian

Also, in re shoes: The polkadot shoes are quite horrible, except for the black ones with gray polkadots. Those are shoes to love and cherish forever. Possibly not as much as the ones Plei exclaimed over, but very very nearly so.

Also, as Hec noted upthread, there was exactly one costume Ann-Margret wore in The Pleasure Seekers that didn't make me cry for her. It was just criminal, really.

Also, so jealous of aurelia.

Hmmm. Apparently, today is my Day of Being So Very, Very Shallow.

There is already a crowd in the airport bar.

It's pretty well established that I like a good drink from time to time, but isn't 8:00 a.m. pretty much always the wrong time for one?

Nope. Not if you hate flying. When I flew Cincy to SF for the first time (way back in 2001, I think), I flew first-class, b/c my almost-SiL was a flight attendant at the time, and I used one of her buddy passes. The flight was pretty early -- 9 a.m., I think -- and I really dislike flying, and first-class is all about the free booze, so I ordered an o.j. and Maker's Mark as soon as I sat down, and drank bourbon and o.j. the whole way there.

That is how flying should always be.

My fear is that booze will contribute to the turbulence-induced pukies.

Also: Beers at 8:00 a.m.? Nast.

My bartender ex once had a long conversation with one of the bartenders at SFO, who told him it was in many ways a bartender's dream gig: flexible hours, even regular 8-5 if you need them, plane-phobic people fretting about their imminent deaths and eternal judgment tending to tip generously, no boring regulars talking your ear off for months on end, a huge and heavily armed security force to do your bouncing for you, and, because of the laws about airport businesses, full health and retirement benefits and union protection.

I still think about it myself sometimes, when I get fretful about my Best Boss In The World retiring and how much my present job's going to suck without him.

I went with the light. I'll have them all in the end.

I didn't realise how much I loved maple syrup -- it's been a stealth staple in our family forever, but usually brought in from Canada. I'd buy a bottle every year, and then stop having pancakes when it was done. This past year I bought maple syrup here, and it was nast. So I got much bottles this last trip. To be sure.

Controversy over the US's efforts to get the world to stop using leap-seconds: [link]

No really. Quite controversial.

Under the US plan, a leap-hour would be added every 500-600 years.

Leap seconds are used to adjust for the fact that the earth's rotation has been slowing down (due to lunar tide effects).

Airport bartender blog: [link]

I do think that booze+orange juice makes much more sense in the morning than beer.

Heh. I thought I still had the journal-y things saved somewhere on this computer that I wrote about that trip -- it was July 2001, and while the majority of the trip was in Mendocino with my college roommate, at the end of the trip I went down to SF and met some Buffistas for the first time-- JZ, Hec, and Suela). Some worthwhile snippets of my first impressions of them:

Friday: I could not believe the week was over. And that I had to say goodbye to Buf. That was kind of sad. But I have to admit I was looking forward to getting to San Francisco to see the SF Buffistas.

Checked in to the hotel, called Suela at work, planned where/when to meet, and then I played with my hair and tried to become more presentable than I was looking after the long drive from Mendo.

Found Suela with no problem whatsoever. She is a doll, very easy to talk to – and looks just like her picture! We chatted the whole time we were winding our way through SF trying to find Hec's apartment. Finally found it, and then had a Mt. Adams-like experience trying to find a parking space!

[Note: Mt. Adams is a neighborhood in Cincy that is, basically, all hills, and it's a yuppie favorite for living and nightlife, so parking is impossible there. Hence the reference to the difficulty parking on Frederick St.]

Hec is a big cutie and is exactly like he is on TT. Funny, smart, quirky. These people were so easy to talk to! I had that pre-meeting-them panic that I'd stare at my feet and mumble a lot. Not a worry with this crowd, though. Hec's son, Emmett, is the cutest kid ever. Funny as hell, too. Bright – he came up with some comments that were priceless. And he's a HUGE PowerPuff Girls fan – this kid ranks high in my book!

We drank wine, kicked a soccer ball around and chatted in general terms, debated what to order for dinner, and went inside. Chatted more, then Jacqueline showed up – again, nice as hell, easy to talk to, funny, really pretty. Pizza arrived, and we watched cartoons with Emmett while we ate our pizza – PowerPuff Girls (his choice – BTW, Buttercup is his favorite PPG, too, like me). I have to say, Hec and Emmett together are absolutely adorable. Emmett had bathtime and said that all the girls had to play with him. I overheard Jacqueline in the bathroom doing something with mutant DNA or something, and then it was my turn – we blew bubbles, played with Godzilla, and I said how cool his waterproof books were. Emmett offered to lend me one – after he said they were boring! Love that kid.

After Emmett got to bed, we watched some random snippets from S4 BTVS. Which was fine by me. Got the obligatory proof-that-this-happened picture, and then we finally left around 11:00. Really, really like those folks. A lot.

How much would it suck to be this bird: [link]

"La la la... I'm just a bird, flying along... Agh! A Space Shuttle!!"

thunk