Floofy dresses, Prosthetic Boobs, Opera Singing Cabbies, and the Oakland PD, or "How I spent my Saturday Night"

So pretty much nothing about Saturday made any kind of sense. I started the day with Jessie in the sunny suburbs of the South Bay trying on ridiculous pink floofy bridesmaids dresses (my sister's getting married). From there we tootled to Julia's. We were starving but the bagels were off limits - what can you do? It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and it was 5 o'clock somewhere so we drove through the city loking for a cafe in which to drink bloodymary's. You would think that wouldn't be so hard, but hours later we were still driving, with no bloodymary's in sight. We decided to pull out all the stops and go to the Cliff House, which is a swanky staple of the San Francisco tourist scene. But its ma$$ive white columns made us keep driving to Louie's, which looked quaint but in fact was just totally bizzare. First of all, no bloodymarys. Then the waitress yelled at us for wanting to switch to an empty table away from the door. When i asked for a refill of diet coke, she told me that she had given me regular, so was i sure that i wanted diet this time? There was some sort of nasty plastic thing floating in Julia's water. nothing really went right. Since we had never really fulfilled the bloody mary craving, we decided to get swanked up and paint the town red.

After many stops for black slinky things we arrived in "Balboa Park" which i guess technically is part of the city but pretty much felt like another country to us. Jessie's friend was having a party which we thought was a "Vamps and Vixens" party, but in fact was a "Vamps and Vampires" party. quite different in fact. Her friend is a fabulous drag queen and many of the other people there were also very much in drag and lace and leather and prosthetic boobs. We meant to just stay for a drink and return to civilization but many french martini's later we were still there. A woman in a leather jumpsuit with a boat of a cadillac drove us to BART. which we missed. we got on a bus. i dont know what bus it was, but i think it was the wrong one. it was empty though and we didn't have to pay. Julia decided to get off. later she regretted her haste, as it was not the correct stop. Jessie and I got off too, somewhere, nowhere near her house, so we got in a cab. i was actually a van. with a woman driver who was so fabulously nice and who turned off the meter when i jumped out to get us pizza, which again i didn't have to pay for.

I loved this cab so much that i decided i couldn't leave it, i wanted my own bed, which was across the bridge in Oakland. but i was drunk and what is money to a drunk girl? So she took me. She was an opera singer and her favorite opera, Amal and the Night Visitors, was one that my mother took me to see every single year at chistmas. So she sang me arias and we ate pizza and talked and talked and then i was home. I put it on the credit card (which was a smarter move than i knew then) went inside and ate some more pizza.

Suddenly i heard gun shots. and i looked out the window and saw 3 or 4 guys running like crazy down the street. So i got out the phone book and called the cops. Which is something i feel like i do a lot for some reason, so it didn't feel that crazy. they said they'd send a car out. i said cool. so i finished my pizza and went to bed.

This morning, as i was dawdling and making myself late to work again, the phone rang. I normally don't answer my house phone but i did and it was the Cab Driver from saturday night, calling to tell me that she had filled out a crime report with the Oakland PD and they going to contact me and she was so glad i paid with a credit card because otherwise she'd never be able to find me again. and i was like, "oh my GOD - the gunshots!" and she said, "Yeah! I got away just in time!".... It turns out that when i went inside my house that night and she was pausing to do the paperwork for my ride, a bunch of guys started running at her shooting. she peeled away just in time and the bullets missed her and just hit the side of the van. She drove off for a couple of blocks until she called the cops but they were already on their way. So now i'm sitting here waiting for the cops to call and connect the dots.
crazy friggin night.