cindy's world

Got this as an email forward. It’s good to see that I’ve been living the life of a dog and I didn’t even know it.

~ * ~

If a dog was the teacher you would learn stuff like:

When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.
Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride.
Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstasy.
When it’s in your best interest, practice obedience.
Let others know when they’ve invaded your territory.
Take naps.
Stretch before rising.
Run, romp, and play daily.
Thrive on attention and let people touch you.
Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.
On warm days, stop to lie on your back in the grass.
On hot days, drink lots of water and lie under a shady tree.
When you’re happy, dance around and wag your entire body.
No matter how often you’re scolded, don’t buy into the guilt thing and pout … run right back and make friends.
Delight in the simple joy of a long walk.
Eat with gusto and enthusiasm. Stop when you have had enough.
Be loyal. Never pretend to be something you’re not.
If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.
When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by and nuzzle them gently.

Self-reflection:

I’m posting this with the express written consent of Vanessa. She finds herself at a 4-path crossroads with regards to her next stage in life. She asked her spirit guides for guidance. I did not inquire as to how she made contact with her guides, but Vanessa has her ways. Their response to her discouraged her. It was, “be true and loyal to that which you believe.” Vanessa’s reaction: “WTF? I was like HELLO I am asking you for advice and you don’t tell me anything else but that???”

Before she told me all this, she told me her path possibilities and asked for my feedback. All of her paths involved some pretty hefty uprooting of her lifestyle now. I advised her to not choose one of these options now, but to explore all of them before committing to any of them. Go to the locations and check ’em out before deciding whether to dump yourself there indefinitely, so to speak. And when she told me about her advice from Beyond, I felt it was not inappropriate or irrelevant advice, it was just a little ahead of her. I believe that if you go for an informed decision, then whatever path you choose will be the right one. That’s what they’re telling her. “The key here is for you to have conviction for the path that you BELIEVE in. That means you have to first establish a sense of conviction to HAVE a belief. They didn’t say ‘be true and loyal to that which you randomly stumble upon with a toss of a coin.’ They said BELIEVE. All I’m doing is giving you an idea for how to arrive on something that you’d believe in.”

Vanessa said she had been hoping to have a more directive answer from them, like “pick this and then do that.” I don’t think they’re supposed to tell you to do a and b and c, or life would be their puppetshow and we won’t learn anything. It’s not free will if we do things cuz “my spirit guide told me to.” She felt that at confusing times like this, tho, she wished the answers would be clearer to make things easier for her. So here’s my theory on that.

The reason we’re not more closely connected to the Other Side is because we’re supposed to be here to learn from our experiences, and the only way to do that is to see what happens when we act in a certain way. If we already know exactly what would happen, this incarnation’s pretty useless. Sure it’d be “easier” if we’re given a map (at least one we can access consciously), but the opportunities for the largest personal growth ARE these difficult spots. You are called upon to pull out every resource you’ve collected in your experience this life — be it your own past experiences, your friends, your intellect, your understanding of human nature, your ability to do research — to make an educated gamble about some aspect of your life. Not that it’s really a test to see if you were paying attention throughout your life, but this is a chance for you to USE the skills you’ve gone thru so much, decades’ worth of acquisition, to collect! And after you emerge from this rough experience, you’ve now gained MORE knowledge, experience, tools for you to use in bigger, harder tasks in the future. Cool, huh?

I think life’s sort of like an adventure/rpg video game.

On the opposite side of the coin, toward the end of the email discussion with Vanessa, I got an email from a “California genius” that got me heavily involved in a discussion about someone else’s inability to take or even acknowledge the myriad possible paths in life, opting instead, it appears, to play the safe if unfulfilling role.

This makes me wonder if my spirit guide is trying to tell me something, or at least get me to think about something that Mr. W’s been trying to get me to think about, i.e. settling for complacency and letting my own dreams slip through my fingers.

I was walking down the hallway toward the elevator at lunchtime, looking at the package label of a protein bar I’d just purchased. I was shocked to see it had 320 calories in it. That’s a lot for a stupid protein bar! I heard a male voice in front of me. “Hey! It’s my favorite clerk!”
I looked up to see a friendly bailiff walking toward me. “320 calories in this little thing!” I exclaimed, shaking the bar at him. “WHY is this thing so high in calories?!”
He stopped and said, “That’s all you have to say to me? Is calorie talk? I don’t want to talk about excessive calories. We haveta figure out a way to put calories ON you.”
“NO we don’t!”
“Yeah we do, you girls these days are getting too skinny.”
“NO I’m not!”
He started backpaddling as he realized he just called me too skinny in a way that meant too skinny is not attractive. “Well, not gain fat overall, but just in selected places to be curvy.”
“Which places are you saying I need more padding on?!” I demanded.
“Uh, it’s just that…some girls these days don’t have a butt cuz they’re too skinny, they lose their butt–”
“I have a butt!!”
“Yeah, uh, I mean…”

The elevator dinged and for some reason he didn’t get on it with me, turning instead to go into the restroom with a see-ya-later. Something I said?

I’m on my old desktop, the one I’ve had since college, and lookie lookie what I found! Old stuff! It’s like, Cindy in another life! Rest mouse pointer over photos for captions, like always.

It all started here…

And then she pulled this out of her bag o’ tricks (aka uterus):

And they thought it’d be funny to dress me up like some China communist baby:

21 years later, the Commie Baby grew into this herre:


Funny thing is, hanging out with the Northern Cal folks this weekend, I was telling them about this photo shoot, in the short black leather dress and go-go boots. And here’s the photos! Well, very few of ’em. I don’t know why the photos on the left are stretched out. It’s supposed to look like this:

And here’s a ring I designed when I was in college:

Found another photo of me with long hair. This is from when Brad and Val visited me at work in August, 2005. It’s not a very flattering picture of me at all, but I like the way my hair looked.

Think I’ll give this short hair one more cut, highlight, and then let it grow out. Or maybe I won’t color it and I’ll let it grow out now until I trim all the old color off and have my natural dark dark color going. It’s been a long time since I’ve had my natural hair color.

Mr. W is still playing Zelda, I’m still fixing photos on my blog. Neither of us work on Monday, it’s, like, President’s Day or something.

I had so much fun today! After lots of experimental private time this morning, Mr. W and I drove out to The Pike in Long Beach and met up with 4 of the Northern Cal people who had come down to attend their friend’s wedding: Mike”Wilco“, his fiance Christi, Greg, and his fiance Cheryl. We had Japanese food at a sushi/teppan restaurant, and I don’t remember the restaurant’s name, but I’m pretty sure Mike took a photo of it on our way in. The table conversation was funny and entertaining. Jimmy and his fiance Sabrina were at another beach some cities away and offered to bike to us after they finish lunch, but Long Beach was too far and they had a flight to catch, so I missed them this trip. I told Mr. W that if Jimmy and Sabrina had met up with us, it would’ve been 3 newly engaged couples and us. He said, “And if we were engaged, it’d be 4 engaged couples!” “But we’re not,” I said. I don’t know why I burst bubbles like that. I should just smile and nod along. I made Mike take a group photo of us at the edge of the pier, “so I can post it on my blog.” It’s all about pleasing the readership. Mike made fun of my dedication to blogging, I may have said something derogatory about the fact that he blogs so rarely now, and the conversation somehow led to his threatening to delete my entire blog. Blog administrators have waaaay too much power, I think. After the group photos were taken, he walked ahead of me, throwing over his shoulder, “I’ll send these photos to you the next time I blog.” “HEY!!” I protested, cuz that could mean I wouldn’t see it for weeks. Heh. All in good fun, tho.

In the evening, Mr. W and I attended my aunt Jessica’s New Year’s Day dinner at her house. Aside from my aunt and uncle, my parents and us, my cousin Diana was there with her boyfriend Doug, and they brought Diana’s dog, a perky happy Jack Russell terrier named Mr. Burns. For a large part of the evening, the dog was on my lap napping. Dinner was delicious — broiled lamb chops, braised oxtail, creamed broccoli soup, steamed cabbage and snap pea salad, mixed brown and white rice flavored with chicken broth, with dessert fruit chocolate fondue. Because Doug, my dad, and I (to an extent) are all clowns, dinner was a lot of fun, too. It was nice to see my cousin and her boyfriend again after almost a year. It’s funny, they’re like 10 minutes away from Mr. W’s house where I’m at a lot, but we never make plans to hang out when I’m there. Instead, we used to make plans when I’d drive all the way down to Irvine from home.

Right now, things have settled down again. I’m blogging on Mr. W’s laptop drinking tea, Mr. W is playing Legend of Zelda on my Nintendo GameCube, also drinking tea.

Oh, I just remembered. Christi and Mike said they were probably gonna do post-wedding activities in Hawaii instead of pre-wedding activities, so they’re going to be staying in Hawaii after the week of their wedding, as opposed to before. That’s perfect, cuz that’s the week I’m gonna be able to have off! Christi’s reasoning was logical. She didn’t want to have to worry about being sunburnt, scraped or bruised from scuba diving/hiking/island sports for her wedding day, so the fun should be after the ceremony. Yay!

Since it’s almost 10pm here, on the East Coast it’s already now the Year of the Boar. Bye-bye, Year of the Doggie! Tonite Mr. W and I met up with my parents at my maternal grandmother’s house for New Year’s Dinner. My grandma was all excited to host the dinner, and made a ton of dishes. Mr. W ate all the Chinese food like a Chinese person. My grandma was a bit concerned at first that he wouldn’t eat some of the dishes, like the red-roasted pork knuckles. My parents told my grandmother proudly in Chinese that Mr. W is game to try anything, and that he’s easy to feed. The only thing Mr. W won’t try is the Taiwanese “stinky tofu,” and the dried anchovie snacks.

After dinner, we sat around and talked about Chinese New Year traditions. Like how kids were allowed and encouraged to stay up late on New Year’s Eve (tonite) because superstition has it that the longer the kid stays awake that night, the longer life the parents will have. Parents give the kids new clothes so that on the 1st day of the new year, they wear new for new. The first person to fire off firecrackers in the new year also brings prosperity into his house, so they watch the clock for midnight. As soon as midnight tolls, everyone runs outside and lights firecrackers, and the sound can be heard everywhere in Asia at approximately the same time. The lower generation people (kids and unmarried young adults) also get red envelopes of money from the older generations; you go up and wish the elders a happy, healthy and prosperous new year, and they reward you by handing you an envelope. The envelope is to contain new uncirculated money, which you’re supposed to tuck in your pillowcase that night and sleep on it for 15 nights to bring in wealth for the new year. My mom gave both me and Mr. W a red envelope, like we’re kidlets (to borrow Jordan’s word, which I really like). Mr. W placed his in his pillowcase, and I was about to do the same, and then I stopped and said, “Hey, wait a minute…does it even count cuz this isn’t really MY pillowcase?” He said, “Oh well, if it brings in money to my house, I’ll turn it over to you.” I said, “Okay!” and tucked it in the pillowcase. My dad told us about another tradition for New Year’s Day. People don’t eat heated food, they have cold dishes all day and/or eat the leftovers from the feast of the night before. There are different folklores for this, one of which is that the god of the stoves and fires, who resides with the family, flies off to heaven that day to report back to the big god(s) on your family’s behavior, and you send him off nicely asking him to please bring positive information to the heavens on behalf of your family. “But what does that have to do with not cooking that day?” I asked my dad.
“Because the Chinese believe there are gods for everything, and the god for the fire and stove is away in heaven reporting about your family.”
“So then why can’t you cook?” I asked.
“Because the family wants him to say good things for them when he reports.”
“But WHY can’t you cook? I don’t get the connection,” I insisted.
My mom butted in. “He doesn’t know,” she said. She turned to her mother, my grandmother. “Why do we have to eat cold dishes on the first day of the new year?”
My grandmother waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t ask me about lore, I don’t know a thing about any of that stuff.”
Dad said, “When China was in war, the emperor was also out fighting, and at one point the army was losing and they were freezing and starving. The army cook had no food to cook, so he sacrificed and cut off some meat from his own thigh to make into a dish for the emperor, so that the emperor wouldn’t starve to death. They eventually won, and afterwards the emperor found out what the cook did for him. He was so grateful that he made the cook a general and gave him an army to command. So New Year’s Day, people don’t eat hot food, to remember what he did for the emperor, in honor of that cook. So they don’t cook.”
Here’s my reaction: “… WHAT??? What does that have to do with the stove gods going to heaven to report your family?”
Dad said, “I”m just telling you a different story, a different legend, for the same activity.”
“Oh.”

Aside from all the Chinese traditions, I was trying to remember the story of the New Year itself, and I couldn’t. Despite the fact that I had written a screenplay around it in high school and acted it out. It had something to do with some monster or dragon invading a China village, eating its youth. Something about how it killed and ate an old woman’s only son, and she cried about it so hard in the street that an old bum stopped by and wanted to know what was going on with her, and he gave her some magical advice on how to kill the dragon when it came back that night for her or something. And something about wearing red to confuse or distract the dragon, or maybe it can’t see red or something. Something about making dumplings, the chopping sound scaring the dragon, and the firecrackers scaring off the dragon or something like that. Uh…and that’s why today we eat dumplings and light firecrackers. Uh, yeah.

Okay, I’m a disgrace.

I’ve been missing my long hair. Remember these photos?

My hair now’s finally just long enough to tie up in a ponytail so that my neck and face can breathe at the gym, and for some reason it seems to be growing excruciatingly slowly this time. I miss my long hair, cuz it’s so much lower maintenance. But today, Mr. W bought some hair dye for himself (he likes to play with hair color), and in the dye aisle, I remembered all the stuff I used to do to my own hair with these products. I wanna play, too! I want to highlight it again, but in order for that to look the way I want, I need to cut my hair another 2 inches. Oh, what to do? I think I’m gonna cut it again. Hopefully it’ll be long enough to tie back in time for Mike & Christi’s Hawaii wedding. I don’t wanna snorkel and swim with hair floating all around my mask.

I *just* got the vacation schedule!! I’ve been steadily falling in seniority since the day I got here, since everyone they transfer over has high seniority. I think it’s so unfair to pick vacation in order of County seniority; it should be position seniority. Cuz brand new baby clerks who are supposed to be MY relief clerks are picking vacation ahead of me, so that I’m still shackled to my desk while THEY’RE going on vacation, just because they started working for the County as, like, a janitor in 1960! Seriously, #1 on the seniority list started in 1968. And a new clerk who JUST transferred here this month and plopped on #2 in seniority has taken 11 WEEKS of vacation for this coming year. There’s virtually nothing left for the rest of us!

Luckily, I’ve got 2 other clerks who have been kind enough to ask what days I need off for Mike and Christi’s wedding, and they’ve taken it for me, expecting to drop it so that as long as I’m on the wait list, I’m gonna get it. And I’m #1 on the wait list for those weeks! Yay! And the weeks for China just happen to be open, too.

Ass was the theme around lunchtime today. I felt the soreness in my butt all too distinctly when I got up to walk to my car at lunch. I was, however, comforted by the fact that the pain was equally distributed between the two butt cheeks. That means I did my workout properly yesterday. Driving to the gym minutes later, Sir Mixalot’s “Baby Got Back” came on the radio. A huge smile appeared on my face and I involuntarily started wriggling my butt to the music in my car. It was like driving around back in high school! Except with a much better sound system in the car, and a more painful butt.

“So fellas (YEAH!), fellas (YEAH!),
Do your girlfriends have the butt? (TELL ME!)
So shake it, shake it, shake that healthy butt,
Baby got back!”

I had to make some training and membership inquiries of the sales guy for Vanessa, so after finding him, I sat down at the desk with him for about 10 minutes as he explained the newest packages to me. He mentioned that one of the girls at the gym right now has a bet with him to see who can lose the most body fat percentage by the end of March, and that when she’d come by earlier, he’d deviously offered her chocolate, which she refused. He said he walked by where she was doing bicep curls with her trainer, and he joked, “Forget the biceps, work her out on her glutes!” She’d retorted, “Don’t worry about my butt when you oughta worry about your gut!”

Since I was late getting to the gym and made even later by talking to the sales guy, there was 20 minutes left before my usual time to leave the gym when I stood up from the sales table. I briefly considered just turning around and going back to work, but I couldn’t do it. I haven’t missed one noontime workout since I came back on Wednesday, and add to that one belly dancing session last nite. So I changed as fast as I could and did 30 minutes on the elliptical trainer, making myself so late that I sacrificed my after-workout shower. Oh well. If someone can smell me, they’re too close in my personal space anyway.

My sore ass nipped me every hurried step from the parking structure back into the courtroom.