Pumpkin Seed Encrusted Salmon
(Final post of three of my California trip. See post #1 here and #2 here)
When my mother and her husband go out to eat, which is often, they like to dine at the finest restaurants. And why not? They worked hard all their lives and are now enjoying their mid 70’s. This trip, was no exception. They set out to treat us to the best restaurants in Monterey and Carmel.
No, Friendly’s & Applebees are not on their list! Needless to say, I have gained another 15 pounds making a total of 25 pounds since I turned 50! Or so my clothes say…
Going Gluten-Free went right down the drain and into the Pacific Ocean.
From Caviar
Ok, so it wasn’t very filling, but beautiful.
To Killer Oysters
To Warm Chocolate Cake with Pumpkin Ice Cream & Gourmet Fluff
Ahhh…heavenly!
To top it all, they never allow us to pay. One day my husband had to sneak away from the table and secretly pay the bill. SCORE!
Let’s talk El Sur Grande, shall we? You hear magnificent things about Big Sur, but seeing it first hand is surreal. 90 miles of coastline and breathtaking views. It looks fake after a while and you cannot believe it is that picturesque.
Another day, my husband, older brother and I decided to drive (2 hours from Monterey) to San Francisco for the day. We left early in the morning so we could see as much as we could before dark.
We were deterred by a little incident.
After coming out of the shower and going to my room, I walked straight into a leg of a chair. Just like that. We are talking, major STUB.
As I have mentioned in earlier posts, Rheumatoid Arthritis has had it in for my feet from day one. I have had several surgeries to correct the deformities and a couple of other broken toes. Meaning, I am not a foot model.
After some choice words, I had to take the freshly broken little toe and bend it back to its original place. Jesus. Mary & Joseph…it hurt!
Well, you can’t expect every picture to be breathtaking!
Being the stubborn brickhouse that I am, I ignored the black & blue rapidly forming on my foot and got ready for San Francisco. The pain was so excruciating that my toe actually felt numb.
I have my broken toe to thank for our next adventure. I have difficulty walking distances when I don’t have any broken toes, never mind touring Fisherman’s Wharf by foot with my little very broken piggy toe, thus:
QUACK! QUACK! QUACK!
You got it! I forced my husband and brother to board a Duck Boat with me to tour from land as well as from the water. What a perfect way to see the city.
The free duck whistles they gave us were not enough to placate my husband and brother with Captain Crunch (as he identified himself) behind the wheel. 
I on the other hand, joined my fellow tourists in the quacking action, ensuring that tourists walking the streets would look our way and basically laugh in our faces.
As if that was not bad enough, when Captain Crunch asked for volunteers to drive the boat on the water, guess who raised her hand?
Sporting my mom’s duck yellow jacket – how fitting
I worked up quite the appetite from all that quacking so we decided to visit the Little Italy section of San Francisco for some good pizza. Tony’s Pizza Napoletana, it was! And it lived up to its reputation with its many choices of crusts and toppings.
But the reviews did not warn us about...Nipple Squeezing that apparently goes on at Tony’s.
Thankfully or regretfully (I cannot decide which one), it was not my nipples that got squeezed. They were the nipples belonging to my older brother-that got the action.
It turns out that the couple sitting at the bar while my brother was ordering drinks was mighty friendly. The 30-something locals who had been married for ten years, stroke up a conversation with my brother right away.
After much chit-chat, the woman reached out and squeezed my brother’s nipples. She claimed that they were simply too irresistible (who does that?). After feeling violated (for a second), my brother decided to take revenge and squeeze her nipples. At which point her husband laughed.
Being faced with the decision to return to our table and continue to dine with us or stay around to see what ensued next at the bar, he chose to “swing” his way back to us and tell us of this blatant attack.
My husband got very quiet…perhaps coming down with a bad case of envy that it had not been him at the bar. But most likely, he was quiet because he was thinking of how beautiful his own wife is and how lucky he is to have me her?
We ended our visit to San Francisco viewing The Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and having a night-cap at a bar by the water.
I did manage to escape from Alcatraz
The flight back home was much shorter than the way there since we only had two connections instead of 20. Once again, we got to sit right behind first class where only a short curtain with a gap in the middle separated us.
Our view of First Class
The First Class menu we did not partake in
*A big shout out to Bitter Ben @
who bitterly helped this Twitter Virgin with her new Twitter account and is my first (and only) twitter follower! Please join Bitter Ben and follow me
and make sure to also follow him
so he doesn’t get bitter with me!
I need to go on your vacations!! Great photos! Ugh! A broken toe though! And once again, you’ve made me hungry with your menu selections.
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It was a fabulous vacation, Linda. My toe is healing and sorry about the food. I can’t help myself! 🙂
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How did the creepy woman at the bar know that your brother’s nipples were irresistible? How could she see them?
You brother touring SF in a sheer mesh shirt was probably a detail that you should have shared!
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He had on a regular red shirt!!! It was a complete pick-up line with her husband right there watching. #swingers!
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Gosh, lately every time I come to your blog I leave hungry. And then I saw your poor toe. Ouch! I have broken that same toe to where it stands out at 3 oclock and so I knwo that hurts! And on vacation? So sorry. 😦 I think you should let it heal and be allowed a ‘do over’. But it looks like you recovered enough to where that cute duck bill smartly. I have saved that photo to hold over your head at a later date. And what kind of job allows you to pinch nipples? I am sure I would get belted by someone. Thanks for sharing great pics and insights to your trip. And glad you survived! Ciao!
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Sorry about making you hungry, Andy! I’d like to tell you that it won’t happen again but I love food too much not to showcase it. That’s exactly how it was with my toe, 3 o’clock! It’s a bizarre feeling, isn’t it? The little sucker is still giving me problems but I have decided to wear steel toe boots 24/7.
Those duck photos are pretty corny, I don’t know why i posted them! Especially wearing the bright yellow jacket with 100 layers underneath. As for the nipple lady, she was quite the “player”. It’s a good thing my brother was with us – had he been alone, he may have gotten in more ‘trouble’. I’m just glad I was able to escape from Alcatraz!
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HAHA I am dying at that nipple story..WHO DOES THAT!?!?! Wowza, what an adventure. I am also a Twitter virgin and am too scared to even type it into my browser. That pizza looks SO GOOD! SORRY ABout your toes AAH!
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It was quite the eventful vacation, Brittany! It went by so fast. As for Twitter, join me in this venture! I now have a whopping 3 followers – woot, woot! If we are going to try going out on our own with our blogs, we should be able to handle Twitter (maybe). 🙂 🙂
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Yee-ouch, Maria! You are a tough lady. I would’ve whined all day after breaking my toe. You go storm San Francisco.
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I have to admit I have developed quite the tolerance for pain. I surprise myself often. Like taking the broken bent toe and bending it back without flinching. I was determined not to let anything get in my way of my vacay. 🙂 Are you on twitter? Wanna follow a newbee?
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Absolutely. I am @andrawatkins on twitter. What’s your handle?
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@brickhousechica 🙂
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Dang it. On crummy internet. Love love love Duck Tours, not getting my nipples squeezed and expensive restaurants. What a great vacation.
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You are the travel queen! Glad to hear that you have quacked your way through cities as well. The expensive restaurants are great when you are not paying! 🙂
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Broken toes are horrible! Youch! I had two broken tops of my feet one summer. It wasn’t until fall that I went into the doctor. Once I went into a flat shoe, they healed.
Reblogging is super easy to do from a phone or iPad. All you have to do is swipe down the reader. I did it twice after my surgery! Now I scroll on the left hand side of the screen.
Glad you had a great trip overall!
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I sometimes publish a post that has a backdate (the day I started writing it) and when I finally publish it, it still has the old date and not the date I published it. Does that make sense? Thank God for you pros to help me along! Do you care to be my 3rd follower on twitter? I am following you. 🙂
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Absolutely!!!!
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You officially have 2 followers on Twitter. 😉 Your toe looked painful. The fact that you re-set it? Baller! There’s no way. I would’ve whined my way to the ER knowing full well there’s not much they can do but re-set and tape. 😀
The vacation looked like a ton of fun and you are beautiful as always. Loved your brother’s moxy in tweaking back. Sounds like something I would’ve done…ask me about the time I got felt up by a bunch of gay men at a gay bar one time just because they thought they looked bouncy…LOLOL!
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Yipee!! I have two followers!! Woot! Woot! Now what? LOL. I did go to the ER last Easter when I broke my big toe and they did an xray. I had to wear a boot for a while. I knew there was nothing to be done with the little toe.
You would fit right in with my family! We are all daring a lot crazy and always get into some kind of trouble. My poor husband is always bailing me out and making sure I don’t get too close to the fire. 🙂
Please tell about the gay men enjoying your bouncy breasts!
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Yep! Sounds like I’d love your family. LOL.
As for the gay men and breasts… Somehow, while at this club, we got on the discussion of how interesting and aesthetically pleasing boobs could be. Someone made the comment about mine being perky and the guy next to me just reached over and groped. Very clinically, he looked over and said, “Oh, yeah! You’re right. Those are kind of fun.” That seemed to be some sort of signal because as he released, my other one was squeezed lightly (the whole thing, not any specific part…as if looking at buoyancy). They laughed and said…”I can see the appeal of boobs to straight guys. They’re kind of fun to play with.” It was a bit surreal, but I couldn’t help but laugh. No insult was intended, nor was there arousal. It truly was pure curiosity.
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This is GREAT! That you contributed to the education of that group of men is…not only selfless but critical in our quest for a cohesive and more tolerant society. LOL. 🙂
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Hahahaha!
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You are so adorable. You are positively glowing in the pictures. I would have never guessed that your pinky toe was broken. I hope it’s feeling better. (and wow to the food-yummy)
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Thanks, Shannon. It literally went numb so there was not much pain until later on. I’m trying to get back to the gluten-free thing, we shall see! 🙂
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Reblogged this on swimmingtomy50s and commented:
WordPress Issues – Apologies for reblog
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Oh, your poor little toe. I hope it’s feeling better, Maria. OMG! The Duck Boat is hilarious and you behind the wheel is priceless. What in the world was up with the nipple grabber? I’ve never heard of a stranger doing that. Did your brother really squeeze hers? LOL!!!! I’m lost when it comes to Twitter. A friend set up my account, but I don’t know anything about it. By the way, I love the Alcatraz outfit…too cute!
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My toe is better although still tender. The Duck tour was so cheesy but I made the best of it and Captain Crunch became my BFF! 🙂 YES, the nipple grabber was real and YES he did end up getting her back! The oddest part was that her husband thought it was funny. My Alcatraz outfit was the costume I wore Saturday night to the Halloween party I went to. My husband was also a prisoner and we were handcuffed to each other throughout the party. LOL. Wish me luck with Twitter. 🙂
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I can’t believe no one else is following you. They have no idea what they are missing.
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Well, I am somewhat technologically challenged and don’t know how to navigate through twitter. My 17 year old daughter is somewhat helpful but she thinks it’s weird that I’m on twitter.
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Kind of rude that she doesn’t even follow you. I’m sure my daughter will never do it because I’m already on it.
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I don’t want her to follow me because then I can’t write about her!
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At least the bitterness toward each other is mutual. Does that mean she doesn’t read your blog then? My parents read my blog and talk stuff about them all the time.
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