So as to not fall too far behind due to Cancun entries, I decided to post current things in between the Cancun posts. (I can only do Cancun from home anyway, since my photos are on the home PC.)

Saturday evening, Mr. W greeted me outside LAX with a big hug and a yellow rose. I had called him from the plane during taxi-ing into the gate and said, “Remember what I look like?” He’d replied, “Of course I remember! I’ve been dreaming about you all week!” I said, “Well, take that mental image, and darken me 8 shades.” Seriously, I came back a different race. My tanlines are so intense that the contrast looks like I’m wearing a white bikini when I’m naked. All this despite continual reapplication of SPF 50 waterproof, sweatproof sunblock every hour. When we got back to my house, he loaded my photos into my laptop and I introduced him to Cancun, I unpacked, then got reacquainted with Nintendo GameCube’s “Donkey Konga.” I kept hearing songs in Cancun that I’d characterize as “bongo songs” and Diana suggested I plug in the ol’ video game console and bongo to my heart’s content when I get home. So we did.

Sunday, Mr. W and I got to cross one thing off our local to-do list. We went to UCLA late morning and I gave him a tour with the telephonic help of tourguide Diana, my college roommie. She remembers UCLA and the locations and names of buildings in surprising detail, and I remember remarkably little of it. I thought the inverted water fountain was taken out and replaced with new art buildings, and in one of like 5 calls to her for reference or direction, I complained that we’d been all over North Campus and I can’t find it. She said, “That’s cuz it’s not in North Campus, it’s in SOUTH CAMPUS, behind Knudsen Hall!” Oh. We found it. *blush* I swear, I really did attend undergrad there! We parked right by my old apartment so we did my senior year walk to class and around campus and throughout Westwood. Had coffee (iced capp royale) at the coffee shop in Kerckhoff Hall, a late lunch at Mustache Cafe on Glendon in Westwood, dessert of ice cream and cookies at Piddy Reese. I was giddy with reliving my college days, drinking the same stuff I did 10 years ago, walking the same roads, sharing my memories at various locations.

Sunday evening, I met up with my parents, grandma and some of my mom’s friends (married couples) at a Chinese restaurant to celebrate my parents’ 30-yr wedding anniversary. There was lots of funny talk about how miserable each couple was in having been tricked into being with the other one for the past few decades, obscene tips for making a marriage last. Altho I was stunned at how crass and profane my dad’s sense of humor was (as I played dumb, pretending I didn’t get the innuendos delivered in Mandarin, as they clearly expected me to be some non-bilingual deaf moron), I was more stunned to realize that it’s HEREDITARY. I make the same kind of jokes (albeit not in front of people’s offspring), except in English. Then I went back to my parents’ after dinner to show them my Cancun photos.