Wrapping up another wonderful weekend.

Friday, I got to show off my cooking skills on a whim. I don’t get to cook enough; cooking for 1 sucks. It’s not even worth the work with no one to share the meal with. It was nice to use someone else’s kitchen and get help cooking and have someone else do all the cleaning. The compliments and appreciation are nice, too.

Saturday, to further satisfy my cooking urge, I went to Trader Joe’s and bought a bunch of crap in the morning that relives my college days. Middle Eastern bread w/lots of stuff to use as toppings (seasoned crumbled goat cheese, bruschetta sauce, etc) to make into little pizzas to toast in the toaster oven, hummus, flatbread strips, etc. Dumped it all off at my friend’s house, made and had brunch with great company, than ran off to meet my cousin Diana who leaves 10 mins away from my friend. Diana and I went to a cooking class – Extreme Chocolates! She and I made dark chocolate ganache truffles and chocolate flourless cake. We learned how to make triple chocolate brownies, chocolate mousse tarts, rolled chocolate cake, etc. Taking a chocolates cooking class on PMS is bliss. I could not stop munching. Our cake turned out beautifully, and our chocolates tasted great, altho we went overboard w/the Kahlua and espresso syrup. Altho that’s probably what made it so great. Afterwards, Diana and I went to her friend’s housewarming where I met a bunch of people I had a wonderful conversation and homemade meal with. We really bonded over the patio table out in the backyard in this beautiful Mission Viejo house. Lots of laughs and therapy.

Today, I finally got some exercise in. I accepted a friend’s invitation for a great walk and talk up in the hills of Irvine (or it might’ve been Tustin, not sure of the borderline). The walk was on the verge of a hike at certain points, so I was able to break out in a sweat. Toward the end, I saw a big suspended pipe by the side of the trail that looked like one of those playground bars I used to flip around on as a kid. I asked my companion, “When you see something like that, don’t you just want to climb on it?” The next thing I knew, I was being dragged to the bar and I did a flip on it but couldn’t come back up on it because the pipe was too thick for my grasp. Oh well. But now I really want to climb on some jungle gym.

After the hike, I got to watch “The River,” a Chinese award-winning film that my uncle Miao Tien starred in. We could not finish watching this gawd-awful film, altho we did have fun laughing hysterically at how horrible it was in the beginning. Maybe there’s some great surprise ending that puts the whole disjointed movie together, I dunno.

Oh yeah. I also bought half my Cancun wardrobe today at a swap meet. Do I need anything else except my current swimsuits and board shorts?

I had a little internal twitch earlier this evening that I think was made better by a vicious 95 mph drive to my parents’ house with the radio so loud that my ears rang after I got out of the car. I guess I need to do that every once in a while.