cindy's world

After a (Satur)day of house-hunting (my favorite house is unfortunately 3.5 million buckaroos) and discussion about how to best handle and grow our finances, I take this horoscope as a good sign:

Possibilities arise from unusual places now, but this won’t make them any less favorable. Emotionally charged discussions with friends or a romantic partner could lead you to a conceptual breakthrough as you realize a new way to reach your goals. Remain open to the alternatives, for your path is about to widen if you let it. Sunday, December 16, 2007

One of the realtors who was manning an open house we stumbled upon started a discussion with us about our possibilities, and is hooking us up with a financial advisor and a broker to see where we stand. He also said we’re at the best possible time with the best possible scenario (as far as our finances and current positions in housing are concerned), ready to lay in wait until our perfect prey ripens at the lowest price, then we’ll swoop in and be victors in our new home. *crossing fingers*

Sunday, Mr. W and I took our two sets of respective parents to The Stinking Rose for dinner. The elders seemed to get along fine although I thought my parents spoke too much Chinese among themselves for my taste. But both sides did make effort to chat and get to know each other. Nothing weird happened at all (except for my mom’s stomachache, I need to email her and check up on her), no tension, and everyone was overall jovial. *whew*

I’d resolved to actually write and mail Christmas cards this year. I’ve been wanting to do this for years, but never got around to it. Now all I need are addresses, and I get to spread some Christmas cheer! *jazz hands*

A coworker sent out this comparison…
~ * ~

PRICE OF GAS AROUND THE WORLD
Prices are quoted in US dollars per gallon for regular unleaded.

Oslo, Norway
$6.82

Hong Kong
$6.25

Brussels, Belgium
$6.16

London, UK
$5.96

Rome, Italy
$5.80

Tokyo, Japan
$5.25

Sao Paulo, Brazil
$4.42

New Delhi, India
$3.71

Sidney, Australia
$3.42

Johannesburg, South Africa
$3.39

Mexico City
$2.22

Buenos Aires, Argentina
$2.09

… YOU’RE GONNA LOVE THIS ..

Riyadh , Saudi Arabia
$0.91

Kuwait
$0.78

Caracas, Venezuela
$0.12

~ * ~
Damn those, uh, import fees.

My blog administrator, Wilco, sent me an email that said that for the month of November…

“these are the top 20 search strings used to find your blog.
#1 is just disturbing.

Top 20 Search Strings
# ….. Hits ….. Search String
1 ….. 101 ….. 10.05% ….. elongated nipples
2 ….. 55 ……. 5.47% …… nyquil trip
3 ….. 38 …… 3.78% ……. cindy’s world
4 ….. 32 …… 3.18% ……. friendship questionnaire
5 ….. 26 …… 2.59% ……. nyquil dosage
6 ….. 23 …… 2.29% ……. hamlet for kids
7 ….. 18 …… 1.79% ……. psychopath test
8 ….. 11 …… 1.09% …….. cindy dog lover
9 …… 9 …… 0.90% …….. flight attendant humor
10 …. 9 …… 0.90% ……. mother natalia
11 …. 9 …… 0.90% ……. trip on nyquil
12 …. 8 ….. 0.80% …….. elongated nipple
13 …. 8 ….. 0.80% …….. nyquil tripping
14 …. 7 ….. 0.70% …….. cindy s world
15 …. 7 ….. 0.70% …….. hamlet for children
16 …. 7 ….. 0.70% …….. just nipples
17 …. 5 ….. 0.50% …….. long boobies
18 …. 4 ….. 0.40% …….. antiquated words
19 …. 4 ….. 0.40% …….. dr. marissa von trapp
20 …. 4 ….. 0.40% …….. fun with hamlet and friends”

If we add the 101 hits for #1 to the 8 hits for #12, we have 109 hits from people searching for things about “elongated nipple(s).” Why? Is this a fetish thing or is this a health informational concern? I don’t suppose any of these people would post a comment and satisfy my curiosity.

It also looks like a lot of people are looking for a quick high through Nyquil.

NYQUIL! Why am I not taking cough syrup for my hacks? I’m retarded.

It’s the weekend! Finally! This has been an exhausting week work-wise, health-wise and personal-life-wise. I kinda absorbed Mr. W’s stress earlier in the week so since he didn’t sleep more than a few hours the first few nights, I didn’t, either. The coughing keeps me up anyway. I was so mentally exhausted at work yesterday that I forgot to charge two trial attorneys trial fees, but luckily they were really good about it when I called them and told them they each owe me $450 big ones.

Aside from the Tuesday I worked through lunch and couldn’t hit the gym, I’ve been hitting it hard at the gym. The strength-training program I’ve put myself and my gym trainee on is working. She’s moving some major weights around, and on body parts like hamstrings, she’s stronger than me. The new thing in this routine that I’m not used to doing is bench pressing, cuz to me it’s a stupid guy competitive thing. I just do my other chest machines. But now that we are benching, I find myself trying to remember what an impressive barbell weight is. If a guy can bench his own body weight, that’s a big deal, is that it? I don’t think there’s any way I can bench MY body weight, but I do barbell reps of 10 with 60-70 lbs. When guys say they bench their own body weight, that doesn’t mean they do reps with it, right? They just have to push it up once?

4 more days until I’m not “allowed” to work out anymore for 6 weeks. You know something REALLY concerns you when you dream about it. Earlier in the week, I had a nightmare that some doctors looked at a chest x-ray/MRI of mine and saw a strange spot in my left shoulder area, and then told me that it was a problem that they’ll have to fix, but that doing so would add another 12 weeks of no-exercise recuperation time. I panicked in that dream. I wasn’t even concerned about what could be wrong with me or about the procedure, I was scared to get fat.

Just thinking about toting around excessive fat makes me sad and tired. I want to go home and sleep. But Mr. W’s parents drove down from Vegas today to see us so I need to go over tonite. They’re so nice — they’re visiting because we’re unable to join them for the big family Christmas this year. Christmas falls on a Tuesday this year, which means we’re working the day before and the rest of the week after. Same with New Year’s. Suck-olas, man.

Via email this morning:

Mom: “Are you still coughing? It’s been very cold at night lately, and Saturday night will be worse, you guys want to come over for Hot Pot Sat. night? We can also get crabs too.”
Me: “I’m coughing my lungs out. I think I figured out last nite that the nite coughs are because of cold air hitting my throat. Every time I cough, Dodo comes running in meowing to ask if I’m okay.
[Mr. W]’s parents called last nite and said they are going to drive down from Vegas either today or tomorrow to visit because we wouldn’t be seeing them for Christmas. [Mr. W] thought it’d be a good time to have the families meet, what do you think?”
Mom: “Dodo is so cute. Yeah, I think we should have American food at restaurant, right?”
Me: “Actually, when I cough, Dodo might be running in to tell me to shut up, I don’t know. I just like to think that he’s asking if I’m okay.
I think [Mr. W]’s parents aren’t very experimental with food, so it should probably be an American restaurant. Like [Mr. W]’s kids, they THINK they eat Chinese food, but I tell them what they’re eating is not really Chinese food. haha.”
Mom: “Wear scarf or something to keep your neck (throat)warm, that helps.”

I got this forwarded from a coworker — read and enjoy!
~ * ~
If you are looking for that special cookie recipe to share during the holidays, this is the one I make on Christmas Eve so I can deal with the “family” on this joyous occasion.

TEQUILA COOKIES

1 cup of dark brown sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1 cup of granulated sugar
4 large eggs
2 cups of dried fruit, such as dried cranberries or raisins
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 bottle Jose Cuervo Tequila (silver or gold, as desired)

Sample the Cuervo to check quality.

Take a large bowl, check the Cuervo again, to be sure it is of the highest quality, pour one level cup and drink. Turn on the electric mixer. Beat one cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl.

Add one teaspoon of sugar. Beat again. At this point it’s best to make sure the Cuervo is still OK, try another cup just in case.

Turn off the mixerer thingy. Break 2 leggs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit. Pick the frigging fruit off floor.

Mix on the turner. If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaterers just pry it loose with a drewscriver.

Sample the Cuervo to check for to nsisticity.

Next, sift two cups of salt, or something. Check the Jose Cuervo.

Now shift the lemon juice and strain your nuts. Add one table. Add a spoon of sugar, or somefink. Whatever you can find.

Grease the oven. Turn the cake tin 360 degrees and try not to fall over. Don’t forget to beat off the turner.

Finally, throw the bowl through the window, finish the Cose Juervo and make sure to put the stove in the dishwasher.

**** CHERRY MISTMAS ****

I had a whole post typed up yesterday updating all sorts of things but as soon as I clicked “publish,” the internet connection farted and I lost everything. Drat. I hate when that happens. But since all things are supposed to happen for a reason, I was probably not supposed to write some of the stuff I wrote, so I’ll do a bland version of that post today.

Yesterday, I missed the noon workout because the judge worked us into lunch in an attempt to give the jurors maximum time to deliberate when they got back from lunch at 1:30p. It did work, as disgruntled as I was, because they came back with 4 guilty verdicts at 3:40: attempted murder (for stabbing his then-wife between 14 and 19 times); assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury; aggravated mayhem; unlawful taking of a vehicle. Yes, the first three counts all come out of the one occasion of stabbing, so for those of you thinking about violently marring someone with a sharp pointy object, consider all the years in state prison that would come out of the many connected charges.

I was unhappy to have only a 15- minute lunch yesterday, because I only have a few workout days left until the surgery next Wednesday. The medical professionals involved in my procedure advised me to refrain from strenuous exercise and lifting heavy weights for 4-6 weeks after the procedure, “heavy” defined as more than 20 pounds. Nothing I do at the gym is under 20 pounds. Since I gained 5 pounds after my 2 weeks of not working out due to my recent sickness, 6 weeks would be a 15-pound gain, which experience has taught me takes a year or more (or 1 month with severe emotional trauma) to lose. I don’t have a year before I have to look pretty in white. Let’s face it — white is not flattering on most people, and I’m betting I’m in the category of “most people.”

Speaking of the wedding, I had a 5pm teleconference call with my bridesmaids yesterday. We are so advanced. We all called into college roommie Diana’s northern California office with our little codes and had our first meeting of minds and voices. I am delighted that everyone seemed to get along so well and we got some important decisions out of the way. I love my girls, they are smart, professional, efficient, and beautiful. I should do a post on them soon.

My mom has been really down recently because of the liver cirrhosis diagnosis (which I still insist is preliminary but which she still insists is a death sentence), and she and my dad appear to have the exact same sickness I have. We all got sick at the same time with similar symptoms, and like me, they kept getting re-sick instead of feeling better. I’m re-coughing, too. My mom took the long recovery as a sign that her immune system is shot, something else she added to her growing list of signs that she’s headed to an early grave, but I pointed out that I’m still sick, too, and I’m darn healthy otherwise. She wouldn’t let us visit for the past 2-3 weekends in a row as she and my dad are “hiding out” from any and all visitors in fear that they’d infect others with their apparent plague. Every time I’ve called her and asked if she was feeling better, the response was a very moody, “No.” She started talking last week about how she was going to die before she saw me off on my wedding since we hadn’t set a date yet. So I pulled out the big guns.
“You can’t die yet. [Mr. W] said he wants you and dad to teach the baby Chinese and that way he could learn some Chinese on the side, too.”
“What baby?”
“Oh, he wants to have a baby.”
“YOUR baby? OH!” After that it was all sunshine and rainbows and she sounded exponentially better.

Some days after that conversation, my mom lapsed into depression again over her health. In an email conversation in which she offered to help out financially with the wedding, I told her it was unnecessary as she’d paid for so much for me already in raising me and beyond. She wrote back that she wants to help pay for the wedding because it’d likely be the last thing she could help me with, what with her early grave thing and all. I wrote back, “The wedding would NOT be the last thing you’d have the opportunity to help me out with, because I’m not going to be paying you for babysitting.” She wrote back something changing the subject, so I took that as a good sign. Yesterday, walking on the Japanese Garden grounds, she made a comment about the wedding date and said something about how if she’s going to babysit, I need to get married sooner rather than later so she’d have the strength to pick up and tug around a kid. It was great to see her and my dad in such high spirits yesterday when we finally dropped them off at home at night.

I hope I’m not just in denial about her health concerns. Ideally, it’d be just an early diagnosis of liver problems that modern medicine can halt and she’d live out the rest of her natural life just fine. But I understand that to her, having watched her father waste away and die from the same disease, it’s one of the scariest things she could be diagnosed with, especially as a non-smoker and non-drinker who has no lifestyle vices to change to help her situation. She’s also concerned about my dad’s little health issues here and there (not little to her, of course), deteriorations and ailments that come with age.

Which is why I did not tell her about my surgical procedure on the 19th this month, next Wednesday. I found out that my judge is taking vacation that Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, so since our courtroom will be “dark” those days, my supervisor offered me all those days off to recover from surgery. I hope to be “recovering” at Disneyland. Hey, when life gives you hot water, make tea and heal yourself, right?

Email convo between me and Moms this morning:

Mom: “Maybe was the tea, I couldn’t sleep all night!”
Me: “I couldn’t sleep last night either, but that was because I was coughing.
If I don’t get better by August, I’ll sound like this:
Judge: Do you, Cindy, take [Mr. W] to be your lawful wedded –
Cindy: *COUGH COUGH!!*
Judge: Uh, to be your lawful wedded husband, to have and to hold –
Cindy: *COUGH COUGH COUGH COUGH HACK HAAAACK!!*
Judge: Is that a no?”

Yesterday, Mr. W and I took my parents to our [proposed] wedding venue. (Legal types would’ve gotten a laugh at that.) My parents liked the place, enjoyed the koi, thought it was beautiful and original, but my mom wasn’t thrilled at the fact that the venue only holds 150 people and won’t allow children under age 10 after dusk. I was having serious trouble as my half of the guest allowances were overfilling and my mom wanted to add on another 50. She also thought I ought to work my young nieces (whom I’d only seen like 3 times in my life) into the wedding party as flower girls and didn’t like that the venue had age limitations. I told her that I was not going to be plucking hyperactive children off the bridges and from the unfenced water edges in my wedding gown, and I didn’t want to be kicked out of my own wedding for kids throwing rocks at hundred-dollar fish. Plus, I don’t need flower girls as there is no aisle to walk down and toss petals onto in this venue; we would walk from either side onto the bridge and meet in the middle. Plus, flower petal sprinkling is not allowed at the venue anyway. It’s going to be a very unique wedding.

After the garden, my parents said that if we’re over on the 150-people capacity, since we apparently love the venue so much, to just cut out all their friends and non-immediate relatives and we can do an optional traditional Chinese banquet on another day after the wedding for the people who were cut. We drove to Balboa Island and talked some more (laughing and joking) at a great little teahouse Mr. W and I discovered some weeks ago, then headed back to Mr. W’s place to check out the guest list (and have more tea; Mr. W, as it turns out, is quite the fob). My mom sat with me and listed everyone she’d find important to invite, we added her guest list to mine, added Mr. W’s, and we came out to be like 140! Holy moly!! I was elated.

After taking my parents home, the creativity was flying and I came up with all sorts of great ideas for the wedding and reception that would be well within budget and perfectly fitting for the environment and very unique, too. I’m happy. Everything is aligning themselves and falling into place. I had been big time stressed THINKING about planning the wedding, but the actual wedding details are just MAKING themselves, such as…

* Mr. W obscurely coming up with the idea of this garden from Vanessa’s one-time mention of it years ago
* the first time we visited this garden, Mr. W parked far away but I somehow always had a sense of where the garden was, and altho he led us away from the venue onto other parts looking for the garden, getting us lost, I always maintained that the garden is over THERE (*pointing*) and he finally, after not being able to figure out on the map where we are, agreed to follow my instincts, and I was RIGHT. “I know where my wedding venue is,” I explained to him. It was just like this internal sense that I have no explanation for.
* this garden being hyper-experienced in doing weddings very affordably
* the garden doing package deals that take care of all the details for us, from wedding coordinator to setting up/cleanup to catering
* the required catering company for the venue is surprisingly affordable, and all their food packages include a wedding cake — one more thing I don’t have to worry about finding and coordinating!
* I didn’t want to deal with young kids, the venue doesn’t allow kids; I didn’t want to deal with coordinating many expensive vendors, the venue has most of the vendors and details in a package deal; I didn’t want to spend a ton on a florist and the venue only allows small flowers on the bridge and centerpieces
* Although pretty much all Saturdays are booked up for 2008, Mr. W thought that our anniversary weekend, Labor Day weekend, would be a great time for a Sunday evening wedding because of the Monday holiday, and we checked yesterday and it was open for 2008 AND 2009
* The guest list miraculously came JUST under 150
* I decided that with so many details taken care of already through this venue, that I could pull it off in the next 9 months, so I called the venue this morning and left a voice mail asking to reserve the 2008 date
* As 0f 9:30 a.m. this morning, after a return call from the gardens, we have the date for Labor Day long weekend next year! WOOHOOOOOO!!! We’ll be getting married for our 3rd year anniversary!

My blog sponsor “Wilco” and his wife Christi are currently fostering three very cute puppies (or as Wilco sees them, three very cute poo production machines). Christi named the girl “Puck” with the footnote “i know, puck isn’t really a girls name, but don’t tell her that”; and named the two boys “Cujo” and “Marleau.”

I asked Christi where the puppies got their unusual names. She replied, “They are named after my favorite hockey players. Cujo = Curtis Joseph, who played on a handful of teams, but who I will always know and love as a Maple Leaf. Marleau = Patrick Marleau, the beloved captain of the San Jose Sharks. I was trying to pick names that would be universally recognizable, but I guess I failed.”

I don’t think it’s so much that Christi failed, as I’m sure people like Flat Coke & Flies and Bat got the reference right away, but seeing as how I only went to my very first hockey game a couple of weeks ago over Thanksgiving break, and that being also the very first hockey game I’d ever watched, I was thinking “Puck” – a tribute to the playfully mischievous sprite, Puck, in Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”; “Cujo” – the antagonist killer dog in Stephen King’s novel by the same name; “Marleau” – a cute French way of spelling the last name of famed early literature genius Christopher Marlowe.

:/

I suppose the money spent on acquiring an English Lit degree at UCLA wasn’t a total waste…