I had a very decent weekend, and was satisfied with it when I returned to work this morning, except for one little point.
“Am I gonna see you at the gym?” my gym trainee asked when I ran into her by the elevator this morning.
“Yes,” I sighed, “I gained 3 pounds this weekend.”
“Three pounds! Doing what?”
“Nothing!!” Yup, that’s exactly it. I had a lazy long weekend and am paying for it in weight. It turned out Mr. W had wanted to go to the gym every morning this weekend, but fought the urge back because he was “trying not to be obsessive about working out.” To my detriment, unfortunately, because I’m currently lacking the motivation to go on my own.

Each morning of the weekend started at Mr. W’s pool. We spent about 40 minutes in the mornings going from hot jacuzzi to cool pool to hot jacuzzi to drying off laying on the poolside loungers. The result of this is that I am now a nice toasty brown (Asian genes) and Mr. W is nice cooked-lobster red (German-Polish genes). I went up 2 shades in makeup foundation and am back to my college color, from the days I’d walked 20 minutes in the sun to my first class at UCLA.

Saturday in the late afternoon, Mr. W and I went to my parents’ house to give them a CD of the Best Of photos we took in China. We had plans to go play Bingo with Vicky and her boyfriend that evening, but Vicky’s boyfriend flaked, and then we flaked. (Sorry, Vicky! Raincheck.) My aunt and her Persian-Italian buddy dropped by my parents’ house and said they were on their way to a Persian restaurant, asked us to come along. The invitation was nearly impossible to resist as I hadn’t seen my aunt for awhile, plus Mr. W and I have a hard time eating Persian food without someone who knows what he’s doing order for us. We had amazing chicken and steak kabobs, fish, and green rice at a Persian restaurant in Anaheim. The food was so good that it completely changed Mr. W’s prior impression of any Middle Eastern food, and he set the location on his navigation system so that we could return.

Sunday, we had the Persian leftovers for lunch along with some ridiculously expensive Emperor green tea that I’d purchased in China, then hit up some liquor stores for Absolut Citron, tonic, lemons, and jello shots. This we took over to Mr. W’s female best friend’s house. Best friend fired up the grill and cooked us delicious fresh sockeye salmon on a cedar plank as best friend’s girlfriend made yummy garlic broccoli, roasted bell pepper rice and salad, and I made alcholic drinks aplenty. After dinner we watched one of my favorite movies, What Dreams May Come. I warned everyone that I’ve always cried though the movie, and they braved it anyway saying they have Kleenex. I think I understand this movie now better than the first 7 times I’ve seen it, because of my now less-innocent psychological outlook on life and relationships. Everyone got a bit misty and my personal mist blended together molecularly to create larger droplets. Okay, I cried through the movie again. But it was a great time. Especially the chocolate cream pie we had with coffee in the middle of the movie, and the personal stories of people’s pasts I got to hear for the first time.

Monday, Mr. W and I were called over to his male best friend’s house for an impromptu barbecue. The weather was great as it had been all weekend, and we feasted on pork ribs, barbecued chicken drumsticks, potato salad, and corn on the cob out in the beautifully landscaped backyard patio. We also brought over our leftover jello shots and Citron & tonic ingredients. I had never drank so much in a weekend before. After the meal I nearly fell asleep relaxing on the large hammock strung up in Best Friend & Wife’s backyard, swaying in the breeze, smelling spring flowers, listening to the splashing of their outdoors rocky waterfall. And then I was bumped by a cold wet nose. Buddy! To my utter surprise, the 90-some pound golden retriever clambored onto the swinging hammock with me and laid next to my legs, front paws hooked over the edge of the hammock rope. We swung there in the breeze together, me lazily scratching his back. Swing, swing. Scritch scratch. He got up at some point and turned himself around, on the ropes of the swaying hammock, and plunked back down facing me, nose by my arm. Pat, pat. I wished I had a camera. After dinner the four of us drove down to Laguna Beach and had a nice after-dinner walk on the cliffs as Best Friend and Wife scouted out potential areas to host an upcoming weekend memorial. A sad task, but I think we all enjoyed ourselves in the beautiful weather.

And now it’s back to business as usual, back in our ongoing trial. Thank goodness it’s a short week!