Birthday a la Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving weekend was pretty good. The crew from Valencia drove up in the early afternoon, packing into my kitchen to steal my aprons and pour brandied eggnogs. We feasted on turkey, fatty fat fat tomato pie, broccoli casserole, sausage-stuffed pumpkin, chestnut dressing, and mashed coconut sweet potatoes. Gavin and Mat zoned in on the computer, battling lego droids for hours while the rest of us ate pie with our fingers. At this point Gavin starting calling Mat "dad". We converted the ex-husband's apartment into a hotel for the night. Friday was a day of snacking, ice skating, and battling through the Christmas Spirit to beat our way [unsuccessfully] to a Wii. Yuri had no shame scooting around the ice rink in a walker, while Gavin enjoyed falling spectacularly as often as possible. Marc joined us for a couple turns around the rink, only crashing to the ice once or twice after some amazing accidental triple-axles.

When all the guests were packed with leftovers, stuffed with pie, and kissed goodbye, we piled up cat food in our kitchens and drove up to the Bay. I've only ever visited San Francisco in the chilly months, and it was really nice walking through the brisk air into Union Square to meet Mr. HS. We threw ourselves across the couches in Anthropologie, we laughed at terrible break dancers, we ate really good Thai food and bought chocolate at the Ghirardelli shop. As the sun went down into the fog, we drove over the mountain into Santa Cruz, imposing ourselves on Mr. HS and fiance to allow Gavin a go at the overrated Wii until we were all mouse-eyed with exhaustion and went to our hotel.

Sunday morning we went into town and ate fresh scones, brie omelette, and eggs Benedict on hot sourdough. Walked through the downtown streets and dropped a dollar into the case of a street bag piper; drove to the seaside to take in the seals and salty air. We said goodbye to our friends over semi-authentic Hawaiian plate lunch, and left with a sense that we had found a backup town to think about moving to. Santa Cruz is really nice.