we had a lovely day yetserday. we started it off with going to church with a friend we had not seen in a long time. then the three of us headed downtown for breakfast at the broken yolk cafe. it was good.
later, philip and i headed up to north county for a graduation party and a birthday party. i honestly wasn't looking forward to these two things as much as one would think. i love everyone who would be at both gatherings. however, in the past six months or so, i've started getting EXTREME anxiety before going to gatherings with large groups of people. it's not as bad when i know everyone. but when i only know half the crowd or only a handful, it's definitely much worse. it's something that i'm working on, but it's caused me to opt out of a few occasions that i regret missing.
our first stop was a graduation party where my anxiety was getting the best of me. i knew two people for sure [the graduate and her brother]. other than that, it was her family and close friends. i was very excited to celebrate her and wish her luck on her move to med school, but i couldn't really think past all the strangers that would all turn and stare at me when we entered the house.
we finally got there and the only stares to greet us as we walked in were those of small children and their one chaperoning adult...ok, not too bad. we wandered a little further into the house to find everyone gathered in the living room as an audience. their attention was captive to the band performing [yes, no one even noticed us come in! ...relief] we found two friends to sit with in the back of the room [not the two friends mentioned before, this is good]. we all watched a very intimate and very sweet performance by the WONDERFUL
Dan Mangan.
the graduate, leah, has an awesome brother! he got one of her favorite bands to come to her graduation gathering!! how rad is that?!
they gave an incredible performance! it was him on guitar and his bass player [upright bass, that is] in the living room of their home. it was such a fun performance where the listeners were forced to participate [in a fun sing-a-long kind of way]. if i ever get to see them perform again- i would be sooooo happy! and john definitely got major big brother points for that one!
our next stop was a double birthday party [papa and son]. by that time anxiety was gone and i had a great time catching up with people that i haven't had a chance to see in a while. it was a lovely day. also, i'm glad that i gave my anxiety a little slap in the face by actually going where it didn't want me to.
and now that you've gotten this far, you should go
here and start with the song robots. its worth it. do it.
jake and nat...look at her cute little belly. that's my nephew jack.
yep, that's my brother trying to eat his baby.
the newlyweds.
danielle, nat, and myself.
cute cake!
i've recently learned a little bit about case di baffi. it was opened in the 60's and was a very famous restaurant [apparently the best pork chops in town...yum]. it closed in '85 and the owner [pernicano] won't give it up. it has too much sentimental value to him. he won't re-open it, saying that you can't replace a chef like that. his chef is now retired. and he won't sell it because he has so many memories there. so many people in the community want to see it go, but i think it's cute. they've been trying to get him to sell it for years but he won't. it's a 25,000 sq ft property including the basement and parking lot [parking's pretty hard to come by in these parts]. i think they should turn it into a little museum of the restaurants history. it seems like a nice compromise for everyone. it could be apart of the community once again, for everyone to enjoy. he could enjoy his memories and share them with everyone else....like i said, i think it's cute. but i thought it was even cuter when i noticed the handles on the front door!
yep, that's a mustache. i'm pretty sure it belong to this guy:
