cindy's world

My judge (Cal alumnus) has a running bet with one of my other favorite judges, Judge Higa (UCLA alumnus). Whenever Cal plays UCLA, the loser has to buy the winner a six-pack of specialty beer. This morning, I passed my judge in the hallway who told me that he was stepping out for a few minutes. “We won this weekend!” I said, dangling my UCLA keychain attached to my work keys. “I know,” he grumbled, “I’m on my way to bring beer to Judge Higa right now.”

Later on, we were in another judge’s chambers singing happy birthday to a coworker over Boston Cream, lemon meringue, and Dutch apple pies. My judge reached for my court keys and said, “Mind if I borrow that for a minute?” I was about to hand it over, thinking he needed to access a locked door or something, when he continued, “I’m gonna stomp on that keychain for a minute.” I snatched my hand back.

Sports nuts. tsk.

I made a mistake on Friday’s post about the Cal-UCLA game because I said they were playing Friday when they in fact played on Saturday. I made Mr. W stay in for the first 5 minutes of the game before we went out for the evening. As soon as Cal scored (and they did it fast and hard early on), I was disenchanted enough to tear myself away from the TV. I didn’t watch the remainder of the game as I couldn’t see a TV from the large slab of rock Mr. W and I were lying on watching the desert night stars.

Diana was nice enough to text message me after the game that we won, 47-40. Her text message said 47-70, tho, which got me really excited for awhile. Turned out the final 2 minutes were even more exciting, when the Bruins came back from behind to score a touchdown with Maurice Drew returning a punt 81 yards. (EIGHTY-ONE YARDS!) I’m kinda glad I didn’t watch that game. I wouldn’t have a voice right now. We’re now 5-0. (Unfortunately, so is USC.) We’re playing Washington State (3-2) this Saturday. Go Bruins!

This past weekend was a long weekend (Columbus Day on Monday) so Mr. W and I did an impromptu weekend at Palm Springs. I don’t think I’d ever gone there before, just passed by it on the way to Palm Desert/Indio with my ex Gary. We stayed in a luxury fully-furnished two-bedroom condo that belongs to a coworker who has timeshare. I had a blast! Some things I absolutely loved:
* he let me listen to my CDs on the entire drive there and back, even tho he didn’t know a lot of the music
* walking everywhere; exploring things on foot is so much better than driving from destination to destination.
* taking the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway up to elevation 8516 feet and hiking in the wilderness up there
* finding and climbing lots of great rocks and cliffs and sitting up there to enjoy the view; having someone who enjoys the sights, sounds, scents, wind with me and outclimbs me (even tho I’m usually the monkey whenever I go on these things)
* exploring some model homes of a new project being built; I love model homes, and Mr. W was game for wandering thru there…he says they give great decorating ideas. (The ex didn’t like to go thru model homes with me because he says he doesn’t want to shop for something he’s not planning on buying.)
* great photos, great conversations, better memories
* hanging out in the room watching hours of “Friends” on DVD while having pizza, Bacardi Twisted Watermelon and mint chip ice cream

We drove back Monday, stopped by Cabazon Outlets, then after we got home, went to Uptown Whittier. He hadn’t been there in a long time, so we parked almost as soon as we turned onto the street so that we could walk up and down the main street and he could check out all the things that had changed. Then we went to Brea and at his recommendation, I ate for the first time at the little French cafe at a wing in the mall that I’d always thought was obtuse in its location. It was delicious. We ate at a table in the walkway of the mall so that I could “peoplewatch.” It’s nice that he’d offer that, because I’m not nice when I peoplewatch. But I have been able to be completely open and unreserved with him without fear of judgment or any negative reaction. If something I reveal about me or my past isn’t exactly positive, he doesn’t recoil physically or emotionally. He accepts it as a part of me and strives to understand it.

…

=)

After work (and after I flew home to vacuum and do last-minute tidying), I drove to Huntington Beach’s Old World for their annual Oktoberfest to hang out with my staff and other coworkers. It was a bailiff’s 50th birthday, so she got adequately wasted. At one point, her friends switched out a shot with water, and she took the shot and commented dazedly about how “that’s strong stuff! Yeah! Whoo!”

Our clan took up 2 picnic tables against a wall and a conga line danced past us. I saw a guy who looked familiar and remarked to my court reporter how I thought that’s Steve, someone I knew from UCLA. And later, I saw Sabrina in line for the women’s restroom. Sabrina is another fellow Bruin and one of roommie Diana’s closest friends. I had a coworker take a picture of Sabrina and me on my cameraphone and sent the photo to Diana to freak her out. Turned out, a bunch of other UCLA people were there. I didn’t stop by to say hi as I shortly thereafter skidaddled out of there.

Interesting evening. Beer, buddies, and a pair of octagenarians doing Cirque du Soleil style contortionism. I kept wincing, hoping that that night wouldn’t be the night that one of these women broke a hip mid-act.

This is funny, because I’m up against people I really like in this rivalry at the Rose Bowl today. My judge, roommie Diana, friend Jen, Mike, Grace, Bonnie, have all attended Berkeley. So I guess I’m okay with either way the game goes. I am, however, rooting HARD for USC to lose today, altho I seriously doubt I’m gonna get that wish. I mean, come on, it’s #1 Trojans vs. the freakin Arizona Wildcats. The only fame the Wildcats ever got was when Sandra Bullock admitted to being a Wildcat on the movie “Speed.” =P

I found out yesterday when a friend refused to take a call from University of Texas Law School Alumni Association (which was inviting him to the Los Angeles branch of a Law School fundraising event) that he’s holding a grudge against ALL of UT. Last year, Cal was primed to go to the Rose Bowl but due to political string-pulling by the head of UT’s Athletic Dept (or some position like that), people in the Association raised UT in the ranking and/or dropped Cal’s ranking, so due to the polls, Cal did not make it to the Rose Bowl. Also, when Cal was playing at Southern Missouri or Southern Mississippi (I may have tuned out at this point in his story), my friend said he actually saw on TV UT fans in full UT colors and gear in the stands cheering for Cal to lose and thus lessen Cal’s chances of getting to the Rose Bowl. He said he feels sore about the whole thing, and until he feels no longer sore, he will have nothing to do with his Law School alma mater.

Sports nuts are appropriately named.

There were good things about our $10 tour to Chichen Itza and there were bad things.

Good things:
* amazing photos
* Diana got to conquer her fear of heights by climbing the 91 steps to the top of the pyramid, altho she was afraid to step out much to admire the view at that elevation
* I can say “veni, vidi, vici”.

Bad things:
* we woke up late (Diana’s alarm wasn’t set right) and ran the hell to the front of our resort to meet our pick-up at 7a, who was apparently on “Mexican time” (a lot of people were on “Mexican time”, which we learned means 15 mins late, treated cavalierly and without apology), so we sat idly for awhile wondering if we actually missed the pick-up, altho we were there punctually at 7a.
* the pick-up van dropped us off at a large tourist-sucking souvenier shop to assemble with other people going on the same tour…to wait 2 hours for the bus. We were ticked off. First of all, had we known this was their schedule, we would’ve just walked the 5 or so blocks from our resort to this meeting place and gotten there at 9, right before the bus came to pick everybody up, and we could’ve gotten more sleep and had a gourmet breakfast at our all-inclusive resort. Second of all, making us sit at the store in their transparent attempt to get us to spend our money is retarded because we’re not stupid enough to buy crap we have to carry around in the heat all day on tour.
* one of many indicia of bad planning by the tour organizers: the bus filled up completely and there were still 13 of us who had not boarded. Instead of riding the air-conditioned tour bus for 2.5 hrs to our destination, we went in a bumpy van following the bus which tossed us in all directions the entire drive out there.
* we had been told the tour included a buffet meal, and since we reached Chichen Itza at noon, we figured we’d have lunch there. After all, forcing us to leave at 7a means everybody skips breakfast, since the resort restaurants don’t typically open until 7:30a or 8a. But no. We were herded, hot, tired and hungry, to the grounds of the Mayan ruins.
* not eating and severe heat would’ve been tolerable, had not the tourguide completely ridden my nerves. Since he was a descendant of Mayan blood, he had a lot of pride in the ruins and lots, lots to say. Instead of an intro to the buildings’ history and architecture, we were subjected to hours in the hot sun of his favorite explorers (he walked around photos of these explorers), every build and rebuild history of the pyramid, and how he had “good look” (he meant “luck,” I’m pretty sure) because his Mayan gods saw to it that he had the blood of heroes running in his veins, on and on. While we stood there, unable to go exploring, I saw other tourgroups that arrived after us start going into the buildings as the place got more and more crowded. I grew so irritated that I tuned out his incessant rambling and walked away to take photos.
* we did not get our meal until close to 4pm, which was in the outdoor cafeteria restaurant of a nearby hotel. The hotel was rustic and pretty, there were peacocks running wildly among the patrons, but the food SUCKED. It made me miss the authenticity of Taco Bell.

The people on our van were so irritated that instead of going to the underground caverns of natural springs, which was next on our list, we opted to leave early and the van driver acquiesced by taking us back to our hotels. The people on the bus were apparently in good spirits and comfortable enough to finish up the tour. I tried to sleep thru the 2.5 hr van ride back to Cancun, but the severe jolts as I was nearly thrown from my seat in all directions on the x, y and z planes made the ride very miserable.

This was when Diana and I started referring to Dreams Resort as “home.” “I wanna go home!” “Oh, it’s SO good to be home!”

I really tried to get my images going, but the image hosting program is still giving me problems. I upload the photos and it seems to take, only when I go into the list of files online, they’re never there. I still have 90% of my allotted memory left. I don’t know what’s going on. I may have to find a new image hosting site.

I haven’t been to jujitsu in 2.5 weeks. It’s nice to be back today. Everyone welcomed me and admired my tan and haircolor, and only jostled me a little bit. For example, Josh asked, “Where did you go?”
I said, “Cancun.”
“How long were you there?”
“7 days.”
“Oh, that explains why you weren’t here for like a month.”
I laughed, hit him, and explained about the family law crap at work and all the free overtime I donated to the County the week before my trip. I missed the jokes and the camaraderie in jujitsu.

The instructor announced today that we should all start saving our money for…a Hawaii trip next November! Our school originates from Hawaii, and we’re going to do a convention there with the Hawaiian branches of our school for 7 DAYS. He said 4 days are ours, we’re going to work on martial arts for only 3 of those days, and he’d get us a package deal at a great hotel 2 streets back from the beach: adjoining suites with balconies and kitchenettes for $52/nite with his connections. The workshops are gonna include (I don’t remember the names of these arts) learning stick-fighting and Polynesian hot stone massage. HOW COOL IS THAT?!?!

My parents’ 30th wedding anniversary was October 4th. When my mom gave me the date last weekend, I thought it sounded familiar. But it’s not a holiday; it’s not the birthday of anyone I know. Just now, it hit me in the shower. (Click on the link below for “more” if you’re curious.)

(more…)

Argh. I have Cancun’s Wednesday post all written and my photos selected and resized, but the image hosting website’s been having issues all day and I can’t upload the photos. Maybe I should just post the text and add photos later. Sans illustrations does make the post lose some of its flavor, tho.