Melissa's bachelorette weekend: Clay's perspective

See LL's perspective below!

Last weekend, (LL's sister) Melissa flew out to CA for her bachelorette party, which LL (and I, sortof) hosted. I was actually pretty excited about it. I like having people out here for a visit and showing them around and all that. Plus Melissa is especially good for this sort of thing cause she's such a blast to hang out with. And she genuinely appreciates any effort you make on her behalf, which makes hosting a party for her a piece of cake. She probably would have been happy with dinner and a movie, but we tried to maybe do a little better than that :)

Of course, being male, I rightfully only played a modest part in the weekend. Counting LL and Melissa, there were five girls out here, and they were obviously the (hard?) core of the party. I was more like the sixth man (though technically the only one). In the end, I mostly just had two important duties to perform:

1. Help clean the apartment
2. Lead the Fab Five on a hiking trip

Item 1 was fine. I know the drill...people coming to visit; we can't let them see how we really live. Well honestly we aren't very messy...it's rare that I would feel embarrassed for someone to stop by unannounced. But we were still due for a thorough cleaning. And I think LL and I are a pretty good team in this regard because she likes things to look nice, but isn't much of a germ freak, while I, on the other hand, don't care that much if we have papers piled on the table, as long as, underneath, the table has been wiped down. This leads to the following natural breakdown:

LL's cleaning tasks

• Dust all shelves, picture frames and knock out any cobwebs
• Swiffer floor
• Make bed (doesn't matter if sheets underneath are messy)
• Put out fresh flowers
• Do laundry
  
• Put out clean towels

Clay's cleaning tasks

• Attack bathtub/shower tiles/sink with Comet
• Dismantle fridge and clean all shelves
  
• Do all dishes
  
• Attack kitchen sink with Comet
• Tuck/straighten all sheets and blankets on bed (doesn't matter if decorative pillows are still on floor...which is where they end up when we sleep)
• Mop and vacuum (doesn't matter if blankets/pillows/backpacks/etc are left out)

The advantage of my way is that we look like very clean people who nonetheless allow for some superficial messiness. The disadvantage is that I can clean all day and the house doesn't look any different, leading LL to say, "It looks like we still have so much to do," at about the point that I think we're done.

To illustrate, I give you the following examples:

This is an example of LL's cleaning style. It involves putting up decorations of bumblebees wearing green bows. This one is hanging from our ceiling fan above the dining room table. Doing something like this would not have occurred to me in 1000 years.

This, however, is an example of my cleaning style. After cleaning the kitchen, I decided to decorate using a cereal variety pack. A cornucopia of goodness! I love cereal!!

Next up was the hike, which was fun to plan. Surprisingly, going on the hike was not my idea! Melissa's list of things she wanted to do here in SF included drive over the Golden Gate bridge and go on a hike. Therefore, I chose a trail on the other side of the GG Bridge so that we could do both things at once (Brilliant!). I also decided we should hike to The Tourist Club, which is a bar in the middle of Muir Woods that you can only get to on foot (seemed like a nice twist).

But, first things first. The Golden Gate Bridge:This is the whole party crew in front of the bridge. The camera is pointing south and you can see SF across the bay. It was a nice day...no fog! Left to right in the pic are Kristin, Susan, LL, Melissa and Erin (for those who read this blog regularly...both of you...this is in fact the third Erin you have come across in the past two weeks...of course all of them are special).

We also stopped in Sausalito for a bite to eat (I got fish and chips) since all the girls were FOPs (fresh off the plane). In fact, all of them were good sports about the sudden flurry of activity they were thrown into the moment they got in.

Here are the six of us crammed into the Xterra. Melissa and I are in the front, Erin Kristin and Susan are in the second row, and LL is in the third row. Two observations: 1) Xterras have three rows of seats? Well no. LL is actually sitting on the floor behind the back seat (I believe this is universally called "the way-back"). She's probably sitting on our new and unused snow chains, which I now refuse to take out of the car...ever! 2) Where's Melissa? For some reason she ducked out of the photo. But no matter...

There she is! I also have a lot of pictures of LL like this...maybe someday I'll put them all on the blog. Anyway, I can only assume this is a Box family custom, though I have not yet had my own hand-face portrait made. Behind Melissa is the place where we ate! Now, for the hiking...

Here we have Girl Scout Troop 101 (I named them after the highway nearby). Seriously, was it mean to make them walk several miles through the woods right after they got off the plane? I think everyone had a good time. Plus it gave them all a chance to get to know each other better since it's the first time some of them had met. So everyone got to talk a lot (even though it got quiet on some of the long uphill parts) .

We also saw this awesome lizard. It was the second one we came across, but the other one had been smushed :( The other reason this guy is featured so prominently is that The Tourist Club turned out to be closed for renovations, making him the highlight.

Here's everyone walking back to the car. I think they had a good time! But my part in this weekend was about over...I drove them all back to Menlo Park, carried some luggage up the stairs and said my goodbyes.

Since the girls were staying at our apt, I walked over to Liz and Bart's and spent the night there. We grilled chicken and had a nice time. By the time I walked back home Saturday morning, the girls were already off to SF. Since they stayed there Saturday night, I had the whole apt to myself. It was pretty sweet.