Week 5 2026

The main highlight this week was Kathleen's birthday.

This week has been terror at work, short staffing, people out sick, entire shifts with barely any staffing and falling behind on turn-around time. I'm still expected to train and do all my supervisory work and it's been dragging me down. I try not to think about it and I do my best to practice gratitude that I'm going to have a fully functional staff in a couple more weeks.

Thursday the 29th is when the fun really began. Well maybe actually Wednesday because that's when the excitement started to kick in during packing. I'm usually a really shitty packer but this time I did the most inefficient laziest vacation packing I've ever done. I was NOT intentional with any of my outfits whatsoever, I created NO lists, I just completely improvised/winged whatever I put into my luggage for a simple two day trip. I didn't want to spend a ton of effort into planning so I shoved in all my favorite clothes and whatever I thought would be weather appropriate and flipped the lid of luggage cover. The following Thursday that I woke up with anxiety over what I was bringing and all the final additions were essentials that I probably should have prioritized before just shoving shit into the box but were literally crammed in the 20 minutes before leaving the house. I had enough clothes for a week in that damn luggage but my trip was only going to be two days. Whats even funnier is that the clothing that I wore on Friday were same clothes I ended up wearing on Saturday evening. This is the cost of inefficient thinking.

Ashamedly, I think I fell behind on schedule pretty much everyday of the week...I kind of feel like I took a backsliding of performance all week and I'm not sure why that is. Thursday, the day of the trip, I scheduled to leave the house at 11 am; we ended up leaving at 12:10, a whole ass hour and ten minutes later. My fucking annual vacation request was due on 1/31...I fucking forgot and turned it in this afternoon to which my boss replied, just apply for it during first-come-first serve; indicating that I had fucked up and missed the deadline, and she didn't want to deal with my irresponsibility. Fuck. I'm thinking now I'm not being really intentional with my actions, I've been mindlessly doing and performing with no attention to quality.

Well anyway, back to my reflection – Thursday we left the house at 12:10 with the initial idea of heading straight to Mendocino from El Cerrito with no intention of stopping for food or any sight-seeing. As I was driving there I stated to Kathleen that we wouldn't be taking the scenic route (as we have normally taken highway 1 up the coast to our destination), and she suddenly became disappointed. Going further up the highway to our destination I started to approach the ramp to pivot to Bodega Bay. I made the impulsive decision to say 'fuck it, were gonna get some clam chowder at Spud Point Crab Co.' And then just like that we started off the trip with a spontaneous change of schedule.

The pivot to Bodega Bay cost us an additional 38 minutes to get there from where we were at on the highway. We made it there calmly as I was on a 10 mg dose of adderall. We ordered two chowders; one New England Clam Chowder and one Manhattan Style Clam Chowder, along with a tuna sandwich. $38.00. light work, delicious, didnt finish the chowders, stuffed em into a bag and we were off. From Bodega Bay to Mendocino though...was going to be 2 hours and 30 minutes of a drive. I was pretty good for it up until the last 1.5 hours where the medication wore off and I was sleepy as hell. Kath had fallen asleep and I was on zombie mode and struggling to stay awake. When she woke up we had about an hour left and talking to her got me stimulated again to drive so thank god.

We arrive in Mendocino at 4:50 PM and checked in at the Blue Door Inn. I got there for the final 10 minutes of the wine and cheese hour and proceeded to devour like 8 bite size pieces of cheese, half a cup of coffee, and a couple olives and grapes to refresh my palette. We drove 3 blocks down to our stay at the John Daugherty house and unloaded our shit. The room was pretty plain, an all white room with a fireplace along the wall facing the ocean, the single two-person couch facing the fireplace, a simple double bed, and everytime we took any steps in the room the table inside the bathroom would squeak. There was a notable decline from the couch to the fireplace that couldn't be ignored but the true highlight of the stay was the private balcony that overlooked the ocean. The balcony had two sunbather chairs, a simple round wooden table and two simple chairs designed for a morning breakfast and a cigarette. We left to our dinner at 6:30 PM at Cafe Beaujolais and celebrated Kathleen's birthday. Because we were celebrating her birthday, I proceeded to ball out and order everything I wanted; I got the $85.00 Filet Mignon with Fois Gras, She got the Scallops special, got the fuckin dungeoness crab toast, side orders of scalloped potatoes, broccolini, and wild mushrooms. Dessert was 3 scoops of Ice Cream and two cookies. $288 with tax and tip oof. We left to our BnB completely stuffed and vegged-out on our phones till 1 AM and called it a day.

The next day we woke up at like 9:30. Breakfast is served at fuckin 8 AM. The basket of breakfast was just waiting outside for an hour and a half before we even picked it up. I woke up so fucking groggy the next morning but the air was clean and the sun was forgiving. We had breakfast at like 11 AM which was biscuits with sausage gravy, chia seed pudding, banana bread, orange juice, and coffee. Not bad not bad...just a lack of protein. Was I filled? Eh, I was okay, I was worried about how long it would keep me satiated. But anyway, with that little coffee buzz, I recall just moving all around the room looking for things to do while Kath sat outside and read a book listening to the ocean waves crash. The weather was remarkably nice that day, no cold wind, a cool touch of ocean air, and enough clouds to buffer the sunlight but enough heat to stay outside without having the necessity of putting on a jacket. I think by the time we left the room...we went out for lunch at the Brickery; Cafe Beaujolais's own outdoor pizza establishment. By this time, I think it was approaching 2PM. We shared one pizza out of fear of over eating, and I proceeded to have a cortado at The Waiting Room – another Beaujolais establishment before heading back to the BnB to change clothes to head out for a hike. We went out to the Pygmy Forest...a little paved boardwalk in a tiny forest (thus the pygmy name) that is a part of the Van Damme Park...and was quite severely underwhelmed. With sunset quickly approaching we made a spontaneous decision to go to the Russian Gulch Park where we've had many memories from trips before. The setting was beautiful, weather was gorgeous, and not bone-chillingly cold like years prior. I got some film photos in, Kath got some fujifilm digital shots in, we were pretty happy. We made it a point to go to our favorite ice cream join in the Mendocino county - Cowlick's Ice Cream in Fort Bragg. I felt a little stupid to have Ice Cream before dinner but fuck it - we were on vacation. Kath got a mini sized scoop of their Hokey Pokey - a honeycomb candy ice cream, and I got my two favorites as well - the same Hokey Pokey along with Black Forest Ice Cream - dark chocolate with cherries. We headed back to the BnB yet again to veg out until 7PM where we had dinner at our favorite joint – you guessed it, Cafe Beaujolais for the second night in a row. This time we shared a Bolognese pasta, A Rock Cod with Agnolotti, Pistachio crusted halibut with risotto, and another three scoops of Ice Cream - huckleberry, honey lavender, and a chocolate sherbet. $144 lol.

Our final day in Mendocino was Saturday. My dumbass set the temperature in the room to be at 71 degrees. So what happens is the fuckin electric fireplace will turn on every single time the room starts to get below 71. This occurred multiple times throughout the night and just kept waking Kathleen and I all throughout the night. I also physically got up twice in the night to fucking pee. This NEVER happens at home. We got up earlier this time - 9 am lol - to a breakfast of maple steel cut oats, a chocolate mousse topped with a single raspberry, a scone, orange juice and coffee again. This time there was no protein at all god damnit. To make things a little worse, the weather wasn't as beautiful on Saturday as it was on Friday. So in attempt to be aesthetic, as much as we wanted to VIBE outside, we fucking couldn't because it was so fucking cold. My hands got all chaffed, I couldn't put together the picnic table clothes cause it was all windy n shit; fuck it we went back inside and just ate. Another complaint was the my oats tasted like fresh dish detergent. The damn silicone lids just hold all the moisture and chemicals riiiight on top of your food ugh. I still need to practice gratefulness. We wanted to hang outside and meditate for at least 10 minutes like we do at home. Fuck that it was too cold smh. Well we checked out of the place at exactly 11am. Put all our stuff into the the car and contemplated on what to do... did we wanna go straight home or did we want to enjoy more of Mendocino? We ended up walking around the neighborhood once more, taking a piss at the good life bakery, eating TWO pizzas as the Brickery, and then walking around the Mendocino headlands once more before returning to our car. I took a 10 mg dose of adderall and said alright, we're going home. So I'm expecting this adderall to work but oddly enough, it didn't do shit! Why? Probably because my sleep had been terrible. Fuckin adderall doesn't do shit for me when my sleep has been terrible the night before. I was driving through the redwood curtain completely zombie mode, so many twists and turns yet my mind was not stimulated by the sight or the danger of it all. After finally exiting the redwood curtain after 30+ minutes of driving we hit the Anderson Valley. In the midst of my sleepiness, I drove past an establishment for 'America's best cider'. I REALLY needed a wake up, plus I really had to take a piss. I turned around and stopped for cider. I picked up a cup to go, a single non-alcoholic quart, and a bottle of their finest (some alcoholic cider that won two awards back to back). $33. The piss helped me out, the walking helped me out and I was on my way back home until I stopped by another notable joint - Jumbo's Win Win. I had this random recall of a memory about reading an article about some bomb ass burgers in the middle of buttfuck nowhere - Philo. Some dude who use to worked in the city decided to make a burger joint in the middle of nowhere because memories stuck with him. The place was fucking cool as hell. There was an appreciation for the period corrected-ness of opening a business in a building thats over a hundred years old. There was a timelessness about the establishment and there was definitely a lot of attention to detail. Anyway, still in the 'fuck-it-I'm-on vacation' mentality, I decided to order 3 burgers for just the two of us – after all, when is the next time I'm coming back to this buttfuck-nowhere location for burgers? I got the onion smashburger, their classic jumbo burger, and a fried rock cod sandwich. Holy shit this guy's stuff is fucking awesome. I ordered single patties for all orders and it had the right amount of balance of everything. What really make their burger stand out was that the sauce had a hint of horseradish – this can really brighten and lift the heaviness off a burger and balanced it out completely. I was super impressed that I texted my brothers immediately after taking a bite. I was so enamored by the place I went back into the car to retrieve our cameras to take pictures of the vibe of it all. Jumbo's, I can't wait to come back again, the drive back down the 128 is worth every mile to have you again god damn. Anyway, finally, the end of my trip, I finally blasted all the way home, driving two hours straight with renewed vigor and excitement from my trip with Kathleen. I listened to the new Joyce Manor album on the way home which was refreshing but short - 20 minutes. Maybe I'll share my review on that someday.

Anyway, it's getting late, did I mention how fun it was to see how irritated Kath gets over me forcing her to bring three stuffed penguins to our vacation?