NYE 2010

I went over to Mike's house about 12. He was already to go. The car was packed. We run to the restroom and head out. We stop in Agoura Hills at the Chipotle for some burrito bowls. He pays for both of us. The navigation system he has doesn't lead us directly up the 101, rather the 126 through Fillmore. It was a nice detour- lots of agriculture fields. He calls his cousin and confirms everything.

So here's the spiel I found out: his cousin is about 50, stereotypical California girl with an artsy side, and loves animals. We meet her at the house she is house sitting for. Apparently she doesn't have money (by Santa Barbara standards), but has friends that do, and they were out of town, so she was throwing a small get together with her best friends. The house was a $4 million Santa Barbara house that was built in the early 1900s. It was nice on the outside and the inside was a mix of old and new. It had its points. Anyways, we meet, she is very sweet, she shows us the house, then we head to Trader Joes for ingredients for the appetizers and Ralphs. There was no parking at Ralphs. Mike and I get out, then go in for the beets and limes.

We get back to the house and start cooking. First Mike has to clean the counters as he criticizes how for a multimillion dollar house you think they would have a maid who would actually clean and not keep a cluttered house with dirty countertops. He was hilarious. We make the Tyler Florence Winter Panzanella salad. I had never had such tasty beets. Seriously, it was delicious. We also make pomegranate cosmos that were alright. While making all of this we sipped on some various white wines that Mike had chosen. We each go through about 3 glasses. While cooking all of this Mike joked his cousin was making me a slave, and we watched Real Housewives of Atlanta. I am now all caught up. We watched 6-7 episodes total this weekend.

The guests start arriving at 7:30- one was a food blogger whose blog I had actually stumbled across before. What are the chances? I tell her that I had read it, and she thought it was hilarious. She was the cutest little thing. A lesbian friend of his cousin came, then a couple in their mid 40s probably, and their daughters. All of these people have money- just not money by SB standards. We all make our way into the living room where we chat, introduce each other, and talk about random stuff. They were all very accepting and interested in getting to know Mike and I. We go back and forth between the living room and family room to watch the wig drop on Bravo with Andy. At about 11:30 Mike and I go to the family room and switch channels. He has a thing against my boy, AC, so we flipped between Fox for Bruno Mars, ABC, and even Univision seeing what was going on for the New Years. Everyone laughed at him and got tired of him for being a channel surfer. Some drama occurred about 12:15, then some went to the hot tub. Mike and I cleaned up the house. We did the dishes and everything.

Everyone leaves about 1:30, so we put our airbed up and go to bed. We sleep in until 11:30. Well, there was some stuff going on in between probably 8 and 11:30. I didn't sleep really at all. He kept insisting on me holding him, the bed seemed to crunch anytime we turned, and stuff like that. We talked. We aren't sure we want to be bf's, but good friends would work. We get up and eat some french toast that his cousin made, then we watch more Housewives. We do this until about 2:30.

About 2:30 we leave and say goodbye. We go to the hotel room that Mike rented for the night, then go to a restaurant in SB that he saw on Food Network. We walk through Downtown, stop at a kitchen store, the Borders that was closing, then go to Wine Bistro to have their 4 Santa Barbara wines for $10 samplers with pretty generous helpings. We talk about a lot of things like family, my schooling, and public education. We have differing opinions, but we were respectful of each other. We go back to the hotel to get the car, then go to the Goleta Drive In to see "Meet the Fockers." Awful show. We both didn't like it. We didn't laugh. We thought it was stupid. We didn't stay for "Tron." He didn't like the old one. I still want to see the old one.

We go back to the hotel and watch TV. We watch some AFV and I fall asleep in his arms. It was the first time he held me. I woke up once when the fire truck went by blaring its siren about 5a.m. We then played around and got up around 8:30 to shower. We each shower, open the windows to watch the pouring rain, then head out.

We stop at McDonalds where we talk about things we did when we were young like the 20 chicken nuggets at McDonalds. He talks about how he can only eat them for breakfast. I told him about my adventures at McDonalds with Linda- basically she goes for the cute happy meal toys, so we had happy meals a few times when I was student teaching.

I bought all of the food when we ate out-minus Chipotle- because he was paying for the hotel and some of the stuff from TJs and Ralphs for the party. I wanted it to be equal even if we are just friends.

We drive back in the pouring rain. The rain stops once we leave Ventura. We stop for gas. We sing to a lot of the songs on the radio- he's not into country as much as I am- he likes Sugarland - his dad does too - we like Katie Perry to an extent - Pink is awesome - he's more into rap than me- he is into Bruno Mars. I can't tell you how many times we heard this song.

We talked about his like for expensive cars, cars in general, his car buying, his cousin's new car, and more...





We get back to his house and watch more Real Housewives of Atlanta to make me officially caught up. Then we watch some Aarti's Party on Food Network. It is about 3:30 and so it had been 2 1/2 hours. I say that I'm going to head out to give him some time to relax. We hug and I pull my car out of his garage, then head home.