cindy's world

I got thrown into a pretty busy courtroom for this week since my judge is on vacation (altho he did come in today, in a Hawaii shirt and jeans, to throw more work at me, I relate affectionately) and I’m still at work now!

Okay. Let’s see. What’d I do this weekend?

Friday – I don’t remember. Maybe we watched a DVD movie or something.
Saturday – In the morning, Mr. W repaired bike tires as I washed my car. Then in the afternoon, we met up with my gym trainee and her 10 year old son at Santa Monica Pier, where we rode our bikes down to Venice Beach, parked them, then strolled the street faire that’s always going on. I bought a 1.5ft-long hand-carved wooden (black rosewood) dragon for my parents for xmas, $175. We had dinner at a Mexican food restaurant on the pier, then separated. Mr. W and I wasted some time hanging out in the sand on a blanket in the thick fog before we left for home. Man, the fog rolled in suddenly! It was freezing and we couldn’t even see the water. Oh, and my crotch hurts. From the bike seat, pervies!!!
Sunday – Mr. W and I visited my parents, my mom steamed crabs, we ate like kings and queens. And then Mr. W and I went to Disneyland to stroll around and look at the Christmas decorations. We were there almost 3 hours and all we did was walk around and ride the train around the park once, and then rode Storybook Land on water once. “You want an exciting time at Disneyland, you come with ME!” Mr. W announced.

Okay, time to go home and do laundry. I suppose I oughta clean the house, too. This is all in preparation to go to Vegas for Thanksgiving to hang with Mr. W’s family. Hey, maybe I’ll run into Flat Coke & Flies there while she’s doing the Amandapalooza thing.

Studies have shown that pets elevate quality of life and even lengthen life spans of terminally ill people. Well. In the case of my fluffy puff feline Dodo, that certainly is true.

A very little-known fact about my Dodo is that eons ago, many many past lives prior, Dodo and I lived in the Amazon and he was my battle cat. We were very close, and he’d warded off countless predators to protect me. Jungle cats are also great for keeping one warm while napping on the cool moss. (Besides, we women wore so little back then so as not to let our pelts and straps get in the way of battling and acquiring man-slaves.) As an incarnated domestic feline today, Dodo exhibits very little of his old stealth, lithe aggressive characteristics. But this morning…

Dodo was hanging out in the bathroom with me as I was getting ready, as usual. We were c0nversing casually about the merits of Zhang Guoqing’s belief that the Democratic party will protect the interests of small and medium American enterprises and labor that could produce an impact on China-U.S. trade relations, when suddenly, Dodo shifted his entire focus away from me and toward the far end of the bathroom. In exactly 0.014323 seconds, his body went from lazily reposed on my left foot, to stiff bee-line toward the corner where the tub meets the wall. I didn’t have my glasses on yet, so I didn’t know what was there.

In battle cat mode, tail high in the air with no curl on the tip to signify playfulness, Dodo let out a deep-throated “WOWL!” and shoved his cone into the wall, trapping the enemy into a face-to-face brawl with his own face. He backed away just half a step at one point to introduce the villain to a stomp with his paw. “WOW” he roared again, following some gray fuzzy (because I can’t focus) winged demon in flight across the length of the bathroom, disappearing behind the toilet. Dodo guarded this toilet, eyes unblinking, tail swishing widely left to right and right to left. His fur stood on end, making him look even bigger and more aggressive. Feeling comfortable that my safety is protected by my cat, I stepped into the tub for my shower.

From within the shower I heard scurries and battle yowls and saw dashes of shadows through the hazed glass. (Okay fine, it’s plastic.) When I finally emerged and put my contact lenses in, I stepped carefully toward the bathroom door and saw the demon that Dodo had risked his life to shield me from, and indeed, this cat proved again how well he knew my weaknesses. On the wall was the biggest grossest blood-sucking mosquito I had seen out of the tropics!!!

I stumbled backwards a few steps in my horror, raising my hands to my face, stifling a scream. The scars from my last battle with the mosquito breed still dapple my body, and the taste of Benadryl, the smell of ointment on swollen bumps the size of tennis balls still linger on my senses, as if it were only last week that I’d been brutally attacked and my blood sucked by these vampiric insects at the Polynesian Culture Center in Hawaii without my battle cat there to protect me.

I was standing in the shower this morning sudsing up, and then I suddenly found myself staring at the bar of soap in my hand with awe.

Bar soap is so neato. It’s this wad of semi-solid stuff that, with just a little water, lathers up into bubbles that cleanse you, and then the slippery bubbly film just simply rinses clean away. And the bar doesn’t dissolve completely, only what you need, which you get by rubbing the bar on your skin, and the bar’s so smooth that this rubbing doesn’t even hurt! When you’re done with it for the day (or half-day, depending on your hygiene habits), you simply put the bar aside and it’ll dry off and resolidify, all by itself. You can leave it there, exposed for days, and it doesn’t evaporate, doesn’t harden into something unuseable next time. Plus it smells good, too!

I wish I could’ve seen people’s faces and heard their impressed comments at the advent of bar soap. “You mean we don’t have to bring a rock with us to pound soaproot anymore for some suds? YAY!”

Today, I heard something about a friend posting some disciplinary slip on his office door. His own office door. So I asked him about it. Turned out that it’s his son’s disciplinary note sent home. I asked him what happened. He said his son got in trouble for repeatedly punching some other kid in school.
“Already?! Isn’t your kid, like, 4? 3?”
“He’s two and a half,” my friend said. “And not just punching. He was also yelling out ‘Fuck you!’ ”
Gosh. And I thought parents only displayed artwork or high-grade test papers from their kids at work. And those things, even kiss-butt things like “I LiK my Dad becaus” lists that teachers make kids write, are at some discreet place like on a low wall next to a desk, not on the office door, for gosh sakes.
The proud dad pointed out, “But the teacher was very impressed that he had the coordination to punch this kid out at his age, and he did pronounce ‘Fuck you’ correctly AND use it in the proper context. He’s very advanced.”
I laughed because I thought I was supposed to.

Thanks to the friend who gave me permission to post this proud moment publicly.

As a reminder for those of you who’d expressed interest in participating in the 2nd Disneyland Half Marathon/10K/5K, registration for next year’s event opens today. (California’s Disneyland, to be more clear.)

As for myself, I’m undecided as to whether I want to put myself through that again. The toenail is still missing. At least, I think it’s still missing. I seem to have developed a very thin but hard layer of something over the nail bed. I always thought nails grow from the bottom cuticle up. Do they really grow from the topmost surface of the skin out?

Huh. It seems that in finding you guys the link to register, I saw that they postponed registration to January, 2007. Consider yourselves just temporarily off the hook. *pointing at YOU*

2007 Disneyland Run registration info

*Warning: Raunchy, Unladylike, Crass Post Ahead*

Today, an ex-DA returned to our courthouse for a hearing on his case, so he thought he’d visit his old courthouse coworkers and get as many people together as possible for lunch. Lunch turned out to be 6 DAs and me. I’ve always enjoyed these DAs’ company, however, because it frees me to put on my bar hat, which is a persona I haven’t worn for a long time. And they seem to accept me for it, and everyone gets a good laugh, no one gets offended at my lack of political correctness. I got to do stuff like this:

DA next to me on cell phone: …It’s definitely brown.
Me: [looking at 2 DAs across from me, who heard the conversation the same time I did because our conversation had just died down when the DA next to me spoke] But with some yellow specks. Yeah, it’s definitely corn.

And then it just went downhill from there, something about stored corn poopies in 25 baby food jars, referencing a story the phone DA told earlier about finding himself in line at the store with 25 tiny baby food jars and a Playstation game.

Or the conversation about one of these DAs’ current trial in another department. I told them I was coming up the elevator with a cup of yogurt in my hand this morning for breakfast, and a court reporter was saying something about her trial. Another reporter said, “Oh, is that the yeast trial?” I said, “Yeast?” thinking it’s a civil lawsuit over product liability and bad bread yeast that didn’t rise or something. The reporters said, “Yes. And it’s the bad kind of yeast, too.” I said, “Oh. Ew!” They confirmed my thoughts with, “Uh-huh.” I looked at my yogurt and suddenly didn’t want it anymore. So at lunch, I asked which one of these DAs have the “yeast trial.” Turned out it’s one of my favorite female DAs, and I asked her what the trial’s about.

Apparently a woman has bruising and rips in and around her vagina and they’re alleging assault, or rather, forced digital penetration, by the male defendant. There are actually photos of this woman’s nether-regions as exhibits. I asked where the yeast comes in. And then the DA said that the defense theory is that the woman did it to herself. She said the alleged victim is about 250 lbs at a height of 5’1″, and the defense says she had a vaginal yeast infection at the time of the alleged crime and the itchiness must’ve made her scratch herself down there so hard that she caused some damage.
I said hesitantly, “Well, large women’s fat folds tend to prevent evaporation so it’s moister down there for ideal yeast cultivating conditions –”
The DA said, “That’s exactly what the defense’s expert witness nurse said. But I argued that to scratch that hard to cause that kind of damage would be like a guy having some jock itch that makes him scratch so hard that he rips off bits and pieces of skin. It’s just not very probable that you could itch that bad.”
The phone DA said, “As we all know from our own itching experiences.”
I followed, “Well. The last time I had crabs…” and had to reassure two of them that I was really just kidding. They laughed, and in the post-laughter silence, I said, “So who ordered bleu cheese?” Everyone did the “Eww!” thing while laughing and exclaimed that they were not going to be able to eat the food when it gets to the table. One proudly touted his decision to have his salad dressing on the side.

I had to run out on them early since I was in trial and had to get back, and it wasn’t until I had said my goodbyes and gone back to my car that I saw I had the guest ex-DA’s suit jacket in my car. I ran it back into the restaurant and as I put it on the back of his chair, I said, “When you strip in someone’s car, you have to make sure to remove all the evidence.” Everyone laughed and he topped me with, “Oh, I thought I’d just pick that up from you tonight.”

Good stuff.

I think I’m burned out on my rec classes. I started jujitsu in late June last year, and then belly dancing 2 semesters ago. This year, on a good week I’ve been attending about half the jujitsu I used to, and this last semester I’ve attended 5 out of 8 belly dancing classes. I don’t even feel bad about ditching, despite the fact that the belly dancing is a paid class. I really thought that after returning from Hawaii, I’d be much better about attending jujitsu, especially after noticing in the clinics how behind I am in skills and familiarity with some basic moves and arm bars. Jujitsu started back up this past Monday, and I haven’t been to one class. I also bought some belly dancing hip scarves (colorful gauze triangular scarves you tie around your hips decked out in bells and little coins that jingle when you move) in Hawaii, not realizing until last night that belly dancing ended last Wednesday, a day I’d ditched.

I also only went to the gym for the first time in almost 3 weeks yesterday at lunch, but only because all other lunch options fell through. The weights punished me for neglecting them for so long, and my triceps and quads are appropriately sore today. My abs aren’t, though.

Mr. W agreed with me that I appear to be burned out already and these classes have lost their value to me. “But you only took those classes to take up time anyway, and how you have me!” he said happily, curling his arms around me.

I can’t help thinking, tho, that I need to find something physical to do on a regular basis, even if it means switching genres (altho I’m not going back to the crazy yoga instructor Mr. W and I went to earlier in the year again, either). Besides, Mr. W needs his “alone” time to be a gamer. I don’t know what to do next. Maybe take up hip hop again? Or maybe I’ll try a different belly dancing instructor, one that some coworkers go to, since they’d been trying to talk me into that class for some time and now I have jingling hip scarves.

Or MAYBE I’ll take something easy, like ESL. I can pretend to be a total English dunce, fake an accent, and then be the most improved student at the end of the semester. That’ll be good for all the foreigners’ self-esteem. It’ll give them a raised bar to work toward. We’ll call it public service.

I just checked my email, and it turns out that Wilco had lightened up and fixed my bed photos and emailed them back to me, along with a note that says he hates to see photos go to waste. That’s so nice! And maybe this version will be less creepy for Jordan’s taste.

See original bed post (har har) here.

I love my friends. I think I have hand-picked a wonderful group of people who have proven their quality and worth to me, and their existence in my life enriches my own existence. They subsidize me when I have shortcomings, they set me straight when I’m off-balance, they give me emotional, intellectual and psychological support. They’re great company, and they’re a mixed company. Which leads me to some thoughts bouncing in the back of my head.

Teenagers and young people today have platonic friends of both genders. There are things one gender gives you that the other gender doesn’t, and sometimes the best minds and compatibility happens to be in a person of the opposite gender. And it’s totally acceptable these days. Looking one generation up, however, I see that my parents have “their” friends they hang out with in a married group, and of course that’s co-ed. But my mother does not have men that are exclusively “her” friends and not my dad’s, and my dad doesn’t just go out and do lunch with some chick he says is his friend. In fact, if I were to come home one day (we good little Asian kids still refer to the parents’ house as “home” whether we live there or not) and my dad’s home alone, telling me that she’s out having dinner with Mr. So-and-so, I’d be extremely uncomfortable. I’d have awful pictures in my head of my mom at some white table-cloth date with some sleezy man determined to undermine my father’s place in my mother’s life. I’d want to drive out there and glare at them. And I’d hate the man, no matter who he is. But first and foremost, I’d shake my dad until his glasses fell off for letting his wife go out to dinner with another man. Luckily, this has never happened. The few times my parents weren’t together due to a social reason, it was because my mom was out with her coworkers (all female) for their monthly gaggle, or my dad was out fishing with his fishing buddies (all family friends).

Now I turn to myself. I’m 30. That’s a grown-up! Sure, I’ve never been married and I have no kids, so I still categorize myself as a single person with single person habits and lifestyle and friends. I can be a little irresponsible and go out late, and have tons of friends. But is this supposed to be given up if I enter the next stage of life? If I got married, would it be no longer appropriate to accept Dwaine’s spontaneous invitations to go wine-shopping with him, or to go on an impromptu run after jujitsu with other dojo-mates, or to grab a drink or bite with James after we wash our cars and work out at the gym?

Or is the difference that my parents have entered this country as an established married couple, so all friends they have, they met together, whereas I grew up here so I had plentiful time to establish long-term bonds and friendships as an individual?

Running these self-induced guilty thoughts by Mr. W, he waves the whole thing off simply with, “Well, I trust you and your judgments. If you had inappropriate feelings about these ‘friends’ that’d be a different story.” I think one saving grace about my male buddies is that they have always only been just that — buddies. I am not in regular contact with men I’ve had a dating or non-platonic relationship with. I think that’s unnecessary stress on the relationship to have my significant other think, “She found him attractive before, and they gave in to temptation before, how do I know it won’t happen again?” But I am on civil enough terms with my 5-year relationship ex so that if we needed information or something, we can call the other and they’d help (Gary, for example, gave me the connections for my recent car purchase), and he’d called me for some legal guidance a few months ago, too. Although we don’t communicate on a regular basis and we don’t make plans to see each other, I think that it’s pretty cool how we are.

There’s something about schizophrenic Southern California weather that would wake me up with Christmas memories and, five hours later, have me running around the city in a 5K in 85 degree sun wishing for shade.

The run (with Mr. W, who’d called and invited me on his regular noontime run course) felt good, though. The breeze, at least, was cool. I hadn’t run outdoors since the Disneyland Half-Marathon in mid-September. In leaving work in my running clothes, my gym trainee (who’d laughed at me when I invited her to come jogging) drove by on her way to the gym, rolled down her window, and yelled out the car, “Call me if you need a ride! I’ll have my cell phone!”