cindy's world

On the drive to work this morning, I struggled with a drink and ended up splashing some of it on my lap, staining my skirt. Drat! I mulled over the event, and it occurred to me that what’s amusing about this, is what the drink is.
Some might think, “A drink. That means alcohol.” I don’t drink and drive!
“She’s an American, driving to work in the morning. Her drink is Starbucks coffee.” Nope, not coffee!
“She’s Chinese. Maybe it’s a box of Vitasoy or other soy milk.” Nope.
“Tea?” In the morning? Ew.
“Water.” Well, then, it wouldn’t stain.
“Soda?” Quit that years ago, haven’t caved yet.
“Duh. It’s obviously fruit juice, like OJ or something.” That would mean I’d have to go grocery shopping to have fresh juice.
Nope, what I spilled, struggling with the pull-tab opening while driving this morning, was a boxed drink of Premiere Protein shake. In chocolate. Cuz I’m feminine like that.

This little gem is on Reuters:
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WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? — MAN ASKS WIFE AT BROTHEL
Wed Jan 9, 2008 12:29pm EST
WARSAW (Reuters) – A Polish man got the shock of his life when he visited a brothel and spotted his wife among the establishment’s employees. Polish tabloid Super Express said the woman had been making some extra money on the side while telling her husband she worked at a store in a nearby town.

“I was dumfounded. I thought I was dreaming,” the husband told the newspaper Wednesday.

The couple, married for 14 years, are now divorcing, the newspaper reported.

(Writing by Chris Borowski, Editing by Matthew Jones)
~ * ~
To quote an episode of Friends:
Phoebe [pretending to pick up phone and putting it to her ear]: “Hello, kettle? This is Monica. You’re black.”

I’m still dealing with my roofing nightmare at home (turns out to be a bigger problem than I thought — the entire roof may have to be replaced, and probably the entire indoors ceiling, too; my association and I are going back and forth about what’s whose liability and who should pay for what), so here’s a funny for the blog.

I was telling commenter ‘a’ about my wedding progress, and about how my invitations are done and on order. My mom wasn’t thrilled with the appearance of the paper cardstock, since it’s white and white is the Chinese funeral color. Despite the fact that there are pretty red cherry blossoms down the length of the paper on one end, the white paper paired with black lettering made her appear very unimpressed when I showed her the proof online. “Is it maybe ivory, and not really white? Or does the white paper have silver or a metallic highlight?” she asked hopefully. I informed her that not only is the paper white, the color is called ‘bright white.’ I had to hand it to her; she dropped it.

I know my bridesmaid Vicky had a similar invitation argument with her mother, except she had to order a second set of invitations to patch things with her mom. Commenter ‘a’ apparently had the same thing happen to her. Invitations…BIG DEAL with Asian moms! Who knew? ‘a’ ‘s hilarious story, in her own words (with some light editing to make it blog-friendly), posted with her permission:
~ * ~
“Oh gosh, they [the wedding invitations] were just white w/ black print, so we decided to spruce it by adding a light gray silk bow. Took me 3 stores to find the gray I liked. [I] finally get home, start doing them and she’s [mom’s] helping me halfway thru; then she says, ‘I think pink would be better. Pink is more good luck.’
HERE WE GO.
So I’m like ‘No, we’re almost halfway done, we’re not doing pink now.’
‘No pink, good luck. No pink, good luck. No pink, good luck.’
You get the picture. She would not SHUT IT! So then I’m reduced to screaming, ‘Be quiet!!!’
Then my dad comes out and asks wut all the noise is about. And he tells me I need to calm down.
So I’m like, ‘We’re almost halfway done and she’s nagging me about pink bows!!! And she won’t be quiet!!!’
So dad turns to her and tells her to stop bothering me.
And all the while [fiance] Mark is like silent, cuz he’s scared. The end.
…No the best part is at the end! Where after my dad scolds her, she turns to Mark and says, ‘I’m sorry.’ And I’m like WTF, wut about ME??!?!??!
OH NOOOOOOOOOOO, I forgot, THIS IS THE BEST PART…
So weeks later we’re finally sending out the invites cuz we have them addressed and ready. So we hand them [parents] their stack for their guests, so they can mail it themselves to avoid any accusations that we didnt mail theirs, right? So one day I find their stack on their desk and I pull one that’s still unsealed out.
EFFING PINK BOW!! She replaced my bow w/ her own effing pink bow! So for all time, to all of her guests, I have like Little Bo Peep taste. So w/ all the courage I could muster, I silently inhaled and placed it back into the envelope w/o comment. Cuz I didn’t want her to have the satisfaction of upsetting me again. But the look on Mark’s face when he saw it was like ‘oh shiet, here comes wwIII.’
Oh wait. As I’m telling this story I’m remembering more. hahahaha, I think I repressed it all until now!!! I remember wut I did!!!!
I took out her pink bow ones and put in my extra gray bow ones, then I sealed it so it couldn’t be changed.”
~ * ~
‘a’ explained that her parents couldn’t address the envelopes to their own satisfaction, so ‘a’ and her fiance had pre-printed envelopes with her parents’ guests’ addresses. No way they were going to tear open the envelopes to change the bows because they wouldn’t want to re-address everything themselves and find new envelopes. Therefore, all the ones ‘a’ caught were sent out with the gray ribbons.

TELL ME that’s not funny!!! Are your parents like this?

I was playing with invitation possibilities online at lunch. (Yes, that means I didn’t make it to the gym AGAIN. ) There are a lot of templates I was looking at, and it seems that whomever is hosting (paying for) the wedding is the first name listed on the invitation. For example, if my parents were paying for the wedding, it’d read:

Mr. Cindy’s-Papa and Mrs. Cindy’s-Mama
request the honor of your presence
in the joining of their daughter
Cindy
to
Mr. W
son of Mr. Mr.W’s-Papa and Mrs. Mr.W’s-Mama
on the forty-third of Sepnovember, two thousand and thirteen
six o’clock in the evening
at the Garden
at 1234 Fairy Tale Ending Lane.
Dinner reception immediately following.

I am the only one who has put any money down on the wedding so far as I paid the deposit on the wedding venue, so if I were to write up the invitations NOW, I’d be listed first, right? Gym trainee said it’s impossible for me to mess up the invitation wording out of ignorance because “it’s all about you!!!”, which is Happy Bunny‘s motto, so I thought, that’s great! That’s exactly how I’ll write it! My invitation will read:

Cindy
requests the honor of your presence
as she allows what’s-his-face
to start a life in her shadow
on the forty-third of Sepnovember, two thousand and thirteen.
Good laughs ahead.
Please attend.

I read it to Mr. W and he laughed, and said he loves it. We definitely need to keep a copy of it in the scrapbook, he said. Oh sure, a missing leaflet in his “Angel” DVD collection had him throwing a tantrum all night last nite, but something like THIS…

I just might do it.

I can not bring myself to go to the gym. I had every intention of going today, but after being detained 15 minutes into lunch, I decided, screw it. When I’d thought I couldn’t go to the gym for 4-6 weeks after my procedure, it seemed that all I wanted was to be able to go. Now that I am able to go, I suddenly feel lazy and uninspired. Today marks a full week after my LEEP surgery. Well, maybe tomorrow I can start fresh.

Meanwhile, now faced with a lunchtime of no plans, I wish I’d brought my harmonica to practice on. I’d been saying for awhile, completely not intending for it to be a hint whatsoever, that I wished I had a harmonica. I play the piano, but you can’t arbitrarily whip a piano out of your butt and start playing when the whim strikes. But a harmonica, I can keep in my purse and use it to entertain (or annoy, most likely) at any given time in any given company. On Christmas Eve, I found myself the shocked and delighted recipient of a real harmonica, complete with a how-to CD-Rom and tutorial songbook. Mr. W and I had agreed to not exchange gifts this Christmas, but he apparently found something irresistable that I don’t already have because I don’t need it and would never have gone out and purchased for myself. (I got him some nutrition and workout books to feed his current health obsession and a humor book entitled “How Not to Ruin the Biggest Day of HER Life: A Groom’s Secret Handbook”.) Despite stuff I’d said about wanting a harmonica, I wasn’t serious about it — it was one of those quirky things or observations I’d say, like how I’ve said for awhile that I want an elephant because it’d be neat to create memories for a creature that “never forgets,” but I didn’t see any giant packages arriving from Mr. W. So I guess he’s selective about the bluffs he calls me on. But think about it — little Asian girl. Harmonica. Not piano, not violin, not a perfect score on the math portion of the SATs. How unstereotypical.

My harmonican goal is to play Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” which I picture in my head will be revealed when some friend of mine is bitching about something, and then wordless I’d simply reach into my back pocket, pull out a shiny silver object, and then the perky melody of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” would permeate the air as I rock out in tune to the music, tapping a foot, bending upper body to and fro, right hand fluttering in front of the harmonica doing the “wah-wah” effect. My friend would be staring at me mouth agape, “Wha — how did you — when did you — a harmonica?” and then start laughing and all will be well with the world.

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!
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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 ****

Mr. W’s foggy memory paired with my elephant one is gonna cause endless frustrations, I can tell. I’m already saddened that he doesn’t remember anything about asking me out 2 years before we first started dating, nor does he remember much about our first weekend together and much of our momentous first times.

Yesterday evening (Saturday), childhood friend Vicky and I, with a very patient and game-faced Mr. W in accompaniment, did one of our ritual 5-hour, 15-game Bingo sessions at our old high school. It used to be a monthly thing before she and I hooked up with the men we are with now, and we hadn’t done it together in years. (Yes, the venue is fraught with little old ladies on oxygen tanks cussing, and yes, I have won before; $250 a pop!) Not that our stopping was the fault of either of our men; we just couldn’t get our schedules to mesh and then gave up for awhile.
So at Bingo, the topic of the “Transformers” movie came up. Vicky said she’s never seen it, which I was shocked by, cuz this is the girl I grew up watching all the 80s cartoons with! We loved He-Man, She-Rah, GI Joe, the short-lived Rainbow Brite and Cabbage Patch Kids, and I think even The Care Bears before I decided I hated them cuz despite all their promised rescues of sad little boys and girls on the cartoon, they never came and rescued ME when I was blue. Vicky asked what we thought of the “Transformers” movie. Mr. W jumped right in and said he thought it was great, he liked it, and thought it was funny. This confused me because I distinctly remember that as we were walking out of the movie, we were in the long hallway immediately exiting the theatre room and he was on my right, I had said, “Huh. That was actually better the second time around” (since I thought it was pretty disappointing the first time I watched it with Vanessa and James when they took me for my birthday, despite what EVERYONE ELSE thought of the movie, which was give it blockbusting rave reviews). And Mr. W had said that he didn’t think it was great, either, and that like my first time, he had trouble staying awake. He’d thought the movie was confusing, didn’t know who the good guys and bad guys were, and generally didn’t think it was as clever or funny as all my friends had said. I’d said I didn’t catch a lot of the supposed funny lines, either, and he’d said that it was because the characters said a lot of stuff in passing under their breaths so if you weren’t really paying attention to the dialogue you’d miss it. So now at Bingo, I objected, “That’s not what you said when you came out of the movie! You said you didn’t like it.”
Mr. W argued, “No, I DID like it and I said that it was good.”
I said, “You said it was confusing and you had trouble following it.”
He said, “No I didn’t, I wasn’t confused, which I thought was good considering I had never even seen one episode of the original Transformers show. It was one of your other friends who didn’t like it.”
“EVERYBODY else loved the movie,” I said, which was the bond that he and shared over NOT being impressed by the movie, which bond I felt when he and I walked out of the theatre holding hands griping about the disappointment of movies being overhyped and underacted. I think he may have even said back then that the characters were superficial and underdeveloped and you don’t feel attached to them because of the way the plot moved, but that may have also been a comment made by someone else.
Well, we lost THAT bond now, I thought as Mr. W and Vicky went into, “YOU’VE NEVER SEEN TRANSFORMERS?” and Mr. W explained that he was way into adulthood by the time those shows rolled around and he wasn’t watching Saturday Morning Cartoons or after-school 3pm cartoons anymore.

After we came home, we watched another episode of Buffy and Angel on DVD and Mr. W went to bed. I couldn’t fall asleep as the above stupid, inconsequential, all-in-all meaningless discrepancy ripped out chunks of my brain and tossed them at me. I finally got out of bed and came to Mr. W’s laptop and did a search for the Transformers movie on my blog, and found where I’d written back in July that Mr. W had confessed his trouble staying awake during the movie. It wasn’t everything I wanted, but it was SOMETHING confirmed. I went back to bed, which motion woke Mr. W up and he looked at me and asked what was wrong. I didn’t want to talk about this at 4 in the morning, but since he ASKED, I said, “What makes you think something is wrong?” He said because I’m clearly wide awake. Since he was looking at me with his eyelids propped up, I went into a whole “You said blah blah blah blah blah! And I remembered that it was really blah blah blah! And I looked it up in my blog just now and it WAS blah blah blah!”
In the most anticlimatic way, he said “Hmm” twice, as if thoughtfully, and rolled over and went to sleep. I curled up around him feeling better and slept soundly, too.

This morning I had this GREAT DREAM that I found myself at a party with 19 (yes, I counted in the dream) mounted stripper poles, and the little monkey that I am, I totally had my fun on one! I was SUCH a gymnast in the dream, I was able to twirl around on it and spin (which I can do in real life anyway), and I was able to do a move that flips me upside down on the pole so that I hung feet-up! And it was so incredibly easy when I tried it in the dream, that I doubled it by flipping over right-side up again, still hanging on the pole, and then flipping upside down again, like doing a slow somersault down a pole. I was SO impressed at how athletic I was and how effortless the moves were, that I jumped around excitedly in the dream and declared that I wanted to buy a pole for my house. I know that last part was due to the fact that a coworker had tried to get me to buy in on a collapsible stripper pole ($300+!) so that they could get a bulk discount. I turned it down, but in the dream, I REGRETTED THAT DECISION SORELY.

The flippy move in the dream was inspired, I’m sure, by this little minute-long video that another coworker emailed me on Friday:

Remember that wedding we went to that had the photo booth? Mr. W scanned in our two strips so here they are!

Strip #1 (left) are the goofing off photos where we did various expressions of suspicion, innocence (at least I was doing innocence; Mr. W was doing looking-at-yummy-wedding-cake or something), horror, and exhaustion.
Strip #2 (right) are the first photos we took where we were being all pre-alcohol behaved.