33 in Napa Valley! Day 5

FINALLY the day has come for me to post day 5! Can you believe it? Almost a year later and my memory is still as sharp as a tack!

Our day started off in the usual way--getting up when Mother told us to. We had a lot of stuff to accomplish that morning! First off, we had to get all packed up, since we were going over to the Cal-Berkeley campus for the 'Sota Social BBQ, followed by the game, and then off to the airport for the red-eye back to good ol' MPLS. So we all went about getting ready...I was dragging a little bit, seeing as how I threw down the most Stoli Doli in the bar the night before. But it was so yummy! Can you blame me?

Deb went downstairs to get a football autographed by the team, as part of the auction at the BBQ. Well, she was met by the bitchy recruiting coordinator, Shannon something-or-other, who yelled at Deb, "NO! This is game day! Do not bother the team!" But was our mother intimidated by her? Hells no! Off she went to the players directly: "Hey, Jimmy, would you sign this football for an auction?" Playa: "Sure." And so on and so forth.

While she was downstairs, Betsi, Sony, and I were packing our haul of souveniers (mainly from the Coach store...check!)--Betsi bought a very nice Coach woolen jacket that had to take up residence in my luggage, as hers was full. At some point, the bell boy or porter or whatever the P.C. term is these days showed up when we weren't expecting him--I was posing for the camera, football between my pom-poms [tee hee], imitating Deb asking the players for autographs. I haven't decided if that picture will make the blog or not...

Anyhoo! So we got all packed up and went downstairs, where we carefully avoided the Dirty South wedding going on in one corner (nasty Tucker Carlson and his league of gentlemen), and piled into the waiting SUV to go to Berkeley. On the way we saw Buch and said "HI!" He was already stressing out over something. Or maybe he was just being his usual self...I am not sure. [see above mention of Stoli Doli]

The 'Sota Social was lovely. It was held on campus in the plaza of some museum, with pork provided by the MN Pork Council, or whatever they call themselves. I don't remember if we had swag bags, but we all did end up with pork thermometers! Deb put Sony and me to work selling Gopher t-shirts to pay for our hotel room. She was busy hob-knobbing with the big shots, while Betsi manned the check-in table with our fellow criminals Theresa and Doug. Who says you can't sell t-shirts while drinking Miller Lite? Certainly not me!

There were some lame-o Cal students in the dorms overlooking the plaza we were standing in, up on the 15th floor or so, who put their computer skills to use by printing up signs that said, "Gophers Suck" and "Bears eat Gophers;" obviously they were enrolled in creative writing classes. Look, we weren't there to win! We were there to have a good time! Geez! But the biggest loser of the day comes later on in the story.

Off we went to the stadium! It was probably about 60 degrees outside, the sun was setting, no rain--very nice weather for watching a game. We walked up and down and up and down and up again many flights of stairs and little ramps to get to our seats, which were very nice. By very nice, I mean that they were in a good location. Benches are just not comfortable! Deb and I explored the food options: we had steak sandwiches (okay) and garlic fries (not too good). No beer here! Poo.

So the Gophers started to tease us--they scored first, and then also ran a kick-off back for a touchdown, but that was all they had for us. No worries--I'll watch the freaks in the stands. We were about 2 sections over from the Cal student section, and this was quite the sight. I don't mean that in a good way. They had these preppy boys leading the students in cheers...not like cheerleaders, but like military propaganda guys from Hitler's gestapo. They wore blue oxford shirts, khaki shorts, yellow and blue striped ties, and they had microphones and would yell, "I want you to cheer! One, two, three, Go Bears!" or some other bullshit, so the boring Cal students would respond, because they need to be told what to do, I guess. I thought it was horrible! I much prefer the student section at the Dome, where they pass around 4 foot Nut Rolls for everyone to eat! Much more creative!

Then there was a group of three guys who were drunk and walking up and down our section, making fun of us for being Gopher fans and losing the game. I'm sorry, did I miss roll call on the sideline? Because I don't think the fans were playing, it was the team. "Student Athletes." So Deb got pissed and reported them to security, who told them to take a hike. Maybe this was a good move after all, because then they came to apologize to us and tell us to come to the hotel bar next to the stadium, claiming that they owned it and they'd buy us some beers. Naturally our ears perked up to this, so we decided to check it out.

As you can only imagine, the Gophers got spanked, so we left and were waiting outside the gates for our whole crew to show up. The Cal fans were some of the biggest assholes I'd ever seen. Not a single person went by without yelling at us, "You suck!" or something like that. I can't think of a single occasion where anyone I've known has gone up to a fan from a visiting team at a Gopher game and yelled at them that they suck. I don't care that you like the other team; I don't like your team! You should have a good time, but I do hope you lose! But the Cal fans were just plain creeps about it. The best encounter happened with Betsi and Doug. They were helping load some stuff into the trailer that was driving back to MN, and some deaf guy came up to them and yelled out, "LOSER!" But, since he was deaf, it was more like, "LOSE-AH!" And he was putting up his hands to his head in an "L" shape, making him look really dumb. How lame are you that you do that? Seriously.

Well, maybe they'll like us if we drink beer. So off we went to Henry's, the hotel bar! There was a small beer tent set up in the back, but we were getting no love back there (again, see asshole fans mentioned above), so we went inside and ordered some beers. The guys from the stadium who claimed to own the bar came around and actually did offer us some free beers, so they went up a notch in my book. However, shortly after we settled into a little corner to stand around and talk to our new friends Gina (pronounced "ji-nah," like in 40 Year Old Virgin, which she did not appreciate) and her fiance who looked like Joe Rogan from "Fear Factor," a fight broke out between an innocent Minnesota fan and some drunk Cal fan! Seriously! The Cal fan was totally out of control! Okay, so it's been a year since it happened, and I'm sure neither one is innocent or more to blame than the other, but all the Cal fans were total jerks, so I'm just assuming this guy was too! At one point, I even had to get in the middle of them because none of the homies in the bar would step up to the plate! Geez! Needless to say, the place cleared out a little bit after this, so we were able to find an actual hi-top table in the bar area to stand at while we drank our beers and were verbally assaulted by the Cal fans.

Thank goodness we had a change of scenery! We moved into the bar area and found the hidden pocket of cool Cal fans. They were actually nice to us! I am pretty sure it all started from one of them staring one of our sets of Goldy Gophers, but I started talking to a group of guys at a neighboring table, telling them about how awful everyone was to us, and they were so nice and not total jerks that I gave them one of the extra pork producer thermometers. To remember the good people of MN by. The next thing I knew, they bought a pitcher for us, to make up for our bad experience! Granted, one of the guys was engaged to a gal from MN and went to the U himself, but still, it felt nice to know that they weren't all total a-holes!

Sony was off in the other part of the bar, having the time of her life, hair all fluffed out, lips all glossy, talking to a group of guys. On our way into the bar, Sony grabbed an extra "Let Your 'Gopher' Spirit Out" t-shirt from either Deb or Betsi to wear over her shoulders like a preppy girl. Never mind the fact that it was a short-sleeved t-shirt! Science be damned! So she was prancing around like Supergirl with that t-shirt on her shoulders. Well, she then decided to just layer it over her other shirt, as it wasn't staying on her shoulders too well (hmmm...wonder why...), and within 2 minutes, she had some of those guys at her side, "reading" the script on her shirt. Or staring at her jub-jubs.

ANYHOO, she starts gabbing away with those guys. One of them decided to pull out the big guns and go with the line, "I'm the mayor of Berkeley." That was met with a giggle and a hair fluff. Mother, aka Deb, put us on a 30-minute warning or so. We had the redeye flight at midnight to catch, and it was about 8:00 or so at this point. Sony and I went about slamming beers, because that's what we do, especially when given a warning! But partners-in-crime Mark Allen and Doug were not having it: they kept buying pitchers and when Deb would turn away, they'd fill up mine and Sony's glass! Ding dang! We were having such a great time, socializing with the only nice people in Berkeley, that Sony and I didn't want it to end! We were convinced we would just stay and catch the next flight! Until Deb and Betsi said they'd leave without us...so we chugged the rest of the beer and hit the road. Luckily, we did manage to eke another 30 minutes or so out of our stay in Berkeley, so it was probably around 9:00 when we left for the airport.

About 15 minutes outside of Berkeley, with about another 15 minutes to go to the airport, I was hit with such a wave of urination urgency that I was afraid I was going to die. Seriously. When I was in 9th grade, I was on the debate team [long story: I thought I was good at arguing. Turns out I was only good at rough-housing--that's what happens when you're the only girl in the house], and one kid on the team held his pee for so long that he blacked out! They took him to the hospital to have a spinal tap! So I was doing the "gotta pee tango" in the back seat, bopping all around, doing my breathing exercises, until we finally made it to the gas station by the airport. I grabbed my carry-on bag (where I had my comfy lounge clothes) and bolted for the gas station door. I got the key on the hubcap, or whatever they used, and was safe from the spinal tap situation. Who cares how dirty the bathroom is!

We made it to the airport shortly thereafter, with Mark and Doug following us on in. Mark produced a half-full bottle of wine from their car, so we all took a few sips, and headed on into the airport. After we made it past security, we settled in for the long wait for the long trip home. We had all heard about the illusive Suri Cruise being on the cover of Vanity Fair that week, but none of us had seen it. But the good Lord above must have heard our prayers, because out of nowhere came our salvation: a fellow passenger was carrying the magazine! I can't remember who asked him, but he allowed us to look at the pictures and there began the great Suri Cruise debate: is she his baby or not? In my mind I was thinking, she looks Chinese or something!, when our savior says, "Now, I'm Chinese, and that baby looks Chinese!" I looked at him and went, "I know!" I think we have our answer.

The flight home was uneventful. I was in a window seat, next to a seemingly narcoleptic woman and a psychotic man who talked to himself. I didn't sleep a wink! So I did some more of my crossword puzzles and thought about how great my blogs would be from this trip. I did not think it would take a year to get them done though! Oh well.

And once I was home, I went up to my room, got in to bed, and said, in the famous Sonja-Heidi Klum-accent, "I's wout!"