cindy's world

Earlier, I was doing last-minute packing-slash-throwing-things-together-slash-cleaning, and dug out an old driver’s license. What’s unusual about this driver’s license, is that it’s not mine. It belongs to a guy who wooed me back in the BBS days. I had just been thinking about him yesterday morning, too.

What triggered the thinking was a morning talk radio show that I listen to while driving to work. The on-air personalities of this particular program are huge fans of the TV show “To Catch a Predator.” I’ve never caught one episode of this show, but I understand it to be a “Cops”-style reality show in which decoys posing as underaged online chat users get into an online rapport with adult men who hook up with minors they meet online. Then a meeting is planned, and upon his arrival to the meeting site the adult sexual predator is “surprised” by the host of the show, who reveals that the predator has been caught red-handed, then corners the predator with a “Do you know what you’ve done? Do you know we all know what you’ve done? Do you know how much trouble you’re in?” type interview. The predator, after denying things and playing dumb, eventually gets arrested.
So anyway, the morning program was interviewing the host of the show, and they got into the different types of sexual predators. The host says they’re pretty careful about misuse of the word “pedophile” because some of these predators would never go after underage kids if they were not on the online chat forum. Maybe this is their first underage attraction and it’s an “exception” to their rule. And then there are the types who would consistently pursue naive young kids on and offline, loiter around schools and playgrounds, and the internet is just one of their tools. “Ick,” I thought, “How can these victim kids not know adult contact like this is improper?” And then I gasped. I was one of those kids!

I’ve already blogged before about my BBS addiction when I was 16, 17. Now I thought about some of the guys who pursued me through that venue. Boys my age didn’t tend to like me (my mom said it’s because boys my age back then went for looks and it’s the older men, people I would meet as I got older, who would appreciate me because of my personality and other strong points), and the chat board was pretty much my only social exposure to other age groups. One guy head-over-heels was 21. John lived up in Northern Cal somewhere and worked in the tech industry. He was nice, and we’d chat online and on the phone a lot, but he wouldn’t ever send photos. Later that summer (between junior and senior year) he decided to drive through the nite to meet me. That did not go well. That was the origin of my still-present fear of tall skinny men. But that’s another story. Anyway, it was his license I found. He actually whipped it out and slid it across the table to me, saying, “Oh, I DO have a picture of myself! Here, you can have this license. It just expired.” I’ll bet he didn’t know I’m such a pack-rat. But 4 years’ age difference isn’t that big of a deal.

And then there was the 25 year-old later that summer, Phil. He lived closer, in Orange, and we also chatted on the phone a lot. I was more careful to stay reserved until I saw what he looked like in person, after my last experience. And I was surprised to find myself minisculy attracted to someone 8 years older than me. My mom was thrilled. 8 was the magic number to her. “He’s old enough to be mature and established, and he’d take care of you and not sweat the small stuff about you,” she said. I think she was just happy that he was Asian. He was also in the tech industry, and eventually also relocated up to Northern Cal due to his work. Silicon Valley, ya know. Chat boards were not mainstream back then, so most of the adults who’d know about them are in the industry. It was okay he moved away, because I was starting to feel the age difference. Prom, hip hop, school club affairs, that was all way removed for a 25-year-old. His world was work and grownups. Besides, there was this one night when he burped from 15 feet behind me and I smelled it a few seconds later. Ew. That’s more than sufficient to turn a 17 year-old off to the point where I requested that he take me home…and he refused. So I was stranded alone with him in his house for longer than I’d wanted. But that’s another story. But 8 years isn’t even the largest gap.

There was the 28-year-old who, unlike the previous two guys, was just plainly sexually attracted to me. I believe the “younger” two, after investing time into getting to know me, actually liked me for me. But Tony, he had a live-in girlfriend who I believe he was engaged to at some point. He had a very young son from a prior relationship or marriage. He’d tell me about his Asian fetish (altho both his prior relationships were with white women approximately his age), about how “you Asian girls’ skin is soooo soft” which he’d discovered while stationed in Asia with the armed forces earlier in life, and asked if he could be my “first.” Although I knew he was physically attracted to me from the way he talked to me and from the way he’d hug me too long in greeting and rub my back too sensuously during these unnecessarily long hugs to be platonic, I knew that when he wasn’t with me, he didn’t think about me, and had his eye on other pursuits as well. I never took him seriously. He ended up breaking up with his live-in 27-year-old girlfriend and getting together with a 17-year-old white girl, also from the BBS. I asked his ex how things have been for them, were they civil? She said they’re okay, and apparently the new girlfriends’ parents, despite having caught them making out in their backyard spa (obviously the girl lived at home w/her parents still), “are thrilled to have a 28-year-old dating their daughter. Go figure.”

I didn’t understand it then, but fast-forward to present-day. Last week while Mr. W and I were on our way to dinner with Mr. W’s neighbor (who’s a high school teacher), the neighbor was saying he didn’t get how adults could be attracted to high school students. To him, these kids were immature kids. “Maybe it’s because I have a daughter, it’s just disgusting to me,” he said.
Ever wielding the cattleprod, I asked, “So you’d be upset if your minor daughter dated an adult?”
“Oh, I’d be furious,” he said passionately.
“So you wouldn’t approve if your daughter were dating someone 14 years older than her?”
“No I wouldn’t approve! I’d MURDER him! That is SICK!” the neighbor exclaimed.
Mr. W turned around from the front passenger seat to take a side-glance at me in the backseat. “You’re NOT a minor!” he said.

Today is my Friday (as I am off tomorrow to sail the high seas to, uh, Ensenadas), so I’m posting a Friday ha-ha today. And also to say, “HA ha!” And of course, to help men understand women. Forwarded to me from a female coworker…

One day, when a seamstress was sewing while sitting close to a river, her thimble fell into the river. When she cried out, the Lord appeared and asked, “My dear child, why are you crying?”
The seamstress replied that her thimble had fallen into the water and that she needed it to help her husband in making a living for their family.
The Lord dipped His hand into the water and pulled up a golden thimble set with pearls. “Is this your thimble?” the Lord asked.
The seamstress replied, “No.”
The Lord again dipped into the river. He held out a silver thimble ringed with sapphires. “Is this your thimble?” the Lord asked.
Again, the seamstress replied, “No.”
The Lord reached down again and came up with a leather thimble. “Is this your thimble?” the Lord asked.
The seamstress replied, “Yes.”
The Lord was pleased with the woman’s honesty and gave her all three thimbles to keep, and the seamstress went home happy.
Some years later, the seamstress was walking with her husband along the riverbank, and her husband fell into the river and disappeared under the water. When she cried out, the Lord again appeared and asked her, “Why are you crying?”
“Oh Lord, my husband has fallen into the river!”
The Lord went down into the water and came up with George Clooney. “Is this your husband?” the Lord asked.
“Yes!” cried the seamstress.
The Lord was furious. “You lied! That is an untruth!”
The seamstress replied, “Oh, forgive me, my Lord It is a misunderstanding. You see, if I had said ‘no’ to George Clooney, you would have come up with Brad Pitt. Then if I said ‘no’ to him, you would have come up with my husband. Had I then said ‘yes,’ you would have given me all three. Lord, I’m not in the best of health and would not be able to take care of all three husbands, so THAT’S why I said ‘yes’ to George Clooney.”
And so the Lord let her keep him.
The moral of this story is:
Whenever a woman lies, it’s for a good and honorable reason, and in the best interest of others. That’s our story, and we’re sticking to it!
Signed,
All Us Women

Got this forward from a coworker. With age comes wisdom. Or a form of it.

HOW TO CALL THE POLICE WHEN YOU’RE OLD AND DON’T MOVE FAST ANYMORE.

George Phillips of Meridian, Mississippi was going up to bed when his wife told him that he’d left the light on in the garden shed, which she could see from the bedroom window. George opened the back door to go turn off the light but saw that there were people in the shed stealing things. He phoned the police, who asked “Is someone in your house?” and he said “no”. Then the policeman said that all patrols were busy, and that he should simply lock his door and an officer would be arriving when available. George said, “Okay,” hung up, counted to 30 seconds, and phoned the police again.
“Hello, I just called you a few seconds ago because there were people stealing things from my shed. Well, you don’t have to worry about them now because I’ve just shot them all.” Then, he hung up the phone.
Within five minutes three police cars, an Armed Response Unit, and an ambulance showed up at the Phillips’ residence and caught the burglars red-handed!! One of the policemen said to George, “I thought you said that you’d shot them!” George said, “Well, I thought you said there was nobody available!!”
The moral of the story…. “DON’T MESS WITH OLD PEOPLE!!”

My coworker’s mother’s funeral this morning was a very nice Catholic mass service, complete with the counting of the rosary as an opening. Having virtually no Catholic exposure, I was surprised that the rosary went on that long, cuz I’d always thought when priests told sinners to say 3 “Hail Marys” to forgive sins (like in jokes), it was simply “Hail Mary, hail Mary, hail Mary. Yay, I’m forgiven.” Sitting through the very ritualistic practices of mass, I was aware that orthodox Catholics would find it a huge trespass for me to have sinful thoughts or participate in disrespectful behavior, especially while I sat there as a guest in the House of God. And of course, my brain (because it is, after all, MY brain) displayed a most unorthodox image in my head during all the sitting and standing then sitting then standing prayers and responses. When the priest said after a prayer, “You may sit,” and the congregation backed their bodies down onto the wooden bench, I pictured myself sitting on a large phallic protrusion coming out the center of my seat so that it strategically would create a huge sin. As soon as the absurd image entered my mind’s eye, I shoved it out in horror. “What is WRONG with you?!” I chastised my rebellious brain.

After the service was over, I stood with some coworkers and my judge. My judge revealed that as a boy, he’d attended a private Catholic school and the service today took him back to memories of that childhood, when he was always terrified of accidentally having an impure thought while in the church and going straight to hell. So it’s not just me. There’s something about what you’re not allowed to do, that makes human nature just do it. Or at least think about it. Well, if I can’t control my thoughts, at least I can control my actions. I would’ve knocked that phallus away from me, dirty unwanted thing! Yeah.

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

heroin (4x) sex (3x) knife (2x) lesbian (1x)

I’m shocked. Truly. I only talked about heroi — uh, that narcotic — in the legal sense of the term, and lesbi — women who sexually and romantically prefer to date their own gender? I don’t recall using that word at all! But I AM surprised that it’d only come up once. And KNIF — uh, metallic tool used to spread BUTTER? Are they KIDDING? Thanks, Flat Coke, for the link!

Yesterday morning, Mr. W and I brought our free passes we got in the mail over to Universal Studios Themepark, Hollywood, arriving over half an hour before the park opens. That’s life with the W — always cracking the whip in the morning panicking about being “late,” always waiting at the destination having arrived overzealously early. I have to say, though, that I enjoyed Universal Studios so much more than I’d enjoyed Disneyland. I think it has better rides, better special effects on the rides (well duh, it’s Universal Studios with Hollywood magic), and less people! Best of all, less kids! They also let you bring in your own water and provide cooling spray misters and roof overhangs/awnings so we’re more comfortable in line. Disneyland has virtually no shade and no trees near lines and no misters in order to force its customers to buy water, ice cream and sodas at its strategically placed concession carts. Because of the uncrowdedness in the earlier half of the day, we were able to get on every ride we wanted by noon with lines of 5 minutes or less. “Jurassic Park, The Ride” was a first for me. And might I say — KICK ASS! They say it’s “now wetter than ever,” and they were right! They accomplished that by having dinosaurs pop out of the water at random points of the river coaster and spray us directly with their mouths! We also duck under trickling waterfalls, and there’s a big, GIANT splash at the end that got me completely by surprise. Water hit me directly in my face and on my body for long enough that my brain went through this, “Okay, now I’m getting wet. Gotta close my eyes. I’m still getting wet. What the heck, it’s just coming down!” and I yelled, “Oh my GAWD!” while covering my face with my hands at this point. And then the water stopped. I realized as I climbed out of the ride that the way the ride loads, it’s specifically designed so that the people getting into the raft as well as the people waiting in line for the ride can not see the drenched riders getting off. Such is movie magic, and the element of surprise maintained by controlling the audience’s perception. (Seriously, click on the link. You’ll see the short 15-second video.)

Some other noteables — our first ride of the day was “Back to the Future, The Ride,” and it’s a simulated flight ride in a large projection screen room much like Disneyland’s “Star Tours” and California Adventure’s “Soaring Over California.” We’re in a convertible DeLorean and it seats four across the front, four across the back. We got put in a group with a robust dad, corporeal mom, their two substantial kids, and another adult couple who are the family’s corpulent friends. The 4-member family took up the front row with the 2 kids in the center seats, and the back row from left to right was me, Mr. W, male friend, female friend. The joint lap bar that had to be lowered over everyone together across our row stopped at my chest level, leaving a good foot-and-a-half gap between it and my lap. I’m not blaming the strangers for being physically configured so as to stop the progress of the bar early. I’m just saying that I feared for my life as the topless, side-less DeLorean pushed forward toward the screen and the floor dropped away beneath us, and the ride began its shaking, rocking, jolting simulated journey. I also couldn’t see what was coming because I was behind the father and despite the size of the screen, his back and head blocked most of my view.

Oh, I was also an official actress at a real studio with real cameramen and special effects crew yesterday! While standing in line waiting for the next “Special Effects Stages” show to begin, Mr. W suddenly started raising his arm and jumping. I looked to the front and there were 2 workers in blue vests looking around. Apparently they’d asked for something. Were they asking for a party of 2 to fill in some seating somewhere? We were selected and Mr. W, pulling me to the front of the line, said, “Is that okay?” “Is WHAT okay?” I asked him as the worker said, “Thanks for volunteering!” We were shuttled inside the building as everyone else remained outside in line, and Mr. W was handed a waiver form. The worker quickly explained that we’re going to be on 10-foot high platforms and Mr. W would be chained to a wall groaning in pain and I would be screaming and moving “heavy” foam blocks from one side of me to the other. Eh? Well, I don’t get to do THAT at work!
Turned out we were being used to demo the special blue-screen effects used in Universal Pictures movies and TV shows. After the audience was situated, Mr. W and I were instructed to leave the actors’ fold-up chairs we were in, and I went onstage as the audience was viewing an old 50’s movie clip that showed a woman looking out her living room window and seeing a huge cat face taking up the window, and she was doing the 50s hysterical screaming with hands to her face. I was handed a curtain string, and the demonstration guy doing the show asked me before the audience, “Are you scared of cats, Cindy?” If you know me, that’s the last thing I’d be scared of, so I hesitated, and decided upon the answer, “Um, I can be.” The audience laughed and the guy said, “Good answer, actress! Okay, when I say ‘action,’ pull the string, opening the curtain. Look out the window, and you’ll see a huge cat head. If you look at the monitor, you’ll look about 6 inches tall, and this cat will be pawing at you and batting. Scream, and keep screaming like a scream could save your life. Let’s do a scream now for practice.” He leaned back, covered his ears, and I did my blood-curdling horror movie death scream while covering my face like the black and white actress, stopped abruptly, and grinned at the audience, changing my expression completely. The audience laughed and cheered. The presenter complimented my scream, I was told to remain standing on the “X” on the floor, and ‘action’ was called. I screamed, ducked, screamed some more, raised an arm to block my head from the giant fuzzy paw on a stick that Mr. W was holding to bat at me off-stage, screamed, tried to push the paw away, screamed. The audience was really impressed and cheered and applauded, but I had no idea what the finished product looked like, since I was too busy screaming at the giant cat.
Next, I was placed in a chair onstage as the presenter explained that they were about to see a clip from the upcoming sequel of “The Nutty Professor” starring Eddie Murphy. All actors in the clip are in place except for one, which I will be bluescreened into. Turned out it was the dinner table scene. They rolled the clip, and I was instructed to wave to the camera. So all of a sudden, in the monitor, there I was seated at the dinner table with a family stuffing their face and waving at the audience. I was handed a plastic turkey leg and told to gnaw at it like a Neanderthal, go! I held it in both hands and gnawed like it was corn, and I appeared in the shot in mid-action and the audience busted up. Then I was told to wag an index finger back and forth in front of me and lip sync the words, “You betta mind yo’ own business, grandma!” with attitude. So I appeared and I mouthed the line with a snobby expression on my face while doing the “sista-head-action.” The audience roared.
The last thing was the 10-foot platform scene we were prewarned about. We were put in ancient Egyptian garb and walked up stairs backstage. Mr. W was chained ankles and wrists to a stone wall in front of the audience, and I was walked a few steps down past him in between two stacks of foam bricks. He was instructed to moan and groan in tortured pain, and the presenter at the lower stage said, “Go ahead and give us a cry of pain, [Mr. W].” Mr. W let out two or three noises, and the presenter retorted, “I said CRY OF PAIN, not MOAN OF ECSTASY, [Mr. W]!” as the audience laughed. I was an Egyptian slave who was taking the large “heavy” foam blocks from my left and placing them on my right, and “action” was called. I struggled and yanked the first block, barely slid it off the stack as I fell to one knee with the weight, then moved it to my right, placing it above the other stack. Turning back to my left for another block, I saw the second director yelling at Mr. W to moan louder, look more tortured, as Mr. W moaned like I’d never heard him moan before. =P On the monitor, we were bluescreened into the movie “The Mummy.” I struggled and managed to yank another block over to my right, topping over the rest of the blocks, and then lightning struck Mr. W and the studio went dark. In the darkness, a presenter said, “What happened? Okay, just a minute folks, nothing to be worried about, we’ll have our lights working shortly.” The lights came on, and the presenter at the lower stage looked up at us and yelled, “OH my GOD!” Everyone looked over to where Mr. W was, where there is now only a skeleton strapped to the wall. Everyone laughed. The second presenter ran up to the bones. “Is he alive?” the first presenter called from the bottom. “[Mr. W]! Can you hear me?” the second presenter yelled at the skeleton while giving it a backhand pimp slap. The audience laughed. The second presenter walked sadly to the front of the elevated stage, looking down. “No, I’m afraid he isn’t,” he announced. I put my hands together in a delighted clap, jumping up and down lightly. The audience laughed again. “Is CINDY alive?” the first presenter, who was out of view of me, asked. The presenter on the stage with me said, “I’ll check” and turned to me with his arm up like he was about to give ME a back-hand, too. The audience gasped and I dropped my jaw in mock horror, and the 1st presenter yelled out right in time, “NOOO!” The 2nd guy froze. I was then walked down to join the audience in a special VIP seating area to enjoy the rest of the show. Alone. Since Mr. W was struck by lightning onstage and died.
In the next show segment, the presenters of the special effects told us about the fake blood that Hollywood had used through time, how it used to be chocolate syrup in the black and white days, and then red-colored water in the Jaws days. One presenter raised a large jar with some crusty red stuff in it. “I’m out of fake blood,” he announced, “So I’ll have to use REAL blood for this demo. Where can I get real blood?” All of a sudden the wall behind him rotated and Mr. W came spinning into the room screaming bloody murder, bound to the wall. “Oh my GOD! He’s been brought back to LIFE!” the presenters said in joy. They grabbed his arm, put it in a sink, and the monitor over them showed a knife sinking into his arm with blood gushing out. Mr. W screamed. The kids in the audience whimpered. I laughed. And then they showed how it was done as they raised the knife with the semi-circle cut into the edge. Then they cleaned the “blood” off his arm, returned him into the audience, thanking the heavens that he was brought back to life “altho Cindy didn’t even seem to care. She was like, ‘Eh. Whatever.’ ” Well, he SIGNED a WAIVER.

The judge took half an hour away from us for lunch to cram in more time for jury selection, so I was unable to go to the gym. Instead, I kept busy with something else…look who got a new little house!

It’s my big boy! The “little” avocado tree! My dad told me recently that an avocado tree has to be “mated”, male and female, to bear fruit, and asked if I wanted to graft his friend’s avocado tree into mine to take care of that. I told him I already knew that there has to be 2 trees together and that I’d already taken care of that by growing my little avocado tree a wife:

And then I found out from my dad that you can’t tell whether an avocado tree is male or female before it flowers for the first time. What?! It has DESIGNATED gender, like a human? I did not know that. I just figured you put 2 different trees together and they’ll straighten themselves out. So now it’s possible I may be raising a little gay or lesbian avocado couple. But 2 out of 4 courtroom personnel in here agree, the little avocado tree has a definite male presence. And the new seedling in the plastic cup took her sweet time springing out roots and a little stem as everyone waited, so it seems female to me!
For prior photos and a little avocado history, click here.

Happy Friday! All’s quiet on the Western Front. I came back today to find that our trial is over; the jurors returned their verdict yesterday while I was at graduation. Unfortunately, the floater court reporter took the original verdict home with her. Who does that?! But according to the floater clerk, he’d already tracked her down and she’s going to mail it back to us.

I may join my coworkers for happy hour tonite at Outback Steakhouse. Tomorrow, my gym trainee volunteered to come to my house for a much-needed closet cleaning. After that, if Dwaine doesn’t poop out after his San Diego 10K Mud Run on Saturday, we’re gonna hang out and cook. “You can come over and prod what’s left of me with a stick after the mud run,” was how he put it.

Mr. W is already in Vegas with his kidlets. They’ll be back Sunday. I’d planned to give his son this cool gadget as his graduation gift, but it turned out you can only get this online, so I ordered it today. Now it’s gonna end up being more of a birthday present than a graduation present, his birthday being only 2 days before my own. Oh yeah. Mr. W, if you’re reading this before I give your son his graduation gadget, don’t tell him what it is! I figure this’ll come in really handy when he’s deciding whether to drive from school all the way to his mom’s house after class, or to wait out traffic at Mr. W’s house or in school. Or to take an alternate route. Here’s a review on the product.

Kids are great, aren’t they? Here’re some anecdotes my dad email-forwarded me:
WHEN MY THREE-YEAR-OLD SON OPENED THE BIRTHDAY GIFT FROM HIS GRANDMOTHER, HE DISCOVERED A WATER PISTOL.. HE SQUEALED WITH DELIGHT AND HEADED FOR THE NEAREST SINK. I WAS NOT SO PLEASED. I TURNED TO MOM AND SAID, “I’M SURPRISED AT YOU. DON’T YOU REMEMBER HOW WE USED TO DRIVE YOU CRAZY WITH WATER GUNS?”
MOM SMILED AND THEN REPLIED….. “I REMEMBER!!”

A new teacher was trying to make use of her psychology courses. She started
her class by saying, “Everyone who thinks they’re stupid, stand up!”
After a few seconds, Little Davie stood up. The teacher said, “Do you think
you’re stupid, Little Davie?”
“No, ma’am, but I hate to see you standing there all by yourself!”

So I was listening to the radio this morning and Danny Bonaduce said that statistically, 99.9% of people who get bitten by a rattlesnake survive if the person is over 125 lbs. Well heck, I’M over 125 lbs (just barely), but my goal is to get way under that. And apparently it’s now rattlesnake season, as dogs are being rattlesnake trained so they don’t come yelping home with two puncture wounds on their nose. Maybe I should just maintain the weight I am now, you know, for life and death reasons. Heh.

My cell phone keeps claiming to be low on memory, so it finally occurred to me to clean out my “sent messages” box. All the photos and multimedia I’d sent out are apparently stored in there sucking up space. In going through these things deleting one by one, I found this one sent to my cousin Jennifer on July 7, 2006. I remember I was in a movie theatre watching previews. The message reads:
“DUDE! Steven spielberg is doing a TRANSFORMERS movie, due out 7-4-07! We have got 2 see that. They’re MORE than meets the EYE!!”
I think I’d sent a similar message to Vanessa. But now it’s a nice reminder to myself, a year later. TRANSFORMERS! AUTOBOTS! DECEPTICONS! OPTIMUS PRIME! *in electronic voice* OO-OO-EE-EE-AH! Okay, you have to be a child of the 80s to get that. I’m not even sure I’m spelling the stuff right as I barely understood English when I was 6, 7 watching the cartoon.