I just did the usual quickie Bay Area trip: drove up in one day, spent two days there, and drove back on the fourth day. This experience included:

1) Seeing my aunt's new house in Walnut Creek, which is nicer than the one that burned down last year. I spent the first night there, listening to my aunt talk for two and half hours about what kind of furniture she plans to buy. It was interesting talk, but there was a lot of it, considering that I'd just spent over five hours on the road. Damn, though: I was gratified to be a good niece. My relatives can't help it that they talk too much. And neither can I, of course, when I get going. It's in my genes.

2) Having to choose which social engagement I would take. I have so many friends in the Bay Area that I only see each person every 2-3 years or so. If I didn't make this rule, I'd never spend enough time with my family.

3) Finding out at a family dinner that my "little cousin" (he's almost 40 and towers over me) is now engaged to the Very Nice Girl he's been dating. Being genuinely glad that my cousins are marrying such sweet, ethical women.

4) Eating ice cream at Fenton's in Oakland with my mom.

5) Getting lectured by my mother about how I need to cut down on carbs and sweets—over her third dessert. No, really; there was something kind of charming about it.

6) Letting my mom spoil me: she crashed on the couch, and I got to sleep in her brand-new queen-size bed, which includes a remote control that lifts the foot—hospital-style—and tilts the head. One almost doesn't need pillows, and it's terrific both for reading in bed and increasing respiration (because one is sleeping almost upright, at the precise angle of one's choosing). It was the second most decadent experience of my life. (The first: going to the 21 Club in New York City after my husband won his last Emmy.)

7) Lunch on Friday with my brother in Dublin, where he works. This has become my custom on the days I drive back to L.A., and it compensates a little for the fact that he and his family don't join the rest of us for dinner too often.

But no internet access for four days. That hurt. And I missed my biggest traffic peak of all time (1,100 hits in one day, double my previous high-water mark). The Ladies of the Cotillion danced on in my absence, aided by an Instalanche and a Malkinization.

Dang, but I'm content, probably because this Prozac shit is starting to really work. And I'm going to bed now.

Posted by: Attila at 03:03 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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