California Recap – Part I

Ha! You all thought that I was a liar, but here I am, writing a vacation recap. In the interest of full disclosure, I should also probably add that I am also watching “The Closer” and reading the interwebnets. But, hey, if you are reading this now, I must have gotten something done. :p This entry is long, so you might want to get up and use the facilities before attempting to read it.

Monday Night

Both my luggage and I successfully made it to LAX airport. It was pretty touch and go there as I watched the same four suitcases go spinning around the baggage carousel. I just kept telling myself “It’s hard to lose bags on nonstop flights. It’s hard to lose bags on nonstop flights” while visions of my duffel bag traveling the world without me flashed through my mind. Luckily, a second wave of suitcases came tumbling out and I was reunited with my underwear and my favorite moisturizer .

Tuesday Morning

Tuesday, I woke up in the wee hours of the morning with the familiar feeling that meant that I had a UTI. I put the blame for this firmly in the hands of airline security and the fact that I was forced to leave my nalgene bottle at home. At this point, my bladder came to the conclusion that the terrorists have, in fact, won.

I spent the next six hours (yeah, you read that correctly) attempting to get a prescription for antibiotics phoned into the local CVS. My doctor’s office was more than happy to call a prescription in, they called the pharmacy and the pharmacist took it upon herself to refuse the script saying that, “this location is too inconvenient for people from out of town.” Thus began a marathon session of phone calls and idiocy. Apparently it was “take your mentally challenged children to work day” at both my doctor’s office and CVS. It’s the only way to explain why it took so long to get a simple prescription for antibiotics and why had to spell “bactrim” for one of the medical staff. Seriously, I could have gotten crack easier and faster.

Tuesday Afternoon

Dustin (my sister’s boyfriend) and I celebrated my successful drug deal by going out for cheap mexican food. Apparently you can get authentic mexican food in California. Who knew?

After we had our fill of beans and guacamole, we headed to the local botanical gardens for an afternoon of photography. We should have brought my sister, our resident plant expert. She can rattle off the scientific name and interesting facts about pretty much every plant in the gardens. Dustin and I were forced to settle for taking pictures of the plants and trusting that the botanical garden peeps wouldn’t plant anything that was poisonous and/or carnivorous.

This is the place where I would normally post a link to my flickr set. But, I think that you should all be happy that I posted a vacation blog entry. This is where I tell you that I will put up a flickr photo set at one point and you all agree to pretend that I am not a dirty rotten liar.

Wednesday Morning

At this point in my vacation, I realized that I needed to get to bed at a decent hour. Sleeping on the living room couch in an apartment full of morning people is not exactly conducive to sleeping in.

Allison, Dustin and I were at the gym by 9am and we were undoing all of that hard work by eating at In-N-Out Burger by noon. I had a milkshake and it was delicious. I believe that there was a tour of the campus at some point and we probably did some sisterly bonding. But, what really stands out in my mind is that if you order a grilled cheese “animal style,” you get a cheeseburger with no meat and a sauce so tasty, it could be mana from the heavens. My “mana from the heavens” theory is further supported by the fact that they have bible references printed on all of their packaging. I didn’t bother to look any of them up, but I would imagine that they said something along the lines of “And the Lord said, ‘Let there be fresh burgers and a delicious special sauce.'”

I just made the mistake of looking up the nutritional information for that meal. Bad idea. Yikes!

Wednesday Afternoon

Dustin had to work, so Allison and I were on our own. So, we decided to go off on our own to play the aforementioned game of mini-golf. For the record, the game ended in a tie. We will probably have a rematch when she flies out here in August.

Just because you’ve been so patient about reading this far, here is a picture of us, not hitting each other with golf clubs.

On second thought, a picture of us hitting each other with golf clubs would probably have been more interesting.

This is the part where I realize that this blog entry is getting way too long and that it’s almost midnight and I have to work tomorrow. I promise an exciting update tomorrow filled with exciting tales of bike rides in Santa Monica and how I managed to not spoil the ending of Harry Potter for my sister. Good times.

Ps. I gained back all of the weight that I lost on my trip and then some. You can all stop hating me now.