Whirlwind day

Wow. Talk about a whirlwhind day. I'm quite glad I chose to take the day off from work because I'm 100% sure that I would have been completely unable to cram anything else more into my day.

Kris and I started the day off by having breakfast with Jess and Gab. The drive over was short, and we probably should have just walked over, but really, hitting the snooze button six times really was more important in our not-completely-awake state.

I thought the next part of our plan, the part starting after breakfast, involved taking Jess and Gab out for some brief shopping in downtown Los Gatos, as I watched Meter for Megan, as she managed to squeeze in a haircut.

Unfortunately, I was mistaken, as Jess had a conference call in the morning. No problem, I thought, I'll take Gab.

No....

I let Jess know that I thought her decision to keep Gab in the room for the morning, while she has conference calls, instead of letting her run run run around with me, was a bad idea. It was ultimately her decision, however, so off Kris and I went after breakfast.

I caught up with Megan in downtown Los Gatos, where she handed me Meter and off we went. Instead of the walking tour of downtown, which is what we did last time, Meter and I walked straight through downtown and went to hangout at the small park at the opposite end of downtown.

Meter is totally starting the get the walking thing down. She walked around the park holding my hand, but not really needing to hold my hand. She used it more for a comfort than for a steadying crutch. It's been a long time since I've had so much fun just walking around in circles.

Unfortunately, as is all too typical when I'm not paying attention to the camera, I managed to use up the battery on the camera, without the benefit of my backpack with All Things Emergency™, which includes 4 spare batteries, 4 spare memory cards, 2 GUs, facial tissue, two memory cards, a memory card reader, pain reliever in 4 forms, dental floss, a tampon, two liners, 3 pens, $20, a safety pin, a Mischief button, a sewing kit, eye drops, ear plugs, hair ties, and assortment of band-aids and the last of a prescription that I should probably take out.

All of that, none of it near.

That means, of course, lunch with Megan and Mirabelle, with Meter, too, is undocumented.

The horror.

After lunch, I went back to Jessica's hotel to check in and hang out with the two of them. Apparently the morning was as horrible as I expected it to be, with Jessica relieved that hey, someone new can burn off some of this kid's energy. Please? Thanks.

Gab and I went down to the gym at the hotel and goofed off for a hwile. She had a good time on the stairstepper, while I walked on the treadmill in several directions. We played with the Swiss ball and the medicine balls (a gym hotel with medicine balls? crazy!), and the yoga mats. We would have kept playing, except that a cleaning woman came in and kept hovering over us as we played with the equipment. No fun in that.

After being chased out of the gym, we wandered back up to her room to verify that Jess wasn't done with her current phone call.

Nope.

So, off we went to the nearest grocery store. We were going to try to get a Sobe tea for Jess, and maybe an Odwalla for me. On the way over, Gab had a brilliant idea.

"Let's get ice cream for my mom!"

Internally, I chuckled at the suggestion. Normally, I'd have said, "Hells yeah, let's go!" but the adult in me resisted. Ice cream? At 3 in the afternoon. It sounds like the right time to have some, but, the sugar... eh...

"Does your fridge have a freezer?"

"Yes."

"You sure?"

"No."

We continued to debate the issue of ice cream as we walked to the store. The store itself was maybe 80m from the front of the hotel. However, that straight shot also crossed El Camino Real and its 6 lanes of heavy traffic. We took the long way around to the stoplight.

"It'll be a surprise for her!" Gaby tried the "it's a gift! everyone loves gifts!" approach for ice cream.

"Is that a surprise she'll appreciate?"

"I don't know."

"I don't either," I answered.

"We don't need a freezer, you know."

"Eh?"

"We'll surprise her and eat it right away!"

She kept trying, I'll give her that.

We ended up purchasing three juices, and skipping out on the ice cream. As much as I, too, would have enjoyed the ice cream, I couldn't justify buying it and setting the tone of "If Mom says no, go ask Kitt" for the trip.

The rest of the afternoon was spent on homework. I was a little frustrated by the textbook that Gab had, it neither being well written nor actually factual in some cases, but I chose to ignore that fact for the moment. I tried to remember what level I was learning at when I was in third grade, not quite remembering. Gab seemed to pick up the content quickly, the fact that it was mostly review for her lost on me until we were done.

For dinner, we went to the Cheesecake Factory in Palo Alto. I enjoy going there, and figure Jessica's visit is a good excuse to go to all the restaurants around that I like to go to.

When we were seated, after flirting with the waiter for a short while, we started flipping through the enormous menu selection. At one point, Gab pointed to an item on the menu and declared, "I want this!"

Jessica leaned over to see what she had selected.

"You're eight years old. You don't get filet mignon."

Gab was a little upset when I laughed.