I have decided that, from time to time, I will subject anyone who reads this blog to posts about my actual life. Not too many, mind, because on a day-to-day basis, my life just doesn’t make for exciting, blog-worthy material, but last week was actually kind of busy for me, full of things that I had to wake up early and leave the house for. Obviously, I disapprove of that entirely, but I did have a pretty decent time, even if I spent an ungodly amount of it in the rain. (In California, we desperately need rain. Doesn’t mean I won’t gripe about it when I can’t even see the street I’m trying to cross through my exceedingly wet glasses, though.)

WEDNESDAY:

Mekaela and I left our warm, oh so warm, apartment to catch a ferry into San Francisco. Finding parking was its own adventure. Once in SF, we made our usual trip to Rasputin’s, where I bought four movies and three CDs for less than thirty dollars. (I specifically bought Identity for three bucks just so I could review it whenever I was in the mood. That movie, man. So much to talk about there.) We then made our way over to Japantown, where we got dinner and I bought myself a hat that I absolutely did not need. It was really cute, though.

Then we went to the Main Event, or why we were actually in SF in the first place: an honest-to-God, live-action, interactive Escape the Room game. Mek and I were both really into playing Escape the Room games maybe ten years ago. The first one I ever played was either the Crimson Room or the Viridian Room, I can’t remember which. (Although I’ve now just wasted a good hour of my life playing them again. Dammit, Carlie.) But here, they actually stick you in a room with like ten other people and give you an hour to try and find clues and solve puzzles in order to escape and win.

Before we could play, though, we had to find the Escape the Room game. Like parking, this was its own adventure and took us considerably longer than it should have, considering we got dinner right across the street. (To be fair, it was dark and trickier than it sounds.) Mek and I were paired with another group of about eight or nine people who already knew each other, which was a little awkward initially but wasn’t a big deal at all once everyone started running around frantically. There was one guy who was kind of annoying because he wouldn’t listen to anybody and kept insisting we had to focus on this one thing when we really didn’t, but everyone else was super nice. Still, it’d be neat to go back and play a different room with more people I actually knew.

If you’re wondering if we were successful in our mission to escape the room by the sixty minute mark, let tell me you, friends: we absolutely were not.

This is apparently not at all uncommon; in fact, only twelve out of something like a thousand teams have actually escaped in the allotted time. It is insanely difficult, but it was also a lot of fun. I definitely want to go back for their Escape the Time Travel Lab room, and I’m interested in checking out other games too. (There’s apparently a different company in SF where you’re stuck in a room with a zombie who’s chained to a wall, and every five minutes, the chain loosens up and extends a little further. Have. To. Try.)

After admitting defeat, Mekaela and I took the late ferry home, got some sleep, and woke up again for Thursday’s activities.

THURSDAY:

On Thursday, I accompanied my mom, my sister, and a few coworkers to watch my first ever professional football game.

Here’s what you should know about my mom (on the right): she was born and raised in Oakland, and she is a HUGE Raiders fan. Anyone who tells you that girls don’t know anything about football, well, one, they’re obviously sexist assholes, and two, my mom (among many others) entirely disproves the theory. I like football well enough — I’ll get into games now and then, I generally don’t need people to explain the rules to me, and I always watch the Super Bowl — but I can’t give you, like, specific player stats, and the idea of watching football all day every single Sunday strikes me as incredibly boring. My mom, on the other hand, knows all those boring stats. She wins our family football poll every year, despite the fact that she won’t pick against the Raiders, even though they’ve been an objectively terrible football team for about a decade now. (I mean, they’re my team and all, and I will always vote for them, but the last time they were any good, I was still in high school, watching the most horrific Superbowl meltdown I had ever seen . . . although the Denver Broncos have clearly since taken the title on that.)

The game was a lot of fun. Tense as hell. The Raiders have a way of playing a solid game for the first half and then descending into a chaotic, sloppy messy in the second, and that was certainly true here. But — much to my shock and delight — they finally managed to pull off their first win of the season, leading me to immediately think of this scene (spoilers for Major League):

It definitely made sitting in the downpour worth it. That being said, I was very happy that I didn’t have to go anywhere the next day and could stay nice and cozy in my perfectly dry apartment.

FRIDAY:

Friday was my birthday party. (I don’t actually turn 29 until this Friday, but trying to make plans the day after Thanksgiving doesn’t usually go well.) Originally, I wanted to have a murder mystery party because I love those things — and also, November is my Mystery Month — but that didn’t work out, so instead I bought this game called Crack the Case that some of my CW friends were talking about. We also played a few rounds of Mortal Kombat vs DC, and then I got to attack a piñata with my tinfoil covered sword.

It was less of a traditional piñata game — you know, where you’re actually blindfolded — and more me working out my aggression by attacking a giant skull with a big stick. Frankly, I think I should do this more often. It’s similar to the satisfaction you feel when you hit a baseball with a bat, only better because you actually hit the giant skull with the big stick, as the skull does not depend on you having adequate hand-eye coordination which you do not, in fact, have.

Also, my friend Spencer loves putting my face in photoshopped movie posters. He really only does this for me, and while the posters are always hilarious, I’m beginning to feel a bit disturbed by how many versions of me are scattered throughout the house, watching. Here’s the latest one:

Oh yeah. I’m a badass witch hunter with a crossbow. That’s me.