Shelby's Life and Whatnot

A Wedding, A Book, A Movie, A Piercer, A Robbery, Oh My!

Our trip to Berkeley was fantastic. Our main purpose was the wedding of Anita and Derek. Anita is Kevin's friend from college and she stood up to our wedding. In absence of a picture from her own wedding, here's a picture of Anita from our wedding with our best man David (please note that David is not the groom/her new husband):

The wedding was quite lovely and it was really nice to see Kevin's home church while he was at Berkeley. The only people Kevin knew there were the pastor and her partner, but we sat next to them and had some great conversation.

The night before the wedding was the night that Harry Potter came out at Midnight (see below). We hadn't planned on getting Harry Potter at midnight but it just kind of turned out that way. We originally went to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a movie by Tim Burton starring Johnny Depp based on the book by Roald Dahl. We got ourselves all settled into the theater, made it through the pre-movie show, half of our Tub O' Popcorn, and the previews when the lights went out. A few minutes later an employee came out and said apologetically that the power was out on the whole block and we had to leave, getting free passes for our trouble. I was bummed but I would have been more bummed if we'd been halfway through the movie and had it crap out then.

So at 11:30 pm we found ourselves wide awake and antsy from the drive up with nothing to do...

We walked over to the nearby Borders to get a Harry Potter book there, but it too had closed and was dark. They must have been REALLY bummed because they were having an HP release event and were probably expecting to sell a significant number of books.

We then headed over to Cody's Bookstore, a Berkeley tradition (although the newer, fancier branch) and got in line there. The woman and two girls (wearing Potter costumes) directly behind us had come over from the doomed Borders as well. At midnight the doors opened and we made a dual entrance. I grabbed the Harry Potter and waited in the register line while Kevin dashed to the children's section to get a copy of Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the book). Cody's was extremely well-prepared. We were in and out in about 10 minutes.

Oh, I forgot to mention our other Friday activity--the Getting of Things Forgotten. I had just about the worst pair of dress shoes ever and Kevin had forgotten black socks so we popped into a shopping center that had a Ross and a shoe store. The next day we realized that Kevin had forgotten undershirts and I'd neglected to determine whether my dress could be worn with knee-highs (as it turned out, it can't, so I had to get a full pair of nylons).

Sunday we walked around and while we were eating lunch we spied a piercing studio across the street, so we stopped in. I've been meaning to get pierced for a while now but had never gotten around to it, so now was the time. Don't panic, I just got my ear lobes re-pierced. I had them pierced but they closed up so I needed to get them redone. Yes, only one hole in each lobe. I'm such a lightweight. Sunday night we met up with my friends Hai-Nhu and John and had the best pizza ever.

Monday we finally got back to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Oh my god, this movie is awesome! I'll review it in another post. Monday night we hit a great Chinese restaurant that we stumbled upon. It was like P.F. Chang's except, you know, real Chinese food. I had an awesome duck dish. After dinner we decided to stop by Ben and Jerry's for some ice cream.

We were the only customer at Ben and Jerry's until this man came in. He seemed really cagey and kept coming in and out of the restaurant looking very nervous. Naive me thought that he was double-parked and kept checking on his car. So he orders a sundae and then seems very confused when the girl asked him if he wanted a cherry. We sit down in the restaurant at a table where I was facing the cash register and Kevin's back was to it. He ordered another sundae and I (again naively) thought that he was going to take the ice cream and run.

After some discussion I couldn't hear, I saw the cashier nervously punching several buttons on the register to open it. At this point it finally dawned on me that he was probably intending to steal more than the ice cream sundaes. As he dived across the counter grabbing cash I kept saying to Kevin in a low voice "Look down. Look down. Look down." which he did. A million scenarios ran through my mind--did he have a gun? Was he going to come over to us and take my purse or my jewelry? Were we in danger?

As it turns out he was one of the world's most inept criminals. He grabbed what couldn't have been a lot of cash (I mean how much money do you really think you're going to find in a Ben and Jerry's register?) and left the store. Kevin then turned around to watch him jog away while I was still concentrating on looking down at the table. The cashier was totally and completely calm and simply called 911. Kevin of course missed the whole thing but I was a little freaked out so we took our ice cream and went back to the hotel.

Tuesday morning we did a little shopping and then headed back down to Anaheim, concluding our trip. So other than the robbery, it was a great trip (and once I realized that the robber didn't have a gun I was very much relieved).