The girls and I had family dinner last night. I was starving when I got home and warmed up a leftover hamburger that we had in the fridge and ate that. I was about three mouthfuls from done when Deb announced that her dinner preparation was done and it was time to go next door. I finished my burger and then had a full helping of fresh salmon pasta salad when we ate with the girls. Oink. Deb's guessing that I'm PMS-y. I think she's right. I've been craving jalepenos, too.

We watched the last two episodes for the season of "Angel", which Sara and Jake hadn't seen yet. I took the chair that faces sideways to the TV and found myself hurting from sitting on my foot. So I took the dogbeds that sit next to the chair, made them into a pillow, and stretched out on the floor facing the TV.

A short while later, Sammy, one of the Shih-tzus, was whining copiously, and Jake started barking the "Sammy, go lay down!" command, which means he's supposed to go lie down on the dog bed (the one that I had commandeered for a headrest). I mumbled that I had the bed, but Jake didn't hear me. Sammy kept whining. Jake told him to go lay down again and looked over to where the bed was supposed to be.

There was a split second of confusion on her face when she saw it wasn't in its usual spot. Then she looked down at me. Jake's facial expression. You should have seen it. Priceless. Like "WHAT are you doing disrupting my dog training?!" Sammy proceeded to start licking my face nonstop, and because everyone in the room knew it was just punishment, I took it. I was squirming and Jake was saying, "Nope, he's got a little more to go there. Still going. Stiiiiil going." Ew. Those dogs eat fish and potato dog food. Sweet, minty breath is not something with which they are familiar.

I've got to finish up the San Diego stuff.

After breakfast we tooled around the Hillcrest neighborhood. Sara delved into a used bookstore where this sign was posted in the window.

I admire the fact that they seem to practice what they preach by writing their sign on half of a used pocket folder, but this is basically an advertisement to join my idea of hell. Peace, love, *hork*.

Then we went for coffee and saw this guy, who has a twin in purpose in Atlanta. We call the Atlanta guy "Sockguy" because he looks like he has a pair of rolled up tubesocks stuffed in the crotch of his too-tight-for-his-age jeans.

The camera didn't really capture the extreme 3-Dness of this guy's bulge as much as I'd hoped. Still, the hip-slit cutoff shorts are something to see in themselves.

Saturday afternoon we ate fish tacos on the pier. They were yummy, the ocean was cool. No big waves out that day, but so what. I got great black-and-white pictures of us sitting around the rustic table loaded up with tacos and fries.

Saturday night Deb and I walked around the harbor looking at boats. Saw some jets flying in follow-the-leader formation, doing big turns. Way cool. Then we took a bicycle rickshaw to the Gaslight District where someone had said Deb should go see a place called the Wine Bank. We weren't even positive about what it was.

Our driver told us he was doing a 24-hour shift that weekend to save up money for a trip. Hope he made it through okay.

The Wine Bank was a retail wine store, but a very cool one. They started closing their shutters as soon as we walked in the door, but were totally nice to us even though it was time to close. They even unlocked the burgandy storage portion of the basement so that Deb could take a look.

We took a leisurely walk back to the hotel. Just great. Oh, and we passed the bar near the harbor where they filmed the cheesey bar scene in "Top Gun", and that's basically what the plaque on the building said, verbatim. A lovely date night for us.

We also saw a lot of this on Saturday. The little satin bow on Sara's pink panties (whoo I'm gonna get Google hits out the wazoo on that one). In this instance, combined with her Eat At Joe's pajamas.

Sara was pulling up her shirt to show off her panty bow and how loose her shorts were all day long. I mean it. Forty or fifty times witnessed by me alone. Who knows how many strangers got flashed over the course of the day when I wasn't looking.

I was up again at 2:30 in the morning, ready to get going on this marathon thing. The weird thing was, I was all weepy and teary while we were getting Sara ready to go. And when I smoked a cig outside. And when I ate breakfast. Basically the whole damn morning. I was just so proud of her I guess. I was blaming that on PMS, too, but still no period.

Here are some highlights from the day:

We hooked up with Mig at his place, rolled down to a point around Mile 1 where there's a store called GayMart that's painted red. We used our walkie talkies to locate Sara in the pack and let her know where to look for us. She was all smiley and happy and in the middle of thousands of people but ran over to us to distribute quick hugs. I got a kiss. Jake stuck out her lower lip. She got a kiss at Mile 6, so we were even then.

Then we went to get some coffee. We said goodbye to Mig and headed for Mile 6, where we spotted our first cheerleader squad.

Where are the flippy skirts, man? We were gypped on the cheerleader action. I did not get gypped on the motorcycle cop action. Yum.

Then we headed to Mile 19, where we planned to eat lunch and wait for Sara. We asked this guy if he would act as a salt lick for Sara when she finished the marathon and needed to replenish the salts lost from all the sweating.

Oh yeah. He hung out right in front of us for about 30 minutes.

It just broke my heart to see Sara crying when she got to 19. She tells it better than I could. She absolutely gave her all. We met back up at the finish line (which is where we learned that Sara had been pulled off the course) and were all extremely happy to call it a day. I bought a new bathtub toy for Sara to celebrate the day.

All-in-all, a fabulous trip and a wonderful experience.