cindy's world

Woke up right before 6am. There was some light visible thru the curtains, and I was feeling normal. I had complete recall of everything, including my dream that I had already woken up and gone out w/everyone for breakfast. I came upstairs thru the iron spiral staircase, looked out the window, and found myself staring at the ocean. It was a bit overcast, but the water was glittering and blue, and the sand was white. I had no idea we were that close to the beach. I would’ve burst into song if I could think of a song to sing. What a great house! What a great location! What a great morning! I needed to get to my car, grab my omnipresent workout bag, change to workout clothes and go jog on the beach! I started to leave, but decided to come back and leave them a note just in case they woke up to check on me and think I freaked out and ran out. Before I could write the note, Boyfriend came out of his bedroom (he did tell me the nite before that he gets up at 6a), marveled at how awake, spry, and not hung over I was, and insisted on coming with me to my car. I was grateful, as the place looked totally, wonderfully different in daylight. I practically skipped to my car. We decided to drive my car back toward his house to find closer parking, and we managed to park half a block away from his beachside property. By the time we came in, my girl friend had grudgingly gotten up and we made a plan for the day.

The three of us took a morning stroll beachside (the houses along the sand are simply amazing. I don’t know how many times I carped about not having my camera on hand.), wandered by some stores in Downtown Manhattan Beach, stopped by Starbucks where Boyfriend got coffee and a muffin, walked up and down the famous Manhattan Beach Pier…

…where some runners were warming up for a Pier to Pier race at 7:15 am, then walked back to his place. My girl friend and I then drove to Vons and bought breakfast groceries. We made eggs, hash browns, bacon, 2 kinds of sausage, buttermilk biscuits, and mimosa. I felt like I was on vacation. We were waiting for the cloud layer to burn off so we could go for a swim in the ocean. I didn’t have a swimsuit, so the three of us took a walk to Downtown Manhattan Beach where, uncharacteristically and on a whim, I purchased a $90+ red very sexy little bikini. Then back to the beach house, where the two of them took a nap (at least that’s what they said they were gonna do, altho it sounded from downstairs like a very “active” nap) and I took my morning shower.

When we set up at the beach, we laid out for a couple of hours conversing of the ramifications of cross-generational ignorance upon global environment, society, history, pathology, until some other friends of Boyfriend’s joined us, then the three of us (I, reluctantly) walked to the water. I had no intention of going in past my ankles, as the last time I was in ocean water farther than that was when I was a hairline away from drowning myself, but the Boyfriend ran up to me and grabbed me and threw me in. When I came back up, I said, “You didn’t even ask if I could swim!” He looked horrified, and apologized for traumatizing me for the rest of the day (I can swim). Completely uncharacteristically of me, I was in the water chin-deep, playing with the waves, and it was wonderful. The ocean was warm, and Boyfriend played with a bobbing jellyfish. “It’s the kind that doesn’t sting,” he insisted. They got out of the water too quickly for my taste, but I followed and we laid out on the beach discussing movie plots and shortcomings for the next few hours. I noted how different these people’s frames of reference are. They were joking about celebrity deaths, which is common guy talk, except the references were to various planes, their external structure, inner operation, etc. Apparently these flashy-careered (screenwriter; something Sony Pictures related; TV commercial producer) people all have pilots licenses. They were discussing celebrities’ drunk flying in the same casual mainstream way the people I’m normally around discuss celebrity drunk driving. Boyfriend, in making fun of my Chinese girl friend and I, alluded to the Thursday Wall Street Journal article about 2nd generation Chinese American spies in the engineering fields. Of course we hadn’t read it. When his friends got there, he made the same allusion in mocking us and they all knew what he was talking about as if it were the over-media’ed Michael Jackson trial. But I digress.

We soon separated to clean up. I got a nice hot shower rinse in Boyfriend’s patio outdoor shower (!!) and as my girl friend and I cleaned ourselves up, Boyfriend and the band went off to rehearse somewhere. My girl friend and I caught up on each other’s lives, watched TV, walked to the store and bought junk food, Tecate beer, Absolut vodka and Bacardi Vanil rum, then Boyfriend got back with groceries and made dinner for us (BBQ pork ribs, BBQ beans, seasoned almond rice, BBQed asparagus, BBQed corn-on-the-cob, chocolate sorbet, Vanil rum-n-Diet-Coke). Great dinner conversation goofing off with some extreme low-brow humor, great stimulating and thought-provoking after-dinner conversation, and despite their urging that I stay another nite and have breakfast with them before I leave, I left.

8 drinks this weekend. That is really uncharacteristic of me. Absolute appreciation for life, its beautiful details and friends, hopefully becoming more characteristic of me.