Saying goodbye

It wasn't easy. There were a lot of tears, but not as many as I expected for the moment. I even made him cry with my Christmas present.  I'm a little proud of that.  I have a gorgeous painting now that he did for class but he gave to me.  It's truly amazing.  My tears haven't stopped, but I didn't think they would. I know it will be worse when I get back to LA, but I'll deal with that when it happens.  

The Beach

So much is going on. Well, not so much but what is going on is quite emotional. I have a very hard time talking about it and a very easy time crying about it. Yesterday I decided that if I was going to cry (which I was) that I wanted to do it somewhere else. So I drove the 45 minutes to the beach. I spent money I shouldn't have and bought comfy shirts at Victoria's Secret. Then I bought tea and found an empty spot on the beach. I brought a notebook with me. My mind is constantly going and I was hoping that I could write some of it down. I kind of did but I also just copied some quotes I found on Pinterest. Writing those out was surprisingly therapeutic. I wrote some on my own but it's still so hard to put everything into words.

The biggest thing I wanted when I was there was to see the sunset and feel some kind of peace that everything would be ok. I kind of found that. It only lasted a minute, but it's better than nothing.

Santa Barbara

We went back to Santa Barbara yesterday. I wanted to go to the beach, mostly so I could say that I went to the beach in December. His mom was planning on taking the train down for the night but it didn't work with her schedule so instead of her coming just for the day, Flako said he would go up and get her. We stopped at a fruit stand on our way up. Obviously it's winter so there wasn't a huge variety of berries. Since I'm leaving in less than a week, I didn't want to get a lot of fruit that I knew I wouldn't eat. I got just a red pair and it was quite good.

I really like Santa Barbara. It's just absolutely gorgeous, even in the dark. We took our bikes this time and so I got to see a little more of the city. We rode from the beach up to his mom's store.  He made a lot of fun of me because I didn't want to wear my tennis shoes that I brought and I kept my boots on. He had forgotten to call his mom back to say that yes we were coming so we went there to let her know we were there.  We had to wait for her to get off work so we went and got dinner at Chipotle. After learning what real tacos are like, I no longer love Chipotle as much. Still good but not as good.  The best part of dinner was the little girl singing on the street. Her dad played guitar and she sang. She was probably seven years old and was AMAZING! She was also adorable. She really got into it. She didn't sound like a little girl at all. Flako really wanted to video her but they finished and moved on before we got a chance too. After dinner, we rode around a little more. We went by the marina and then to the community college. He had gone there for a little bit several years ago. The campus is right across from the water and just absolutely gorgeous. Just breathtaking even at night when you can't even see the water. His mom called when we were there so we rode back to the car then. While he put the bikes back on, I walked over to the beach and just listened to the waves. They sounded like thunder. I love listening to the ocean. If I had gone to the beach by myself, I probably just would have sat in the sand and watched the ocean for a long time.

We drove to Goleta, where his mom lives. It's not that far from downtown Santa Barbara. She finished packing while we talked to her husband and his mom. It's so funny/weird to hear him be called his real name. It always takes me a moment to realize who they're taking to or about.

Less than a week before I leave...my goal is to pack today and maybe only cry a little bit...

Christmas lights!

It does not feel like Christmas. I don't really know what Christmas feels like anymore though so maybe it does. I'm wearing flip flops today so probably not this.

Friday night I made Flako drive around to look at lights. I asked Cristina at work and she told me about Upper Hastings Ranch, which is just north of Pasadena. They know how to do Christmas lights! Each block has its own sign at every house. Many of the houses have at least a few lights.

This house was quite intense:

This was my favorite tree:

Seeing the lights made it feel somewhat more Christmasy.

This week

Ugh.  It's rainy.  That's ok because it matches my mood.  This has been the hardest week here for sure.  My car has been in the shop since last Friday.  The one part that was broken then "mysteriously" caused something else to be broken and they couldn't figure it out.  The car is still in the shop, supposedly done today, but I'll believe it when I see it.  Flako's been taking so much time and taking me to and from work every day this week.  I honestly don't know what I would have done otherwise, which leads me to the other part of why this week has sucked.  He's moving to the East Coast over Christmas.  It makes me incredibly sad.  If you talk to me about this, here are phrases that are not helpful at.all.  "It/you will be fine." "It will be good for you." "You'll meet new friends."  Don't say these to me.  The only thing they do is make me want to talk to you less.

Yeah, that's been my week.

Las Vegas Thanksgiving

I randomly looked up tickets to Las Vegas a few weeks ago.  They were way cheaper than I expected so I decided to go, then decided not to go, and went back and forth even more before I actually went.  Flako was kind enough to go with me, which was great because that meant I didn't have to drive and I didn't go by myself.  I hadn't ever been to Vegas before.  Flako has been a few times.  He worked there when he was 16/17 for a few weeks and then he went when he was 21, so he hadn't been there in over 10 years.

The Highlights

People
Apparently the week of Thanksgiving is the time to go to Vegas.  On Wednesday, when we got there, there really weren't tons of people there.  It was nowhere near packed for sure.  We never had to dodge people or anything like that.  Even on Thanksgiving it never felt packed.

Hotels/Casinos
We stayed at the Tropicana, which was possibly the least interesting hotel we went into.  We went into quite a few, but really very few compared to how many there were.  Most of them weren't really what I expected.  For Vegas overall, I expected a lot more lights and sensory overload.  It was there, but not on the scale I expected.  Part of that was probably because of the "lack" of people.  The Flamingo was the closest to my stereotypical Vegas casino.
The hotels we went to:

Tropicana

MGM Grand:  There aren't lions anymore, which was disappointing.  The buffet was expensive but good.  I thought it would be cooler.

New York New York:  We spent the most time in this hotel, probably because of the roller coaster.

 

Excalibur:  I loved the outside of this one.  It's a castle!  We got stopped the most in here.

Mandalay Bay:  We sat on the chairs in the sports betting area to watch the Raiders game for a little bit, but I was exhausted and just wanted to go back to the hotel.  That's all I really remember from here.

Luxor:  The elevators are at a slant, which sounds like it could be cool, but they are only available to guests.  Lame.  The show we went to was here.

Cosmopolitan:  Liberace's car was here.  It looked fancy.

Flamingo:  How I pictured Vegas.  I found out only after we were home that it was built by Bugsy Siegel.  

Bellagio:  Super Fancy.  I loved the fountain shows.  I could have spent hours watching them.

Caesar's Palace:  HUGE.  It was fancy and huge.  We ate here at the food court.  I had barbeque and he had pizza.  It wasn't really worth it, but the hotel was beautiful.

Gambling
I didn't gamble at all.  I kept thinking,"oh I should put some money in a machine" but it really didn't sound very interesting to do.  I'm ok with not doing it although I'm sure I missed winning the jackpot.

Are you two married?
When we walked into the first hotel, we bet how many times we'd get carded.  We both look really young, but apparently not in Vegas.  We got carded at the (one) bar we went to, but we got stopped about a hundred times in the casinos for them to try to sell us timeshares.  We listened the first time.  We had to be at least 25 (I think...younger than we are at least), married or living together, and make at least $60,000/year.  Nooooope.  I think we got stopped about 10 times, mostly in Excalibur.

Buffet
We went to two buffets.  The first one was on Thanksgiving lunch at the MGM Grand.  It was EXPENSIVE.  We made it worth it.  We spent two hours there and each had four plates of food and then three desserts.  The desserts were really small but pretty!  They had a huge variety of food, which was all pretty good except for the seafood, which was not good at all.  The mac and cheese was actually good and one of the better items.

The other buffet we went to was in a casino on Fremont Street.  I don't even know what it was called.  It was much smaller than the MGM Grand and way cheaper.  Two buffets this place were half as much as one at the MGM.

Fountain

We saw two fountain shows.  The first one was cool, but the second one was way better.  The first, we were standing close to a psycho, possibly drunk, definitely naked, woman.  She was wrapped in a blanket or something at first so we didn't really notice.  She was kind of behind us and I turned around at one point and saw her putting panties on.  Then, when the show started, she got up and danced with the blanket as a cape.  Nope, no shirt.  I was surprised that the fountain was only white and no other colors.  In the first, the water went mostly up and down and the second it spun more.

  

Peggy
Because I posted on Facebook that I was going to Vegas, I found out my friend Peggy was going too.  She was meeting her family there.  We ended up meeting her at the Shoppes at Mandalay Bay on Thursday (which I kept forgetting was actually Thanksgiving) and talked for a few minutes.  I always think it's funny to run into people from South Dakota and she's a South Dakota person that lives in Southern California (she lives about an hour south of me) but we saw each other in Las Vegas.

Roller Coaster
The first time we went into New York New York, we checked out the roller coaster.  It was $14 for one time or $25 for the whole day.  We decided we would go back on Thursday and get the day pass so we could really get our money's worth and ride it at least four times.

We ended up riding it five times.  Once in the afternoon, once on the way back to the hotel before dinner, once before the show, and twice after the show.  We rode in the back four times and in the front once.  We were in the second car from the front because I was too chicken and didn't want to wait for the very front of the car.  Yes, the girl that wanted to jump off a building was too afraid to ride in the very front car of the roller coaster.  The back was more fun than the front.  The roller coaster went upside down and had a corkscrew.  The scariest parts were the first hill up and the corkscrew.  The only time it wasn't scary was the very last time.  We rode it back to back and that kind of took the fun out of it the last time actually.  It was a really bumpy ride.  The first time, I felt like I was going to have bruises on my face from it hitting the shoulder harness so many times.  I'm pretty sure my shoulders are internally bruised from it too.  It was the second best part of the weekend.

Drinks
Neither Flako nor I drink that much anymore, but I wanted to drink in Vegas and he was a good sport and drank with me.  We went to a bar at the Flamingo that had these giant cups that were 32oz.  I got a strawberry margarita and he got a Long Island Iced Tea.  We sat at the bar for a little bit and then walked back to the Tropicana.  We got so many looks and comments on the way back.  Most were impressed with the size of the cup but there were definitely some judgemental looks.  When Flako told people (who asked) that he was drinking a Long Island, he got many congratulations.  People loved him.  It was awesome.  The drink was the third best part.

Talking to Flako
People on the street loved talking to Flako.  There are guys that "give out" CDs and so many of them asked Flako where he was from.  The two favorites were the guy that noticed his name on his jacket and yelled back, "Flako, hey Flako!  Hey, you know Flako means skinny!" and the guy that tried to tell him that 18th Street is in East LA, which it apparently it is not.  It did seem like most of the people with CDs said they were from LA.  Most of the drinking comments were directed at him as well.  Hilarious.

Jabbawokeez Prism
The best part of the weekend.  We had kind of talked about going to see a show, but not really.  I knew it was going to be expensive so I didn't really want to but at the same time I wanted to see a show because it was Vegas.  When we were walking through the Luxor, we saw the Jabbawokeez store and ended up inquiring about tickets.  Flako asked how much I wanted to spend and if it was more than that, we wouldn't go.  I said I didn't want to spend more than $50 on tickets, kind of knowing that they would be way more than that.  They were and I said that if I was still thinking about it later then we'd go.  I was still thinking about it and I found out later that Flako wasn't worried; he knew that he'd be able to talk me into it.  He had seen a video of it in Primm Valley and had been thinking of it since then.  I didn't see this video and don't know if I would have been very impressed with it anyway.

The show was sooooooo cool.  It's a dance crew show with no dialogue.  I don't even really know how to describe it besides awesome.  The dancing was amazing.  The soundtrack was fun.  The lights were terrific.  I was sad it ended.  It's not surprising that Flako loved it.  He used to breakdance and he loves theater lights.  I would look at him every once in awhile and he had a huge smile on his face for most of it.  I kept asking him if he could do what they did and he said he could.  I wish I could describe the show, but I can't, so here are some links for it.  They were the first winners of America's Best Dance Crew so I'm sure there are lots of links of them doing awesome things.

This one looks like someone taped it from the audience.  It's the first three minutes of the show, which obviously isn't even the best part.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24wku_lhc68

This one has more highlights but still doesn't show the impressiveness of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVhJoW98h5E

The trailer from their official YouTube, not that impressive but it's official.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_JlU9doXnw

It was an awesome few days.  I did like Vegas, but I don't really have the need to go back anytime soon.  There are still casinos I would like to see, but I'm in no hurry.  I'm still so glad I went.

Los Angeles Public Library

On Tuesday, I was adventurous and took the Metro to downtown LA.  I didn't want to spend the money for parking.  I was pretty impressed that I actually found my way around the few places I went.  I didn't do a ton of research beforehand.  I went to Pershing Square, a crepes place that I found on Apple Maps when trying to figure out where I was, and then to the Public Library. The library is huge and was my main destination.  I just walked around it for about an hour.  Eventually, I sat someplace, found a book about English royalty, and read so I had time to charge my phone.  I was a little shocked at first at how many homeless people there were in the library, but when I thought about it, it made sense.  One guy told me in the elevator that he found the meaning of life.  The elevator was super cool.  It was covered in old card catalogue cards.

Hard

The next few weeks are going to be hard.  Will knowing that make it any easier?  No.  So much to do at work, money towards my car, money for Christmas/New Year's trip, but mostly my friend is moving and I'm really sad.

There is a cat outside my window.  I want a cat.

Princess Diana at the Queen Mary

It's my first day of vacation!  I drove down to Long Beach this morning to go to the Princess Diana exhibit in Long Beach.  Eh....I love the Royal Family.  Love them.  So there wasn't a ton of new stuff there.  They had a lot of menus from state dinners and thank you letters from royalty and such as well as old newspapers from deaths and marriages and of course some of Diana's dresses.  It was a nice exhibit.  If I hadn't ever seen any of it before, it would have been way cooler.  I also walked around the ship a little bit, but not much.  I didn't do the audio tour or anything like that.  I probably should have, but I was hungry.

UCLA's Murphy Sculpture Garden

I saw on a map that there was a sculpture garden at UCLA.  Flako's been before and he tried to discourage me in taking a trip out there when I didn't have anything else to do.  I don't listen well, so I went anyway.  UCLA is far away, but has a really pretty campus.  It's a small garden, but I went on a Sunday morning so it was very peaceful and quiet.  Yeah, it really didn't need an trip out there just for that, but it was still nice.  I love Rodin's sculptures and there was one of his there.  

Venice Beach

I'm on Thanksgiving break!  I get an entire week here.  Part of me wants to sit at home and do nothing, and the other part of me wants to get out and do EVERYTHING.  I'm attempting to compromise, get some school work done, and actually see things.  I texted Flako yesterday morning and asked if he wanted to go see some stuff with me.  He totally shot everything down and asked if I wanted breakfast, but he does that.  He had to meet Bob at noon, so I assumed that we would have breakfast and then he would go over to Bob's and I would go do something that he didn't want to go do.  Nope.  I went to get him and we drove towards Bob and Minnie's, "looking for breakfast places."  Note to self:  This NEVER works.  We just drive and drive and drive.  We finally found a place on the edge of Hollywood.  It was ok.  I ordered peanut butter and banana pancakes and he ordered a chorizo scramble.  I guess the chorizo was weird.  My pancakes were good except for the fact that the waitress didn't know/didn't tell me that they were out of bananas until she brought my food with strawberries and blueberries.  I really wanted a banana.  :-(  Oh well.  Flako texted Bob and Bob was busy watching the Doctor Who special so we had about an hour to kill.  We shopped a little bit in a strip mall nearby and then went to Bob and Minnie's.  We sat on the steps for a little bit, watching YouTube videos of different kinds of engines (I'm learning the difference between a rotary engine and a piston engine).  While we were waiting, we saw these birds in the tree right outside their house!

I do not know what kind of birds they are or what kind of tree it is.  Bob said the fruit-like things hanging down are completely dense, taste kind of like cucumber, and turn into a cotton kind of thing, which is what the bird was eating.  We hung out with Bob and Minnie for awhile and then went to Venice Beach, which was one of my choices from the morning.  He didn't realize that I hadn't ever been there before and said if he knew that, we would have left earlier.  We got there around 4:00, so people were starting to close up.  It's like a big art fair.  I'd like to go back during the day sometime, but I felt like it was kind of a good introduction--not too overwhelming, like I'm sure the real thing is.

I was starving and we ended up eating at this cafe in a little side street.  The burgers were good, but the fries were terrible!  Flako ordered cheese fries. They were regular fries with two squares of cheese melted on top.  He said the majority of the cheese was on the paper.  Turns out there were food trucks a little bit farther down the beach, so we should have waited.  Oh well.  The best part of the night was the popcorn.  In the same side street as the cafe, there was a jerky and popcorn store.  I ended up getting a bag of peanut butter and chocolate popcorn.

We ate it in 10 minutes.

And then went back to get more...and also Oreo popcorn.

The new bags of popcorn are in the freezer right now because it's apparently just as good, if not better, frozen.  We'll see!

Eaton Canyon

I wanted to be outside today. I'm not a big hiker but I found this trail online and it looked easy and there was a waterfall. It was cool but I didn't wear a jacket for most of it and was fine. It was so good to be outside. The trail is in Pasadena (or maybe Altadena) but it's in a canyon so it doesn't feel like the city. I needed it.  I really needed it.

The waterfall was really peaceful but we didn't stay very long. It was starting to get dark so we needed to head back. 

We parked on the street, which was good because the parking lot closed at 5 and we got back to the car at 5:10. And by closed, I mean the gates were padlocked so I don't know how everyone still parked there were going to get out.

Church

I don't talk about religion a lot, with anyone.  I grew up in church, went to a Lutheran college for a year, but took a break from actually going for a long time.  I would go because my family wanted me to go or because I felt like I should go, but was often bored or didn't really want to be there.  That's started to change in the last few years.  I never had the desire to go to church in Minneapolis.  In Bellevue, I started thinking about it, but never made the effort to go.  I made the effort to go today.  With everything that's going on, I want a place to go that I feel like I belong.  I went to a UCC church today.  I hated it.  It was a really small congregation and the sermon felt like it had a lot of inside jokes.  I actually spent the first part of the service in tears.  I wanted to leave after about 20 minutes, but I didn't.  I'm glad I didn't, but I don't think I'll go back there.  I've spent the last while looking at other churches online.  I think I'm going to go to an ELCA church next.  I found one that looks somewhat big.  I want a bigger church and one that's more familiar.  The one today felt very foreign.  It's amazing what a pastor can do.  I always like listening to Steve at the UCC church in Vermillion, so much more than the people at Trinity.  I liked Greg at Trinity the best, and when he left, the church definitely changed.  I didn't feel comfortable anymore.  I know that it could take awhile to feel comfortable at a church here, but it has to be better somewhere else.

Vince's Spaghetti

We went to the Inland Empire last night for dinner.  Flako knew of this restaurant that he really wanted to go back to.  According to him, it has the most delicious garlic bread and spaghetti ever.  Vince's Spaghetti is in Rancho Cucamonga, which is far from my place.  He said it would be worth it, so we went.  He hadn't been there for at least a year, but said he knew how to get there.  So off we went in his car, which is the first time I've been in his car since this summer.  I love his car.  It's so cool.  My car gets way better mileage so we always take mine.  Anyway, he said he knew where he was going.  Once we got near the area, he couldn't quite remember what exit to take, but he picked one.  Somehow, and neither of us have any idea how, we got off one exit too soon but ended up ten miles past where we needed to be.  How?  Seriously no idea.  I'm not surprised that I got incredibly turned around, but I couldn't believe that he did. I finally looked it up on my phone and we made our way to the restaurant, which is how I know we were ten miles past it.  When we got back on the freeway, neither of us felt like we were going back towards Los Angeles.   It was dark and overcast so hard to see the mountains.  That was probably a lot of it.  

We finally made it and as luck would have it, we had a 10 minute wait and there was about two minutes left in the USC/Stanford game, which was tied.  We were able to watch until the field goal with like 20 seconds left before we were seated.  So exciting!  Flako's a big USC fan so he was really happy that they beat #4.

It took us an hour and a half to get to the restaurant and maybe 20 minutes to get our food and eat.  It was a really simple menu and the food was humongous and delicious.  He got spaghetti and I got a lasagna thing.  I can't remember what it was called.  The top picture is before I ate anything and the bottom was when I was full.  It was my second piece of delicious garlic bread.  It looks like I didn't eat anything, but I was so full afterwards.  I think I have lunch for a few days now!

The Night Ride

I went on a night ride last night.  Flako's been on them before and has a website he checks for meetups.  We were talking yesterday about doing something and he mentioned the bike ride.  It sounded fun so why not?  I have lights now anyway.  I was excited but nervous.  He's a wayyyyy better rider than I am and I don't like huge groups of people.  It was really cool.  I actually put the bike rack and my bike on my car and nothing fell off.  I was so sure I did it wrong, but I didn't do it bad.  We drove downtown, found the meetup and still had a bunch of time.  We rode around for awhile and tried to find batteries for his lights.  We were near Little Tokyo and went to a few places, but no place had batteries except for Office Depot.  We went back to the starting point and waited around for awhile longer.  There were so many people!  I was overwhelmed.  I don't think it helped that I really had no idea where we were going.  I set the little mileage thingy that I have to keep track of how far we went.  We rode for about six miles before stopping in Highland Park.  Flako stayed with me for most of the first part.  We stayed at the stop for close to an hour, I think.  Maybe not, but it seemed like forever.  It was probably close to that.  Then we rode for about 8 miles and stopped near Griffith Park.  I was getting tired by this point.  It was already about 11:45.  We stayed here for about 45 minutes.  There was a beautiful fountain and we walked around a little bit.  I was afraid to sit down because I was getting so tired.  We were standing around looking at the fountain and people watching when some guy crashed into me.  It was weird.  I wasn't hurt, pretty sure the guy was drunk.  We finally left the park and headed back downtown.  I was starting to get sore.  The last two miles were the worst.  I was tired, hungry, sore, and just wanted to be done.  The ride at the beginning was pretty slow and like the perfect pace for me, but it got really fast (for me) towards the end.  I'm so glad I did it.  Flako didn't stay with me as much during the last two sections.  He likes to ride fast, but he would hold back and find me to make sure I was ok and still with the group.  The last section, he was recording parts of it, but it turns out that his camera was on the wrong setting so none of the video worked.  :-(  The ride was really cool.  I'm not sure I'll ever go to one by myself, but maybe, if I ever get more comfortable with my bike.  Definitely an experience.

Community College

I find it amusing that I have a masters degree and just signed up for community college.  I wanted to take a class for my credential next semester but it was taking me forever to figure out what I needed. I was starting to feel the time crunch and also realized that a Spanish class was going to be way more useful in my entire life right now. There are two community colleges close to me so when I looked at the schedules, ELAC worked better with my schedule and I've heard better things about ELAC than about PCC. Applying was crazy easy but I did have to go in to prove my residency. I went today and told them that I knew I wouldn't qualify for instate tuition. The guy did something on his computer, gave me my student ID number and the day I could register and I was done. The spring semester doesn't start until the beginning of February or something like that so I have time to change my mind if I want to. It's going to be more expensive than I would like but it will be sooooo useful that the money doesn't really matter.  It will make my life slightly more stressful next semester but again, learning Spanish will be worth it.

Exposition Park

I didn't have school today.  It wasn't really an exciting day.  We went down to Exposition Park.  There's a rose garden there.  It will be beautiful when they're all blooming, but looked pretty sad right now.  We went to the California Science Museum, which was fine, but the coolest part was definitely seeing the Endeavour.

Griffith Park bike ride

I've been wanting to go here for awhile.  Flako rode his bike up here and we took our bikes to Griffith Park.  Somewhere there is the Old LA Zoo.  It was built in 1912 and closed in 1966.  The website said it opened with 15 animals.  I didn't count the cages, so I'm not sure if there were more than that or not.  The bars aren't there anymore, but the enclosures and many cages are.  There was just one sign about the history and nothing about what animals lived where.  That would be cool to know.

We actually found the zoo quite quickly.  It was easier to find than the internet (Yelp) made it seem.  We explored for a bit and then went for more of a ride.  Aside from the slight condescension about my not knowing how to work my bike, it was really fun.  I don't like going up hills, but going down makes it worth it.  Thank goodness that Flako knew how to get back to the car.  I would probably still be riding around the park trying to find it.

Then there was this:

Do you see it?

Now?

There were two of them.  I love Coyotes.  I sent the picture to four people. Two people asked if I got hurt.  Nope.  If I had, you probably would have gotten a picture of my coyote injury instead.

Santa Barbara

Yesterday was a long day.  Flako and I ended up driving to Santa Barbara.  I wanted to go somewhere and had seriously thought about driving aimlessly (not the best idea, I know), but he said he would go with and after some slight aimless driving, we ended up going to Santa Barbara.  He used to live there and his mom still does.  I still have only seen the same street.  I've been there three times now and only done the same thing--the wharf and State Street.  We went and stopped at the store he used to work at and tried to talk to his step-dad, but he was too busy.  Then we went to surprise his mom.  It was cute.  She was so excited to see him.  She totally guilted him into staying longer than he had planned (I had no plans so didn't care at all) so we walked up and down State Street for about two hours until she got off work.  We stopped back at Foot Locker and saw his stepdad, who's the manager.  Flako was staring at him, waiting to get noticed, and one of the girls came up and asked if we needed help.  I said no, that we were just waiting for Larry, and she got so scared.  I found it quite funny.  We wandered around some more.  I bought lights for my bike.  His mom's store finally closed so we went back there to wait for her and then had a quick dinner.  I like the atmosphere of Santa Barbara but it's really expensive.  I ended up sleeping the entire way back to LA.  Flako told me today that it was good that I slept because there were some terrible drivers.  I had woken up a few times.  He doesn't slam on his brakes unless absolutely necessary and he did it a few times last night.

Dariel came to visit!

I've had other things on my mind this week, but I wish I would have written this on Tuesday when I had planned!

Dariel came to visit me!

She was flying in last Friday (November 1).  I was going to go to the airport straight from work since her flight got in around 4:45pm.  Sadly, that morning, a crazy person decided to go on a shooting spree at LAX.  Not only was it terribly sad since people were injured and one died, but it also meant that I spent the day wondering if Dariel was even going to be able to make it in.  I started following the airport on Twitter, which is where I saw the news about the shooting, and watching the news and texting Dariel.  She got on the plane, wasn't delayed, but then was delayed.  Yeah, they got all the way on the plane and then were told that there was an hour and a half delay.  We were both sure the flight was going to be canceled and she was considering rescheduling for a different weekend if that happened.  I really wanted her to come this weekend since I had it all planned out!  Well, not really, but I was excited for her to come and really wanted it to happen this weekend!  Luckily, her flight was not cancelled and she made it in the air.  Roads were still closed into the airport but I left for it anyway.  I had No Idea how to find her once I got there, but I went anyway.  There were tweets about arriving passengers being bussed to a parking lot somewhere, but I had no idea where the lot was.  It took me about an hour to get to the airport since it was rush hour and then when I got close to the airport, I was basically stopped.  Not enough for me to just sit there and check the news on my phone but moving at like 1-2 mph.  She finally landed and I was able to check my phone in time to see that the roads were opening to the airport!  Of course, by this point, I still had no idea where I was or how to get into the airport.  I did some driving around and finally got into the airport streets to get her.  Considering what all had happened, it really wasn't bad at all.  From the time I left my apartment until the time we got to dinner, it was 3 hours.  For dinner, we had sushi.  There's a good sushi place pretty close to my place.  That made me happy.  It has take-out too so that makes me happier.  Mmm...sushi.

Saturday was awesome.  We spent the afternoon in Santa Monica.  We went to the 3rd Street Promenade, ate lunch and shopped.  There was a Farmer's Market going on, so as we headed to the beach, we bought a small basket of blackberries.  I think blackberries are my favorite fruit ever, thanks to West Virginia and picking blackberries with my grandparents.  We ate blackberries on the beach, watched the ocean, and took cheesy pictures of course.  We were going to Long Beach at night so we had quite a bit of time in the afternoon. We went to the Pier and then went to the restaurant at the end of it for some margaritas and tableside guacemole.  YUM.  It was a gorgeous day, warmer than I expected.  We talked about all kinds of things and had a good afternoon.

Saturday night was AWESOME.  We bought tickets to the Queen Mary's Dark Harbor.  It's a horror festival that goes through the entire month of October.  I think we went on the very last night.  There is tons there.  There are six mazes, a freak show, food places, and some other stuff I'm sure.  The freak show cost extra so we didn't go.  There were tons of people.  We got there about 7:30 or so.  Parking was pretty crazy.  We parked on the grass somewhere, but were directed to.  There was smoke everywhere, crazy lights, and monsters/zombies walking around everywhere scaring the shit out of people.  When we got there, the lines weren't too bad.  We went through the first maze.  They try to separate people so it's not one big clump of people.  I was really worried that it was a dead-end kind of maze and that we would never be able to get out.  Thankfully it wasn't, but we were in the front of the group that went through so we got the most scared.  It was awesome.  The rule is no touching.  You can't touch the monsters and they can't touch you.  That's very helpful to remember!  I think the first maze was probably the best because we were at the front.  There were three mazes off the ship and three on.  We went through the three mazes on the ship and learned to stay super close to the people in front of us.  One of them had some many corners!  I dreaded going around any of them because there was someone around almost all of them--not all because that would be predictable, but most.  There were two parts of the night that were my favorite.  The first was when Dariel and I were watching people leaving the freak show, or maybe a maze.  There was a monster on top of the tunnel that the people were coming out of and scaring them.  We were laughing at it when a monster came up behind us and scared the crap out of us.  We burst out laughing and agreed that it was fair.  The guy by us said that he wanted to warn us.  I'm sure he did not.  The other part was when we were walking to find food.  One of the monsters was dressed like a clown.  He noticed that I didn't want to look at him and he got right up in my face.  Dariel ran away and the clown wouldn't leave me alone.  He literally had me walking backwards in circles.  I kept thinking "he can't touch me.  He can't touch me.  He can't touch me.  Why won't he go away???"  He probably only followed me for like 30 seconds but it felt like forever!!  We only did four of the six mazes.  At 10:00, we took a food break (ABELSKIVER!!).  When we looked at the last two mazes, one had a line of an hour and the other had a line of 2 hours.  There was no way we could do both since it ended at 10.  We were both exhausted and Dariel's feet were killing her, so we decided to leave before EVERYONE decided to leave and we got stuck in traffic.  We drove back home and both passed out quickly.  I had crazy dreams because of Dark Harbor on both Saturday and Sunday!  I don't remember them anymore, but they were weird and crazy and monster filled.

Sunday, I slept in so Dariel did some research on tourist ideas.  When I finally got up, we decided on the La Brea Tar Pits and the Getty Museum.  The Tar Pits were really cool.  We went to the Page Museum, learned there are no dinosaurs in the tar pits and then laughed because the gift shop is full of dinosaurs.  They are still excavating there.  It's crazy to think how long they've been doing it and how much they've found.  I definitely recommend it.  We walked around the park and saw the actual Tar Pits and then walked over to the LACMA and saw their lamp post installation, took more pictures, and ate from food trucks.  My tacos were delicious.  Dariel's fries were good but she had to wait forever for them.

After lunch, we debated on going to the Getty but neither of us really wanted to go to another museum.  We decided instead of just driving the Pacific Coast Highway.  The plan was to first go to just Malibu and then just drive a little farther, and then ended up being going to Santa Barbara.  Santa Barbara is about two hours away.  The PCH is really cool.  Malibu wasn't what I expected.  I think I expected to see supernice houses right on the beach.  Maybe they were nice from the beachside, but they didn't look that fancy from the roadside.  Pepperdine (which I still think is on the East Coast) and the houses in the Hills were gorgeous.  We stopped at a little beach area that I had planned on going to about a month ago when I wanted to get out of the city.  Then we went to the Wharf in Santa Barbara.  We didn't stay long.  It ended up being kind of cold and Santa Barbara is expensive, so we came back to LA for dinner.  We went to a Thai place that, again, is not very far from my house.  I like it when people come to visit and are willing to try new places!

I had to work on Monday, so Dariel got to stay at home.  I think she went to In-and-Out and binge-watched the Walking Dead.  I got home right after work and we went to the airport.  I thought it would take awhile, but it took us under 45 minutes.  She was there well over 2 hours before her flight.  I was picking Flako up there around 7:30, so I went to the arrivals, found out there is very limited 3G in the arrivals area and so called my mom and talked to her for an hour and a half while I waited.  I'm so glad Dariel came.  It was so fun to have her here.  I love all her lawyer stories and she's just fun to talk to.  I'm so glad she came to visit.

Three months

I've lived here for three months now.  It feels like a lot longer.  Life definitely happened in October.  Overwhelming.  Sad.  Stressful.  Homesick.  Broken.  This past week in particular, I've really been thinking about the kind of support I have.  A lot more goes into it, but I'm amazed at how many people have told me "don't be friends with him." "He's a bad person." "cut him out of your life."  It's not an abusive relationship and the majority of people saying this don't even know him.  I think it's supposed to be helpful, but it's not.  It just tells me who I shouldn't talk to.  They're only hearing the bad parts, not thinking of any of the good parts, only know one side of the story, and there's so much more than I even talk about.  There are a few people that just listen, but really not many.  But what's gotten me even more is the people that are so blatantly unsupportive of me living in California.  I have a lot of thoughts about that, but haven't really been able to put it into words outside of my head.  Anyway, this last week has been hard.  I was expecting my feelings to get hurt, but they got hurt by the unexpected.

Jac and Dan's wedding

I went back to South Dakota this weekend.  It was so crazy fast.  Flako took me to the airport and on the way there was joking about missing my flight.  It didn't feel like I was going so I told him that I wasn't sure I would notice that I missed it.  Living here is so surreal that I really didn't think I was going back home.  I wonder if that will ever change?

My flight left at 11pm.  After working all day and usually being asleep around 10, definitely by 10:30, I was exhausted before even getting on the plane.  I forgot my pillow so I ended up buying a memory foam neck pillow at the airport.  It's not the most comfortable thing, but when is sleeping sitting up comfortable anyway?  I'm really glad I had it.  I was sitting in the middle seat, was asleep before take-off, and was awake for maybe a half hour for the entire flight.  It was to Chicago, only four hours, so not tons of sleep, but better than nothing.  We landed in Chicago at 4:45am, so almost 3am in my mind.  Starbucks in the airport opens at 5 in case anyone was wondering.  Jamba Juice does not.  My flight to Sioux Falls left at 8:30, I think, so I had some time to kill.  I walked to the complete other side of O'Hare, took some pictures, found the light-up walkway, found the Urban Garden (pretty cool since it's in the middle of the airport), and then tried to find an outlet to charge my phone.  I brought work, but instead of doing it like I really should have, I watched the latest Grey's Anatomy and then stared off into space.  It was productive.  The Sioux Falls flight was very similar to the Chicago flight.  Slept the entire thing.  It was only an hour and a half, but any sleep was good sleep at this point.

Dad picked me up from the airport and bought me Caribou.  He was also very understanding in my change of plans to stop by the Workmans super quick and see Deb and Jen before heading down to Vermillion.  I'm glad we went because it was the only time I got to see Jen.  We drove down to Vermillion as I drank my Caribou and stared at the flat fields of corn and soybeans.  Dad so very kindly let me borrow his car for the weekend, so he dropped me off at Mom's.  I was going to take a nap, but decided to see people first.  I went to go surprise my mom at work, see Erin and then stopped by the Dickensons.  THEN, I went to take a nap.  I was really afraid that I would wake up with a headache, but I didn't thank goodness.  Mom and I went to RED and then I went to Carey's. Callie and Jamie from this summer met me there as well as Erin and Dave.  Sorry, Erin and Dave.  I talk to you all the time.  I don't talk to Callie and Jamie very often!  Carey's was wonderful, but the caffiene in my drink was a bad idea.

Saturday morning came very quickly.  I packed up some stuff and left Vermillion.  :-(  I met some of the girls to get our hair done in Sioux Falls.  It was a fast and wonderful day.  It was also very emotional.  Jacquie's mom died suddenly in May.  Her presence was definitely there on Saturday.  After hair, we went back to the hotel, started getting ready, left for lunch, finished getting ready, and then boarded the bus to the winery, just outside of Canton.  Jacquie and Dan had rented a 56 passenger bus for the wedding party as well as some guests.  It was great, since there was obviously going to be some drinking at the winery.

Once we were at the site, Jac and Dan explained the day and did quick introductions.  They had 27 people in their wedding party!  We drank some wine and got on with the rehearsal.  FYI, the end of October in South Dakota is FREEZING.  It was probably in the 40s?  with wind.  The wind was the bad part.  They lined up all up, went over the basics of the ceremony, and then we practiced walking in and out.   I was standing next to Travis and Randy, who are both much taller than me (not so hard).  At one point, they ended up standing behind me to try to block the wind.

After the quick rehearsal, we went on to pictures, which were all outside.  It was still cold but it wasn't as bad.  The pictures were fun.  I can't wait to see them!  After pictures, we just hung out until it was wedding time.  We watched people arriving and drank some more wine.  The wedding itself was beautiful, although I remember very few details.  It was warmer, thanks to the love in the air and the wine...also the wind died down.  The reception was also nice.  Good food.  There was buffalo dip that Jac's mom had started preparing and had frozen before she died.  It was probably the best thing there.  Well, that and the chocolate fountain.  The reception lasted until about 9:30 and then we helped clean up.  The bus was full back to Sioux Falls, so some of the wedding party (mostly) got to stand in the aisle.  I was totally exhausted by this point so standing was probably beneficial.  I think I would have fallen asleep otherwise.

When we got back to Sioux Falls, we hung out for a bit while the couple dropped their stuff off and decided where to go.  The first plan was to go to a bar in Sioux Falls.  I can't say I was terribly excited for it because it was going to be loud and crowded since it was Saturday night.  Turns out, the place they had talked about had a $10 cover charge.  When I first heard that, I decided I wasn't going to go because that was too much money to deal with a bar when I was already so tired.  The final plan ended up being the hotel bar.  It was perfect.  It was quiet, cheap, and since there were so many of us, there was enough space.  I had originally planned on staying until about 12 or 12:30.  I stayed until 2.  I was tired, but just didn't want to go to bed and miss anything.  I finally said goodbye to everyone and went to bed.

Sunday was a busy day too.  I ignored my alarm for close to an hour.  I showered and used the entire bottle of shampoo in order to get the hair spray out of my hair.  I stopped at Caribou (I MISS CARIBOU!!!) and went to Chelsea's.  It was good to see her.  I got to see Luke for about five minutes after he woke up.  After Chelsea's, I went to Workmans.  That was great of course.  Satchel played the cello for me and Preston tapped.  I love them so much!  I took videos.  I was updated on many aspects of Workman life.  I love catching up with them.

Before I went to the airport, I went to Jimmy Johns to get a thank you for Flako for taking me to the airport.  I wanted to get him an actual sandwich, but didn't want my stuff to smell like that.  I got him two loaves of bread.  He was ecstatic, which was hilarious.  Check-in was smooth.  My suitcase was 46 pounds!  I tried calling Po at the airport, but she didn't answer.  As I was trying to figure out what I should do instead, I looked up and saw a guy I knew from high school, that I don't think I've talked to since then.  I might have seen him a few times at the bar randomly, but I hadn't talked to him.  We talked for like 45 minutes before I had to go to my gate.  He's not someone I was friends with, but it was cool to catch up.  There's very few people I would ignore out of the 96 I graduated with.

The flight home was pretty uneventful.  I stayed awake, did a little work, and laughed at the hunters on the first flight.  I tried really hard to sleep on the second flight.  I did a little bit but it wasn't very restful.  I got home about 11:30, brought my suitcase upstairs, knocked something off my screen door, tried to take it off, and then fell over my suitcase.  Winner.  I couldn't fall asleep (of course) until about 1, so 6:30 came quite quickly.

The weekend doesn't seem real.  There never seems to be enough time at weddings and I didn't get to hang out with Jacquie as much as I would have liked, but I wasn't expecting to either.  I brought back some pictures and photo books.  I'm hoping it will help make it feel more like home and not temporary or surreal.