full and rewarding day

A morning date in Santa Cruz. Breakfast at the Saturn Cafe, followed by hottubs, sauna, and massage at Kiva.

An evening dinner in Yountville with Kemi, to celebrate her imminent graduation. (In the bay, adding "PhD" to your name doubles your sex-appeal.) We ate at Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc. It feels so wrong to get a same-day reservation for a Keller restaurant. The fixed menu is perfect for my unrefined palette, and the casual dress is just my speed. First course was empanadas, second was wagyu beef with potatoes and cauliflower, then a cheese course with MouCo Colorouge and marinated olives, and finally a dessert of lemon bars and biscotti. And a bottle blanc de blanc, since Kemi wanted something bubbly.


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I made it back home, one energy drink later, at 12:30AM, feeling totally and utterly spent. To explain my fatigue, I plugged my route into Google Maps. I drove 280 miles today, with an estimated 6 hours on the road. If I had been driving in one direction, I could have made it all the way to Los Angeles. At my STI's 20 miles/gallon, that's a full tank of gas. (I burn the gas your Prius saves.) I justify my environmental impact (poorly) by remembering being sick, and driving less than 7000 miles/year for 5 years. I lost so many years to illness, but I make up for it by living more and better today. If miles driven is any indication, I'm "living" about four times as much as I did in any previous year. Four times as many trips, dinners, vacations, parties, dates, and walks on the beach. Four times as much life. Worth the carbon, I think.


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