cindy's world

Today at lunch, I learned that I can run 3 miles without socks on.

Five minutes later, I learned that I can not run 3.25 miles without socks on.

It’s really too bad, because for once I have enough energy, time, and MP3 power to hit a solid 4 miles. “Murphy’s Law,” my court reporter told me in the locker room. Oh well. At least I ran something, 3.3 miles of it, plus 0.2 miles of a cool-down walk. When I realized I had neglected to bring socks after I was parked in the gym parking lot, I contemplated turning around and returning to work, or grabbing a bite. But I had already missed yesterday’s lunchtime workout to have lunch with my coworkers, so I can’t skip any more lunchtime workouts this week. (New rule: I can only miss 1 evening [jujitsu] workout and 1 noontime workout a week.)

I limped back to work just now. I have a blister on my right foot right at the side of the arch, where these particular shoes happen to connect with my foot. *sigh*

I was truly torn yesterday at the close of the business day about whether I should go to the DAs’ thing, or to jujitsu, or do some hybrid of both (for which I’d have to sacrifice alcohol with the DAs). The timing would be pretty tight because I’d have to leave the DAs in about an hour to make it to jujitsu. And then the answer came when a coworker, the one who took care of fuzzy wuzzy Dodo bear (a.k.a. the cat with the cone) the week I was on the cruise, came and asked for a favor. Her car was still in the shop, and she needed a ride home, and her home is less than a mile from my home. I grasped that as divine intervention, and left for home with her. I got to see her new townhouse and meet her adopted pregnant kitty, a very pretty and petite silver tabby whom I became fast friends with, and we hung out about half an hour until I left to go home and change for jujitsu.

I was so glad I went! Our instructor shut the door and gave us a “secret blackbelt workout.” Every school has their secret moves passed down only to the serious, very advanced students (and in some beliefs, only to the first-born son of the instructor), and we got to play with 3 of these moves. Pretty lethal stuff. I also told the instructor that just that day, my turn for picking vacation time came up and to my shock, the 1st week of November was available (which I immediately snatched), which means I can join the class for the week-long jujitsu training in Hawaii this year! Our school originated from Hawaii, so he’s still got connections there with some of the other instructors who were students back when he was. We’re going to have a clinic for 3 of the 7 days to work out, learn Hawaiian massage, and Hawaiian stick fighting. The other 4 days are ours to goof off and explore, plus there’s a banquet somewhere in the middle with an authentic Hawaiian luau (not the commercial stuff they give tourists, but a real, private one). They’re hooking us up with a beachside hotel and a good rate on flights. Unfortunately, it turns out when my instructor said “the first week of November,” he didn’t mean the first calendar week. He meant the first 7 days of November, which begins on a Wednesday, and my vacation days go by calendar weeks and I don’t have the 2nd week off from work. Once we figured that out, he immediately called Hawaii and changed the banquet from Sunday to Saturday so I can still attend and they’re going to shift the workouts some to accomodate me. I’m grateful they’ll do that, so I’m thinking of flying in early (since I have the whole week off) and doing my own thing first, then ending the vacation with the training, whereas the other students are going to begin their vacation with training and end on goofing off. He even made arrangements with the other Hawaii-based instructor to pick me up at the aiport. “So you have to wear a shirt that says ‘Cindy,’ he joked. “You got any of those?” I said, “That’s my whole wardrobe!”

I’ve never been to Hawaii. I can’t wait!

There are days I’m too tired or lazy to go to jujitsu, but there is not one time when I made myself go that I was not laughing and really glad that I was there.

My mom has gone from 1) hinting I should chop my hair when I’m at their house, to 2) blatantly telling me to cut my hair so that I’d look younger and less heavy and listless, to 3) telling me via phone to get my hair cut, to 4) emailing me today with a huge paragraph about how I need to chop my hair off. Her argument today in the email is that when I was 4 and she’d taken me to get my hair cut short, everyone kept commenting how cute I looked, which meant that she has great taste and I should listen to her. She also said that when my hair was cut, I had said, “It’s so ugly!” My opinion about that haircut remains constant. I think she associates short hair with looking young because in Taiwan, she’s used to seeing the “student hair,” which is the required uniform haircut for schoolgirls, i.e. hair no longer than to the bottom of your earlobes.

It’s not that I’m against getting my hair chopped. I’ve had short hair before, above the shoulders, but I usually do that every few years in the summer. In the winter, I like my long hair to hide evidence that I’m cold. My other arguments for longer hair is that I can’t wear my hair long when I’m old(er), so I may as well do it now while I can get away with it. Besides, guys like long hair on girls (with exception to Mr. W, who sides with my mom on this one and has already told me to make an appointment for this weekend). I also need it long enough that I can tie it back when I’m working out. The biggest thing is that short hair is high-maintenance, whereas long hair is wash-and-go.

It’s at that final argument point that I stop and think about something else my mom said in her email. “There’s no ugly women, just lazy women.” She encourages me to play up my youth while I still have it and make other girls jealous. I don’t think she meant it in a catty sort of way, she just means that while I have something to show off, I shouldn’t hide it behind ratty clothing and a messy mop on my head. A little effort is good in youth because it takes so little to look good, and looking good just starts your day off on a better note and your confidence makes you look more attractive in general.

Maybe I should take Wilco’s suggestion for goal #8 more seriously: Be hawt like wasabi at age 30.

(as always, rest your mouse pointer over the photos for captions.)

With only 3.5 months left of being 29, here’s a progress update of my original Before 30 goals:

1. Stay at the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego. Haven’t done it. BUT I went to Cancun instead. Diana and I figured the week off I had was a waste for San Diego cuz that can be a weekender thing.
2. Get back into kickboxing or take up a new martial art. Jujitsu! Tah-dah!
3. Take an automobile simple mechanics course. At least so I can change my own oil/tires. I forgot about this. I still think it’s a good idea. I’ll pull out the class schedule I just got and see if anything’s available. The upcoming Spring semester, I’m gonna be taking jujitsu and yoga already, so with a 3rd class I may as well go back to school.
4. Learn to surf. I’m not sure, but I may be scrapping this.
5. Stay at a bed-and-breakfast at the Niagara Peninsula. Ooh. Still wanna do this.
6. Buy a motorcycle. I’m scrapping this.
a. Learn to ride said motorcycle. ditto.
7. Lose another 10 lbs without chopping off a limb. I sort of already done this. But it was the same 10 pounds I already lost the first time. Guess I should’ve been more specific when I wrote this.

Vicky said this morning, “I’d like to tell my [future] kid or something that the year I turned 30, I ran a marathon and climbed Mount Whitney.”

Doesn’t that sound cool?! It immediately attracted me to the prospect. Maybe if I had ambitious physical goals like that, I wouldn’t be so scared of turning 30 because that would mean 30 isn’t over-the-hill, it isn’t official-boring-grownup-status, it doesn’t mean my life will be a decline from that point on.

The other thing I’m holding on to with my fingers crossed is something my ex and his friend William had said before, that women are at the peaks of their beauty in their early 30s. Something about still having the glow of youth with the sophistication and confidence that comes with wisdom gained through experience. (Not their words, I’m assuming and hoping that’s what it is, as opposed to, say, they just have a fetish for older women. GAACK, look, I still think of 30 as “older”!)

I’m gonna go up to San Jose to visit the Northern Cal buddies the weekend before my birthday. I already emailed them to clear their social calendars. They’re great wholesome people whom I know would not want to just sit at a bar and get me drunk. At that time, I would’ve known some of them just over a year. Wow, I can’t believe I haven’t even known them a year right now. They’re such a big part of my life. Well, my online life, anyway.

I’m pretty happy with my after-work productiveness today. I left about 20 minutes early (which is 40 minutes later than most people in my job description, and 70 minutes later than some others, plus the judge worked us 15 minutes into lunch today, so don’t judge me) and gassed up my car, went home, changed the cat litter, cleaned the cat area, vacuumed the house, did the dishes, cleared out some bills, collected and took out the trash, and got to jujitsu on time.

At jujitsu, we warmed up so hard I was totally pouring sweat (maybe my metabolism was still on from my 3-mile run at lunch today which, by the way, made me sick), and then I was directed to the front of the room to lead the class on abs. And then we did — I have no idea how to spell it, but it sounds like ron-doori, which is two people facing off with their hands on each others’ gis and trying to turn the other person off-balance and induce a fall. That’s one of the things I’m worst at, I always lose the skin off my left knuckles from fabric burn, and I’m always being thrown. But with the breakdown of the moves and strategies in a drill today, something clicked in my head and I kicked ass! I think the trick is (or at least, the trick that worked for me) to turn them left and right and then pull an arm in while pushing the other arm out so that they’re going backwards, perpendicular to you, and then step quickly into them while continuing to pull the side that’s down. They fall on their side or ass every time. Anyway, I got home, showered, and I just installed TurboTax.

Right now I’m waiting for the free TurboTax State to download. If I can finish my parents’ taxes tonight, then they’ll have it ready this weekend when I visit them and they can sign it and mail it in. I really thought I’d have to ditch jujitsu tomorrow to clean up around the house and work on taxes, but now it looks like I won’t have to. Unless I decide to go to this celebration at a local pub that the DAs invited me to. I don’t even remember what they’re celebrating. I don’t think anyone’s being promoted this time. The problem is that I can’t do both. I learned early on that even one margarita before jujitsu totally dulls my reflexes and clarity of thought, even tho I have zero other symptoms doing normal stuff. I guess jujitsu is just more demanding on concentration and coordination. I guess I can go and not drink, then head over to jujitsu. Hmm.

Who knows the reference to my post title?

My childhood friend Vicky, who has always sworn to hate running, has signed up for the San Diego marathon, running for the cause of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. She has a progress page that documents her runs and the amounts of her donations, how close she is to her goal. I put in $100 just now. The site takes care of the donations online, it was really easy.

You guys may have heard me talk about Grace here and there. She was one of my best friends. We met waiting for the school bus an early September morning when we were 14. She swore I gave her a dirty look that morning and that she never would’ve thought then that we’d be friends. Not only did we become friends, but that friendship stretched across great distances as she went to Berkeley for undergrad and I went to UCLA, and when she moved from there to New York to take a job offer with Merrill Lynch Risk Management (consulting, something to do with the stock market). She met Justin while training for Merrill Lynch. He was sent down from the Great Britain branch for training in the New York branch. She caught his attention when she kept dropping the ball during one of their getting-acquainted exercises in which everyone in that group sat in a circle and whomever got the ball had to say something about themselves and throw the ball to someone else. They fell in love and the plan was that she’d move to London after their wedding. “You keep moving farther and farther away,” I’d once told her. But she was so happy, and I was so happy that she was so happy. I was to be one of her bridesmaids. She never made that move to London because leukemia made her move even farther. I donated to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society then and also sponsored her when she did a walk across some bridge event for the Society, and registered as a bone marrow donor, but did little for the cause since.

I’m glad to be doing this for Vicky, and I’m glad that she’s doing this for the Society. And I’m so proud of her for completing her first 8-mile run this past weekend.

My jujitsu instructor invited me to compete this March. I shook my head, wide-eyed. He looked at me steadily, and I became unsure of what he was looking for, so I just looked back. Finally, he turned to another student and asked her, and she agreed. Maybe I made a mistake. Maybe I should’ve just gone for it. I’m not getting any younger. But I feel so green. Last semester was pretty much a waste as far as jujitsu went. I was so flakey. Maybe I’ll aim for a summer competition.

With the new year, I’m going to attend all sessions of jujitsu — 4 days a week, 2 hours per session from 6:30p -8:30p —

*** INTERRUPTION *** My bailiff JUST told me he’d recently found out that law enforcement (all branches) has a website in which single (or married and player, which is more likely) law enforcement officers can post a dating profile and women can shop for someone online like a dating service. It’s called something like “date a hero dot com.” My reporter and my reaction after looking at each other: “Oh, gawd. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” I turned to my bailiff and said, “Like you guys need something else to help your egos along!” *** END OF INTERRUPTION ***

and I’m still going to hit the gym at lunchtime. I’m also adding running back into the mix. I can’t hit the weights as hard as I used to, one because my conditioning isn’t there anymore, but two because I’m still training my coworker (who is improving her abilities and physique by leaps and bounds), but I figure the extra cardio and martial arts will make up for the lack of weightlifting. Running will keep the muscles off, anyway, and I don’t want to be overly hefty and sacrifice flexibility and speed in jujitsu.

Hopefully this more rigorous workout regimen will afford me the weekly Tuesday lunches with my current and retired coworkers, and the Friday evening happy hours. And since I’m gonna be home more, maybe the house can be better kept, as with the feline roommate.

I was encouraged to start snowboarding last nite in a phone conversation, and I thought I’d check my goals list to see if it’s on my list.

GACK! I just reviewed the goals I set for myself before I turn 30 and I’ve done ONE THING off the list! The motorcycle thing is pretty much out the window. I’m not gonna have time to learn to surf in before my birthday (it’s too cold to get in the ocean), I don’t have vacation in warm weather to stay at a bed-and-breakfast in the Niagara Peninsula, and altho San Diego is only a couple hours’ drive away, I haven’t stayed at the Hotel del Coronado there!

And then I looked at my local goals, and we’ve only hit 2/5 food places, 1/4 places to visit!

Life’s passing me by again! Time to start kickin’ my ass. If I did New Year’s Resolutions I’d put them on that.