She's baaaaack

The last few days have been a surreal blur. My adventure began on Wednesday evening when Rubi (a.k.a. Slum) showed up on my doorstep with her suitcase. She asked if she could stay with us for a "few days" while she was in town taking care of tax stuff. Apparently, to her, a few days is actually 2 weeks. If we had an extra bedroom it would be no big deal, but she's sleeping on my floor!

Determined to make the best of it, I invited her along on the previously arranged plans I had for the evening. My girlfriend, CeCe, was to arrive with a bottle of wine to add to the raw food meal I was preparing. Rubi arrived first.

I opened the door and we greeted each other with huge smiles and a big hug which still seems so odd in light of all that happened in the past. I was genuinely happy to see her, and she brought me a beautiful silk scarf from India.

When CeCe arrived she popped open the wine and we had a toast to Rubi's homecoming. Then CeCe helped me finish chopping the veggies for the raw veggie spring rolls to be served. Rubi and Tyler sat at the table dipping pita bread into homemade garlic hummus, chatting and catching up. I noticed Rubi watching me and CeCe.

"How do you guys know each other?" Rubi asked.

"We used to work together," said CeCe.

"Yes, we worked together at at law firm another life time ago..." I added.

"Has she ever threatened to break your fingers?" Rubi asked facetiously.

"No," said CeCe, "Did she threaten to break yours?" As if she didn't know the story of my PMS rage that drove me to threatening bodily harm on a roomie that was a daily thorn in my ass.

"Yes, she threatened me..." said Rubi.

"What did you do to her?" CeCe asked.

She paused and thought for a moment. "Her Dishes."

At that we all burst into laughter. It wasn't funny at the time, but it has brought a lot of laughter in retrospect. I believe it went something like this - "If you put your filthy paws on my dishes again I'm going to break your f***ing fingers!"

Once we sat down to eat the "guy talk" started. Rubi's entire life and existence revolves around chasing guys. After she talked incessantly through the entire meal about the new Raj, or "Raj 2," I was beginning to regret the whole visit. She claimed that she had gone to India to make a film, but in truth it was to chase "Raj 1." Now here she was going on, and on, and on, about a new Raj. Tiring. Really tiring.

However, I know that I will be asking the same favor of her later this year when I go to India, so I made the decision that I will make the best of it. Now is the time to accept what is and practice my patience. Practice. Practice. Practice!

Besides, so far, so good. She got out of bed a the crack of dawn, still feeling the jet lag. I got up not much later because it's tough for me to go back to sleep after I've been awakened by an Indian woman shuffling around my room in the dark. I had the brilliant idea to make pancakes. Yum! Pancakes! It was truly selfish motives that got me out of bed. To my surprise she'd left the house. I made pancakes anyway. Blueberry. So good.

A few hours later she returned. She'd gone to the gym for a swim and showered there. This, I thought, was a good thing.

We had the whole day ahead of us.

"What should we do?" I asked.

We discussed seeing a movie but then agreed that it might be better to wait for a rainy day over the weekend.

"Let's just get in the car and go," I finally said.

She was waiting for me at the front door. As I started to descend the stairs I heard her say "Slumdog..." My heart sank. Had I left my PC open to the blog? Quickly I realized that she'd opened my Netflix mail. I had just ordered Slumdog Millionaire, which I have not seen yet.

We ended up at Vroman's bookstore in Pasadena. I can spend hours in that store, but she ended up in the attached coffee shop writing in her journal. I reunited with her after about an hour of perusing the store and finding a few bargain buys.

One of the items was a writing kit. A game to help spur creativity. It certainly spurred it in her.

"Dude! We should start writing a screenplay together while I'm here! Yes! Let's sit down and brainstorm. We'll come up with 50 ideas, then pare it down to just two."

"Sure. Yea. That would be fun." Although, admittedly, I'm not as excited about screen writing as she is.

We left the book store and had Indian food for lunch at Akbar in Old Towne Pasadena, and then spent the rest of the afternoon shopping in all the stores on Colorado. The most fun part was trying out cook's knives at Sur la table. I think the idea of me wielding a sharp knife put her on edge a little bit.

She bought a pair of Dolce & Gabana sunglasses, and I bought two cheap t-shirts and sunglasses at H&M. It was a fun and girlie afternoon. Little did we know we had a pretty exciting evening ahead.

To be continued...