I was on the road pretty steadily from last Thursday until last night. My friend Cheryl (aka my BFF) and I drove Max the MINI up to northern California so I could do some long overdue tech support for one of my POW’s project assistant. She’s in San Mateo, and Cheryl’s family lives in San Carlos, right next door so it was a perfect opportunity to kill multiple birds with one stone. Even better, I could drive home via my aunt’s in Watsonville and fit in a visit with her! Awesome! Oh, and exhausting.

Max is a great road trip car – super comfortable, able to hold a lot of luggage (as long as you don’t have people in the back seat!) and able to go like a bat out of hell on demand. Gas mileage was around 29MPG. Not bad, but no Prius. He’s WAY cuter, though, and MUCH faster. Cheryl, aka Lead Foot, was flying down Interstate 5 at speeds between 80 and 95MPH. She stayed in the fast lane the whole time, unless cars passed her on the right. I pointed out the proper highway etiquette, that you drive in the right lane, and pass in the left. “Phooey!” said she. “I drive fast, so I drive in the fast lane, and if people start passing me, then I get over!” Now she was also busily berating all of the RUDE drivers who passed on the right – blissfully unaware of the fact that she was FORCING them to pass on the right…okay, it was my fault for letting her drive. Still, these sorts of fallacious arguments are one of the reasons she’s my BFF. We can get into discussions about pointless things like that and keep going for hours.

The trip went as planned, and we got home last night to find Chuck entertaining his honorary daughter Meagan. She’s an aspiring actress, and one of our favorite people. While we were having a glass of wine and chatting, Cheryl was telling her about her recent 50th birthday bash in Cabo. Meagan asked if we had seen Molly Shannon as Sally O’Malley, and none of us had. Much Internet surfing ensued, before we finally tracked the bit down on Bolt (can you say YouTube wannabe?). The clip streams, sort of. It’s worth the wait, though – and Cheryl has a new mantra – “I’m FIFTY!!” And I guess I will too, in about 7 months! This must be said as you go into a deep lunge and throw your arms in the air. “I like to kick, stretch, and KICK! I’m FIFTY!”