Truly, not having internet at work sucks. I had to run and borrow someone else’s computer many floors up (I took the stairs and arrived panting) to send an email canceling one makeup artist after hiring another one this morning. I’m also way behind in blogging. I also realized, it’s not even like I’m getting a significant increase in productivity without internet. It just keeps me from doing little things like online banking and looking up attorney addresses and phone numbers, as well as looking up weird terminology for my court reporter’s transcripts. I don’t play games online.

Friday was Vanessa (“Busykitty”) night. She graduated with her AA degree on Thursday and celebrated with dinner at Tapas Restaurant in Newport Beach. Mr. W and I arrived ridiculously early, as being with Mr. W we’re wont to do, and sat at the bar while waiting for everyone else to get there. The good thing about arriving that early is that we got happy hour pricing and ordered half-price sangrias and a sliced Spanish chorizo appetizer plate. After the party arrived and was seated and I met a ton of Vanessa’s family as well as Jay’s little girl Jayla, Mr. W ordered more tapas that we shared. Mr. W had been to the restaurant before and got to relive his days in Spain through the food. Vanessa’s sister was also part of the flamenco performance troupe that performed there that night. Mr. W kept whispering to me all night “In Spain the food blah blah,” “Flamenco dancing is supposed to be blah blah.” I guess before Mr. W is as Asian fobby as he is now, he was Spanish. Vanessa’s family had multiple graduations this summer in the group, her youngest sister and brother-in-law with their Bachelor’s degrees, their mother with her Master’s, and a niece graduated from elementary school. They joked about how they represented the entire spectrum of degrees. By the way, Vanessa looked adorable with little girl Jayla on her hip. She toted the toddler to meet us when we were still at the bar, and when Jayla started a whine, Vanessa nipped it right away by asking her gently, “What do want? Use your words.” Jayla responded instantly by using a word and pointing, making it understood she wanted to hang out with Vanessa’s teenage niece Janece (okay, I have no idea how to spell her name) who, by the way, is a freaking hilarious girl. Even tho it rained that night, it didn’t dampen any spirits!

Saturday, Mr. W and I got into a fight bright and early because I was so pissed that he made plans for 8am. Who makes plans for 8 am on a SATURDAY?! I saw no reason why the exact same plans couldn’t be made an hour or two later. The only thing redeeming was that the plans were with Gym Trainee and her son. We went to the same guy Mr. W bought his wedding tuxedos from and bought the son, Evan, a kid’s tux. I always describe Evan as “a 40 year-old trapped in the body of a 10 year-old and seriously angry about that fact”. Evan’s been bugging his mom for a tux for a long time and now, he has one with 3 different vests he could swap out for different looks at upcoming graduation in June and at our wedding in August. After getting the best deal I’ve ever heard of for this name-brand tux ensemble, we set off for UCLA. The 10 year-old was scoping out potential colleges. If you think graduating from elementary school is too early for him to start looking, to Evan this is already delayed because he’d expected to attend college immediately upon graduating from kindergarten and cried his eyes out when his mom had to explain his misunderstanding to him. He’s been researching boarding junior high and high school for himself because he discovered that some scholastic-based programs will pay scholarships toward universities. The reason we were going to UCLA is to let him decide between setting his goals there as a local university, or Yale. Don’t laugh; he has the grades to back that up and I expect to see great things from him in the future. (Did I tell you he taught himself to read by the time he was 3?) Our two UCLA virgins were good sports about walking everywhere on foot, from South Campus to North Campus, to Westwood for Diddy Riese‘s ice cream sandwiches (up to $1.50 now, $.50 increase from last time; I tried an authentic Hawaiian-style shave ice with the scoop of vanilla ice cream inside), back to UCLA to the dorm area, then to the car on campus. (Mr. W bitched and moaned a lot, refusing to walk where I wanted to take the tour and instead took them through back halls and behind buildings where I don’t think we were allowed to go plus didn’t present the best views of campus, and I was pissed at him for the entire night for taking over my tour and other things.) Mr. W wanted to go to the obnoxiously-reputed Ed Debevic’s restaurant in Beverly Hills for dinner afterwards, but when we got there we saw that it was gone (HA-ha!), so we kept going down Restaurant Row/La Cienega toward the Beverly Center. I thought we could hit up Hard Rock Cafe or Browne Derby, but they were both closed, too. I suddenly felt old. “I remember when this wasn’t here and instead it was…”. We did stumble upon a freaking amazing restaurant called The Grand Lux Cafe where a bank used to be. The overhead drop chandelier fixtures were amazing, not to mention the decorative tin ceilings and marble pillars. And the food!! Such a large menu of everything from gourmet pizzas to steak to seafood. And when the food arrived, the portion sizes made our mouths and eyes open wide. Evan was eating his giant burger the whole weekend, and I was doing the same with my 4-person-serving sized flatbread chicken sandwich. The experience was so delicious and impressive all-around that Gym Trainee told me Evan wants to go back there for his birthday this year instead of their usual Lucille’s BBQ, his old favorite. She also told me he was getting his stuff together to brag to his friends about his tour of UCLA when he got back to school. You know the kid’s in a good private school when visiting a college is “brag” material among his elementary school pals. What was I bragging about at 10? Hmm, new Barbie accessories, cool erasers that picked up after themselves, oragami and rubber band tricks.

Sunday, Mr. W was a sweetheart and made a point of letting me sleep in. We eventually got up and ran a bunch of errands like getting ocean water for his fish tank, more liquors I could use for my cocktails, a book about the Japanese surrender in WWII that my judge wanted for his birthday (I can’t read that stuff; hence why he’s the judge), and then visited my parents. During a delicious homemade dinner, my mom gave me some motherly essential advice for the wedding (this week it was to avoid sunlight so I don’t accidentally get tan; last week it was to stop working out immediately so I don’t get big; it seems like my lifestyle is just a huge mess to my mom), then we all went for a brisk but long walk around the hilly neighborhood. My mom’s been attending dancing and tai chi classes regularly with her friends at a local park, and my dad was using the alone-time to reacquaint himself with his beloved pastime of fishing, so they were both in great spirits this weekend. They also both look significantly healthier from their increased activity levels.

Monday, Mr. W and I went to his ex-bro-in-law best buddy’s house for the wife’s birthday. She turned 39 and bought herself a brand new cherry-red Corvette. Mr. W’s son had told us that they had a huge party the day before (Sunday) with like 70 people in attendance, so the fact that we were not a part of that but had been invited instead to a BBQ the following day was confusing to us. We were like, “If you didn’t want to invite us to your party, there’s no need to throw a SEPARATE one.” I was wondering how they’d behave about their party, whether they’d keep it from us or make some excuse. But they talked about the event the night before and the guests they knew in common with Mr. W as if expecting us to know about it, giving people updates and talking about all the leftover food they had, pulling a few items out for us to munch on. The wife said something about one of their guests wanting to bring a cake, but that wife had told the guest that she was going to have cake with the kids and us the next day (which turned out to be a delicious raspberry jam white cake). So I guess they’d deliberately planned a more intimate BBQ for us and the kids (their kids and Mr. W’s kids are cousins, and they had their girlfriends and friends over, too) so they could hang out with and talk to us the whole time. The wife had also deliberately arranged this hoping that Mr. W could get together with and talk to his MIA daughter. I’m not sure if meeting up is going to make communication between them any better, but at least it broke the ice.

Today (well, I consider it Tuesday even tho it’s way early Wed morning), I was a good girl and despite not having Mr. W or Gym Trainee on the same lunch hour as me, I nevertheless hit the gym alone at lunch and worked my upper body, and went back after work for a cardio session. Yay, me!

Oh, photos to follow.