Monday, May 31, 2004

Familial Bonding

Thank you all, again, for boosting my spirits when I was dragging my ass back there last friday.  I’m dragging everything I’ve got now, but I have a much better excuse and I won’t need to ask for your assistance or your pity.  This filthy planet has plenty of better places for those things, if you have any of them left.  I think it’s fair to say, I was crabby before, but now I’m coming out of my shell again. 

Friday wound up being the day the visiting inlaws - mom, dad and two sisters - did all the typical tourist things in town: sealions, fisherman’s wharf, coit tower, ghiradelli square, funky bar, the castro, the mission (that is, the actual mission itself), twin peaks, ocean beach, and a few other items I probably am overlooking… I spent the day in a five-hour committee meeting that was productive and satisfying, even if only on a professional level.  I got home in time for some serious partying, though, and the party pretty much lasted through the weekend.  The main activities on Friday night were watching Big Frank

fight his way through a jug of Carlos Rossi Red, and all of us struggling to breathe as:

I filled the entire house with thick burning peppery white smoke while preparing carnitas.  The recipe calls for searing the meat, and lord help us, it seared us back. 

We rented a big ol’ landboat on Saturday and piled in for a drive down the coast to see some lovely tidepools,

chuckle it up at a favorite winery,

and eat ourselves stupid at a restaurant that left us all gasping for room in our bellies in which to fit one more fried clam or

whole smelt.  Once we got back it was time to play some games, including my favorite, Fluxx,

which I decisively lost, except that it was a lot of fun, which ultimately was winning, except, of course, that I actually lost. 

Sunday was a quiet day of reading the newspaper, arguing over crosswords, strolling in the arboretum and around the neighborhood, and getting our asses kicked with an hour or so of power yoga at the Y - I am sitting here feeling parts of my hips rattling around that till recently were locked in place with a mortal rigor.  Sure it’s good, but damn, from my forearms to the soles of my feet and everything in between that I can exercise in public, I’ve been expanded from the joints on out and it’s a very strange sensation indeed. 

That night we ate the smoky carnitas (which, once again, had turned out perfectly), drank some excellent wine (Ravenswood Sonoma old vines zin, Lyeth tricentennary vines aussie grenache, and of course the Bonnie Doon barbera that’s so freaking excellent) and then finished off the jug of Rossi, all while playing poker for pennies till after midnight.  That’s when Heather and Tara started voguing

and doing cheerleading poses

and things got a little weird.  We got a few hours of sleep before the alarms went off at 5 for the first airport run this morning; the second run was at noon.  I’ve spent the rest of the day trying to refocus my shattered energy, reconstruct my traumatized alimentary canal, and revel in the quietude of a house that’s been emptied of inlaws.  My sister and her husband show up in a week for about five days, and my mother is in town the weekend after that.  I expect a lot less wine to flow, but maybe that will work out for the best this time.  There’s only so much a fellow can stand, even when it’s the very best.