The 500 Mile Tour

My friend Jen has been in town since Tuesday. The first two days she was here she was busy with a work thing. On Wednesday night, she was officially “free” and we’ve been hanging out ever since. I originally envisioned us spending a lot of time on my couch, or in my back yard, but we’ve spent the majority of our hang-out time in the car.  I jokingly said to her that she got the 500 mile tour of Los Angeles, but when I sat down to write this, it turned out to be true. From LAX to Hermosa Beach to my house, to Santa Barabara and back (twice), and to Pasadena/Glendale/Burbank and back (twice) we really did rack up over 500 miles. Luckily, most of the drives were pretty, and all of them had fun things waiting for us at the end.

On our first night together we went out in my old stomping grounds, and the next day I showed her around Hermosa Beach. Friday we went wine tasting with our friend Meghan. We’d intended to go to a few places, but the first winery we stopped at was over the water on the Santa Barbara pier. It was too beautiful to leave…so we didn’t. On Saturday Jen, Annie and I went to visit our friend Katie’s new baby. Annie was enthralled with him, telling me several times she wanted to hold him (Mommy, I hold him, here, in my arms). She had to settle for gently touching the bottom of the baby’s foot because I wasn’t going to let her any closer. Yesterday, we went back up to Santa Barbara to go out on Meghan’s family’s boat. It was foggy but we still saw a huge pod of dolphins.

They even came right up to our boat.

We capped off yesterday with a birthday party for one of Annie’s friends, followed by dinner with my brother and his boyfriend.

We are exhausted. This is the most I’ve done since my miscarriage. Heck, this is the most I’ve done in months.

Annie has loved having Jen here. Every morning she’s woken up asking, “Where’s Jen?” (although she pronounces it “Dem.”) She’s been following Jen around all over, talking non-stop, asking questions and saying, “Dem, wook at me!” Jen has used this to her advantage.

Jen’s visit came at the perfect time for me. I can feel a bit of a depressive funk trying to creep in, but I am not ready or able to give in to it yet. I will be sad sad sad when Jen flies away later today…but not as sad as Annie will be. Jen lets her watch cool things on her computer.