The aftermath of BeerTrain 2009, in particular, the fence jumping run from station to station in Palo Alto.

Before I went off to Alex's birthday party, I made 7 dozen buttons for Beer Train 2009. Beer Train is a pub crawl that starts in Sunnyvale, ends in Belmont, takes all day, tours five bars, and is the social event of the year. One could say decade, except that it happens every year.

Doyle asked me to make the buttons. Given how much I lurve my buttons, a chance to break out my button maker cannot be passed by.

I hurried home after eating my cupcake and jumping in the jump house and, of course, giving Alex the biggest hug and thanks before he went down for his name, I dashed back home to pick up Kris. Kris has signed up for Beer Train. I had not. I figure, dang, man, the whole day to myself without any client expectations or work to do? Sign me up for that, not an always-on drink fest. I know how to take care of my not-so-inner introvert.

I had to wait a short while after dashing home for Kris to finish up his work. He had originally intended to work late last night, get up around six am, go for a training run before the temperature outside was too hot, finish up any work he needed to do, then head to Beer Train. I somehow, I'm still not sure how, convinced him that, no, he needed sleep. If he was going to spend all of today drinking, and going to bed fairly late, something had to give: work or run, but not sleep. Definitely not sleep.

He was still working when I arrived back home, making me even more satisfied that I had convinced him to do the right thing.

Around 1, I drove Kris to the downtown Sunnyvale starting pub. We had a slightly difficult time finding the right bar, as, for some retarded reason, the short block of Murphy Avenue from Washington to Evelyn has four bars, two of them with Murphy in their names.

Eventually we found the place, and I dropped both Kris and the buttons off.

On my way out of the bar, Kyle and Colleen, both conductors on the beer train, were across the street, having lunch before the train rides. I wandered over to talk to them, and had a wonderful conversation with them. The topic wasn't always so wonderful (cancer came up), but catching up with the highlights of their lives was great.

I went home and spent the day putzing. I did laundry. I sorted crap on my desk. I scanned papers. I walked the dogs. I caught up on tasks. Essentially, I had great day, doing nothing much, and lots, all at the same time.

Meanwhile, Kris was off on his grand drinking train adventure. At one point, there were two stations within Palo Alto, so Kris and Andy left the first bar with everyone else, and ran, drunk, to the next station. They ended up running along the tracks, hopping fences, getting stuck on the fences, stopping, almost puking but not quite, arriving early enough to watch the rest of the train pull into the station. I'm not sure if the run was worth the puking, but the adoration from the rest of the group seemed to be.

I wish I had left my second camera with Kris.

Around 10PM, I hopped into my car, and drove up to Belmont, where everyone was at the last bar on the trip. I arrived, and was immediately confronted with a confessions from Kris. He prefaced with, "I have a drunken confession to make, are you ready for it?" What is a girl to think with this introduction?

Well, turns out, two female friends on the trip were having a contest to see which could kiss the most number of boys on the ride up. Kris was willing, and kissed one of them. He was okay with it, she freaked out a little bit. When he told me this, all worried and innocent-like, I burst out laughing. I then went up to the friend and let her know that I was humoured by the incident and in no way upset.

Really, I think Kris has a long way to go before he catches up to me on the scanalous things I've done while married. A LONG way.

Some time later, Roshan came up to me and relayed a conversation he had had with Kris earlier, which also humoured me.

"So, Kitt is picking you up from the Sunnyvale train station?"

"No, she's coming up here to pick me up."

*blink*

*blink* *blink*

"You have the best wife ever."

"Ssssh! Don't tell anyone. I don't want to share."

We ended up dropping Beth and Jeremy off in Palo Alto (with a running commentary on my driving from Jeremy that clearly indicated he had never driven in Los Angeles), and Andy at his home, before heading home. I made sure Kris drank a LOT of water before going to bed. Here's hoping for no headache in the morning.

The full story, if you're curious why not.

Danger, er, Alex turned three today. To celebrate his continued, non-stop march toward complete world domination, he mind-jedi'd his parents into renting him a jump house. Of course, he didn't jedi just jump house, he jedi'd a jump house so large that not only is it better than my house, but also visible from the space shuttle flying by in orbit.

My plan was to show up after all of the sugar was consumed by the small people running around, then swoop in and play with them. My plan failed when Katie let me know there were cupcakes left, and I should partake.

Partake I did. Damn and dang, those cupcakes from Kara's Cupcakes are amazing. My mini cupcake lasted as long as it takes to blink twice. Fast. Which is to say, I hoovered it.

I was able to chat with Pickett and fam today, which was awesome. Doubly awesome was getting to meet Jesus. Sophie is incredibly cute. Pickett commented that she has a very outgoing personality, willing to say hello to every one. After learning "stranger danger," I think Pickett should start grooming her for politics. With her looks and personality, she'll go far.

No, no, the wind was Tuesday, not today. Today was a trip to San Francisco to see Wicked with Heather and her friend, John. Kris was originally supposed to leave work relatively early, swing by Doyle's office where I was working today, and pick me up, before heading up to the City to meet up with Heather and John for dinner. Sure, and I was SUPPOSED to take the train, too. Neither of those happened, Kris had to work late, so I drove up to the City to meet up for dinner at Osha Thai, having been disorganized enough myself that I drove into work instead of catching the train.

We ended up having dinner so early that not only were we able to finish dinner, we were also able to park and repark my car three times, each time a block or two closer to the theatre, inching (blocking?) our way to a shorter return walk to my car after the show.

Where we had no problem parking and sauntering to the theatre, Kris had the opposite experience. Worse, BOTH of my cell phone batteries were dead, and I had to borrow Heather's cell phone to wait for Kris to arrive at the theatre. As I stood waiting next to the theatre entrance, happily people watching the groups of people walking by on their way to the show, I started to worry when the time remaining decreased to fifteen minutes, ten minutes, eight minutes.

He ran up, to my relief, about five minutes before the doors were going to close, giving us not only enough time to find our seats, but me time to reconnoiter the restrooms. Of course, these are the restrooms that inspire rants, so I pretty much knew what to expect.

We made it to our seats in time for the show's start. Of course no photography was allowed, so, of course, I took a picture. I swear, next time I'm going to sit in the last row, so that I can take a whole bunch of pictures without the people behind me ratting me out.

The seats we had were fairly good seats, other than the fact that Heather's seat sat 4" low and my seat sat 4" high. I'm sure I annoyed the people behind me, sitting so tall that I blocked the view of at least four rows behind me. Heather and I switched seats, which meant Kris and I held hands on Heather's lap during some of the "You're perfect! No, you're perfect! We're perfect together!" songs. I think she rolled her eyes at us. I just smiled.