Abigail M. Schilling

Saturday, I took a day trip to San Diego to meet up with Vahid and my college roommate Jeni and her husband B (who she calls B-Town... so maybe I will too). The great things about my friends (at least, I think this is great, in my head, I could be all wrong) is that I can throw a stranger at them and we can all have a good time. Vahid was in town on vacation and said that he grew up in SD and would be touring his homeland later in his visit and so he was up for anything. Which was great news because I was up for snoogling Jeni and B-Town's new puppy.

Is that not THE CUTEST THING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN?

After snoogling the puppy, nearly endlessly, I gave my car keys to B-Town because he is the boss of cars. He lectured me about the air in my tires and then remembered that he had done that last time he saw me and I admitted that, yes, I had done nothing about it since then. "B-Town," I said, "I am a failure of a human being. You know that." So we got in the slowly devolving vehicle in search of an adventure or really good Mexican food.

We made it halfway down the driveway before B was all, "You have four wheel drive on this?!" Ten minutes later we were off-roading.

I nearly had an anxiety attack. It had nothing to do with B-Town, but more to do with the Green Monster. She's very old (it's almost time for her to go to a home) and the check engine light has been on for weeks and I was so worried that she was just going to give out on us right there and we'd either a) have to embarrassingly ask a tow truck to off road, or, b) plummet into a house at the base of the mountain at increasingly faster speeds. Neither of these things happened (obviously), and I would so do it again. Also, we got a sweet ass view of SD from the summit and my car looks super bad ass.

Following our adventure, we got Really Good Mexican Food. Instead of bringing just chips and salsa, we were brought chips, salsa, and WHITE CHEESE SAUCE. Now that is something they don't have in Portland, Vahid. He got a fish taco. I don't eat fish tacos because they taste like fish instead of guacamole, but I sincerely hope he enjoyed it. I like to show a good time, you know.

Speaking of good times, Vahid and I approach navigating the same way: rely on malfunctioning sense of direction until you eventually find your way. After picking him up at his hotel I gave him the "scenic" "tour" on Downtown SD in case he forgot it. Once I finally gave up on finding our destination he whipped out his "I used to live here!" cap and gave me the tour as well. We saw allll the neighborhoods. Eventually, Vahid was all, "My phone has Google Maps." We found our way. I know you were worried.

Vahid liked my friends which was gratifying and he even mentioned they were "blog-friendly." I swelled with pride. It's true, Jeni reads most of the internet, and B-Town even has a bloglines account (don't worry, we convinced him to switch to Google Reader). We all parted ways in the evening, Vahid to Dave Diego, Jeni and B-Town to his 10 year high school reunion (which, weirdly, was across the street from Dave Diego), and me to a work thing where I showed off my fabulous sauce-making abilities.

How about one more picture of the puppy?