Tequila and International Law Enforcement.

A brief overview of my first to days in Mexico.....

Sunday
5pm - Arrived at Shady Mexican resort.
5:05 pm - Checked into Resort, receive drinking bracelet.
5:06pm - Inquired why there were men with guns outside.
5:07pm - Was informed there was a Mexican police Officers conference @ the resort.
8 pm - Freaked out b/c Benita was lost and got ready to call the American consulate.
8:01pm - Found Benita and cried. Went in search of tequila.
10pm - Wondered why the Mexican police men always walk around with their LARGE guns at the ready.
10:01 pm - Questioned my safety
11pm - Locked myself in my room and passed out due to travel exhaustion.

Monday
10am- Met Benita poolside and started drinking beers 2 at a time.
11am - Got into the pool and started drinking Tequila & Beer (yes that counts as one cocktail, don't judge me!)
11:05am - began making new friends at the pool while drinking Tequila & Beer.
5pm - Got out of the pool to find Benita, who has once again disappeared.
7pm - Passed out due to in take of Tequila & Beer.

I love being on vacation

Roller Coasters, Pink wigs and Kareoke Bars

As you all know I've been on the wedding circuit for the past several months, no scratch that...past several years. Bridal showers, brunches, rehearsal dinners, bachelorette parties pre-wedding, post-wedding, wedding wedding wedding!!! This past weekend was no different, spent the same way every other weekend of my single existence, at a Bachelorette party. This one was thrown by my good friend Benita, who has turned out to the MOH (that's Maid of Honor for all you lucky non wedding goers) de juor.


The day started by picking up the bride at 8am, and hour I've been seeing WAY to often for a Saturday these days, then waiting for a half an hour for one of the bridesmaids to arrive. Can't blame her, it was a Saturday after all. Once everyone was wrangled into the car we set course for Great America for a day of rollercoasters and sneeky binge drinking. We arrived a hour late but Benita greeted us with fancy Bachelorette tank tops anyway. After donning our new duds we headed into the park camelpacks loaded with delicious booze.


After a few rides, Benita treated us all to a wonderful tri-tip sandwich picnic (and of course more cocktails) out in the parking lot. It was a fantastic time and WAY more affordable than the food inside the park, I highly recommend the parking lot picnic to all amusement park goers. Once we were all stuffed to the gills we headed back in for just one or two more rides before calling it a day. We hit up Top Gun (now called flight deck.....LAME) for our last ride of the day, it's still my favorite roller coaster ever. SO MUCH FUN.



We rolled back to the hotel for the free happy hour and helped ourselves to the free popcorn and 3 free drinks each. We even talked the bartendress into making us doubles. Once we polished off our cocktails Benita rounded us all up and back to the rooms. Once in our room Benita handed me a bag filled with the nights "goodies". I took one peek in the and fell in love with the neon pink wig on the top of the bag. I snatched it out and had it only head before you could say here comes the bride. "Benny I'm totally wearing this!" I shouted as I went to go get the girls in the other room as fired up about the night as I was. I topped my out fit off with a black dress (complete with plenty-o-cleavage) and some 4 inch heels.


The party, now clad in neon wigs and feather boa's, rolled out to the Cheesecake factory for a very late dinner. We waited almost 45 minutes for a table, this is after Diana (name not changed b/c she's a bitch) would not let us make a reservation over the phone, we were moved to waiting area #2 where we waited another 10 minutes to be seated. One can only imagine my level of annoyance at this point. Finally we got to out table to be greeted by a lovely young man named Tim (again name not changed, but b/c he was awesome). Tim and Benita hit it off very well and the troubles of getting a table were son forgotten.

Dinner and several cocktails later (thanks Timmy for keeping the booze train on track) we teetered out of the Cheesecake Factory onto the streets of San Jose. MOH Benita lead us all into downtown San Jo to the worlds tiniest, most local karaoke bar ever! Allow me to set the scene, 8 bachelorettes, dolled up for a night on the town roll into a "fancy" dive bar where drunken Google employees are belting out "Crocodile Rock" at the top of there lungs. I was unaware that is was possible to sign that song out of tune but somehow they managed it. So sticking out like sore thumbs we wiggled our way to the bar and got drinks preparing ourselves to show up the Google IT department. Then, much to our shigrin, we learned the the Karaoke list was full for he night. BUST! We then downed our cocktails and teetered back to the cars to go back to the Hotel for our own Karaoke party.

Once we got back to the hotel we were all asleep in less than a half hour. How lame are we? Sucks getting old!

Pirates and Public Transit....

About a week ago I was riding MUNI to the A's/Giants game in San Francisco. All was going well, Benita and I had stopped for Champagne Brunch at Fresca on Fillmore (which FYI, no longer serves bottomless mimosas) and split a bottle of Cava making us both feel quite lively. We be-bopped onto the train without a care in the world ready for a day at the ballpark. We had just grabbed two available seats when I saw him......sitting just 4 rows away was a man dressed in FULL ON PIRATE GARB! We are talking sword, ruffle shirt, eye patch and everything!

"Is that a fucking pirate?" I asked poking Benita.

Benita looked up and focused a drunk eye on the buccaneer, "Yes, that does appear to be a pirate."

"Fair enough." I said going about the business of texting my Lame-o Giant fan friends about the A's pending victory.

Turns out pirate sightings are lucky, the A's swept the series with the Giants that day.

Battle: Theme Gift

I have a good friend, we will call her Benita. Benita and I have been friends since junior high. Like any duo we have had our good times and bad, shared memories, hope dreams and what not. But underneath it all we have always been somewhat competitive, which in my mind is healthy. We started small time though, with who could get better grades or think of the best prank to play on a Saturday night. Eventually the game has just become who can get the most out of life, which again I think is pretty darn healthy. Gotta love a competition where good mental health is a factor. :)

That said there has always been one thing that has been the Battle Royale of sorts for us. This would be the theme gift. Theme gift giving is an art form when down right. It's the perfect balance between the practical and the ridiculous. I think Benita started it way back in the day when I received a whole bucket of things for a movie night, then there was the all leopard Christmas present, the "Always wear sunscreen" graduation gift......the list goes on and on. I got to give it to Benita, she knows how to put together a nice present. This Christmas, however, when I opened my garden gnome (whom I fondly call Alfred because he's riding a frog) with matching gnome pj pants, gnome gum and I think there was even I gnome card, I knew I had to trump her and I had 2 months til her birthday to do it. Battle Theme Gift was on like Donkey Kong!

The Idea: This is the most important part of the theme gift. It must be clever, whitty, useful and somewhat ridiculous. This took days of plotting, surfing the internet for inspiration......then one day on my way home from work it happened. As I sat behind the oldest, slowest driver in all of Napa I glanced over to see a yard covered in PINK FLAMINGOS. "How delightfully tacky" I thought to myself as I studied the flock of plastic birds. Then I was hit with a revolation, a mission handed down from the Gods, I had to buy Benita an entirely Pink Flamingo gift. The theme has been set, let the games begin.

It's hard to find a classy flamingo: OK, I'll admit it, my obsession with lawn art is a bit out of control. But I had never ventured into flamingos before, they were just too......well.......PINK. But for the Benita gift there was no flamingo too pink. My original idea, had work not been ruining my social life was to drive down to her house and COVER HER LAWN IN FLAMINGOS. Nothing like waking up to 75 weird pink plastic birds in your yard. Come on now, that shit's funny! But I digress, back to the hunt for a classy flamingo. I first searched Target, not a flamingo to be found. Then WalMart......nada. Finally I turned to my friend the internet, surely there is some freak out there who sells nothing but flamingos for a living, BINGO! I found a lovely set of 2 pink flamingos for the low low price of just $6 (thank you amazon.com)! Score. I also found a flamingo book, flamingo party lights, a flamingo sign, flamingo grill gear and a mini flamingo set for the office. And that was just what I purchased! They also had a set of holiday flamingo outfits so that one could dress their flamingo according to the season. Why wouldn't a plastic bird need a scarf? It's cold out there in December!

The Presentation: This was very important. For almost two weeks I waited as the flamingo's slowly started to arrive. Each day I would get home and a new box with another piece of crazy flamingo art would appear. Finally when I had it all it was time to wrap and, as we well know, there is only one way toe wrap pink Flamingos........IN BRIGHT PINK PAPER!! So I wrapped each box in the brightest most crazy pink paper I could find (thank you Target) and stacked them in a fashion only to appreciated by the wrapping elves at Harry and David. Finishing it off with a glorious Green ribbon the gift was complete!

The BIG GIVE: I had to wait week before I saw Bentia to give her her gift so for weeks this pink mountain of flamingo boxes sat in my living room. They made for quite the conversation piece to be honest, I got everything from "what the F is that?" to "WOW who's having a baby Martha Stewart?" Finally, the day came. I was so excited and I little scarred, I mean what if Bentia hated the flamingos? Then again who could hate flamingos I mean, they are pink and there for awesome.

When Benita got to the house I ushered her directly to the pink mountain. "OPEN!" I commanded, oozing pride in my gift wrap abilities. Bentia opened the first, tiniest box. A Flamingo Lawn art office set. She laughed, silly girl had no idea what was in store for her. Second box, Flamingo patio lights. Third Flamingo Lounge sign......Fourth Flamingo Lawn Art book....Fifth Flamingo BBQ set and apron......Sixth and final two beautiful Pink Lawn flamingos! Benita just looked at me overwhelmed, "touche, my friend, touche. I tip my theme gift hat to you."

WINNER: ME!! On account of Flamingo Overkill!