This is funny.

You can retire to New York City when…

1. You say “the city” and expect everyone to know you mean Manhattan.

2. You can get into a four-hour argument about how to get from Columbus Circle to Battery Park, but can’t find Wisconsin on a map.

3. You think Central Park is “nature.”

4. You believe that being able to swear at people in their own language makes you multi-lingual.

5. You’ve worn out a car horn – if you have a car.

6. You think eye contact is an act of aggression.

Immediately after last Saturday’s World Series game, we rushed to the Jug Shop in Russian Hill on Polk Street where Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino was signing $27 bottles of Devotion vodka.

I have the biggest crush on this reality TV star. He’s hot. He cracks me up. And that rock-hard body! OMG!

I’ve talked about this in previous posts, but I’m going to say it again. I like him because he is real. Those abs? Those are the real deal. He’s not fake. He’s not acting. He just is: a hot young guy looking for action.

People shake their heads and wonder how the reality show Jersey Shore can be so popular. “It’s so disgusting how much they’re making.” So fucking what! You know what’s more disgusting? John Edwards, who was a potential candidate for the President of the United States, cheating on his wife and impregnating his campaign videographer. But I guess it was ok because his wife was in remission at the time. Very classy, John. Very classy! Or that righteous Attorney General Eliot Spitzer who was constantly pointing out flaws. The married man need only look in the mirror, friggin hiring barely-legal prostitutes. You da man, Spitzer. You da man!

Those are the role models that we should be looking up to? But pooh on The Situation for being such a bad example to society. Look in the mirror, people. Stop being so clueless.

I felt like a teeny bopper waiting in line to see Justin Bieber except half the fans were dressed like Snooki or carbon copies of The Situation. We were toward the end of the line–after two hours of signing–and even then The Situation was really friendly. He let me take two pictures. Plus he re-signed my bottle after I smeared it the first time.

I hope his success continues–if anything to shut up the naysayers.

It’s been a wild ride indeed. Me, Dean, and Rob watched the game in front of City Hall. Gavin had promised a setup like the World Cup. Bullshit. There were two mega-screens for the world cup games. But for the SF Giants final game, we had only one screen that was teeny. Plus there were ten times more people last night than the final game of the World Cup. What a logistical joke! But no worries, Gavin, I’m still going to vote for you.

Even though it was difficult to watch the game clearly, it was a lot of fun to be right in the heart of the celebration. We were hugging and high-fiving strangers. Lots of positive energy. Here’s a video clip that I like.

Unfortunately, we had a detour to the Hayes Street Grill because Absinthe was closed. I used to like this restaurant, but now they’re on my shit list. The bartender looked annoyed that we were in there, wearing orange and black t-shirts. So we quickly finished our round of drinks, then headed to Tres Agaves for dinner and more fan excitement.

Such a great time to be in San Francisco. Looking forward to the parade tomorrow marching right in front of our office.

There has been so much going on with my family’s funeral, the World Series, Halloween, and the election tomorrow that I haven’t had a chance to chillax. Plus a recruiter contacted me for a position that I’d be interested in, but I haven’t even returned her email or voicemail – how bad is that? I’m definitely interested, but I’m overwhelmed with life right now. If I can just get through the election tomorrow (because I have faith that the Giants will blow it up again tonight and close out the series), I’ll be able to concentrate and be productive.

By the way, it really irritates me how people consider me a traitor for rooting for the Giants and the 49ers considering I grew up in the Bay Area–essentially they think I ought to be a die-hard A’s and Raiders fan. Let me break it down like this. I spent 24 years in the East Bay and I’ve lived in San Francisco for almost 10 years. I wasn’t in Daly City or South San Francisco. I have lived in San Francisco proper (i.e., Panhandle, Inner Richmond, Western Addition, Lower Pac Heights, and Lower Nob Hill). If that doesn’t make me a city girl, I don’t know what does. I would be just as excited to see the A’s in the World Series as the Giants so stop giving me shit. Sure I’m a fair-weather fan, but I didn’t suddenly move here from podunk Kansas and start chanting URRRIBBBE!!! I deserve to be a part of this.

I rode in a van with my parents and other family members to my great-uncle’s funeral. Everyone spoke in our native language, Ilocano. I thought it was so fascinating to understand everything they were saying–even though I’m no longer surrounded by the dialect like I used to be when I was a kid. My aunt asked my mom in Ilocano, “Does she know what we’re talking about?”

I answered in English, “I can understand.” It’s inherent like it will always be part of me.

While I can understand everything they’re saying, I can’t speak it which separates me from friends who understand and speak Tagalog or Spanish. They can pass the skill down to their children. I cannot.

But for now, I love that I don’t have to ask my relatives to translate for me. I get it. I understand.

I took Friday off to attend my great-uncle’s funeral in Seaside yesterday. What an honorable man. It’s so strange to grow up with someone and not realize how accomplished he is until his death.

First of all, the 93-year-old man died in peace. It doesn’t get better than that. I’m not saying I want to live more than 80 years, but living your whole life without a stint in a nursing home or hospital, that’s incredible.

My great-uncle was a prisoner of war in World War II, was responsible for purchasing the first ambulance for the city of Seaside, and had a park named after him for his community involvement. I never knew any of this. It makes me so proud.

I really didn’t think we were going to stomp on the Rangers the way we did last night. Incroyable! It’s Giants madness all over Northern California. I’m so locked into watching these games that my productivity has gone out the window. Notice how I’m backlogged on my blog?

Plus, it seems like Halloween snuck up on me. I still can’t believe it’s this weekend. I think the Halloween celebrations have taken a back seat to the true orange and black.

A quick point on Game 1 of the World Series. Did anyone catch Freddy Sanchez’s post-game interview? That guy was on meth-amphetamines! He must have spewed 200+ words in a 5 second timeframe. It made me think all these baseball guys must be up to some illegal shenanigans.

By the time we finished my caesar salad and Dean’s seafood linguini for a very late lunch borderline dinner, it was already 4:30pm—first pitch for Game 6 of the NLCS. We’d gotten carried away wine tasting and I hadn’t allotted enough time to drive, park, and stake some ground at Brophy’s—the sports bar where everyone in town said to watch the Giants game. “Uhhh,” I grunted. “I want to go to Brophy’s, but now it’ll be packed and that won’t be fun standing in a crowd for three hours.” I was annoyed that our plan had fallen through. Dean yelped nearby sports bars on his phone and we settled on Running Iron Saloon which our waitress had dismissed as a really bad dive bar. “Whatever, I just want to watch the game. So pissed.”

I was expecting a bar like Zeitgeist in the city—just as frigid indoors as outdoors, unfriendly locals who think they’re so cool because they hang out at a dive bar, and bad food. But our four hours there was the highlight of the weekend. The bar had a surprisingly cozy atmosphere with dark wood paneling and stuffed animals (the kind that once were alive trouncing along the prairie). Festive orange lights dotted the corners. A plastic skeleton was hanging next to the bar. We sat right in front of a TV. My sour mood turned into delight, “It doesn’t get better than this!” We had an unobstructed view of the game with a fireplace directly to our right and the bar steps to our left.

A local woman, Patty, who grew up in Salinas sat behind us with her husband. As the game intensified, she breathed, “Let’s pray.” Not something you hear in a bar.

I said, “Sure I’ll pray.”

“Really? Are you Catholic?”

“Yep, Catholic school all throughout until I went to Berkeley.”

“Get out! Me too and I went to Santa Clara (a Catholic university).”

Another local woman, Sarah, made her way over. “I went to Convent in the city.”

I told her that Convent would be the dream school for my kid, but there was no way we could afford it. I had essentially scratched it off my list of potential schools.

Sarah insisted on trying, “My parents couldn’t afford it either, but there are scholarships. You have to try. They select classes based on merit and potential.”

Patty cried, “Can you believe this? I think this is divine intervention.”

The three of us traded stories with baseball in the background while our husbands watched the game closely. We finally settled back down onto our bar seats when the crowd was on edge. A man walked in from outside and selected a country music song. “Can we get this song turned up? I can’t stand all this baseball crap.”

The bar yelled, “Get the hell outta here, Billy, we’re trying to watch the game!”

“Can I get my song turned up? I can barely hear it!”

We could hear it quite fine, drowning out the baseball commentary. The female bar manager found the jukebox control and put it on mute.

Bottom of the ninth. Prayerful silence until we broke out into cheers.

I think San Francisco is the #1 city for getting dolled up on more occasions than any other place. There are all the Halloween parties. There’s the Bay to Breakers–should you choose to be clothed. There’s the Castro on any given day. And then there are the Burners who are on daily rotation of costumes.

But there are even more occasions that randomly pop up.

Next week is the Mark Twain Ball celebrating the release of his new autobiography. Did you hear? According to his wishes, 100 years after his death, he wanted this work published. Incredible! I’ve already ordered mustaches on sticks. Top hats would be even better.

I’ve been itching to sign up for a race and what better way to start Thanksgiving morning than the annual Turkey Trail Trot where runners dress up like pilgrims and indians. I want to be Princess Pocahontas.

Burning Man’s holiday party MAS HTHANKSZAWEENMAS always has a costume contest component–not that everyone doesn’t already don costumes for any Burner party.

Let me emphasize that Carmel Valley is NOT Carmel. They’re adjacent towns, but separate and completely different in character. Carmel is overrun with tourists. It’s the kind of place that has a ton of galleries selling shitty, exorbitantly-priced artwork. I had never been to Carmel Valley, but I used to go to Carmel often.

Carmel Valley is more laidback. There aren’t tons of people on the street. It’s kinda like being in wine country without the crowds. Also, the people are very warm, not suffocatingly so–the way the tourism industry can be. We got turned upside down (yup, even with GPS because our GPS can get lost when it’s surrounded by hills), popped into the small public library, and every single local in there came over to give directions, draw a map, point me on the right path. Even Dean commented that, in all our travels, the people in Carmel Valley seemed to be the most genuine. Maybe because it’s still just a bunch of locals. It’s farm country, vineyard territory. The kind of place where there’s a monthly barn dance. Yeeehah! We’re planning to go back on the third Thursday of the month.