My weekend: a dichotomy of days

It rained all day Saturday. This put me in home-body mode, which wasn't much of a stretch since I had been out on Friday night drinking and dancing. As a result, I gotta tell you that I can't say I accomplished much. I finished reading "Almost French", the book I have been quoting here in my posts and... um... watched three episodes of Season Two of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Hubbie worked all day and, when he came home, I decided to punish him by dragging him to ULTA where I proceeded to spend $70 on anti-wrinkle, anti-pimple products. I always thought I would grow old gracefully but I can see now that this is just not going to happen. I'm going to resist each fine line with all my might and try to spend my way out of it, testing just about every plump-it-up, even-it-out, moisturize-it-away product known to man. So, overall, it was a self-indulgent day all-in-all. And no... I didn't really get any laundry done.

In contrast, Sunday was spent in San Francisco, being very Sarah-Jessica-Parker-like and having brunch with girls in the city. I drove down there with my new Australian friend CAW (her blog is Hotel California in my links and she prefers that I maintain her privacy, so no real names) who has a convertible. The day was warm and sunny and we zipped down the 80 with the top down, the wind tangling our hair, screaming our conversations over the noise. It was wonderful! Her friends are all single, American girls living in or near SF and this was my first introduction to them.

We parked in Fort Mason and walked to a cool little area at the intersection of Lombard and Fillmore, soaking up the ambience of a city-Sunday. The day after rain, it seemed everyone wanted to be out in the sunshine. There were young couples straight out of a Gap commercial with cropped pants, tank-tops and flip-flops, walking their dogs, leash in one hand Starbucks latte in the other; girlfriends in workout clothes power-walking to-and-from their yoga and pilates classes; and hip, Paris-Hiltonites sassing their way down the street in skinny-legged jeans, huge sunglasses perched on their bleach-blond heads, gold bag flung over one shoulder and mobile phone perched between their other shoulder and ear. Just to see people out and walking is a big thing since you don't see this much in the suburban sprawl of Sacramento. I was also struck at how young everyone seemed to be; Sacramento is definitely an older town. It made for a great atmosphere; the area seemed to buzz with youth and potential. GOD I miss the city.

Anyway, brunch was wonderful. CAW's friends are strong, intelligent, opinionated, well-traveled women (my favorite kind) and we sat and talked for almost three hours! I noticed too, in looking around the restaurant as it filled up, that we weren't the only group of girlfriends meeting for brunch. It seemed every table was filled with groups of girls or foursomes of young couples, brunching after a nice lay-in, probably after partying the night before. The room was loud, full of laughter and chatter and, while the conversation at our table was captivating, I couldn't help but drift off once in a while to soak up the atmosphere and people-watch.

We left at four and drove back north over the Golden Gate bridge, top down, sun still out. As we hurtled in her little sportscar toward the green hills of Marin County, I turned back and looked at the city which seemed to sparkle in the sunlight. The breeze, the brightness of the day, the view... it felt good to be alive.

If only it wasn't so freakin' expensive to live there!