Took a weekend trip with two girlfriends to attend a seminar in Sacramento, so now today at work I'm exhausted. We rented a huge suite and shared a room, so it was like a slumber party except we were all adults.

One of my friends love to gamble, so we went to Thunder Valley Casino every night and gambled and drank. Our hotel had happy hour every night and we each got two free drink tickets, so we started partying right after the seminar. It was cool though because then we got to socialize with people from the seminar outside of class.

I even got a Thunder Valley Casino travel mug and card. Gambling is entertaining if you can make your money last. It's a fun way to kill a couple of hours if you're with friends because we sit around and watch one person play and laugh and cheer if the person is winning.

We even had to go to Thunder Valley for lunch on Monday, because they had a sign that sais "Best buffet in a casino in California".

But I am so tired now. I had to come in to work early for an 8 am meeting, and I was planning to leave early but there's a division meeting this afternoon and I guess I have to attend.

And my week is not over yet. I'm going to meet my writing group for drinks tonight. Wednesday is my writing get together day. Thursday I have a massage appointment, and on Friday I have to get ready to go to Monterey to go to another seminar on Saturday.

Missy L and I are thinking we might stay at Esalen on Saturday night, but it's still all up in the air.

I love being busy but I am looking forward to quiet weekend alone!

This has been a good year for meeting new girl friends. I am becoming very good friends with this project manager that I was assigned to work with, in fact we are going away next weekend to Monterey to take a seminar on soulmates.

Missy L is so fun! She's a USC grad and has direct TV so she can watch USC football games. She's so lucky because her dad bought her this huge flat screen TV for her house. Nice dad huh? He also bought her this cute Rolex watch that I love.

She had an amazing spiritual experience when she went to Argentina over the summer, and when she was telling me about it as we were driving to a meeting I told her "now I know why we get along so well, you are spiritual. I only get along really well with spiritual people."

She has the cutest house in San Francisco in my old neighborhood. I am so jealous that she is a homeowner in San Francisco, and in a damn fine neighborhood too. She said she only got it because she bought a house in Menlo Park years ago and sold it when market was hot.

She's like from Long Beach and very tall, and she reminds me of what they used to call the "LA Poodle" stereotype. She's going a mile a minute, has kind of big hair, is very bouncy and laughs and laughs. She loves to wear fur and high heels, even though she probably is over 6 ft when she wears her heels.

We drove to a meeting in Sacramento together last month and then went shopping at Costco, Ross' and some carpet place that she wanted to check out afterwards. We just had so much fun, but I think she got bummed because she wanted to stop at a wine place and grab a couple glasses of wine but I had to go home to meet friends.

We were at a vendor conference together about a couple of months ago, and we drank way too many glasses of wine which was so much fun. We had way too many glasses the night before as well because there was a cocktail party before the conference. She is a hoot when she drinks too much.

She's got the cutest pomeranian dog who is quite friendly, and made me want a rat dog for a first time my life. Pomeranians are so fluffy and loving.

I want my own house in San Francisco and a dog!

I have this guy friend at work Mr. CE and we've been chatting off and on since March, and he is so cool! He is one of those rare guys who I can talk to for ages and ages and never realize how much time is actually passing. The conversation is just so amazing and you're so engrossed in each other that it's like no one else is around.

Like take Monday for example. We went out to get coffee together to talk about some work stuff and we were only supposed to be gone for 30 minutes. It was so weird because it didn't even seen like that much time had gone by, but we were gone from the office for 2 hours. Talk about a heck of a long coffee break.

Mr. CE is soooo cool! He has an MBA from U of Michigan and is so smart. Okay, the boy is much younger than me but is just the bomb! A friend at work thinks he is too intense, kind of nerdy and talks way too much, but I don't think so.

I think we were soulmates in another life, and it's so cool that we met at work. I am so impressed with Mr. CE's intelligence. He's the smartest guy I've met since my friend Brian from Texas in 1999. He's got tons of integrity too, which is so rare in guys these days.

But can Mr. CE eat! We went out for lunch last Friday and it was my turn to pay, so I took him to this great dim-sum place and I almost died when I got the bill for lunch which was about $70 something. He offered to pay for some of lunch, but I told him not to worry.

It's just weird how we can gab and gab and never run out of things to say or talk about, and time flies by so fast and I never notice anyone else in the room. I think there could a gun battle going on and we wouldn't even know it.

I don't know about you, but there is something very amusing about researchers giving mice California cabernet sauvignon. The questions I have are: 1) what was the brand? 2) how many points from wine spectator? 3) cost?


A glass a day: Cabernet Sauvignon may help ward off Alzheimer's disease (from The Advisory Board - News for Healthcare Executives, Sept 26, 2006)

A first-of-its-kind study by New York City-based Mount Sinai School of Medicine researchers appears to support the suspicion that a glass or two of red wine daily lowers the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, WebMD reports. For the study—to be presented at next month’s Society for Neuroscience meeting in Atlanta—researchers investigated the impact of California-grown Cabernet Sauvignon on 11-month-old transgenic mice that possessed genes that govern amyloid-beta protein production, which has been linked to brain plaque in Alzheimer’s patients. The mice were given water “spiked with red wine,” water mixed with ethanol, or plain water and allowed to consume as much as they liked for seven months, at which point they were placed in a maze and left to find their way out. Researchers found that mice in the red wine cohort fared the best and also had the lowest levels of amyloid-beta. The researchers say that although the findings offer no “direct experimental evidence” of red wine’s protective effect, the study may help guide future disease prevention efforts. —WebMD/CBS News, 9/20

I miss going to football games. It's been years since I've gone and I really, really miss it. I've been to Sunday games, Thursday night games and Monday night games. They are so much fun. It's just such a slog to get home.

There is nothing like the excitement of a close football game!