A while later we decide to head back home with a few of Brian's friends who are visiting from Big Sur. On the (short) walk back to Bri's house, one of his friends... let's call him Tanner... started to run full speed down the sidewalk everytime we'd be waiting for a Walk sign at a corner. The first time he caught back up to us on the next block. The second time, he did not. Tanner's (somewhat new) girlfriend was kind of weirded out by that. Is it strange that I wasn't really? I figured he'd find his way back to the house eventually.. which Brian reassured us he would. 2 blocks later, we reach the corner across the street from Brian's place and wait for the Walk signal once more. Across the street, Tanner runs up from nowhere, jumps onto the street light pole... and starts CLIMBING it. He climbed two stories worth of the pole, stood on a street sign, and leaped to the window frame. Then kept climbing!
The blob between the "LI" and the window is Tanner. Note the Christmas tree in the window.
He somehow successfully made it to the top of the third story and onto the roof. This all happened while we were waiting for the signal to change, and I don't think we did anything but stand still in amazement and say "What the....?" interspersed with exclamations of how impressed we were. Here is a shot from the window, of the street sign Tanner stood on and JUMPED to the window sill. Now that's a leap of faith!
The light changes, and we start crossing the street. About this time I say, "Hey, I think I just saw your tree move in the window..." Brian: "Nooo.. Tanner can't even be inside yet.. he just got to the roof." Kezza's inner monologue: "Hmmm... must have been that last Red-Headed-Slut shot."
Well, they say a picture's worth 1000 words.... THIS is what we walked into when we entered the apartment:
As you can see, the Christmas tree that was formerly in the window has been somewhat dismantled... and there is a new HALF of a real Christmas tree in the middle of room. Yes, HALF of a Christmas tree. The top half has been mysteriously sawed off. The red bulbs have been taken off of the other fake tree, and when we walked in, Tanner was in the process of trying to take the lights off of the fake tree to put them on the real tree. The lights, however, were part of the fake tree, and I think we walked in just in time to prevent some serious fake-christmas-tree-dismantling.
Here is a video, shot shortly after discovering the madness:
Needless to say, this whole scenario was pretty mind boggling. I mean, we had just witnessed this dude climb two stories of a light pole and one story of a house. And somehow he dragged in half a Christmas tree and managed to half decorate it in the time it took us to walk across the street and walk upstairs???
Tanner wouldn't say where the tree came from, other than he "found it". His motivation was that he wanted to give Brian a real tree, and I have to say - for half a tree, it smelled pretty damn good. We ended up calling it a (somewhat) early night, thinking/hoping the tree mystery would be solved the next morning. However, Tanner was a little too Irish to remember the details of his late night tree-smuggling, so we never did find out where the tree came from, or how he got it into the house so quickly. I like to think it was a little Christmas magic :-) And also a great freakin way to start off 2009!
I wish the rest of the weekend was as exciting and dramatic as New Year's Eve (or do I?) However, things were pretty mellow compared to that. New Year's Day, Maia was flying in from San Francisco, and thought Brian was picking her up from the airport. She had no clue that I was in town. I was hoping to wait inside the airport with a big sign that said "Maia P. Burns", but her flight came in early, so Brian had to pick her up outside instead. Plan B consisted of hiding behind the passenger seat covered in a big trench coat. As Brian started to drive out of the airport, I jumped out from behind the seat and scared the crap out of Maia. It was pretty awesome.
That night we hosted a dinner party at Brian's. I cooked the chili and Brian made the most amazing salad ever. Let's see if I can remember all of the ingredients: organic mixed greens, chopped olives, crumbled feta, crumbled bacon, diced mango and avocado, crumbled pita chips, craisins, a little diced onion, poppy seed dressing, and topped with sesame seared ahi tuna steaks, thinly sliced. My mouth just started watering....
Here's some fun party pics:
Chili in progress. It actually filled three pots.
The spread!
Maia's awesome dog Wildabeast
Jenga! Whoever made it fall had to take a shot of Crown. Ick.
Crazy Jenga = Put the pieces wherever you want. It took many rounds, but I finally had to succumb to a shot of Crown.
Jenga with dishes
Hoa practicing Eagle claw??
I love this shot.
This is super cute too.
Friday was a (much needed) mellow day. Later that night a few of us enjoyed a relaxing but super tasty and delicious dinner at Osha Thai.
Whole sweet and sour crispy fish. My favorite dish of the evening.
Panang Curry
Panang Curry, Drunken Noodles, Papaya Salad
The next morning, on very little sleep, we woke up and drove up to Tahoe for a fun day of riding with some of Brian's friends.
The cabin we stayed at.
On the way back from Tahoe, we stopped at this awesome produce market. Just that market alone makes me want to move to Cali. Affordable produce! I'm in heaven!! I spotted this sign at the market. A questionable brand name? Perhaps. But a great way to end this epic blog! :-)
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