cindy's world

Considering how exhausted I was yesterday, I was surprised that, as I yawned my way home late after work yesterday (I left an hour and a half later than I usually do, too), I managed to make it to jujitsu, and then when I was done there, I went to the gym. At the gym, I increased my treadmill running pace to 6mph, and did 30 minutes of hills on level 4. And then I hit the weights. It was not a good day to forget my gym towel. I was just wet during and afterwards. It was disgusting. I had to take a shower (I had my bath towel) afterwards even tho it was close to midnight when I got done, and the clothes I peeled off myself weighed probably a few pounds due to the sweat absorption. It was like, someone poured a gallon of salt on me, and I’m a snail. The small reward after the workout is that I caved and had an In-N-Out cheeseburger, animal-style. I’ve all but weeded fast food out of my life, and sodas as well, but I’ve always made an exception for In-N-Out in my head because their food is more natural and less processed than other fast food burger joints. However, the last time I had In-N-Out, it was stupidly 2 days before a gym weigh-in, and I bloated 6 lbs for the next 4-5 days and I refused to get weighed in for another week because of that.

Speaking of not drinking sodas, here’s an article about a study that links cola consumption to osteoperosis in women, courtesy James.

Today: gym at lunch and bellydancing. I’d made the commitment to my gym trainee about 45 minutes ago, and then the judge announces on the bench that if we’re not at a certain point in our trial, he’s going to keep going right into lunch to get it done. =P Oh well, we’ll both by gymming anyway, even if we’re not doing it at the same time. I’d called Dwaine yesterday to let him know about a Beverages and More sale, buy 1 bottle of wine, get the 2nd same bottle of wine for $0.05. He invited me to go wine-shopping with him today, and I’d agreed, not realizing it’s bellydancing Wednesday (the Monday holiday threw me off). Well, if we can make it back by 8 for my class, I won’t have to cancel on him.

By the way, did I mention it took me a full year to lose the stupid 10 lbs I gained last September/October? I still have to lose the 5 lbs I gained after February. Stupid metabolism. Stupid high school anorexia.

I woke up this morning feeling green. Not as in sick and nauseated, but as in unripe. I felt like a tart hard fruit not ready to be picked, not meant to face the world, but nevertheless was plucked prematurely out of bed.

I dreamt that I was doing jujitsu training in waist-deep pool water and suddenly on my left lower abdomen, I got a sharp almost-painful bloating feeling, like my left ovary just ballooned up or something. So I stopped, holding the offended area with my hands. I tried working out again and the feeling came back, so I stopped again, and I dreamt the blackbelt instructor came up to me to see what was wrong. He decided I needed to go to the emergency room, and was about to take me himself, but his girlfriend offered to take me instead. So we went back to my home, which was an apartment in the dream, to call 911 and pack some clothes. While there, I felt better so I decided to check up on my agenda. I must’ve sent the girlfriend home. My planner stated that I had a trip planned to fly to Northern Cal to hang out with friends, except it was Saturday in my dream, I’d forgotten about the trip, and presumed I’d missed my flight. I called my mother to ask if she knew when I was supposed to leave. She said I could still make it, the flight wasn’t until late. So I decided to pack some reading with me, since flipping through my planner I also discovered that I have a few novels due in a week or so as I am back in college. I was relieved to discover that I’d already read both novels before, one was an Asian American themed one, and the other was an American or British classic. I normally dream that I’m back in college and can’t find my classrooms, or I suddenly realize some huge project or reading I hadn’t done is due right that day, or that I was horribly behind in some complicated class like math because I’d failed to attend class all quarter and never cracked open the book and now the final is upon me and it’s too late to drop the class.

I’m exhausted. It’s not easy to be green.

I haven’t worked out since last Friday, so this being a long weekend, today was spent walking around at Disneyland and California Adventure, we got back in the late afternoon, and then the rest of the evening was spent Zainoing Mr. W’s car. That car looks niiiiice! A damp terrycloth bath towel slid across the hood and fell off. Of course, through the entire process, even tho I told him I’d do the whole thing myself, Mr. W kept complaining about his labors. I said, “Oh, you’ll feel better when everyone’s admiring your car at work tomorrow. And they’ll say, ‘Gosh, I wish MY wife/girlfriend gave enough of a crap to wash, detail and polish my car for me!’ And you didn’t even have to buy the products!” In the end, I asked doesn’t he have this great sense of accomplishment now with this great looking car that’s gonna end up blinding people on the freeway tomorrow? No, he said disgruntledly. He’d rather pay to have the car washed for him, and he doesn’t expect to ever do this again. I bet he’s gonna take that a car to an automated carwash and have the crap scratched out of it, even tho we just spent hours claybaring and polishing it (3 layers with Gloss Enhancer Spray in between!) with the Z5 swirl remover polish. =P Well, if he doesn’t, this polish job lasts 6 months and all he needs to do between now and then is to wash it with a mild car wash and spray a mist of Z6 anti-static sunscreen Ultra Clean Gloss Enhancer Spray on it. How hard is that?!

*Sigh* I’ll end up doing it when I wash my car, I bet.

Just got back from watching The Departed, starring Mark Wahlberg, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Alec Baldwin, Jack Nicholson. I’m still a little bit in shock.

Synopsis: The mob (i.e. Jack Nicholson) grooms a young boy (Matt Damon) into one of their own, and because the boy starts young, he was able to build his life in a double-agent way, entering the State Troopers police academy and legally became a cop, quickly promoting within its ranks thereby working on the inside and spying for the mob. The police (i.e. Alec Baldwin and Mark Wahlberg) takes one of their own (Leonardo DiCaprio) with a shady family history and has him infiltrate the mob as their informant. Add a few guns and blood and you have a fun, intense, cat and mouse and rat game. There’s even a hint of sex when the two rats schlup the same shrink.

Hot guy hubba hubba factor: pretty damn high. Shirtless and muscle-clad.

Entertainment value: great if you like violence and mafia and deception; twists in plot

Acting: pretty damn good. You really do believe the characters and stress out with them. Leonardo DiCaprio has redeemed himself out of the Titanic Guy role for me. Matt Damon is no longer the innocent underdog from Good Will Hunting.

Ending: seriously. Really? Come on. The only conceivable worse cop-out (no pun intended) ending would be if Leonardo DiCaprio suddenly wakes up in bed in a cold sweat, in his nice neat suburban home next to his beautiful wife, 2.5 kids and dog in the yard, and his wife asks, “What happened, honey?” “Oh, I just had the worse nightmare!” The End. I mean, it was like Quentin Tarantino stepped in the last 10 minutes of the direction and said, “I’ll take over from here. You guys liked Natural Born Killers and Kill Bill, right?” Tightly woven plot, clean script through a complicated situation all the way through, great smart-ass cracks, nice one-liners and suspense, and then BAM! Pulp Fiction. I dunno. Mr. W and his daughter are hoping for an alternate ending when the DVD comes out.

Not being a fan of violence or blood and gore, I watched this because I wanted to support Jennifer Aniston (and Brad Pitt, :P)’s production company, Plan b Productions, which produced this movie. At the ending, Mr. W turned to me and said, “Your girl produced this?” and laughed at me. Sigh…

Happy Moon Festival Day! Have some moon cakes. And don’t be getting greedy and popping an entire bottle of anti-gravitational vanity pills. If you do, say hi to the bunny in the moon for me!

And for Monday, Happy Columbus Day! It’s a court holiday.

And if you’re Canadian on Monday, Happy Thanksgiving!

I got 2 emails from Jordan this morning (2 on EACH ACCOUNT) all excited telling me she made some Cindy bobblehead doll and that if I don’t put it on my blog, she will (put it on hers, I mean). I haven’t seen it yet. It won’t load. So I’m gonna try it on here and see if it works from within a blog.

Despite the fact that I ditch jujitsu like it’s an ex-boyfriend or a divorce case, last nite I missed my first belly dancing class. The parking lot was so full that I had to park on the street, and then I was concerned that the crappy Nissan Sentra parked in front of me was gonna back up into my new Zainoed car while I was in class. I, along with a bunch of other belly dancing students, opened the door to the regular room where class is hosted and were surprised by the sight of various occupied banquet tables with two little girls performing violins on a stage. There was no notice given to us that there’d be no class that day, and nothing posted on the doors. I caught Vanessa in the hallway, and we decided to go to the gym instead. Not to work out, oh no, but to sit in the steam room. Both our backs were bothering us.

We sat in the steam and rubbed Epsom salt on ourselves, hung out and chatted for almost an hour. Afterwards, we drove back to my house (where she’d left her car) and she got to visit with Dodo, who was plenty happy to see his prior roommate and catnip dispenser.

My back really is feeling better today, and Vanessa had written me an email earlier saying she finally got a great night’s sleep after the steam room. It reminds me that I haven’t pampered myself in awhile, not since I tightened the purse strings after the car purchase in order to get back to my original state of finances in 3 months. Maybe it’s time to book a massage appointment. (Last night, I also restored my finances by 50%, so I’m well within the 3 months I gave myself.) I’d forgotten the importance of the occasional stress-relieving luxury.

I like being at home and hanging with the Dodo. This morning, I was singing to myself and suddenly, he was before me, meowing looking up at me. I bent down and petted him, still singing, and he wauled along. Just now, I was IMing with my childhood friend Sandy, talking about our cats the way other adults talk about their children.

Sandy: he’s [Dodo] the only cat i know that talks..
Sandy: and a lot…
Me: all cats talk.
Sandy: meowmeowmeowmeowmeow…
Sandy: very very cute…
Sandy: no Marsh is a mime
Me: I’ve heard him talk.
Sandy: barely.
Me: my cat likes to talk to me.
Me: and he sings with me, too.
Sandy: lol
Sandy: mine just looks at me like I’m stupid
Me: mine found a new corner to tuck himself away in.
Me: now he’s hanging out between the la-z-boy and the couch.
Sandy: he’s sleepy.. cat nap time
Me: wonder when he started doing htat.
Sandy: well.. he knows where it’s comfortalbe
Me: it is a cozy little corner.

I turned and watched my little furry boy affectionately.

Me: he’s dreaming.
Me: his paw’s twitching.
Sandy: lol.. how cute
Me: he looks like he’s doing calculations on an abacus.
Sandy: LOL…
Sandy: only you will say he’s doing colculations on an abacus
Sandy: i’d say.. he’s chasing a mouse?
Me: oh, haha.
Me: that’s true.

I heard some information through the grapevine about my ex, and I didn’t know whether to react with laughter or sadness or scorn or what. Because it’s just so sad and pathetic. The only emotional response I have for sure, is gladness that I’d made the right choice by leaving the relationship. Pat on the back, Cindy, you did right by yourself. I guess I’m always more glad than upset to hear affirmation, just in case I ever think, “Did I make the right decision?” I know I did.

Speaking of rats, I sooooo want this. It’s a hamster in a hamster wheel that plugs into your computer USB port and the faster you type, the faster the little guy runs. So while I’m sitting here at work running the rat race, my little hamster’s wheel will fan me. Since I type pretty fast. I’d wanted this, until I saw the price tag. YIKES!

Speaking of hamsters running in wheels, my coworker Sandy had once said to me that when I’m in thought, sometimes she could actually see the little mouse running on the wheel in my brain, except that unlike other people’s mental mice, mine runs faster, and there are 3 of them, and they’re all running in different directions.

The hose was turned on at 5:15p. We washed with Dawn and dried, stripped the entire car by hand with claybar (I dropped my claybar on the driveway already and had to toss it :(), washed off the claybar residue with the Zaino carwash. It was 6pm at that time. Not bad. Now for the polish. 2 ounces of Z2 polish, 5 drops of ZFX accelerator, shake shake shake. The application wasn’t too bad, but it was getting dark outside. After we waited 30 minutes for the first coat of polish to dry, it was dark enough that we couldn’t tell how much wax we were removing. The second layer of polish would have to be applied in the garage. But first we sprayed on and wiped off some Z7, which is supposed to deepen the shine in between coats of polish, and repel dust and has SPF 40 sunscreen (stronger than the stuff I put on my flesh). Then James moved both Mercedes (Mercedi?) out of the garage and I parked my little Lexus in there so we could see in the light. (I felt bad that the Mercedeses were in the street getting sprinkled on with the neighbors’ sprinklers while my car was being primped in the garage.) We actually ran out of mixed polish and had to mix another batch. With the 2nd coat of polish applied, we went out for sushi while it dried. It was my small payment for his slave labor. Then we came back and removed the polish, and it was still too dark to see detail on the side of the car. I had to use a flashlight. However, at one point James tossed a towel on the hood of the car and it glided across the hood like figure skaters on ice. I couldn’t even lean on the car with a towel because I’d slip right off. We finished off with the Z7 spray, James did my tires and windows and we were done at, oh, 10:30p. So of course I opted to skip the 3rd coat of polish. “And you’ll have to do this again twice a year,” he said. I really don’t know at this point whether I would.

I’d forgotten my camera. James ran in and got his, however, and took a few “before” shots. The “after” shots were probably bad, since it was pitch dark by then and altho the flash went off, he said the photos didn’t come out. I’ll tell ya where the camera DID come in handy. There’s no light that comes on in my trunk when I open it, but there is a light switch on the inside. James said, “You have to manually turn the light on every time? That’s weird.” But the light doesn’t turn off on its own when I close the trunk. We bent our heads down and I slowly closed the trunk with the light on. The light was still on…still on…still on… And then James said, “Oh, I know how we can tell if the light turns off!” He put his camera on video record mode, put it in my trunk facing up to the light. I closed the trunk. I opened the trunk. He pulled the camera out and we eagerly watched the playback. You hear him say, “Here we go. Okay, close it,” you hear him laughing at my saying how overtechnologized we are in this generation, you hear a thunk as the trunk closes and the light goes dark. “Oh! It DOES turn off!” we said. “There you go,” said James proudly. And I was gonna do it the prehistoric way, of opening the slot between the trunk and the back seat so I could look in from the back seat with the trunk closed.

This morning I touched up around my car with the garage door up cuz I can now see the water trickle marks at the usual places around the door corners, and lemme tell ya, mirror effect! I totally saw my reflection in the car. I still haven’t seen my car in sunlight, since when I’m driving I can’t see the outside, and then I parked in the structure so it’s shady, but I can’t wait! “You’re gonna be one of those people that are like, ‘DON’T TOUCH MY CAR! YOU’RE GONNA LEAVE FINGERPRINTS!’ ” James said. I think he’s right.

Oh, and the weather reports say rain tomorrow and Thursday. Of course. But I get to see how the beading effect works!

How long is this post on washing my car?! I said to James mid-project yesterday that I felt like such a loser for spending this many hours on a car in the evening, but that I felt better when I realized James is spending the same number of hours on a car, and it’s not even his car! HAHAHA! What a good friend.

Oh my gawd! Embedded videos work! Now you can see and hear our idiocy!