Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Who'da thought? I look so bad in green!

Your results:
You are Hulk
























Hulk
90%
Superman
65%
Spider-Man
65%
Robin
60%
Green Lantern
60%
Batman
55%
The Flash
55%
Wonder Woman
53%
Supergirl
48%
Catwoman
40%
Iron Man
40%
You are a wanderer with
amazing strength.


Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

posted by Meg @ 3:19 PM 2 comments

Friday, February 16, 2007

Mom and Dad's Visit: Friday



My father loves Starbucks coffee. I'm not using this in loose terms like "I love Hawaiian pizza" which generally would suggest that it's my favorite type, but I'll eat other kinds. No, I mean he LOVES Starbucks coffee. He has moved from "a regular coffee with a little cream and sugar" kind of guy to a "dark roast, full caffeine, no sugar, no cream" kind of guy. I'm pretty sure if you hooked up an IV of Starbucks "Verona" coffee he'd fly to the moon and back on the caffeine in this coffee and come back asking for more. It's crazy. Let me also add that Dad took pictures of the two Starbucks we visited so he could start a collection of Starbucks photos. And just to top off his "need for speed" coffee addiction: the hotel he and mum stayed at serves Starbucks "Verona" coffee in their hotel restaurant.

So, our first mission on Friday morning was to get Dad to a Starbucks. So on our way to Sea World (our Friday adventure) we hit the Starbucks across the street from our apartment. Mum had green tea (size medium, not grande... you gotta love this woman: she doesn't even know the right names for sizes at Starbucks!), Alan and I had our standard grande-white-chocolate-mocha-two-pump-peppermint-with-whip-extra-hot lattes. Dad had "a coffee; venti!" We scrambled down our various breakfasts (most of which are poor imitations of Tim Horton's general goodies: bagels, scones, donuts, the like) and were off for our first visit of 2007 to Sea World: my favorite place in San Diego.
The main goal of the day was to pet a walrus, adore some seals, be awed by a polar bear and last but not least, get kissed by a 4000lb Beluga whale named Ferdinand. Yep! I went for round two of the Sea World "Arctic Experience". So far, since it's inception in November of 2006, I'm the only repeat customer.
So this time the Walrus got a huge gob of snot on me, and kissed my hand which closely resembles a 15 year old trying to give his girlfriend her first hickey. We met the entire Harbor and Ring Seal population of Sea World (3 of which are mum, dad and baby) and played with two amazing Belugas: Ferdinand and Ruby. Ruby, who used to work with the U.S. Navy, carries with her a world record for one of the deepest dives ever completed by a Beluga. Pretty nifty!

After our visit with the Beluga's we showered and were off for more whirlwind adventures with other creatures. We played with the Bat Rays, learned about Sharks from James (who we later learned was kind of stalking us through the park), fed the Bottlenose Dolphins, saw Shamu's new show "Believe" which is pretty weak in showmanship but takes the cake for "touchy feely" emotional type of stuff, and admired the underwater ballerina-esque feats of the Manatees. By 3pm we were pretty worn out. From here we headed back to the apartment to change clothes and were off to Cozymel's for some Mexican-inspired cuisine. Mum learned that poblano peppers are a lot hotter (spicier) than we would have thought. Some margaritas were drunk, some beers were imbibed, and 2 hours later we were once again sated with food, and completely exhausted. Thank goodness we didn't have any big plans for Saturday... yet...

posted by Meg @ 12:55 PM 0 comments

Mom and Dad's Visit: Thursday

What many of my readers don't know is that I have a tendency to start counting down the number of sleeps until my scheduled visitors arrive. For Brad and Gillian's visit this past December I think the count started somewhere around 68 sleeps. Mom and Dad's count started on January 1st with 38 sleeps. By Thursday I'd gone through all 38 excruciating sleeps to arrive at Thursday, February 8th with butterflies of excitement. I managed to get through the 6 hours of work that I had to endure prior to my 2:45 departure by doing the least amount of work possible. I was too excited about my folks arrival to even think straight; by 2:15 I was so excited I had a stomach ache.

At 2:50pm I was on the road south for the 18 mi. (28.8km) trip south to my apartment where Alan was waiting for me. Mundane details, more mundane details... and we're back on the road to the Airport for the 4:07pm arrival.

Alan would most likely want me to share the trip to the airport with you. However, I'll leave that up to him. Basically, it was scary. Weaving in and out, cutting people off, honking. The whole nine yards. I think he was amazed we made it to the airport alive. When we pulled into the parking lot it was 4:02pm. Perfect timing. However, at this time Alan also informed me that my driving privileges were revoked for the day as he'd like to get my parents back to their hotel without either one of them suffering a heart attack or an aneurysm. I more than happily gave him the keys as I knew I was pretty revved up and should just chill out once my folks arrived.

Their plane landed at exactly 4:07 and they were down the stairs in the arrival bay within minutes. My dad gave me one of his not-so-patented "real hugs" which one seems to receive only after a long absence or perhaps the death of a grandparent. It felt great! And mum... well her hugs are always awesome and I'm pretty sure I managed to sneak in two before we started to head for the car. Their luggage, by some miracle, were two out of the first twelve or so bags onto the carousel so we were off for our first night of adventure all within 15 minutes of their plane touching down.

The first priority, after shoving two huge bags of luggage and four full size adults (anything over 5'-0" counts as full size, by the way, for those of you laughing at the notion of my mother and I being "full size") into a tiny two door Cobalt. Through means of deduction mum and I took up residence in the back seat (as was standard for the remainder of the visit) and let Alan take the reigns for our trip to Pacific Beach (P.B. to the locals) for some sand and surf, and dinner which was an ocean-side seat at Joe's Crab Shack for some beer, some crab and most importantly, dessert: three kinds of cheese cake and a GIGANTIC chocolate cake called "The Shack Attack".

Bellies full and hearts aflutter (from beer or heart burn) we headed off to our apartment to show mum and dad the digs. I think we hung out for half an hour or so and the folks were done. We took them up to their hotel. But first things first: we got lost. Well, not so much lost, but screwed by San Diego's planners sense of humor. Their hotel was off Penasquitos Drive. We live on Rancho Penasquitos Blvd. You'd think the two would be linked. Nope, they're like 3 miles apart. Anyway, the directions say to take the I15 north to the Caramel Mountain Road exit and then turn right onto Penasquitos Drive and "poof", you're there. However, Alan and I know that if you go straight up Rancho Penasquitos Drive you will come across Caramel Mountain Road because R.P.D. becomes C.M.R. (Note: I've switched to short hand as my fingers are wearing out...) However, what we didn't know was that at the intersection of R.P.D. and the 56 Freeway (where R.P.D. becomes C.M.R.) you can go straight through the lights and hit C.M.R. OR you can turn right onto C.M.R. Turns out, we wanted to go right but instincts told us to go straight because that's the way we'd always gone. So, 10 miles later we all realize we're in the middle of no where and start to wonder where the first gun-toting thug is going to pop out of the bushes and demand our Canadian dollars! So, we finally pull out a map and turn around and get them to their destination. We later learned that it's only a 6 1/2 minute trip from out apartment to their hotel. We, however, managed to find a 25 minute route. What fun!

To make a long story even longer: we dropped them off in their suite. Mom brought me Smarties, a Canadian affectation that you should all learn to appreciate more as they are not available here in the States and Dad, the ever-loving work-a-holic that he is, sat down and plugged in his laptop much to our chagrin. The night was over. Dad was back in work mode. So, Al and I let them be for the night and headed off to our own little slice of heaven (that would be our apartment) to dream of the days to come.

Thus ends the tale of Thursday...

posted by Meg @ 12:23 PM 0 comments