Day 2

Day two of San Diego trip. Well it's official, I'm now 43..... Ugh. I guess Sherman got up early (shocker) and went for a walk through the new neighborhood to scope out the new digs. He found a place to pick up some pasteries for us sleepy heads still left back at the apartment. We all got us at our leisure and got up and around. Brenda was very excited for is to grab breakfast at Richard walkers. Even on a Friday, late morning, there was a line to get in. We had a very large breakfast with and it wouldn't be my birthday without Brenda making sure I got birthday pancakes with a candle on top. We decided we would walk to Little Italy. It was very cold in the shade, but quite warm in the sun. We saw multiple people using power scooters all throughout the city. Brenda said there was so much more of the scooters than the year before. I guess you rent the scooter for as long as you want and then leave it anywhere when you are done. I seriously mean ANYWHERE! I was thinking we needed to try them, but thought we might die or get in trouble for drunk driving. Lol. We stopped at Bar One and had a a drink. Brenda was obsessed with charcuterie boards they were serving, but we had just eaten and couldn't eat another bite. We walked around more of little Italy and saw multiple Italian eateries that were quite packed in the middle of the day. We ended up at Bolt brewery and had some beer. Poor Brenda hates beer so she settles on a Sangria. It was a cute little place with open "windows" for the breeze and people watching. I had an unusual beer that was like an orange sicle and was quite good. Wish I could remember the name. The chairs at Bolt were quite uncomfortable, so we decided to move on. A friend of mine who lives in San Diego said we needed to go to this dive bar called "The Waterfront". We ended up finding it and decided to go in for a drink. At first, we were not so sure of the place. It was a total DIVE bar. They were having happy hour and were serving free ceviche. We had a couple of drinks including a birthday shot ordered by Brenda. We thought we were going to leave but the place started getting seriously packed and started amping up. A bunch of men in dark green suit jackets came in. We were trying to figure out what club they belonged to. Sherman and Brian could only come up with a reference to golf since that is the only time they have seen jackets like that. One of the men came up to our table and gave us a run for our money. He stated he was married to the woman who owned the bar. He gave us some history about the bar and we found out that the Waterfront Bar was the oldest bar in San Diego. He had Brenda and I compare a couple of photos in the bar to see if we could see anything about them that stood out. I guess they had photo shopped some of their friends into the photo. He would periodically come over to us and say we have to leave and to get out of there. O think he just wanted out table. He introduced us to a few of the "Green Jackets". We finally asked one of them what the Green jacket was for. It was for an Irish club. Occasionally you you hear them sing a Irish song. One of the men was a former Marine General. During our conversation he accidently knocked over his beer into my lap .... He felt so bad and wanted to buy us all a drink, but we wouldn't let him. He introduced us to another older gentleman was was a Colnel for the military. We felt bad that he was standing so we finished up so he could have our table. I think I had maybe 3 drinks, Brenda Ihad 3 or 4, but the boys had 6 or more. Yikes! The place we thought we were going to visit the shortest, ended up being the one we spent the longest at. We were there for 3 hours. Brenda wanted to make sure I remembered our adventure and made me pick out a waterfront T-shirt. We decided to be adventurous and WALK to dinner at an Italian restaurant recommended by my friend , Naiomi, called Bencotto. It was a windy walk, and not because the street was windy (I doubt it had anything to do with the alcohol consume by the four of us). When we got there, there was a line, but Brenda was able to get us in. I had some wonderful.lasagna that was totally made from scratch. It was awesome!!! While I was in the bathroom, Brenda ordered a bottle of wine!!! Well we couldn't let it go to waste, so Brenda, Brian, and I finished the bottle. Sherman doesn't like wine and he was full of alcohol anyway... Lol. After dinner, Brenda had the genius thought of sending the boys home since they were pretty sauced and we decided to party on! We settled on another bar called the Shout House in the Gaslamp District. Boy was it packed!!! Total standing room only!!! Bit of course my fabulous sister-in-law wiggled her way into a table with two other ladies. We had a great time laughing and singing at the top of our lungs. It was awesome because the music was being played by dueling pianos and they took request from the crowd and involved the crowd on the show. To request, you needed to fill out a request form and put it on top of the piano. Brenda wanted me to fill one out and she took it up to the piano with money so they would play it. They did end up playing my song celebration. I felt it was appropriate since we were celebrating my birthday.Read more