Jet Lag, Sunsets, and Living Rooms

I. Am. So. JETLAGGED. Yeesh. I am going to try to be as coherent as I can be, but I make no promises about grammar, spelling, or sensicality (or making up words).

I was up at 6am yesterday, my body working on East Coast time and my mind racing with all the possibilities that lay ahead. I tried to get back to sleep, but finally the call of the ocean got me out of bed and out enjoying a cup of jasmine tea on the patio. A shower and a car ride later and we're at a local coffee house enjoying their myriad herbal tea choices and mate lattes. It was a colourful place - very Californian: dude with dreads serving us our hot beverages, local art hanging on the walls, laid back folks chit chatting and enjoying the company, food, and music. The best part was the group of eccentric locals outside enjoying a hula hoop party. What a weird bunch.........





Back from brunch, it was off to get groceries for the night's festivities and then lay out on the beach. I tried to nap off my jet lag but the water sports and guitar playing and frisbee taking kept be awake. Actually, that's a lie. The constant calls for "Melissa! Get out your camera and take a picture of me doing this!" kept me awake. I'm lucky that I have such a good group of photogenic (and jumpy?) friends, huh?





That would be Scott taking not one but two major wipe outs while trying to boogie board

Improvised bongos




All in all, it was an afternoon well-spent. I tanned a little (sort of a miracle for this pasty Canadian) and got in some quality sing-a-long time with friends. There was also some sort of a pirate ship situation going on at sea? I don't really know what that was about but it was fun to be a part of nonetheless.



After tanning and pirate ship-ing, it was time to get ready for our Living Room Concert (LRC). For those who don't know, our group of friends gathers together yearly in San Diego for an in-home concert featuring local musican/accoustic rhymer/all around cool guy Billy "Bushwalla" Galewood. Basically, he comes over to our beach house with his band (ie group of his friends) and plays an intimate show for us in our living room.

Yeah, I know. Pretty awesome.

This year's show was definitely the quirkiest - a cover of the Big Bopper's Chantilly Lace, an impromptu Jackson 5 sing-a-long, and an angry giraffe all made appearances. There was also some web cam dancing, some Conor-take-your-shirt-off-ing, and some spaghetti (speghetti, if you spell like Kristie)-humping. We got to hear a few of Billy's new songs and J did a 4-song interlude, which left the group both thankful and a little teary. I think we all really appreciate the fact that he shows up at all, so when he is gracious enough to play for us as well I know it leaves us all a little overwhelmed.





I think the overall reaction to this year's show was a mix of relief (things got too big last year and sort of lost the intimate feel) and feel-goodiness (jet lag!). It was nice to take things back to the style of our first year's LRC, though I can definitely say that we can never re-capture the innocence and authenticity of that experience again. That was the first time I met many of the people I now consider to be my close friends, it was my first trip to California, and my first time seeing Billy live. We had no clue what to expect and we were blown away by the whole thing. Now that we're old hat at this, we settle into our routines and know where to look to make things happen. It's nice, just not as thrilling-at-every-turn like it was before.

The only bummer about the whole night (and weekend) is that a few of our group are missing. I was happy we could web cam them in last night (and frankly, they got a LOT more love that way!), but I know we all wish that they were here with us. I think next year we'll all be back together again.

So that's our Saturday in a nutshell. We've got the Mueller College show tonight and then we all go off our seperate ways tomorrow. I'm off to LA to spend a couple of days at Sunset and Fairfax eating giant pancakes and then it's back to reality (it's going to be oh so very, very real!) for me.