Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing, but I feel like my life just keeps getting busier and busier and crazier and crazier. I don’t even know where to begin! I guess chronologically is good, though.
Back towards the end of September we celebrated the end of summer by attending the Stone Mountain Chili Cook-Off for the second year in a row. Just as we had remembered, it was delicious and a great way to end the season. We ran into some friends, ate some good food and wandered around in a meat-induced stupor. What’s not to love?
The following weekend we attended our first (and last) autocross of the year with the Atlanta Region SCCA. I wish we could have done more because they’re SO much fun but we were just so busy that the scheduling didn’t work out. The Miata really needs shocks/tires/brakes/etc. so it’s kinda scary to drive it as-is, but I still enjoyed it. I drove in E-Stock Ladies and given that I was the only driver, I placed both first (and last) for my class! Ha! I suck, but I’m sure I’ll improve eventually. Speaking of Miatas, I met a random guy in the parking deck of my work who happened to also be a Miata/autocross enthusiast. Small world! I’m always up for meeting new friends, too. 🙂
October 7-10 we spent in San Francisco, CA for Erik’s friend’s wedding. Despite having lived in Los Angeles from 2004-2006, I had never been to SF before and was super excited to finally get to visit. We did lots and lots of tourist things and saw pretty much the entire city in a span of just a few days. Our adventures started when we walked into our hotel room to find that the Blue Angels were practicing right outside our window! Apparently it was Fleet Week and we had a great, albeit unintentional, view of the air show.
Our first night in town Erik met up with some clients at a local bar for a happy hour and I found out that one of my good friends who I hadn’t seen in almost 10 years was living nearby. We got together and it was so absolutely wonderful catching up with her. I love you, LoLo! Afterwards Erik and I dined at a restaurant that we had been wanting to try for years – The Stinking Rose. It’s a garlic-centric restaurant and while the entrée itself wasn’t as good as I had hoped (I had the “40 Clove Garlic Chicken”) the garlic wine was interesting and the garlic ice cream was freakin’ incredible! Anyway, we got back to the hotel later that night and were super tired from the jet lag and excitement of the day but our plans for sleep were interrupted by the hotel’s fire alarm going off at 11pm (2am “our time”) and had to evacuate. Turns out that it was a false alarm but it definitely added to the craziness of the trip.
The next day was Saturday and Erik and I walked down to China Town to get lunch and explore before the wedding. We found a yummy Thai place (Banana House), a Toyota commercial being filmed and even a Chinese dragon celebration in a park (I got to wear the dragon costume, somehow). The wedding itself was beautiful and we had a great time seeing Jenny and Jim tie the knot. Congratulations to them!
Sunday we decided to do as many tourist things as possible and hopped on the bus to go down to the pier. We couldn’t get on a tour of Alcatraz because it was sold out from Fleet Week, but at least I got to see it from a distance. We walked around and saw the sea lions before finding an open-top bus tour to take us around the city. We saw most of the major landmarks: Haight/Ashbury street, the Painted Ladies and then stopped for a bit at the Golden Gate Bridge. It was all so pretty! After the bus tour we walked up the back of Lombard Street (or, as I call it, “Squiggle Street”) and down the front. We randomly came across an Italian Heritage Day parade complete with ponies and then had lunch at In-N-Out! At that point it was getting late so we hopped a cable car (so cheesy and clich&eecute; but yet so much fun) back to the hotel and went to dinner with another of Erik’s college friends at a really excellent local Italian place. All in all the trip was fun beyond words and I am looking forward to going back!
Erik and me at the Golden Gate Bridge
View the complete “Adventures in San Francisco” album: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.895605437466.2326505.10503411&type=1&l=46ccd0123c
The very next weekend Erik and I drove down to Valdosta, GA for the “No Mercy” Radial Revolution event at South Georgia Motorsports Park with Precision Turbo & Engine. I got to spend the weekend playing photographer and loving on some pretty serious racecars. It was hot, tiring and a total blast.
Two weekends ago we celebrated Miss Jillian Kuhn’s birthday and Halloween with a super-fun 20s-esque/flapper-style murder mystery dinner party. We all dressed up and had character roles that we had to play which was really cool!
This past weekend I was supposed to go play polo with Erik, Leslie and Sarah but Blue threw me at my riding lesson on Tuesday and I bashed my shoulder really badly; he started bucking after landing a jump and there was just no way in hell I could hold on. In 19 years of riding, that fall was the most painful I had ever had. I was lucky in that I didn’t break anything but I knocked my head really hard and saw stars. My shirt got torn up and I was all bloody… turns out I had a separated shoulder. Ugh. It was excruciatingly painful to move or do anything so I asked EJ if she would take my place at polo. She agreed, but later that night I got a phone call from her and all I could understand were the words “Grady” (a hospital), “emergency room” and “car accident”. Erik and I turned the car around and headed straight downtown.
We got there around 9pm and sat in the waiting room for an hour until they allowed me in to see her. Turns out she had been walking home from class with a friend (who is 8 months pregnant) and a guy in an SUV literally ran them over! EJ got thrown up onto the hood/windshield and the awful, horrible person driving the car actually sped away, leaving them there in the middle of the street. It’s a miracle that neither of them were killed. EJ, fortunately, didn’t have any broken bones nor any internal damage, just a ton of cuts, scrapes and severe bruises. We stayed with her in the hospital until about 3:30am at which point we went home to sleep. Early the next morning I got a call from the hospital that she was being discharged so I went and picked her up, then we just flopped around my house all weekend being gimpy and miserable together which was surprisingly fun. Oh and in case you’re wondering what happened with polo, it’s been postponed. 😛
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