I hadn’t let myself dwell on it, because what good would it have done except to paralyze me, but a part of me believed I wouldn’t get to California, that I would end up towed into Twin Falls or medivac’d to Salt Lake or identified years later from a ziggurat of bleached bones. That explains, although it really does not excuse, why I drank at least a gallon of red wine on the evening of Day 14 and stopped a gossip download with Couch Baron mid-sentence to announce that I had to pass out. At 11 PM. Justifiably pathetic, but still pathetic.

But I had so much fun — meeting K. Ham! Kibbitzing about Jersey with the hotel-bar waiter! Not checking the gas gauge or sucking up to the GPS! I just wish I’d had more time. I’ve gone to San Fran many times before, but 40 hours is just inadequate for…anything.

Well, except seeing a Giants game, and Rosen and Meeker just happened to have two free tickets. The Giants lost, and we didn’t get to see Beltran or my kooky baseball boyfriend Brian Wilson, but I adore that park, and we had a great time snacking at District beforehand, bemoaning Huff, and hoping the family next to us that left a foam finger in their seats wouldn’t come back to claim it. (They came back. Boo.) It got chilly, but I love that about that city. After days and days of hourly sunscreen applications, mistakenly thinking I didn’t already have shades on and trying to put on another pair, changing my shirt twice, and grumbling about dragging a blazer and sweatshirt and kneesocks all the way from the 718 and for what for the love of Mike, my reunion with shivering was a happy one.

CB and I hiked back to the hotel and had a nightcap from the mini-bar, talked TV for a while. We kept it so low-key for two days that you could barely hear it, but that’s the best thing about best friends, no? “Oh, hi. So, do you…want to plan an activity?” “Coffee’s an activity.” “Co-signed.”

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