2004-04-30 - 11:16 p.m.

So we went back to my beloved P1enz@, the place I was overcome in last trip, and Michael told me I must have lived there in a past life. We toured wine country, and ate at tiny out of the way restaurants, and sat in the backyard of the villa, overlooking the green hills that will be filled with sunflowers come August, drinking wine and watching the brilliant magenta sunsets. There was a pool, and a terrace, and stovetop coffee pots, and espresso in the morning, and stone doorways filled with flowers, and wine, did I mention?

And I came home to a package, a replacement candle for the one those little thugs in my office stole, from the very generous Becky~thank you, thank you! I love it, and have been burning it nightly. It really does smell like cake, in fact tonight it drove me to eating 5 Oreos.

The jet lag is starting to kick in now, had a stressful day at work today, no time for adjustment, but I walked out at 5:45, and went and had my highlights done, then stood outside and had a cigarette with the crazy shampoo guy. He's very nice, really, but he's a little... odd. It's hard to tell how old he is, although I estimate early 40s. He's very swishy, and small, and he has that old man way about him, if you know what I mean. He's only as tall as me, and has dyed, carefully blow-dried receding hair, and he wears the most astonishing jewelry. The first time I saw him I thought he must be joking, but tonight even topped that first time. He was wearing black pants, and some sort of patterned cream and black rayon shirt, open a few buttons. And around his neck, he wore a pendant on a silver chain - a giant, brilliant blue heart, the size of a golf ball.Surrounded by rhinestones. I shit you not. It was like one of those hood ornament pendants, but he wore it short, in the open V of his shirt. On top of that, he wore three long chains, each with a big dangling thing - an opal, a long gold thing that looks like a whistle... and big, glittery rings on four fingers. And he stood outside smoking with me, and told me a long dragged out story about the crazy 80 year old lady on rollerblades.."So I'm standing out here, smoking, you know, sometimes between shampoos I'll light a cigarette, have to run back in so I put it out and then come back and light it later, and sometimes I do it a few times so it seems like I'm out here all the time but it's really the same cigarette. And she walked by, she was going to the stationers to make some copies, and then she walked back, she must have gone to two or three stores, she was carrying a lot of bags, and she came right up to me and she says.." OY. I wanted to claw my eyes out with a fork.

And then I walked around and ran some errands and came home and ate dinner, and debated going out, but I decided to avoid the temptation of being out alone with the invitee, so here I am. Good girl.

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