Looking Up This Summer

Awesome weekend. I’m exhausted today but for once it’s not because of work. I had Friday night all the way to Saturday evening alone in my place with my dogs. I napped! Me! Thinking about it brings a tear to my eye. Ok, enough. Saturday night Laura and I went to our friend’s house where we had dinner and played Playstation 2. Kicked each other’s asses as Lil’ Kim, Carmen Electra and some other hot women with sassy lines and a mean stiletto kick. Fun! Sunday was THE day though. Early morning Laura, Bill and I caught the Metro all the way down to Long Beach and went to the Scuba Diving Convention. Not as impressive as I envisioned it but still lots of freebies and an entire convention center full of my ocean-lovin’ peeps. I even took a picture with a shark! Yep, he was furry and walking the floor along with his pal, Polar Bear. I’m now more than ever determined to do the shark dive I’ve been dying to do. Looks like Honduras is back in the not-too-far distance for vacation destinations. There I can do one of many shark dives. Those are uncaged. Beginning in September through to November is Great White Shark diving season. Of course those dives are caged. I finally convinced someone to do it with me, Bill. I want to do both but it looks like the local one will happen first. The only thing I don’t like is the idea that we’ll be up near San Francisco and the water is colder than shit! I never used to even put my toes in at the beaches up there in the summer. Now I have to dive in October??? Oh well. I guess if my goal is to dive Alaska before I’m 50, I have to start somewhere, right? Brrrr. So, we returned from a great time in the LBC only to turn around and go to the Hollywood Bowl, well Bill and me that is. Sergio Mendes had his 40th anniversary/reunion with Brazil ’66. I’ve been to quite a few shows there now but this one is way up there on my list of favorites. My Mom used to listen to this band when I was a kid. I loved them then. Last night was incredible. To help celebrate, a few performers did a song or two with them – India Arie, John Legend, Q Tip. Of course Herb Alpert was there but what I didn’t know was that one of the women was his wife. They’ve been married for 35 years. These people are all pushing 70 but that didn’t stop the sound from being nothing less than great. Bill packed this great picnic basket with more goodies than we could finish. As I expected, everything perfectly matched both wines he brought. The white was chilled, crisp and uplifting as we settled in before the sun set. The red? Lord! The red. One of the best I’ve had and definitely the best I’ve had at the Bowl. It was a blend of 5 or 6 different types, Merlot, 2 types of Cab, Grenache, Viognier. Just this full bodied taste that had to be savored. We definitely got our money’s worth out of that All Day Metro pass. I never realized how easy it is to get to the Bowl that way, not to mention the Long Beach Convention Center. I will be riding a lot more now that I live so damn close to the station. I didn’t even touch anything work-related until this morning! Unbelievable! I’m hoping now that work is beginning to become a little less chaotic, I can go back to having a more consistent pattern of blog entries. My mind is going constantly but I just haven’t had the time to sit down and write. This weekend was probably my best this year. It’s about time.