But He Said He Was Divorced…Carmel Part I

As I may have previously mentioned, I have deemed the coming months to be the “Summer of Single Dudes” or more commonly known as SOSD. It’s a sort of unorganized-organization, made up of my single girlfriends and I. Our objective? To meet single dudes and some might even say, fall in love. (Well probably more likely to just have a couple of hot flings, but to sound classy we’ve added the whole lovey-dovey aspect.)

SIDE NOTE: The concept of SOSD surfaced over the last couple of months as my single girlfriends and I realized in order to meeting single guys, we were best off doing so only when with other single girls. See unlike the common male, females who are in a serious relationships give off a vibe wreaking of the words, “Don’t even bother. I’m taken.” Men, however, whether married, engaged or dating always seem available. So much to our couple friends’ dismay, we begin planning activities without them.

The first event, and launch of the SOSD, was a weekend getaway to Carmel, Ca. Now you’re probably asking yourself, why Carmel? What I discovered at a recent wedding in this beautiful town is that dudes (and not ladies) are crawling all over this place. They’re visiting for bachelor parties, golf trips, wedding parties and more. The best part? There is only one bar in all of downtown Carmel open until 2am, making Brophy’s Tavern, the secret hiding haven for single dudes. (Well, I guess it’s not a secret anymore).

So I strategically booked our stay at Fireside Inn, which is directly across the street from Brophy’s and only two blocks from the downtown drag, Ocean Avenue. Christie, Jen and Mary in tow we headed down Friday evening for two jam packed days of full of debauchery.

Friday night Mary and I were the first of the four to hit up Brophy’s (late start). We begin with a 7&7 and an interactive card game commonly known as King’s Cup.

SIDE NOTE: Notice below the cards appear to be see-through. In reality these were waterproof. Perfect for bar, beach or children. (By the end of the night these were all over the place. The owner, Chris, claimed to have made an attempt to collect them and gave up half way through…)

Christie and Jen joined soon after…The night goes on and several groups of single dudes are now hanging out at the bar. A couple dudes specifically engage with us in conversation. I shall call them Jeff, Leonard and Robert and they were being pursued by Christie, Jen and myself accordingly. PS by 11pm Mary peaced out and passed out back in our hotel room with Lola.

The rest of the evening becomes a little blurry, but here are a couple quick highlights:

1. Christie gets in an argument with Jeff over gay marriage. She is pro and he is not. This, however, could not possibly have been a surprise to her considering he had come to the bar after a full day of hunting. WTF?

2. Jen has a hawt makeout session with Leonard who, later that night asks she join him for a viewing of the lunar eclipse happening around 3am. Creepy! (PS He proceeded to call/text her over the next couple of days, saying things like “I thought we had chemistry?!”)

3. Robert and I proceed to kiss as if we were in the seventh grade in a dark movie theatre, but we are nearly thirty and sitting at a bar. The bartender reminded us to keep it PG. We did our best.

1. Robert is with a wedding party and the groom shares with me he is upset because he never made it to a strip club for his bachelor party. I feel terrible about this and decide to flash him in the hopes it will make all better. I think it helped.

So as the bar closed the boys walked us back to our hotel (directly across the street) where Jen and I proceed to get in a heated discussion about absolutely nothing important. The boys leave, but Jen and I proceed to continue talking outside of our hotel room, whereby a hotel guest starts yelling profanity at me. I react by yelling back, “Are you serious?” For some crazy reason I thought they were in the wrong, not me. Ridiculous. Thereafter we get into our room, I cuddle up with Lola and we go to sleep.

The next morning we woke up at 8am to make it to the Continental breakfast. We feast on free bagels and muffins and then head back to bed until 12noon. We failed to remember, however, we had told the hotel there were only two of us staying in the hotel, and yet there were four who grabbed some grub. Around 12:30pm that morning/afternoon, I had to explain to the front desk that there were only two of us, the other two were staying at the nearby Best Western and the noise the night before was not us whoring ourselves out, but rather a funny talking to between good friends. This was one of the most awkward conversations I’ve ever had.

Oh and at this point in the morning we decide the crest placed strategically above our hotel room’s fireplace, is now our SOSD emblem…

Night #1 is complete…On to Day and Evening #2. I couldn’t possibly imagine things getting any crazier, but I live to be surprised…Carmel Part II coming soon…

The Trolley That Could

The trolley that could get me drunk that is. It’s was Kellan’s 26th birthday and one of the warmest days in the city since I’ve lived here. We decided to celebrate her special day in true San Francisco fashion: Trolley Crawl!

Saturday morning started out with brunch at Lee Anne’s. (Congrats to her on grad school BTW!!) Anyway…after a couple cheesy scones and birthday cupcakes, we sang Kellan a very special birthday song: Mmmm…Kellan. That looks like a delicious “ICE-Y” cake!

So once satiated by our delicious homemade brunch, we popped downstairs to start on our merry trolley way…

Kellan had planned an entire day of activities, traveling from Bar A to Bar B, including a special stop on the Marin side of the Golden Gate for a quick photo op and some champagne…So we headed down the road and landed ourselves at the quintessential tourist view point.

Once we gobbled down our champagne, thoroughly embarrassing ourselves in public, we hopped back on our trolley to head to our first drunken hot spot.

SIDE NOTE: If you didn’t already know this about me, consider yourself informed. I HATE being hot. I don’t like the sticky feeling of humidity. I don’t like standing still in the heat perspiring like crazy. And I don’t like being hot while I’m drunk.

So as we turn the roundabout to merge onto the freeway we realize our trolley seems to be slowing down…slower and slower…I’m not sure if the driver just ran out of gas or is the trolley just stopped working. But there we were…the side of the Golden Gate Bridge…in a trolley…in the heat…This is me not happy.

Of course to keep us distracted we did have minis and friends…

So after about 2 hours we had a separate trolley come pick us up…Our plan was to hit up three different bars in three different neighborhoods (names for the most part I don’t remember.) However, to make a VERY long story short, every bar turned us down with the exception of one.

I don’t know what the name of this dive was, but it was creepy…Just a quick glimpse…

Clearly at this point we were a bit schnockered, which led to some great decisions like…

A. Inviting strangers on the trolley:

B. Pole dancing through the streets:

C. Icing (Please note Kellan’s face in the background. Classic):

And finally D. Going to Paxti’s…To sum up our experience. We ordered several pizzas, bottles of wine and a TON of water. As we exited the building (thankfully without being escorted out) the manager came up and laughed about how he’s starting to recognize us. I do not take this as good news. Here’s why…

Just another Saturday Faturday. I heart you San Francisco.

Tahoe…You Make Me Happy

For this year’s Memorial Day Weekend the kids and I headed up to our favorite vacation spot: Tahoe. We had originally planned to stay at Mary’s house in Truckee, however, plans were changed last minute and we ended up at my family’s place instead. (And yes, we absolutely realize how lucky we are to have options.)

The group included Mary, Christie, Jen, Doug, Milo and I…The entire weekend was filled with a shit ton of laughter, rock paper scissors, delicious dining and of course, it wouldn’t be a weekend on the north shore, without woodies.

To keep things contained in one part of the house, all of us decided to stay in one room. Imagine summer camp, but way classier. The highlight for me was most definitely my Saturday morning wake up call. By 9:30am everyone was up and aggressively trying to get me motivated to put on a wet suit and go for a swim.

SIDE NOTE: On Thursday night there were chains required because of the amount of snowfall. Now imagine that snow recently melted creating the lake in which we were about to dive in. Brrrr.

Aside, I gave in. With the help of Mary and Christie, we struggled into our wetsuits and headed down to the water for a very cold morning swim…Hilarity ensued as we counted down for our race to the booeys…Lola following close behind.

Check out our winter water aerobics and more…


Download Video

Have You Been Iced?

If you haven’t heard about this yet, you’ve either been living under a rock or in Folsom (no offense). Bros Icing Bros is a new drinking game started on college campuses across the country. Much like the game of Buffalo, amongst a group of family and/or friends this game is initiated once, and you play for life unless disqualified (See Rule #1).

The objective is to creatively conceal a Smirnoff Ice from one of your opponents. When they discover this hidden delight, they have been “ICED” and must get down on one knee and chug the delicious beverage until the very last drop.

Rule #1: You cannot refuse an ice. If you refuse to drink the ice you are instantly excommunicated and shunned, and thus can never ice another bro or be iced.

Rule #2: If you are iced by a fellow bro you can ice block. When presented w/ an ice, you pull out an ice of your own and reverse the ice on your bro. The ultimate ice insult.

I heard about this game from my friends Milo and Stina on a Sunday and by Thursday of that week I had purchased a twelve pack of Ices and was ready to play. Unfortunately for me, that night I had gone grocery shopping with my roommate Danny and while I parked the car, he strategically hid one of the Ices I had purchased in the cupboard where I would later be putting the groceries away. Within moments of walking into the kitchen, I walked right into the trap. I approached the cupboard to put away some canned beans and discovered  a cold Ice amongst our dry goods. Touche French.

Hilarity ensued as my friends and I ICED one another over the coming days…Here’s a quick look at some of my favorites…

Danny, is that an Ice hidden behind your toothbrush? Mmm…hope that icey goodness went well with your minty fresh Colgate at 5:30am.

Mary, I just painted my nails and they’re still wet. Can you grab your surprise out of my pocket?

Kevin caught my trying to ice him and ended up icing me. He twisted off the cap, tipped my head back and made me chug it right there at the bar. (Mind you we had not purchased the ice in the bar.) This is Kev finishing it off for me before we got caught.

Blaire: Denise, Can I hold one of the ices in my purse for you?
Denise: Blaire, That’s so kind. (It was until I opened the bag and on it was a sticky note from Greg reading, “You’ve been iced.”)

At the Brrr-Fest Gardens

While Blaire is holding two full beers, she turns to Greg and says, “I think I’m getting burned, can you reach into my purse and grab my sunscreen.” Blaire, however doesn’t see that Greg also has two full beers and Caroline, who we had just met that morning, kindly offers to get it for her. Caroline got iced. Welcome to the group Caroline. (Simultaneously Taz was Iced too!)

By 9pm we were all back at the house to cuddle up and watch The Hangover. Danny decided to take a quick cat nap, only to wake up with an Ice in his back pocket. No time for naps Danny.

PS I heart Union Street Festival!

Rock Paper Scissors On the Hour, Every Hour

It’s been a while since we’ve had an official Saturday Faturday, but I would most definitely argue our most recent takes the cake. In our continuous celebration of Doug’s Summer in San Francisco, we decided to show him how to officially partake in activities on the first day of the weekend.

So on Saturday morning we woke up in the hopes of a full day at Sam’s, however the weather was too beautiful to pass up a Saturday Faturday in the city. So we packed up Lola and headed to East Side West for a little brunch and a lot of cocktails.

What started as a couple of friends meeting for eggs and bloodys, turned into a gathering of friends, strangers and family over margaritas, boozy punch and irish coffees.

Around 12noon we decided to kick things up a notch and determined every hour, on the hour we would play a round of Rock, Paper, Scissors Best 2 out of 3. Here’s a glimpse…


Download Video

As the afternoon went on, so did the ridiculousness. We traveled from ESW to Paxtis to The Republic back to ESW to Balboa to The Horseshoe and finally settled in North Beach at Fiddler’s Green. Once the bars closed we attempted to hit up In n Out, but unfortunately it was closed and we landed ourselves back in the hood at the one and only Mel’s. (Also recapped by sequence of photos below.)

At Paxti’s: Thinking I’m not going to make it through.

At The Republic: Doug enjoys a basket of fries. Literally.

At East Side West (For the 2nd Time): Mary examines her cocktail intake closely.

At Fiddler’s Green: We dance our asses off.

At In n Out: Mary becomes disappointed it’s closed.

At Mel’s: Blaire makes a face.

All in all…not a terrible Saturday Faturday.

Walkin On Sunshine

Well, it’s not exactly sunshine, but rather a pair of comfortable and clever socks… Here’s a quick look at Mary’s socks for the last week of April…(So, I’m a month late. I’ve had some important shit to do. Get off my case.)

April 26: It’s a Pirate’s Life for Mary

April 27: Mooooo

April 28: I Feel Like a Lady…

April 29: Are flamingos mean? They’re pretty wierd when you think about it.

April 30:  I may die today…of my ferocious hangover. Oh flipcup (with a side of vodka tonic), how you get me every time!