cindy's world

Last nite during dinner at my parents’ house, my mom looked at me and asked, “Are you gonna lose weight before your wedding?” Geesh, there’s no hiding any new fat cells from Mom. I told her I know I’d gained a little recently. She scolded me to stop weight lifting so I don’t thicken up any more. I said annoyed, “Yeah okay, I’ll be a skinny fat girl instead of a fit girl.” (Dwaine, by the way, hates skinny-fat girls. You know, the chicks who have tiny measurements and who fit in a size 0, but jiggle everywhere and have no tone or shape cuz it’s just fat wrapped around bone? If I’m gonna be thick, I’d rather be a fit-looking thick.)

And then I wondered…is all the trendy frozen yogurt that I’m eating on a regular basis making me fat? I must’ve gone every day this past weekend. A new favorite at YogurtLand is the peanut butter froyo. I think I’d be pretty devastated if I had to cut the yogurt out of my life.

It’s hard to wonder anything for long when my mom starts lightly smacking my upper arm, making critical comments on my arm girth due to what she considers excessive muscle. And then the next thing I knew, she started doing some Tai Chi moves she’d learned from her new Tai Chi recreation classes, saying she’s now built up some strength too and can beat me up. I wasn’t even going to entertain that thought. Silly mommy.

But then, it wasn’t like I was helping myself today, anyway. I’d planned on hitting the gym both during lunch AND after work, but since we were in the midst of a trial when on my first day back today, of course we worked into lunch and then there was no time left for the gym. So instead, for lunch I ate a giant slice of chocolate cake my court reporter had saved for me from my judge’s birthday last Friday. And then Gym Trainee and I drove to a nearby discount store where I purchased the glassware for my wedding centerpieces. At least it was a productive lunch. I balanced out the chocolate cake with a powdered donut after work that was left over from the morning. =P Work was really WAY too productive without the internet to entertain myself with. I kept staring at my email inbox willing people to write me so that I could at least carry on an email conversation with friends. Wish me luck for hitting the gym after my 7pm Homeowners Association meeting tonite!

I had a phenomenal dental visit today! I mean, sure I got two teeth drilled and filled and I had to pay out-of-pocket since my insurance is no good there and I had to drive 30+ miles back in rush-hour traffic resting my weight on the brakes on the unmoving freeway while trying not to accidentally chew off my numb right cheek, BUT Andy is an amazing dentist! I’ve never had such a painless dental visit, and that includes the last visit to the other dentist last week when I had no work done; her x-ray card cut painful slashes in my gums. After thoroughly examining my teeth, gums, lymph glands and mouth (for oral cancer, and did you guys know the STD HPV causes 20% of oral cancer?! I read that on a pamphlet while I was waiting), Andy was shocked at how horrible my last dental experience was; she not only wanted to charge outrageous prices for unnecessary upgraded work (some of which materials Andy said he wouldn’t even put in his own mouth without further field tests, and definitely wouldn’t put in his grinding chewing molar surfaces because the material wouldn’t hold up so you’d have to go back to get them redone when they crack, paying for them again), but missed necessary fixes like cracked fillings. She also wanted to charge for 3 surfaces on a cavity that was only 1 surface. And after checking each tooth pocket, Andy said, “And she wanted to give you that $240 deep cleaning? That would’ve been a scam! You have such shallow tooth pockets and you don’t have bad plaque buildup, you only need a regular cleaning.” As for the wisdom teeth the other dentist insisted on having surgically removed? “Your wisdom teeth are fine. They’re fully crowned, in good condition, and there’s plenty of room in your mouth for them.” What about the undescended wisdom tooth sitting in my sinus cavity that the other dentist wanted to dig out? Andy was still of his original opinion: “I wouldn’t touch that with a 10-foot pole.” Andy’s touch was strong but surprisingly full of finesse; you can tell he takes pride in his work and connects with his patients. He kept checking on me to make sure I was still comfortable (which I always was, much to my own surprise).

So to compare apples to apples, the other dentist’s treatment plan for me (which doesn’t address the wisdom teeth): $6785 total, insurance will cover all but $3555.
Andy’s treatment plan for me, WITHOUT insurance helping me out: $1328 total.

HELL-o. I’m never going back to that other dental scam office. Anyone in SoCal need a good dentist? I’ll send you Andy’s way.

P.S. I’m going back tomorrow get my teeth cleaning (since I have this week off and we didn’t get around to that today). I canceled the bridal gown fitting/alteration I’d scheduled for tomorrow while I was at the dentist’s. The alteration manager I spoke to INSISTED I needed alterations and measurements to be done NOW and would only postpone it to the first week of June, saying that they need 2 months to make alterations. What the heck? And even if they DO need 2 full months, they were getting 3 with the beginning of June. Oh, whatever. I’m gonna insist that they don’t alter anything but the hemline, then.

P.P.S. The alteration manager reminded me to bring everything I’m gonna wear under the dress, so I took the opportunity to ask her whether I REALLY need a bustier. She sounded abhorred I’d even question that. “Of COURSE you do! Have you SEEN the effects of what a bustier does?” Of course I did. It pushes my fat to runneth over. But I told her we’ll talk about it at my appointment.

Today I picked up jujitsu buddy Josh at his house and drove to Long Beach, where we had lunch at Tokyo Wako. Josh is my wedding photographer and over lunch, we discussed wedding day scheduling and strategy. He’s such a gentleman; despite the fact that he was out there for me, he wouldn’t let me pay for my misoyaki sea bass and even paid me an immediate compliment that I seemed a lot slimmer than when he’d last seen me (which I think was at his graduation from Orange County Sheriff’s Academy last year).

After lunch we fulfilled our purpose for the meeting: he scoped out the wedding venue for the first time. We strolled around the grounds as he took a bunch of test shots, taking mental and photographic note of where he’d like to have people pose for group photos and where to set up for the best over-water bridge shots. He also took a few of me to check for lighting and positioning at the garden. I was surprised when I saw some of the photos on his digital display — I hadn’t seen my face and cheeks look that round in a loooong time. Might I be bloated from PMS? *squeezing boobs* No…I’m not sore at the key spot(s). Crap. Maybe the once-a-week gym time has caught up with me. My left wrist seems 90% recovered so I should be able to hit the weights again more regularly. The wedding isn’t for almost 4 months so that’s enough time to drop some inches.

BUT, I have an appointment to get my wedding gown alterations on Thursday. I’d thought that setting up an appointment this long before the wedding would be counterproductive, cuz who knows what size I’d actually be in 4 months. But when I picked up my dress last Thursday, that’s the day the alterations department said was appropriate. Having gone with Mr. W’s niece to her alteration in Vegas over the weekend and seen how her size changed between the time she bought the dress in January and now (a month before the wedding), I’m thinking this 4 month thing is way premature. Maybe they just want me to alter it for a second time closer to the wedding so they make money off the dress twice after its purchase. I’m going to cancel or postpone that appointment.

Out of curiosity, though, I tried the dress on for the first time tonight. It fit comfortably and almost loosely without the bustier, but the bustier somehow causes a fat roll effect above the dress. Sure the bustier enhances cleavage by lifting my chest, but it also lifts other things, like the fat on my back. Gross. And it’s uncomfortable and hot, and makes the dress fit tighter. What the heck; I thought the form-fitting restrictive undergarments are supposed to make my measurements smaller, not thicker. Is there some kind of rule that says I have to wear a bustier under my white bridal gown?

My bathroom scale’s been out of battery for months now so I don’t know what I weigh or what my body fat percentage is, but I’m afraid to find out anyway. I’m terrified that I’m gonna go thru a pudge period right when I have to be photographed for an high exposure major life event that’s gonna bring about many witnesses. My body tends to have some crazy momentum when it starts to gain weight, and is reluctant to reverse the cycle to lose weight again, so I’m gonna hit the gym on the regular starting tonight and double up on cardio. Josh reminded me today that when he first met me, I used to hit the weights at lunch, go back for cardio after work, run 6-8 miles every other evening, and go to jujitsu on the nights I wasn’t running.

I thought vacations were supposed to be relaxing, or at the very least, relieve some stress by freeing up time so that we can get stuff done.

I’m on vacation this week and next, and I’d planned to pack it with wedding stuff and house preparation stuff. Yesterday was pretty productive; Mr. W, his son and I went to a tuxedo connection Mr. W had and bought 4 Ralph Lauren tuxes, complete with jacket, shirt, bowtie, vest, pants. Mr. W and his son looked very sharp in their fittings, very 007. The other 2 tuxes are going to Mr. W’s two brothers who will be groomsmen next to Son, who’ll be Best Man. All four are identical classic black tuxes that can be worn again for some formal event in the future. Mr. W and I are visiting his parents for Mother’s Day weekend coming up so we’ll drop off the tuxes to his brothers and double-check the fit, with plenty of time to adjust or tailor if the measurements the brothers sent us weren’t accurate. I remarked how the men are gonna be fancier than the bride with their designer digs. (I’m not a name-brand person at all; I go where the savings are.)

With Monday so productive, I figure I’d throw in a dental visit on my vacation, too. We drove by a dental office recommended by Mr. W’s best bud ex bro-in-law, and the office very efficiently booked me as a new patient for an appointment the next morning at 8a, telling me I can fill out new patient forms online, which I did last nite. This morning, I went in for my visit. Right after the office finished impressing me with their technology (digital full-mouth x-rays!), it all went downhill. The female Vietnamese doctor right away started upselling me on the services, telling me my insurance covers X, but X is horrible and Y is better, nevermind that it costs $735 out-of-pocket more PER TOOTH, times 3. Insurance covers standard teeth cleaning, but THIS deep cleaning is better and necessary, nevermind that it costs $60 out-of-pocket PER QUADRANT, times 4. And my teeth need MAJOR WORK, and in fact, I need SURGERY pronto to remove all 4 of my wisdom teeth, nevermind that I don’t have problems with them and have had them in since I was a teenager. She paused at one point and I don’t know what my face looked like, but she said, “It doesn’t look like you want to get your wisdom teeth removed.”
I said, “I really, really don’t. I’m not a fan of unnecessary surgery and if they’re not giving me problems and my right upper wisdom tooth will never descend, then I don’t see why I should get them removed.”
She backed off quickly and said, “Okay, okay, it’s up to you!” And then she added, “You can think about it and come back when they REALLY start hurting.” WTF?! Why would they start hurting?! They’ve been there for half of my life. My dad went to a bad dentist who insisted his wisdom teeth had to be pulled in his late 40s, so my dad trusted him and had it done. Not only was it painful, torturous, inconvenient and expensive, but the extraction left holes in my dad’s jaws that filled with fluid and gave him a major infection. Mr. W’s dad is having a similar problem with a newly pulled wisdom tooth.
So the cost of this dentist’s services, not including wisdom teeth extraction and all THOSE related costs, is over $3000 out-of-pocket, over and beyond my insurance. I told them a bunch of excuses about how I can’t afford that right now because of the upcoming wedding expenses and turned down their financing options saying I can’t afford for my credit score to drop with the acquisition of new credit because the banks are being so tight with their mortgage lending practices, and walked out of there with nothing but x-rays done.
Then I called an old childhood friend, bridesmaid Sandy’s older brother Andy, who’s now a dentist in Pasadena. (We’re actually attending his wedding in Corona Del Mar at the end of the month.) He told me to book an appointment with his receptionist so he can take a look for a second opinion, and his receptionist suggested I pick up copies of the x-rays I’d just taken with the first dental office. I was uncomfortable doing that, but she assured me dental offices do that all the time and to explain to them I want a second opinion for such expensive services. Apparently it’s not good for the patient to take a lot of x-rays in close succession so they’re reluctant to do it if there are perfectly good current ones in another office. And then talking to the receptionist more, turns out Andy’s practice doesn’t take my insurance. GREAT.

I then called my catering director to make an appointment to discuss and finalize our food and beverage for the wedding, but she was at a meeting and wasn’t available. And then I called my cousin Oliver, who’s a mechanic specializing in Hondas, to ask about ordering a replacement right mirror for Mr. W’s son’s Accord (my old car), since he backed into some trash cans with his mirror and cracked the mirror. Turned out that was $175 because the entire casing had to be replaced, and the thought of MORE money going out just made me exceedingly tired. It didn’t help that I took the time waiting for return calls from Andy to reconcile my checkbook against my bank statement and organized my receipts for my credit card, so now I feel REALLY poor.

My horoscope for today, which I saw right before I started blogging today:
You may feel as if you are running out of steam, whether or not you have reached your goal. Something important is about to shift, but this doesn’t mean you can’t finish your work. Trying to speed up your productivity won’t be effective because sloppiness won’t be rewarded. The truth is that you have more time than you realize. May 6, 2008
My daily horoscope shows up on my internet start page, along with a Word of the Day, which today is:
amalgam: an alloy of mercury with other metals; also, a mixture.
Amalgam is what started all the expenses at the dentist this morning. The silver fillings that apparently cause more problems over time, that you have to drill more aggressively to apply, that fell out of one of my teeth creating a hole in the middle of a molar, that the insurance covers but is not what’s recommended by this dentist for long-term teeth health.

My bartending instructor sent me an email yesterday explaining that he wasn’t at the bartending competition this weekend because his son-in-law had passed away on Friday. He invited me to the first day of his new class today, so I can pick up some margarita salt/sugar rimmers he wants to add to my collection as a thank-you for the editing work I’d done for him. I think I’ll go and stay for a little bit because being at a fake bar is somehow stress-relief for me, too. Playing with colored water. Fun stuff.

I bought a little container of planted Venus fly traps over the weekend that I’ve brought to work. There’s been gnats irritating the crap out of me in the past week. I think they’re coming from the avocado trees’ soil. Hopefully this’ll resolve the problem, altho it doesn’t look like it’s caught anything yet. All the little pink teethy mouths are still open and hungry looking.

Today marks the first day I’ve gone to the gym in 9-10 days. There were plenty of little excuses — lunchtime work meetings, evening HOA meetings, bartending class, my trainee being unavailable due to her own lunchtime meetings and errands. I’ve even leaned heavily on the fact that I’d injured my left wrist months ago by benching with an easy bar (yeah, don’t do that; use a straight bar or skip it if the straight bar for your weight isn’t free), and now it hurts to support any weight whatsover so my constant heavy weightlifting through the pain has lengthened or maybe even worsened the problem. But the real reason for my lack of appearance at the gym is that I haven’t felt like going. Today, because gym trainee and I both hadn’t gone in over a week, we decided to make this a cardio-only week to give my wrist an extra week to heal and to warm us back up into working out. 10 minutes elliptical on hills, 10 minutes run on a treadmill, 10 minutes stairs, and we were sweating bullets. Serves us right for being so lazy the past week.

Saturday, Mr. W and I had dinner with my parents, my aunt, and her sort-of significant other. She refers to the guy as her “best friend” and “soulmate” but she’s still married to my uncle. Anyway, the guy is a definite fan of the gym and is wider than he is tall (all muscle), and all evening long, in between his pill-popping of various supplements, digestive aids, and fat burners, he insisted that Mr. W adopt his workout and supplementation regimen, with a GIANT push for creatine. Mr. W pushed it on me and said I won’t let him take creatine, but I just didn’t want to get into that stuff with a fanatic. It got awkward as they were leaving, tho, cuz he hugged us goodbye (really friendly guy, been in my aunt’s life for over 10 years now) and then said to Mr. W and me that he’ll see us soon, if not then he’ll see us at the wedding. After they left, my mom said that my aunt had told her that he can’t go to our wedding because her husband will have a fistfight with him. I guess I’m only addressing the envelope to Mr. and Mrs., then. I don’t want two grown men fistfighting at my wedding!

On Sunday in the middle of watching “Angel,” I felt my first twinge of stress since planning the wedding. A couple of people had asked me last week how the wedding plans were coming along, and I’d answered honestly that I haven’t done a thing toward that end in months. It used to be because I was so ridiculously far ahead in wedding planning that I haven’t thought about doing more, but now that it’s been months since I did anything except order that cute little cake topper that came today, I started to feel like I’ve let myself fall off-track and waste weekends doing nothing but hanging with Mr. W idly playing Wii or watching “Angel.” So I ran off into the other room, typed out an email to MOH Vicky and my mom to schedule measurement day for our dresses, scribbled out a to-do list for the 2 weeks of vacation I have coming up in May (which I will fill with wedding and home repair stuff), and felt better.

Sunday night, Mr. W invited his neighbor over to my makeshift bar in Mr. W’s kitchen. I wanted to get drink mixing practice in, but I don’t really drink and there’s not enough adults to drink my stuff ordinarily. Sunday night, I gave the guys a menu based on the liquor we had on-hand, and I made Mr. W a Long Beach Iced Tea (gin, rum, vodka, Triple Sec, tequila, sweet & sour, splash of cranberry juice), his neighbor a Sour Apple Martini (vodka, Sour Apple Pucker, splash of sweet & sour) and a Washington Apple Martini (Crown Royal, Sour Apple Pucker, splash of cranberry) which his neighbor has now decided are his all-time favorite alcholic beverages ever, and I made myself a makeshift Red-Headed Slut (Jaegermeister, peach schnapps, cranberry juice; I didn’t have peach schnapps so I substituted it for a shot of Triple Sec and it came out tasting nearly identical). I forgot — on Saturday I also made Mr. W a dirty extra-dry blended gin and vodka martini, and made myself a Bacardi Cocktail (Bacardi Premium [dark] rum, sweet and sour, Grenadine). 2 drinks in a weekend is bad for me, especially when I haven’t been at the gym.

I think the guilt over not fixing up my house (removing bathroom wallpaper, repairing the ceiling damage caused by the roof leaks) is permeating my subconscious. This morning I was trapped in a nightmare about there being a landslide and my house being half submerged underwater. In my dream I thought for some reason that I could just leave it underwater cuz the inside’s dry, but then suddenly the walls got moist and the ceiling started leaking in the upstairs hallway, and Dodo was getting concerned. I also dreamt that I kept trying to go to work, but 3 attempts all landed me at Disneyland. So in my dream I seriously considered calling in sick from my physical inability to be anywhere but Disneyland. Oh, and some staff member at Disneyland was trying to peddle some nutrition meal substitute on me.

Even though today is supposed to be a day off for me (Cesar Chavez holiday, the NorCal folks hate that I have this day off), I’m here. At work. Getting a couple of things done. Of course my judge is here, too. He was surprised to see me and already gave me a couple of things to look over. There are a surprisingly high number of employees in the building. “Is this a day off?!” a law clerk friend said earlier, looking at all the coworkers around her.

Not that I came in during regular hours, nor am I planning to stay long. I’m just giving my roofing guy a few extra minutes to email me the roofing invoice, so that I can print it and include it with my homeowners’ meeting minutes and demand for payment for my roof to the other homeowners in the association.

I had a list of things to do today. I already reviewed and made changes to my HOA documents as requested by the other officers, I got Dodo more cat food and litterbox crystals, bought some necessities at WalMart (I usually go to Drug Emporium for toothpaste, shampoo, contact solution, etc., but I was dismayed to find that it’s shut down!), and am now at work. Soon, I’ll leave here to test the drive to the the bartending class (1st day of class is tomorrow after work!) and then meet up with MOH Vicky at the gym at 3:30.

Just for kicks, guess what Mr. W is doing all day! He’s attending employee training seminars/lectures at the Museum of Tolerance! I spoke to him at his lunch break and he said a guest speaker coming up in the afternoon is an actual survivor of the Holocaust.

I think, I think, I’m addicted to string cheese. I bought a pack of ’em the other day and keep it in my fridge. I started out having one stick a day around lunchtime. And then I had to have one at home in the evenings while watching TV. And then it was two watching TV. The other day I had four. “But they’re so small,” my courtroom assistant said, trying to make me feel better. Small or not, they’re 80 calories each, and 4 would be 320 calories I otherwise wouldn’t have consumed had I not purchased the pack. But there’s just something so fun and tasty about trying to peel stringy cheese as thin as possible off a cold-hardened stick, making it last as long as possible. It’s like a challenge, AND a calcium-rich snack. I’d always thought food consumed with bare hands were somehow more yummers than food you have to cut and eat with a knife and fork. Like giant turkey legs from Disneyland and the Renaissance Pleasure Faire. *drool*

Mr. W said, “You’re not addicted to string cheese. You just eat it cuz there’s nothing else in your house to eat!” That’s one theory…but my fridge also contains salad dressing, eggs, butter, and an unopened bottle of white wine. And my freezer has ice. So obviously there are other things in the house to eat.

Now that I have finished all my string cheese, let’s see if I feen and have to buy more. My guess is that because I grocery shop a few times a year, laziness will overtake any withdrawal.

Yesterday, I had to forego my noontime workout because we had a mandatory meeting. Something about sexual harassment policies and how we’re strongly urged to report any harassment we feel we’re victim to. At the end of the meeting I asked the district administrator, “Does this mean I have to stop making racial slurs?” He laughed and said that’s probably a good idea for workplace conversation. I asked, “What if I just make fun of my own race?” He indulged me (knowing who I am, after all) but still said in a supervisory way, “Well, people who overhear you may still take offense to what you said. Like maybe you’re perpetuating the negative stereotypes or something. At our meeting downtown about this, they talked about tons of things that I never would’ve THOUGHT would be offensive to some people, but to some, it’s harassment.” I bitched about oversensitive, overly-PC people these days with no senses of humor, but we all know people like that we have to tiptoe around at work or in social circles because they take everything wrong. Those people are so no fun, always looking for an opening to accuse someone of racism, sexism, bias, so they can file a grievance. I think those people are the least colorblind of all, reading color issues where there were none.

After work, I called Vicky and dragged her out to the gym with me. Actually, I didn’t have to drag, she eagerly agreed to meet me there at 8p. She’d just gotten her gym membership reinstalled at my gym corporation, so I got a solid lower body workout in plus we did a heaving hour’s worth of cardio together on treadmill and elliptical trainer. It’s fun to catch up while being physically productive, so different from a few days ago, catching up while shoving food in our pieholes.

Our original plan was to leave Tuesday and drive back along the coastline, stopping whenever we wanted, staying overnight at San Simeon Pine Lodge where we’d stayed last year, and then take a leisurely drive home Wednesday. But because we were having so much fun with the NorCal folks, we decided to stay another night and leave Wednesday early morning instead. We figure if we leave at 7a, we’ll avoid downtown LA rush hour traffic.

We’ll never know if that timing would’ve worked, because I could not get up Wednesday morning. As Mr. W packed around me, I woke up in a start having been jolted out of a very disturbing nightmare of betrayal by a girlfriend over some jerk I wanted nothing to do with, who nevertheless swallowed my housekey (which I didn’t even know he had) instead of turning it over to me as I screamed louder and louder at him demanding my key back. ANYWAY, I tried hard to get up, but I kept falling over to the right. I looked up and the ceilings swirled to the left, over and over. I made it to the bathroom and while sitting on the toilet, I got deeply nauseated as the bathroom continued to spin counter-clockwise. I crawled back to bed and said I think I have vertigo. Diana soon came back up and asked for my symptoms, and confirmed it sounds like vertigo, which she used to get and which her mother gets occasional severe attacks of. She suggested motion sickness medication, and told me to just lay down. Mr. W went out to his car and got some Dromamine for motion sickness. I chewed two tablets, fell over sideways to the right again (there seemed to be this weird rightward gravitational pull), and knocked out. I woke up again at 11:30a. The room was still doing its counter-clockwise turns, but the nausea was now gone so the dizziness is tolerable. It’s not unlike being on a moving ship. I packed up my stuff and we soon took off. Diana had left for work already by this time.

I slept most of the drive, until we stopped by Magic Mountain and ate a late lunch/early dinner at Marie Callendar’s. Then I slept again in the car until we got to Mr. W’s house. I’d wanted to watch “Buffy” and “Angel,” but every few seconds I’d get the sensation of falling backwards into my own head, so I eventually just closed my eyes and slept on the couch. This morning, Mr. W woke me up, dropped me off at my house on his way to work, and I crawled into bed at 7a and slept. I’d wanted to get up a few times, 10:30a, 11:30a, 12:30p, but every time I pushed the covers away, the cold air would make me pull it up again. I finally made it out of bed for the first time at 3:30p.

The nausea never came back (thank goodness, cuz that’s the most awful part of this vertigo thing), but the dizziness didn’t completely go away until maybe late evening. I was concerned I couldn’t drive, but I badly needed groceries, so I visited the new “healthy” organic grocery chain “Fresh & Easy” near my house. After eating, I now feel a lot better. Thank goodness I’d taken the whole week off.

* House-hunting is getting old and making us feel poor.
* I booked our venue wedding coordinator consultation and our venue rehearsal, and tomorrow we’re attending the food-tasting to pick our meals.
* Today I received my order of more face powder and 3 eyeshadows from Sephora; starting tomorrow everything on my face will be Bare Escentuals and the switchover will be complete.
* We’re on Week 1 of Phase 2 in the psycho workout routine, both I and my gym trainee are looking the best we’ve looked since we can remember, and I was very proud of her when she told me she’s decided to wear a racer-back tanktop dress this weekend to visit her cousins in San Diego to “show off” her toned arms (since we did upper body today).
* I finally got to select vacation days for this year, and I got the week after my friend Jimmy’s upcoming Sunday wedding off so we can take our time coming back from Northern California after his wedding, BUT I didn’t have enough seniority to even make the WAIT LIST for the week of my own wedding. >:-(
* Dodo’s being a good sport in letting me brush some clumps out of his fur this week, altho it seemed somewhat painful, and he’s stopped jumping into the shower to lap up leftover bathwater in the mornings.
* The Association finally signed and mailed back the roofer’s contract this week, and I received an email from the roofer saying he hopes to start work around March 10; I was afraid to tell him my Association neighbors are asses and all still refuse to pay their contribution toward the repairwork.
* At Mr. W’s house without a TV in his bedroom and being unable to watch TV in the living room w/o disturbing his son who’s sleeping in the upstairs loft overlooking the living room, I am unable to fall asleep (obviously).