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10 june 2005
today was really weird.
it started after i talked to my older brother: i was returning a call, as he'd called me the day before and left a voicemail. my older brother generally only calls for 'important' events, so it was kinda strange that he called. he told me that i should come home soon. i asked why, he said that it's because of my grandpa, he's not well, and my brother said he 'has a bad feeling'. mark doesn't get bad feelings often, or at least doesn't say anything about having any very frequently. this is not a good sign.
so i called my mother (who was in north carolina for some reason), who confirmed that grandpa seems to be dying, and i should really get my butt to minnesota soon. so, i cancelled my potential plans for a fun trip to ny and booked the first decent flight to minnesota i could find. then my phone rang. it was a job i'd interviewed for recently telling me that if my references check out, i likely have a job. yay! i then emailed the family with my flight plans, and my phone rang again. this time, it was my dad. to tell me to get my butt on a plane to minnesota soon. as i was on the phone, my mail arrived. i picked it up, and surprise! - jury summons.
i had plans to meet my friend karen for cocktails, dinner, and to see one of the mission creek music festival shows, starting at 7. i desperately wanted to back out (i'd been crying much of the afternoon thinking about my grandpa, who i'm really close to, and don't want to lose, so i was splotchy and feeling like shit), but decided i could at least meet her for *a* cocktail before bowing out. we met at the orbit room, which was strangely packed (it's usually quiet!), and decided to move to a little irish pub up on haight - where we ran into some guy karen had been on a "date" with recently, during which she ended up puking, apparently. heh.
a few drinks later, dinner seemed rather advisable, especially after standing up. so we went down the block for japanese, and the group the "date" guy had been with headed in the same direction, and made us promise to meet them at another bar after food, which we did, thinking we'd just make our apologies. but then, one of karen's cousin's best friends showed up at that bar, so it was much later before we finally found our way out. karen was walking me down to where i was parked, when we spied one of those "trolleys" (not a respectable trolley, but one of the fake ones on wheels rented out to parties) overflowing with people dressed in furry costumes. our curiosity got the better of us, and we went over to ask what was going on. the next thing we knew, we were participating in a bachelor party that was raiding the bachelorette party, and then we joined the bachelor party on the fake trolley to another bar - surrounded by men dressed as roosters, crocodiles, gorillas, parrots, etc. as we were headed to the next stop, karen says, 'i think that guy over there is my old friend leonard.' i lean over to the guy in question and ask if his name is leonard. indeed, it is. turns out, karen and leonard lived in some hippie co-op thing at berkeley in college together, and hadn't seen each other in some number of years. surprise!
after a little bit of dancing, karen and i finally escaped the last stop, and hopped in a cab to return to the area where i was parked. this was finally the end of the evening.
what a weird day. up tomorrow: julie's white trash party.
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