In which Captain Crunch gets me drunk and I finally get my visa

Earlier I talked about my dad's pizza, right?  Well these past two weekends I've gotten the chance to sell them at the Auburn Farmer's Market.  That was a total blast!  The only thing I don't like is how early we had to get up and get to Auburn.  The market starts at 8 but it takes about an hour and a half to get dad's oven up to temperature and you can't really drive with a fire.  So we set out before dawn.

The person taking the picture is high on Monster and not awake otherwise

The first week was fantastic.  The weather was great, we completely sold out of pizza, the market people were friendly, I got a smoothie from the local coffee shop and I got to hang out with my brother.

 

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Tucker is a music geek and a hipster.  He tries to deny the hipster part, but then he dons these horn rimmed sunglasses, pours into skinny jeans and talks about how he already knows about all the music I like.  But he's a great kid and I definitely miss having him around.  I love all my siblings but I feel like I can geek out with Tuck a bit more.

The second weekend of pizza it was just me, dad and my stepmom, Mel.  The market wasn't as busy, but it was still cool for the three of us to hang out.  Mel and I spent a lot of time sitting behind the stand in the sun, she read a magazine and I feasted on these ABSOLUTELY AMAZING strawberries.  Like.... I can't even describe them but these were the best strawberries I have ever tasted in the history of ever.

After pizza was done, the parents decided to take my on my first wine-tasting!  They're members of a wine club at C.G. Di Arie.  The man who runs C. G. Di Arie, Chaim, is a food scientist and a pretty famous one!  Apparently he invented Cap'n Crunch, Power Bars, wine coolers and Hidden Valley ranch dressing.  The coolest part?  When we walked into the building, Chaim's wife (an energetic, wonderful woman by the name Elisheva) greeted my parents by name and

 

This is a terrible picture, but here's part of the winery

Now he makes wine, and BOY does he know how to do it!  I tried 11 wines and I loved every single one, which is odd because I'm not a wine drinker.  I was feeling a little tipsy by the time we left (not drunk by any means but let's say that I'm glad I didn't have to drive) but there was more to come!  We went to a small liquor store and had a wine tasting there with another one of their friends and that was it for me.  So now I've been drunk with all of my parents.  Awesome!

That night they put in a terrible movie (I think it was Renee Zellwiger and Paul Rudd but I can't remember what it was) and I just collapsed into bed.

Monday we went to San Fransisco to get my Visa.  The office opened at 9, so we set out incredibly early (dammit!) to get there on time.  We figured it was better to get there at nine and turn the paperwork in by 9.15, giving us five hours to kill, than to show up late and end up standing in a long line and not making it.

Well, we almost didn't make it.  Because of traffic we weren't able to get to the Consulate until 9.30.  By that time there was a line out the door and down the block.  Once we got through that line, we had to pull a number and wait for it to call.  We didn't get out of there until about 11.30.  The office closes again at noon, so it was a bit of a close call.

We wandered around, visited a book store, ate lunch at Max's Opera Cafe and bummed the city until 1.  Then we got back in line, picked up the visa and rushed back out onto open road, hoping to get there before traffic hit.

Let me tell you something about California traffic- it's a completely different animal than Minnesota traffic.  It took us an hour to get a little over 15 miles.  There's a toll before the bridge and it seems like nobody knows how to pick the right lane and stay there.  We had trucks weaving in front of us, people trying to merge into lanes when nobody's going over 5mph, some jerk honking like that's going to help anything... it's crazy. 

However we got the visa and I'm all ready to leave on Thursday.  Day after tomorrow, baby!  This'll be my last stateside transmission, stay tuned for when I turn into a real-live expat!

Woo hoo!

In which I almost hug Marvel and realize that I'm damn poor

So the weather here in California has taken a turn for the worse.  We've gotten rain, hail, wind and it's actually been COLD!  The difference between 30 below in Minnesota and 40 above in California is that absolutely nobody is prepared in California.  It drops to 40 degrees and nobody has winter clothes, the houses don't insulate against cold quite as well, the beach is a completely miserable experience and people generally freak out.  Up near the mountains they got an inch of snow and you should have SEEN the chaos and trauma it caused.  They actually shut down the roads and apparently forbid everybody from driving over the mountains except for people with chains on their car.  Chains which they sold for $40 a tire right next to the stop point.  (clever girl...)

Pictured: The weather. Ruining pool parties like always.

Since our weekend up here was completely ruined, we decided to migrate south for my sister's birthday.  She and my brother are going to college in Irvine so visiting them is like a real-live vacation!    Maybe down in LA we'd find a beach and some sun to lie in.  We packed the car and embarked on the 6 hour trip from one end of the valley to the other.

And there I learned that it's the most BORING trip in the world.  Seriously, there is nothing to look at.  The most interesting part of the trip was, "Look, there's the canal in Stockton.  They pulled, like, a hundred cars out there and they're not done yet."  Oh, there was also, "That place sells pea soup.  Don't eat it."

Granted the landscape is beautiful.  If I felt like putting on a flowy cotton dress and a sunhat, I could run around those hills all day and be pleased as punch.  But 6 hours of rolling green hills and grape crops gets damn old damn fast.

 Boooooooriiiiiiiiing

Finally we get down to the Grapevine, which is the mountain pass leading to LA.  It's the only way to get to LA from the north unless you take the famous, winding road that goes along the ocean, which I have affectionately named 'The Vomit Express'.  It makes you as dizzy and nervous as a rollercoaster, except in your heart you know that wearing the seatbelt is only going to ensure that you go down with the ship. 

So through the Grapevine we went.  And about 500 yards into it we saw someone who just couldn't handle it.  Their car had exploded.  There weren't any other cars around that they could have hit, there wasn't a guard rail to hit and somehow make your gas tank spark and yet somehow they managed to find a way.

If I wasn't so worried for their safety, I would have to applaud their ingenuity.

And then it started to snow.

I know what you're thinking.  "So close to Los Angeles?  Certainly you jest, there Can't BE snow there!"  Well I'm not jesting and I take offense that you think I am.  The blizzard that we hit coming over the mountains was SO BAD that we could hardly see the cars in front of us.  

Proof.  Because even I have a hard time believing it.

I missed seeing Disneyland right off the highway, I missed the LA skyline, I didn't see hide nor hair of the ocean... it was terrible.  My dad, the seasoned Minnesotan, got us south of LA safely and we hunkered down in the hotel.  Which was warm.  And quiet until night #2 when the 20 or 30 teenagers in the room next to us started to have a drunken techno rave.  I stepped into the hallway to tell them to STFU (at about 1 in the morning), it smelled like SOOOO MUCH POT that I just turned around and went back in my room.  Crazy kids.

The day after we arrived, the sky decided to sweep the whole rain and snow incident under the rug and pretend like it never happened.  The weather was beautiful, the birds were singing and the day was ripe for a trip to Manhattan Beach.

Ahhhhh... finally

It was such a fun day, we just walked around and hung out as a family.  We were hoping to meet my stepmom's uncle for dinner, ended up meeting a friend of theirs from college and ate dinner across the street from this beauty.

Let's just say that as long as it was in view, I didn't pay attention to conversation

I had no idea that Marvel even HAD headquarters, but the family wasn't willing to let me pop in and start hugging people so I just had to speculate from afar what wondrous deeds went on inside.  I bet they all dress up like superheroes every day and discuss how to kill Iron Man.  My dream job.

The trip ended and we headed back to the land of real life.  The weather is much better up here, but then I get a notice from my bank account that since somehow the last dvd I rented from Netflix wasn't returned, they charged me for it and one more month of service.  So my bank account is in the negatives right now and isn't that special?  Ah well... hopefully next week I'll be getting the check from BSU that I've been waiting on since October.  Until then, I've turned my phone on silent and decided to actively ignore all calls from Wells Fargo.  Look at me, dodging bill collectors like a real adult!

Say, if you've read this far then leave a comment!  I'm always curious if my blog is worth reading or not.  Comments or criticisms are always welcome.