Coeur D'Alene

We spent one night just outside of Bend, Oregon and then ventured up the road to visit Mattie's friends Annie and Phil in northern Idaho. Coeur D'Alene, and northern Idaho in general, is renowned for it's beauty so of course the weather dipped to a chilly 40˚ with an icy rain as soon as we showed up. Previously it had been 70˚ and sunny and the day we left the sun reappeared and graced the little town with hot summer weather.

While I had packed some warm clothes in anticipation of a Northwestern summer, Mattie had nothing but a pair of dirty jeans and a flannel shirt. While Annie and Phil planned adventures for us, we cowered from the outdoors like the soft southerners we are. "We can stay here.", Mattie volunteered upon learning about a potential hike through the woods. "A movie would be lovely!" I added.

Despite the grey, I can see that Coeur D'Alene is a very pretty, quaint little town. It's up near some mountains on a lake and it's small enough that everywhere we went, Annie and Phil ran into friends every half hour or so. In our short stay in Idaho, Mattie managed to win over the town heartthrob and caused quite a stir in the local gossip. I swear, Mattie has this way. Fellas fall in love with her after just watching her eat a sandwich. She just sits there and they come a runnin'. I found it all sensationally amusing while people texted Annie asking who this new girl was and Mattie stood giggly and nervous.

Annie and Phil are an unlikely couple. She is from Florida. Phil is from Idaho. Annie is a tough, level headed, graduate student while Phil enjoys watching Gilmore Girls and making his own lip balm. To top it all off, Annie is 4'10 and Phil is 6'4. I'm in love with this couple. They've been married just two years and are still giggly and enthralled with each other. Phil spent our time scolding the heartthrob. "Mattie's going to be in our lives forever. Don't mess it up!"
Meanwhile Annie felt overwhelmed. "This is what he does Mattie. Make him work for it!"
I sat back as the fifth wheel, hideously entertained and very, very cold.

Palo Alto

The drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco was my favorite thing ever! We took Highway 1 along the coast and drove through all these fun little surfing towns. We stopped in Malibu for gas and Mattie's Starbucks fix and I was beyond enthralled with the place. It's a ritzy area where celebrities live and my goodness the flowers!

The weather was perfect outside so somewhere outside of Santa Barbara we pulled over and ate lunch on a hill.

Back at SCAD, there was a sassy girl living three doors down from my lavender scented dorm room. The first thing she ever said to me was somewhat offensive and I decided we would not be friends. Then she hooked on to me, insisting we were good together. To this day, Parvaneh offends Jared and me (and others) on a regular basis but she was right all along, we are quite good together. We went to visit Parv who just recently moved to San Fran for a swanky job with Groupon.

Parv lives outside of the city in Palo Alto. She refers to this place as a great place for young married couples who accidentally had children and are now just waiting around to die. (I told you)
I however, found it to be a most pleasant place and truly considered staying. Parv has this great, light filled house covered in lush greenery and hot pink flowers and to really stick it to me, she has a big healthy lemon tree and some budding apples growing in her driveway. It's my dream home!!

We ventured into downtown San Fran on our first night to meet up with Parv's friends. It was very cold to Mattie and me and we sprinted from the train station to a cab to friend Jess's apartment. We sat huddled together, ate a quick dinner, and had friend Lena drive us home. We woke up the next day to a nice brunch and perfect weather. We had planned to go back into the city to explore but we discovered an International Music Festival just a block from Parv's house so we spent the day wandering, listening to music, and people-watching from the porches of various coffee shops.

I really liked it here. We had pleasant, cool days and chilly nights. I liked that everything you needed was within walking distance and people seemed pretty laid-back for being just outside of a big important city. Parv tried to convince me to come live with her for a "good price" and I seriously considered it. (I still might do it... later)

We stepped into a little pub for some dinner around 6:00 and did not emerge for four hours. We befriended some goobers and had the best time. We met some folks from Portland and New York. I proudly announced my distaste for Yankees before realizing that the token yankee had the best manners of anybody. I retracted my statement and focused my distaste towards a girl with a cleavage tattoo.

This guy...

...was a very proud Canadian who decided that we were soul mates. He became such a clingy nuisance that the bartender had to continuously relocate us gals to put some distance between us. I even hid behind the bar for a quick minute. It was humiliating. The Canadian followed us around all night and gazed lovingly at our faces.

We were all in bed by 11:00 as Parv had to work in the morning. We woke up and said our goodbyes to Parv before walking across the street for fruit smoothies and coffee. We set out on the road by 9:30 and crossed into chilly Oregon.

Los Angeles

Mattie and I forgot to take pictures in L.A. We stayed in a house with three Australians and spent all of our time entirely distracted. One of them, is the ex-roommate to Mattie's cousin who now lives in Chicago and works for Oprah. Mattie and I fell madly in love with these people and I forgot all about LA and just wanted to sit on the couch and listen to them talk. They were wonderful hosts who made us feel right at home and gave us free reign of everything. We were staying in Silver Lake which is eastern West Hollywood. I'll say it was pleasantly covered in lots of exotic flowers and plants but the folks living in L.A. are aggressive and not genuine. Our safe driving caused us many honks and approximately one middle finger. I also received a $73 parking ticket not for parking poorly, illegally, or for too long. Indeed, you are charged a hefty $73 for being in the way of the street sweeper. Could ya not just go around?

It's super expensive to eat and live in L.A. and while there are nice areas, it's mostly a big, dirty city full of people who's lives make me sad. I wanted to capture everyone and take them to see nature and have a big family dinner. Surely that would make them realize.

But forget all that. Here in L.A. a true dream of mine came true. A bucket list item was crossed. Let me tell you about Craig Ferguson. 

Craig Ferguson is a 52 year old, Scottish born, newly American citizen. He hosts the Late Late Show on CBS and is entirely, and I mean entirely, underrated. He is a natural born comedian, people reader, and spirit warmer. He's charming, cheeky, and actually quite an inspiring person. It all started on a muggy July night in 2008. I couldn't sleep and found myself on the sofa, flipping channels. It was then that I found him. There Craig stood, a handsome, gangly fella, laughing at his own jokes and disregarding his cue cards. I fell in love. Now don't undermine my love. This was no teenage romance. For six and a half years I have been fascinated by Craig and wholly devoted to him being my "if only things were different" man.

Here in L.A. Mattie and I went to a taping of Craig's show. Two tapings actually, and we were given the distinct honor of being placed in Lesbian Row. Now don't panic. Lesbian Row is a pew of seats in the front of his studio where he places only good-looking females. He does this so that when the cameras pan the audience, folks will be distracted by the women and assume that the entire audience is especially attractive. Mattie and I had to sign contracts allowing us to be shown on TV.

I'll tell you all about it. First, you wait outside in the blazing sun for one hour. Then you're brought to a shaded area to be briefed on appropriate audience behavior. After another hour, you're brought into Craig's freezing cold studio and they sort you based on your appearance. Isn't that terrible? There is a warm up comedian who gives you candy and you practice laughing and clapping. Finally Craig emerges and tears well in your eyes. 

The different segments of the show are filmed sporadically and not sequentially as they appear on TV. Craig does not interact with the audience individually but addressed us in-between shots and kept everyone laughing. We had the good fortune of sitting for two episodes as the crew is off for vacation and so filmed an episode ahead. Craig created inside jokes with the audience that he would reference on air, putting us all in stitches but making no sense to at-home viewers. In-between takes, while the crew moved cameras and chords, Craig just danced. I was pleased to watch Craig interact with the crew, who appear to still find him funny after all these years. Watching them shoot the show is a fun thing for regular people but you can see how it is very much just a job for the crew and for Craig. They were very organized and efficient, doing the scene and moving on. While Craig was very endearing with the crowd, he said thank you and goodbye as soon as he was finished and he disappeared behind his set. 

While it was everything I thought it would be, I felt kind of let down when it was over. It just ended and we walked back out into the world. That was it. That was my moment with Craig. 

I spent the rest of my afternoon in a relatively silent funk, wondering if having your dreams come true would actually make you feel empty in the end. The silly dreams anyways.

Oh but it doesn't matter. I can count on Craig to make me laugh and make me think. I'll always love the fella. But I sure would love to tell Craig that I'm proud of him.
Watch this man giggle and see if you don't fall for the guy.

World Cup

As a fairly unsporty girl, I really love soccer. Not so much playing it (all that running!) but I love watching other people partake. Be it a team of stubby-limbed 6 years olds or a sensationally attractive legion of foreign men, I can feel that beaming energy and I want to watch. It's fast paced, unpredictable, and takes some skill. What's not to love?

I'm a fan of soccer because of Europe. The US rarely puts a soccer match on TV. No one talks or writes about it and for reasons I haven't found yet, it's mostly ignored. We prefer football. An often lethargic game of timeouts that takes hours to play and frustrates me to watch. I do like football but it's soooo loooong.

From this point forward, everything I say will sound snobby. Forgive me.

Every time I'm in Europe, there's a soccer game on. Every pub in every country plasters it's TV's with this international pastime. While initially I paid no attention, it was my first World Cup that got me. I'm embarrassed to say that I've been in Europe for the last few Cups and the energy and excitement is so contagious. Imagine going to a football game where 80% of the crowd was not all rooting for the same team. In Europe there are so many modern, historical, cultural, and friendly rivalries between countries. The folks squeezing into these tiny pubs with you are all rooting for different countries or at least rooting against one that's playing. It's exciting. It's universal camaraderie. And they're good games!
I was in Amsterdam when Holland made it to the finals in the last Cup and the city just erupted. It screamed. People were climbing lamp posts, jumping on moving vehicles, dancing in the street, and singing and hugging strangers and this celebration went on for hours. You can't help but laugh and be excited and feel like you're part of it.

I'm thrilled to see more and more Americans getting excited about soccer. I'm happy to see it on the same screens that only play football reruns month after month. I do have to admit that it's making me miss those dark British pubs. I've never watched these games in clean, well lit, modern buildings with accent-less fellas eating veggie burgers. I like sitting amongst undecipherable shouting and frothy pint glasses on a sticky wooden bar. I like seeing guys dressed head to toe in their county's flag, singing their national anthem in their native tongue, and grinning from ear to ear.

San Diego

When I was eleven, we went on our first big family trip. Dad had a meeting or two in Hawaii and instead of leaving Ellen and me back home with Grandma like he had for so many other meetings, he took us along. I was so excited. To this day Hawaii is one of my favorite places. I don't remember much of this first visit but I returned somewhere around 16 or 17 and after visiting a rice farm in a deep, jungly valley, something clicked, life made sense, and my life was ruined forever. The point of today's rant though, is San Diego. We crossed the country, flying into Los Angeles and dipping down to San Diego. I have a few snippet memories of old San-D and these include lots of ice cream cones and having lunch on a flowery patio on Coronado Island. I remember that Ellen was in a bad mood and I tried to make her laugh by pouring water on my head. She did not laugh and I remember being cold. We bought two giant fleece jackets that the four of us still wear around the house when it's chilly. I have fond, fuzzy memories of this place and so I convinced Mattie it would be a stop worth stopping for.

I'm a little mad at San Diego. Only a little. It's a very pretty place with gorgeous weather and lots of kind, attractive people. It smells good and it's clean. That's nice. As a whole I enjoyed our 16 hours there. We drove through the afternoon from Vegas to San-D. The drive was fine but traffic came to a near standstill about 70 miles from the city. Then it picked up, moving down the highway bumper to bumper but going 60 mph. I've never been so stressed behind the wheel. You can't drive that close, that fast. I've never felt so out of control of any situation I've encountered on the road nor have I ever before considered rear-ending someone just for an excuse to pull over and let it all pass by. For an hour and a half, I held a death-grip on my steering wheel and plowed through mayhem. I don't have words for the stress level. It was wild. I'm not kidding, we cheated death (or just expensive repairs) at least 16 times in one hour. I continuously braced myself for impact and just narrowly got by. My nerves were shot when we finally made it to our hotel and my hands were shaking. I can not believe the way these people drive.

We met Mattie's friend Peter for dinner that night. And even though I ranted about my perilous afternoon and was visibly bothered, Peter still made me drive. He lives there! How about you drive me, Spartacus, huh? Been driving for days.
We found ourselves at a beach pub, ironically run by a fella from South Carolina who had decorated the place in USC colors and covered the walls with jerseys of the Clowney and Lattimore caliber players. I felt right at home and proudly announced my heritage to the waitstaff who seemed genuinely pleased about my excitement. We wandered a bit and took a night stroll on the beach before I dumped that Peter out by his car and said Sayonara.

We woke up the next day and became pleasantly lost in the city, giving ourselves a nice tour of the place and reestablishing the pretty memories I have. I would live in San Diego... if it weren't for the traffic. It's a shame really. It's a beautiful place but the amount of people driving around is a deal-breaker. We wound up back in the beachy area but because it was the first day of the World Cup, it took us three hours to find, order, eat, and pay for lunch. There was no time left for exploring after all this so we hopped back in the car and trucked it to Los Angeles.

We forgot to take pictures of San Diego. I was distracted trying not to die on the roads and getting out of the car was like having another chance at life handed to you for free. I needed to be in the moment. Didn't know if I was going to get many more.