In the meantime, I can tell you about all the adventures I've been having! This is one of those weeks where I feel like I'm actually living up to the hype in terms of doing fun, somewhat crazy things, instead of hanging around the house watching The Two Towers with commentary for the twelfth time.

On Friday night, I went out with Megan and the Pilgrim. We went to Rivoli for food, and let me just tell you, that place is divine. I had salmon and mashed potatoes that were the best salmon and the best mashed potatoes. Also, this was the type of place where the server scrapes the crumbs off the table with a little knife. Love that.

We also had coffee and hazelnut cake, for those of you playing along at home. And I bet I had a glass of wine, because I like a glass of wine with a fine meal. I'm just like that.

Afterwards, we headed to the movies to see Monster. All the hype about Charlize Theron's performance is well-deserved. If Nicole Kidman wins the Oscar instead, I'll cry foul. (No, I haven't seen Cold Mountain, but I've heard the "Southern" accent that she's got going on, and it is not doing it for me. Then again, I might be biased in that I find Nicole Kidman very overrated, deeply annoying, and reminiscent of a chicken.)

Monster is very intense and at times difficult to watch. I think you have to be in the right kind of mood to put yourself through a movie like that, or maybe you need to leave yourself enough time to go sneak into My Baby's Daddy or Bigger Buns or some other palate-cleansing film afterwards.

On Saturday, I went and hung out with a boy (J.) who I'm currently "seeing" and we met up with Foo, Rod, and La Wade for drinks at a bar on Haight and then dinner at this adorable little Thai place that looks like a converted Victorian house. Then we went to Shannonk's party, at which I had a fabulous time for the short amount of time that we were there.

J. had to go to work early the next morning and wanted to take off, so we left, leaving behind in our wake many "blowjob in the garden" jokes, you dirty people. Yeah, that's right, I heard about that. I have my sources.

It took us about 45 minutes to walk back to his place (hey, there were several gardens on the way) and then when we got there, he had a message on his machine from work, and he asked if I wanted to go down there for a while. (He works at a bar.)

Well hell, I wasn't the one who had to work the next day, so I said sure! Plus I'd never ridden on the back of a Vespa before. ("Is it safe?" "It's the safest thing you'll ever have between your legs." "What?" "Nothing.")

Tim says there's nothing funnier in the world than two people on a scooter; I think he's just jealous because he didn't get to break me in (so to speak) on the back of his motorcycle.

On the way to the bar, I was rather preoccupied with the fragility of the human body. I kept repeating the rules to myself. "Lean with the turns. Don't put your feet down. Lean with the turns. Don't put your feet down."

After a few drinks at the bar with some fine people, we headed back to his place. The liquor made me mellower about my impending death. As a result, the ride home was fun. Up hills! Down hills! Through the tunnel! Whee!

On Sunday I had to work at Starbucks, which was a long shift that was somewhat more boring and long than usual. I was sleep-deprived and mildly hungover, which did not help. I need to collect as many amusing customer stories as possible while I still have the chance, but this week's tally was zero.

Yesterday, I took Jen and Rod to the Russian River Valley to go wine tasting. (Stay tuned for a delightful Photo Essay (TM) on this subject from Jenfu.)

I'd never been to that area before; it was more cozy than Napa or even Sonoma, but we didn't get to taste a whole lot of sweet wine, or port, or even white wines! Mostly Zinfandel, Syrah, and Cabernet.

On the plus side, the wineries we went to didn't have tasting fees, with the exception of one place, Kendall-Jackson, that charged $2 to taste four wines and then gave us a lot more than four pours ("Here's our $10 Chardonnay. Here's our $50 Chardonnay. And our $90 Chardonnay! And seventeen other kinds of wine. Can I get you a refill?") and then I was able to buy a bottle of Cabernet for $3.

I don't even like Cabernet usually, and I have this sneaking suspicion that Kendall-Jackson wine isn't as good as it seemed to me at the time. But by that point, everything tasted like ambrosia. The good folks at Christopher Creek started us off when they gave us about twelve different wines, and... yeah. It's all a blur.

After that we went to dinner (put something in our stomachs besides wine) and then went to the board game bar for Balderdash and Scattergories before taking Rod to the airport. (See what I'm talking about? I am so WILD! I play SCATTERGORIES!)

My parents are in Holland right now, taking care of my oma who has been hospitalized with heart problems. I got this e-mail from my dad before they left and saved it for you:

[Your aunt] told me that today oma had a very good day,she had her cup of coffeeand talked and laughed. Now the thing is we have to see that she will drink lots of water, juice and tea and not so much coffee. Mom and I are almost packed .Another subject the kreepy crawler is doing very good it goes around the pool with a very good speed like it suppose to do the pump is only running for 3 hours and the pool is clean like a wistle. So now you know a little more with what is going on .LOve Mom and Dad

The pool is "clean like a wistle"! Hee!