This weekend....

Downtown San Diego, House of Blues and red trolley

It was a full weekend with a ton of pictures to prove it.

I started Friday morning by waking up at the crack ass of dawn and drove to Indio (for work), located approximately an hour and a half away. Indio is past Palm Springs and right to the center of the surface of the sun, it was 90 degrees when I arrived. I left the house at 6:30 AM, got to work at 7:00 and printed out map quest directions, grabbed my calculator and hit Starbucks. Shortly after 7:45 I finally made it to the free highway and was exiting Monroe street in Indio at 8:45. Met with a retiree at 9:00 AM, chatted with our AIG rep and waited very patiently for 45 minutes while we had absolutely no attendees for a meeting. Nice. Back into the office around noon-ish and worked till 5:00.

I came home to spend time with D, we decided to start watching Across the Universe, one of the best movies EVER. Does anyone else cry like a baby when the little boy is singing "Let it Be" and the choir joins in..... Tears in my eyes as I type this. I finally got off the couch and headed over to our friend Panda's house, yes- I have a friend name Panda. We were having a girl's weekend that was to start at her house and then move to San Diego on Saturday night. Friday night was full of eating, drinking and laughing.

Saturday found Regina and I headed to San Diego to meet Panda and other college friends for continued eating, drinking and laughing. Without airing all our dirty laundry - we all have healthy amounts of shit occurring in our lives and it was a much welcomed escape from the reality of our lives.

Regina and I arrived at the hotel in downtown San Diego and waited for Panda and company to finish shopping in the bar. To my complete and total surprise Regina had never had the taste of Bailey's on the rocks so we each had one while we waited for Panda who had the hotel key.

Fleur de Lis decorative grade on window of hotel

Our view from the bar, at the hotel

Check out the cool clock, I LOVE big cities

Yes, we are silly and this was before we left the room for the evening.

A brief history of our friendship - I met Regina and Panda in September of 1990 at Riverside Community College. We were all members of the S.E.A. club - Sea and Environmental awareness club and happened to be close friends of the my very first serious boyfriend. As the saying goes, boys will come and go but those sister friends we find - follow us through life. He broke my heart and I got his two closest friends, I would do it all over again - in a heartbeat. I cannot begin to describe how lucky I am to have such rich friendships filled with love and laughter. These two have been amazing friends.

Panda and friends at a fun sushi restaurant

The evening was long, Regina and I called it a night at 11:30 PM while the other stayed out much later. Due to Regina's mom being in hospice, we hit the road early and drove by one of our old standbys. Years ago, we came across this resturaunt located on the corner of 2nd and Island streets in downtown San Diego. It is called Cafe 222 and the menu has yummy items on it along with witty phrases like No smoking, no choking and no crybabies. I love this place

Can you see the blue Vespa, outside Cafe 222?

It belonged to a really cute preppy couple in their 50's

Regina was reminiscing about times where she took both her mom and dad to Cafe 222 and what they ordered. We talked about details no one hopes to with a friend - funeral arrangements of a parent, what she might wear and writing a thank you to the many people who have helped her mom, in countless ways, to make her life just that much more comfortable and better in her final months, weeks and days.

And after breakfast, we left San Diego to deal with life - please keep Regina and her family in your thoughts this week.