cindy's world

…awwwwwwwwwwww!

Remember those lynx kittens? We visited them again, and here are both brothers:

I went to visit my baby niece Elle last month. Her parents bundled her up when they were about to leave.

Her parents took these of her, a few weeks before the picture I took, above:

She’s gonna be trouble! =) <3

(I showed the above 2 photos to Mr. W’s now-19-year-old daughter, and she said, “Oooooh myyyyy gaaaawd! What’s her ethnicity?” I explained that Elle’s dad is white and her mom’s Chinese. Daughter whipped out her cell phone and took a picture of Elle’s picture to take with her, saying, “Okay, you and my dad need to have a baby, like, right now.”)

If you don’t care for animals or babies, here’s something else for you.

Last furlough day, Dwaine took me to his tire place to get my car’s leaky tire patched (for free!), and here we are waiting for the tire to be done while enjoying some boba drinks.

Who knew blogging about 3 days would take so much time? On Sunday of Jordan & Chad’s visit, we set off for San Diego, where we finally enjoyed a fully sunny SoCal day. We first had a champagne brunch seafood buffet at Tom Ham’s Lighthouse. These cannons are by the front entrance. (As usual, rest mouse pointers on photos for captions.)

If you think what Jordan and I did was bad, you should see (on Chad’s post) what Chad did with the cannon. Next we hit up Sea World. WHEN did tickets to see a bunch of fish start costing $69?! Holy crap. I felt bad making them come here. I paid for Jordan tho, as an early birthday present, as her birthday was the next day. Here we are in the stands waiting for the Shamu show.

We saw lots of cool things at the Shamu Stadium, such as this…

And this!

And unfortunately, this…

This was taken outside in line waiting for the 4D Muppet Show, and I said, “Hey, let’s take a picture in our 3D glasses!” and as you can see, people weren’t listening to me. Jordan was on the phone, but what’s Chad’s excuse?

We were in the aquarium when I heard someone say, “Hey, come down here so I can talk to you!”

I looked down, and a huge catfish said, “Hello, remember me? Let’s retake that old picture you took a few years ago!” So here’s the old photo from July of 2006…

…and the current my-how-you’ve-grown photo.

Jordan bought a little stuffed animal Shamu back with her as a souvenir. Mr. W tried to take this one.

There are some exhibits and props you can play with and touch, like the above. And then there are others, like a giant jawbone of a great white shark, that’s roped off. If you follow the blog or know Jordan, you’ll know her irreverance for fenced-off stuff. Cars behind ropes, giant bird cages on hotel displays, M&M statues in Vegas…there are many photos of Jordan behind ropes, posing with do-not-touch displays. So when Mr. W, Chad and I saw the giant shark jawbone behind the rope, and heard an alarm go off as a tourist tried to touch a tooth, it became obvious how easy it would be to get Jordan to set off such an alarm. As she caught up to us, distractedly taking photos on her camera, Mr. W said, “Hey, lemme get a photo of you with that shark bone behind the rope.
She looked, and her eyes lit up. “Are there security people around?” she asked, looking behind her shoulder.
“No, just hurry up,” Mr. W said without looking around, aiming his camera. Jordan would later say she thought it suspicious he didn’t even bother checking before announcing there’s no security, as if overeager to get Jordan in the shot, but she slowly squatted down near the rope, took another look around, mouthed “ready?” to Mr. W, then darted behind the rope! INSTANTLY the alarms went off and Jordan leapt out, wide-eyed, as a bunch of people who’d stuck around to see if Mr. W could pull off this prank started laughing. Chad and I were outside the door looking in but wincing as it became clear that Jordan was going to do it; at one point we couldn’t even bear to look. It’s clear who the law abiders are in the group.
Moving on, we looked at all the cool animals in the arctic. Like polar bears…

…and beluga whales…

…and penguins!

Jordan’s comparing the size of the penguins to the size of the gnomes in her house.

And that concludes our Sunday! Oh wait. Afterwards we did go to In-N-Out so Jordan and Chad can taste a famous California burger chain. They were pleased. Aloha!

~ Cindy’s World will be right back after a word from one of our sponsors. ~

Dwaine: Modelo is my beer of choice. It’s light and refreshing, perfect for a get-together with friends. It’s so tasty, too!
Chad: There’s nothing like a cold Modelo to quench that dry throat feeling you get from talking too much when you’re hanging out with friends.
~ We now return to our regularly scheduled blog, Cindy’s World. ~

On Monday, everyone left us. I dropped Jordan off at the airport for her 6:30a.m. flight back to Florida, and Chad grabbed a shuttle for a farther airport for his 11am flight to New York to continue his vacation. Mr. W and I went to work. It was a fun weekend; thanks for visiting, Jordan & Chad, and thanks to all my friends who came out to meet them and hang out with us! See you all next time!

Saturday was spent visiting the beach areas. I had told friends ahead of time that we’d be at the Long Beach Pike where we’d find a restaurant for dinner and then hit up the Mai Tai Bar afterwards, and to join us whenever they’re able. Jordan, Chad, Mr. W and I first detoured to Huntington Beach (because Mr. W wanted to take our visitors on the scenic route), where everyone decided they were hungry enough to eat at Duke’s. We walked down Main Street, enjoyed the sporadic sunshine in between short bouts of drizzle, and porked out with a nice view of the beach. Unfortunately, since this detour took a lot longer than planned, Vanessa had already made it to the Long Beach Pike to meet us, so we jammed there while Vanessa shopped at Borders.

At Long Beach (Jordan’s childhood home town), we stopped and took some photos. Here is the famous Queen Mary behind us. Chad’s being nice and squatting lower so Jordan and I don’t feel like the midgets we are, but unfortunately, Mr. W zoomed out, foiling the attempt to fool the audience.

Jordan wanted to retake the 2008 photos she and I took around Long Beach, so we went off to find the ol’ photospots. Turned out that the little yellow ‘copter from ‘08…

… has been turned into a yellow SUBMARINE by 2010. Jordan made me shove my big butt in there anyway and pose for a photo. I’m not sure if a photo was taken by anyone before I leapt back out, screeching. Thanks to the recent rains, the seat was a POOL. My ass was totally soaked! I was NOT a happy camper after that because in the cold, I felt like my butt was turning into ice. That’s why our attempt to replicate this carousel photo from ‘08…

…ended up looking like THIS in ‘10.

I even tried sitting on the wooden boardwalk and rocking back and forth in an attempt to have the wetness sucked out of my jeans, but turned out, those weren’t wooden planks! They were plastic made to LOOK like a boardwalk. Shenanigans!

But I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t smiling on a ride. Vanessa and James (who’d arrived shortly after we did) caught up to us, and we walked by a huge Ferris wheel. Jordan instantly thought of the great photo ops from waaaay up there, and Chad just as quickly vetoed it, confessing he has a pretty severe fear of heights. None of us knew that before.
But anyway, look at this great shot of Long Beach we got!

I wonder how we got that shot. Hmm. The answer is below…

Honestly, I was surprised Chad took the leap and followed us up into the Ferris wheel. I was going to stay down on the ground with him. But what a trooper! I mean, can’t you just hear Chad’s teeth grinding as he tries hard not to look down?
When we finished wandering and sight-seeing, everyone decided on Bubba Gump for dinner.

It was perfect because Chad’s never been there, Jordan loves shrimp and wanted to eat it for dinner, and it was just underneath the Mai Tai Bar (our final destination). Turned out that Jordan and Chad are whizzes on Forrest Gump trivia, and we thought we’d be a shoe-in for the free dessert we’d win if we answer 5 trivia questions right, but the last question was SO unfair. It was, “What model of car was advertised on the side of the passing bus in the scene where Forrest is sitting on the bus bench?” WTF? Multiple iPhones instantly started googling, but to no avail. Shenanigans!!
On our way out of the restaurant to hit up Mai Tai Bar, our visitors couldn’t resist being in the shoes of Forrest Gump himself.
“My name is For-rest. For-rest Chad.”

Forrest W: “Life is like a box of video games…”

Forrest Jordan: “Wait, how does this go?”

Forrest Cindy: “Life is like a box of…HELP ME GET THESE CHOCOLATES OPEN!!”

Mai Tai Bar was also a hit! The waitresses wore TEENY skirts (Mr. W and Chad thought they saw something when one sat down to take our order), and it was happy hour for a LONG time. Ann joined us there and we all had a GREAT time bonding.

(as usual, rest mouse pointers over photos for captions)

Okay, I’m finally getting around to post photos about my Floridian and Tennesseean visitors’ weekend in SoCal on Feb 5-8. To read Chad’s rendition, see here.

Friday morning started off with a little scare, because bad weather had grounded a lot of planes and for Jordan’s flight, an announcement came that they were reducing the passengers to a mere 49 for weight considerations, and that they were going to call out the names of the lucky 49. She texted me through this, wailing that they weren’t calling her name. I immediately started looking up alternate flights as she was stuck in Vegas at her layover. I found one that left an hour later and asked her to see if she could be standby for that flight, so when she went up to ask, turned out, they HAD called her name, and fifth, too, and she didn’t hear! I threatened to kill her. She had the gall to text back, “Sorry! Want me to get off the plane?” *shaking fist*

Early afternoon, I excitedly picked up Jordan and then swung her by James’ work (a mere couple of miles from the airport) to say hello. This was the most high-security friend visit I’d been to. James had to come out to the Taco Bell parking lot where we were parked to get us and escort us into his building. It was raining, there were puddles everywhere, and the bottom 2 inches of my jeans got soaked. (Mr. W said that it rains in SoCal like 10 days out of the year, and these two choose 2 of those 10 days to visit.) I hopped around, trying to avoid puddles while balancing an umbrella with one hand and trying to pull my pants up with the other. Once in the building, James had to “okay” us to the front desk security; the guy checked our IDs, printed our names on visitor badges we had to wear, put a special sticker on each badge that would change colors if we overstayed our welcome (so that we can’t return the next day). Then we visited James’ lab and then his window office on a different area of the building. We only stayed for 20 minutes or so because James had a meeting (and I was bored), and Jordan and I went back to my house so she could settle in. Soon it was time to pick up Chad from the airport, so off Jordan and I went. Chad was already waiting curbside and hugged us hello while he wisecracked something about the awful gray weather, and then we blasted old school hip hop on the way back. Mr. W had asked me to call him if we were not going back home first, so he could meet us at the sushi restaurant, and so once Chad got all offended that I asked if he’d preferred to eat first or go back so he could drop off his stuff and change or “freshen up,” we called Mr. W and told him to meet us at our favorite all-you-can-eat sushi joint, Minato Sushi.

Jordan was queasy about eating “real sushi,” so we didn’t make her (which turned out to be a good thing for a few reasons, one of which was that the roll she ended up getting was surprisingly HUGE). Chad, however, came with an open mind and an open stomach, and let me just order whatever I felt like. This is a pretty inexpensive restaurant considering the quality of fish they serve, and I told Chad that there were only 2 sushi restaurants I’ve been to which served better fish, but those prices were triple what it cost here. Chad ate everything with gusto and exclaimed enthusiastically that he’d thought he’d had decent sushi before, but he had no idea it could taste like THIS. Yay! Well, now I know why I found the sushi in Florida so sub-par. Apparently it IS sub-par, but people don’t know any better. Until they come to California and hang out with us. Mr. W is slightly concerned we may have ruined Chad to all sushi at home now. Guess he’ll just have to visit again.

Dwaine joined us for a beer at the sushi place and although he didn’t really eat, he did try his first piece of sushi. Salmon. He said it was surprisingly good, and not fishy like he’d expected. Chad grabbed the bill and paid for everyone, which was what I’d planned to do. He said he was happy to do it, considering the entire bill for everyone, including the sake and beers, were less than what he’d paid for his last few dates. So ladies, apparently Chad’s the guy to date if you like expensive outings.

After sushi, we went back to our house to hang out a bit before going out again to BJs Brewery. We ended up never leaving the house. Dwaine said he didn’t know how he could’ve forgotten I’m certified in bartending, as I made Jordan an apple martini. The guys mostly had beers. We discussed social theories on dating for awhile.

Below we see Dwaine schooling Jordan, and she’s SHOCKED at his knowledge base.

A sisters-shot.

We ended the evening around midnight, which was 2am for Chad and 3am for Jordan. They’re troopers, after a day of traveling!

The Calendar
This year, Asian New Year and Valentine’s Day fall on the same day. So Happy New Year’s Eve and Happy Valentine’s Day Eve, people!

I like the above photo because it’s clear that as I’m lighting a giant string of firecrackers, the white boy has no idea about his precarious position. One can imagine that, right before this photo was taken, I said, “Here, Mr. W, hold this,” and he happily obliges, and I’m in a position where I’m about to light, cover my ears and run, and he’s just naively standing there. =D
Claudio & Ann
This is a long 4-day weekend for me, thanks to Lincoln’s birthday on Friday and President’s Day on Monday. I spent my day off yesterday hanging with Claudio for the first half and with Ann the second half. Claudio and I started out our time together how we have always traditionally started our time together — with exercise. We met at the gym and I was game for whatever he wanted to work on, so he slaughtered my biceps, triceps, shoulders and abs. Those are what I consider “minor muscle groups” (which means they’re smaller supporting muscles that get worked out by proxy when I work on “major muscle groups” of chest, back and legs), so since I haven’t been at the gym much lately, I’ve been mainly ignoring them as far as isolated exercises go. Well, I can’t ignore them now! They’re SCREAMING at me and cussing me out as I type this. Thanks, Claudio, my body hates me now. But that’s how he felt when he followed one of my workouts, so that makes for a good day at the gym. After we left the gym, we hung out at the Irvine Spectrum and started out healthy with a vegan lunch and kale, but we soon deteriorated into some Starbucks Frapp drink for him and a hand-dipped ice cream bar for me.

After we parted, I gave Ann a call and she was working from home, so I went to visit her at her new apartment. I helped her set up some new patio furniture that had arrived that morning, played with her dog, had ice cream (I must surely be PMSing), and caught up with her. We had a good time, and I continued the laughter I had from the earlier part of the day into the early evening. Ann’s so funny; she was sad that she has no plans this Vday, so she bought herself flowers. While I was there, she clipped the stems of the roses and irises and stuck them in a drinking glass because she didn’t have a vase (since no one gave her flowers this year). She was in total self-pity mode. I said, “Surely, you’re not actually buying into this commercial holiday enough to feel BAD, are you? Just don’t think about it and don’t celebrate it.” She sadly took out a big container from her refrigerator and put it in front of me.
“Want some fudge? I made Valentine’s Day fudge,” she said in a small sad voice.
I laughed at her. “Why’d you do that?!”
She said, “Well, I still wanted to be FESTIVE!” As I shook my head at her silliness, I watched her reach behind her for yet another container, which she also put in front of me. “And I made Valentine’s Day cookies, too,” she said, offering me round cookies with red heart cutouts in the middle of them. We both laughed at her “festiveness” despite it making her sad.
I did tie some more loose ends that were laying at my feet before I left, though, much like I’d done for my friends the day before, so hopefully things won’t be as bad as she’d thought they’d be this weekend.
Mr. W & Me
When I got home, Mr. W was already home. He’d been at a leadership training thing all day. He told me that everyone there had to pair up and interview the other person, then introduce their partner to the class. One of the interview questions were, “If you could have dinner with whomever you want, whom would you choose?” As people were introduced to the class, he heard about wistful dinners with President Obama, one’s deceased father, other prominent historical figures and current icons. When Mr. W was introduced, his partner said, “This is [Mr. W]. If he could have dinner with whomever he wants, he would choose to have dinner with his lovely wife.” The entire class reacted and people said, “Aw, who in here knows his wife that he’s kissing up to?!” Mr. W explained that he really did think about it, and sharing a meal with a stranger — not to mention an idol — would be too stressful for him to enjoy so the only person whose company he likes (he claims) is mine. He seemed sincere. And it’s probably the nicest thing he’s ever said about me. “Aww, that’s the best Valentine’s Day present!” I told him.
The Lynx & Dodo
But here’s what Mr. W actually offered to buy me for Vday:

Claudio and I saw two male Highland Lynx kittens at a pet store when we were wandering around the Spectrum earlier. They’re genetically desert lynx, wildcats, so they’ve got leopard markings and bobcat tails, slightly longer and very strong hind legs, and huge paws. Plus the little curled and tufted ears are ADORABLE. I’d have two rare breed cats (the Highland Lynx is registered as “wild & exotic”), a Scottish Fold with tiny ears, and a Highland Lynx with curled ears. Plus, it’d just be cool when someone asks if I have any pets, to say nonchalantly, “Yeah, I got a lynx.” Right??? Claudio asked the employee how much the kittens are, and the answer is $1500 each. YOWCH. “They’re cute, but not $1500 cute,” Claudio laughed. Just as well… as tiny as these kittens are now, they’d probably still kill my older mellow Dodo. One of the boys even has 6 claws on each foot! I can totally imagine this cat as the neighborhood pimp. Other cats have to come and offer mice and birds in homage, or they walked away with 6 parallel lines across their faces. “I got bitch-slapped by the Lynx.”

…siiiiiigh…

See Saturday in NorCal, here.

By the time I woke up, showered and went downstairs at Diana’s house on Sunday morning, everyone else was already watching the Cowboys-Vikings football game. Dardy and I had talked tentatively about where to watch the game (he was watching at his place and invited us over), but since Diana had Tivo’ed it, everyone (Eric, Diana, Mr. W) settled down in her living room to watch on delay so they could skip the commericals. We made plans to meet up with Dardy at Pizz’a Chicago after the game. He texted grimly that we’re not missing much; the first half had sucked. Mr. W discovered the “skip ahead 7 minutes” button on the Tivo remote, and watched the rest of the game that way. We braced ourselves for a very bummed-out Dardy (huge Cowboys fan) at lunch. He met us there and seemed fine, although disappointed. We ordered a couple of pizzas and watched the Chargers-Jets game there. Eric had money on the Chargers and they started out strong, but waned…and never recovered…and lost. So nobody’s teams won that day. I found out that Dardy didn’t eat cilantro, as we ordered a Great Chicago Fire pizza half regular (Italian sausage, sport peppers, fresh garlic & cilantro) and half no cilantro at Dardy’s request. He’s only the 2nd ever person I’ve met who doesn’t like cilantro!

After lunch Dardy went to his friend’s house to finish watching football, and the rest of us went back to Diana’s. Diana and Eric cozied up on the couch (where she ended up taking a nap to sleep off the carb coma) and Mr. W and I went to explore the new shopping areas of her neighborhood, which was under construction but had really interesting stuff. Late afternoon, Mr. W and I went to Mike and Christi’s house to meet Kyden and Koda for the first time. They made a fresh sushi dinner for us and I got to play with the first baby boy to come in my immediate friends group.
Here’s Kyden with mommy.

And here’s Kyden with daddy.

I thought it’d be weird that some of us actually HAVE one of these, but the two parents are complete naturals. It was weird how UNweird it was. I’m happy to have been a fan and admiring spectator of their relationship from the beginning, to their wedding (you can see my collection of posts surrounding their Hawaii destination wedding, which we made into one of our vacation trips, here), to the development of their family thus far.
Mike and Christi knew me well, and busted out what they knew I’d been dying to try…DJ HERO!!!

It was harder than I’d expected, less intuitive than Guitar Hero or Rock Band, although my cousin Mark disagrees. Then again, he DID use to DJ with a turntable.

Monday was time to leave. Diana stayed home from work that day, and the three of us went to a local restaurant in Sunnyvale for breakfast. Eric ditched out on a morning meeting and met us there. We said our goodbyes, and Mr. W and I started the long drive back to SoCal. We avoided the inland freeways and did the coastal route, which was a good thing, because due to the rainfall, the Grapevine would have likely been snowed out and closed. We stopped at the famous Cannery Row in Monterey for lunch at The Fish Hopper. The portion sizes are unbelievable.

(his)

(mine)
The restaurant had a gorgeous view of the water, and there were sea otters frolicking and rolling around the sea kelp on the waves, but when I went out to get a closer look, I FROZE to death.

I couldn’t even pretend to be a character from John Steinbeck’s novel “Cannery Row” cuz I was too busy trying to thaw out my fingers. Some hot crepes with Nutella on our way back to the car helped, though.

I don’t remember much about the drive back. I waited too long to blog this trip from mid-January.

Mr. W and I went to Northern California to visit friends over the long weekend. It was a nice 5.5 hr drive during most of which Mr. W listened to an audiobook with headphones attached to his iPhone, and I texted friends for entertainment. Time passed swiftly. We stopped at our usual Marie Callender’s at Magic Mountain for lunch, which meal was nothing compared to the sake-marinated Chilean seabass college roommie prepared for dinner that night! The four of us (including Diana’s boyfriend Eric) had a leisurely dinner with lots of wine and a specialty cupcake dessert. Good thing we were staying there! I really like Sunnyvale.

Saturday, Diana had planned for us a visit to San Francisco to see the King Tut exhibit at the De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. I bought us audiotours and Diana treated us to the admission, which tickets are sold and scheduled in half-hour increments, and we got a late enough entry time so that we could have lunch at a nearby pho restaurant. Mr. W and I had seen the exhibit before, but can’t remember where. We’re thinking it was probably in Fort Lauderdale in ‘05, during the same vacation where I met Jordan. (Speaking of Jordan, she decided yesterday to come visit the same weekend Bat is coming to visit, so YAY, par-TAY! Did I mention it’s also her birthday weekend? I’m so excited!) Despite the museum’s best efforts to stagger visitors, it was very crowded and as usual because of my lack of vertical prowess, I saw lots of lower backs and asses. Live ones, not even exciting wrapped mummified ones. After the museum, we took a stroll in Golden Gate Park and visited various gardens on the grounds.

This garden had a few rules.

After leaving Golden Gate Park, we were off to the second activity Diana had planned for the day. She had suggested we bike ride across Golden Gate Bridge, but given all the rain predicted for the weekend, we didn’t set it in stone. Since Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day, we decided to just walk it. Eric would drive the car across and meet us at the other side.

Diana was a little pensive and Eric reassured her he won’t drive off without hearing from her first, but I didn’t think anything of it. Here we are about to start.

The Bridge was a wide paved 6+ lane highway with a separately fenced off pedestrian walkway along the outskirt. We started walking, and just as we were ALMOST over water, a large truck drove by and its weight vibrated along the bridge where we stood. Diana had already been slowing down, and now she froze. “I’m sweating,” she announced. And then, “I can’t do it.” She whipped out her cell phone and called Eric, who luckily had not left to drive over to the other side yet. She instructed us where to meet them on the other side and practically ran off back to the parking lot where Eric was with the car. I had no idea she was THAT serious about her acrophobia until then. I mean, the girl climbed the pyramid at Chichen Itza with me! She voluntarily leaps off tall mountains on her snowboard! I did learn later on in the weekend from Mike that Diana had attempted that same pedestrian crossing before, and also aborted that mission before making it very far.

Mr. W and I made the walk across, taking photos along the way — he with his camera which yielded the weekend’s photos that you see here, and I with my cameraphone since I forgot my camera. Halfway across, Diana and Eric overtook us on the bridge, honking and waving at us. They joined us on the other side as light sprinkling started. Perfect timing!

One of the cool things about hanging with locals is they know the best spots for photos.

Eric drove us up a mountain road to this great spot overlooking everything, and up there, Eric smacked Diana’s arm, Diana punched him in the face, it rained on Mr. W’s camera, and we got thrown out by a cop. Good times.
Next, we drove deeper into the City (San Francisco) to meet up with people for dinner. We had some time before our reservations, so we stopped for drinks and appetizers at Yoshi’s Jazz Bar a few doors down from the restaurant. We had to park a ways, and got rained on walking there, but it went with the atmosphere of San Francisco.

Soon, we were joined by Dardy, Jimmy and Sabrina.

And then Andrae, Dwaine’s twin brother, showed up. I was happy he put all his crazy plans on hold so that he could come spend some time at dinner with us. I hadn’t seen him since the wedding!

We walked down the street for dinner at 1300 at Fillmore (the address AND the name of the restaurant! What a koinkidink!), which served Southern food done up fancy. There, we met up with Jen and Caroline. Yes, I’m texting. Mr. W thought it would be funny to take a picture of me with Andrae on my cell and send it to Dwaine with the message, “Remember when we met up in San Francisco?” I don’t think Dwaine found it that amusing, cuz I never got a response. =P

One of the most noticeable differences in hanging with these people now, is that after dinner, we all hugged and waved our goodbyes, and went home to bed. If we were in our 20s, this meeting would’ve no doubt moved on to bar/club hopping as it had before. Aww, we’re all grown up now.

It’s been raining off and on since last weekend. The weather forecasted several consecutive El Nino storm patterns to hit the entirety of California. Luckily it wasn’t too bad on our drive to NorCal (photos forthcoming) and it didn’t rain out much of our activity while we were there, and although rain fell off and on during our drive back home on Monday, it wasn’t debilitating rain. This week, however, California had decided it’d reached full capacity on all the rain it wants to endure and things got a little freaky. There were flash flood warnings over areas that had been burned earlier last year, and on Tuesday, while Claudio and I were enjoying a nice long workout at the gym followed by all-you-can-eat sushi at Minato Sushi (the sushi chef/restaurant owner James remembered me and gave us total special treatment with lots of expensive freebies), he got notice that nearby Santa Ana was issued a tornado watch warning with orders to stay indoors, and when we were driving out of the restaurant, we saw that a part of the street was closed off as it was severely flooded and a car was trapped in water nearly halfway up its windshield.

The next day, Wednesday, as the skies remained open for buckets of water to fall on us, I drove to Pasadena for my dental appointment with Andy. I gave myself about 2 hours to make the hour drive, and due to zero traffic, was there an hour early. After I parked, I pulled back the internal covering of the sunroof to admire the water hitting the glass moonroof. I was first inspired to take a photo, and then inspired to write a poem. So I sent this out via MMS to a few friends:

playful percussion
of rain dance on my moonroof
in pasadena
(impromptu haiku)

So typically Californian…you can still see palm trees behind the wintery leafless tree. Dentist Andy was among the people I sent the above picture message to, and I’d expected him to text me back with “Stop goofing off and get in here,” but he didn’t. When I saw him he only chuckled about it. It was beautiful out there and I enjoyed the drive. Mr. W is working 11-hour shifts this week, so I didn’t carpool with him. On the drive in to work this morning, I heard on the radio that the cold front following the most recent storm coming from the coast this afternoon will create hail. I’m a little concerned about hail denting my car on the drive home… =/

Last weekend was a long weekend, so Mr. W and I drove up to Northern California to visit some friends. I finally met Mike & Christi’s little 3.5 month old boy, Kyden! I’d always thought the photos of Kyden’s little face looked uniquely intelligent. I felt like I ought to ask him for advice or something. So I was surprised the first time I saw him, gurgling happily to himself laying on his back swatting at his colorful dangly toys, how tiny he really is. Soon, I was again surprised at how ADVANCED his development is. When he’s sitting up (of course he needs to be assisted), he holds his own head up. He likes to stand and make walking motions with his kicky little (but strong!) legs. AND…his bottom front teeth broke through his gums already! Whoa. I know my niece Lydia has just started teething, but she’s 8 months. What’s Kyden’s big hurry to grow up?

I told Mike and Christi that if anyone would have a super-advanced baby, it’d be the two of them. I’m always one for introducing and welcome new bloggers, but this has GOT to be the youngest one of ‘em all… Say hello to Kyden’s Korner!

Here’s what I did to ring in the new year:

I changed my first two diapers! My niece (Mr. W’s Gamer Bro’s daughter) Jenni drove to SoCal from Vegas to visit us for the long New Years weekend, and brought the newest member of the family with her! Don’t they grow up so fast? Here’s Lydia only last summer.
Oh, speaking of babies, here’s the newest one in my half of the family.
This is little Elizabeth Lynn (“Elle”) wearing the Anne Geddes ladybug jacket we got her.

…and here is the back of li’l lady Elle in her new ladybug jacket.

So coming up next month, Bat is going to swing by from Tennessee on his way to New York (I know it’s not on the way, but he scored some amazing flight fares!) for a weekend visit since he’s never been to SoCal, and I’m getting some activities together. So far I’ve booked Claudio and Dwaine for kayaking and sushi that weekend for some male bonding. I’d been craving ikari sushi and finally got some at Minato Sushi tonight. I raved so much about the $25 all-you-can-eat sushi that Claudio wants to go there when they come for kayaking. Here was our online conversation:
Claudio: Can’t wait!
Me: me, neither! do you eat uni?
Claudio: Never tried it. I generally will try anything but this is sea urchin gonads. Um… should I try it?
Me: I usually will try something I dislike every few years just to make sure I still dislike it. Taste changes, and this is how I rediscovered Indian food, bittermelon, brussels sprouts, eggplant. I love that stuff now! But uni…I just hit my 4th try last spring, and after getting that in my mouth I thought, for the 4th time, “WHY am I doing this to myself?!” I have a lot of friends who love it, and my dad loves it. “It’s like a mouthful of ocean,” he says blissfully. And you know what? I totally agree with his description. =6
Claudio: Unless someone I trust tells me I need to eat sea urchin gonads… I ain’t eating sea urchin gonads.
Me: it’s not so much gonads as just the entire innards, isn’t it?
Claudio: I read this on sushifaq.com
While colloquially referred to as the roe (eggs), uni is actually the animal’s gonads (which produce the milt or roe).
Me: omg, “gonads” is an actual non-slang term?
Claudio: Gonad definition according to wiki:
The gonad is the organ that makes gametes. The gonads in males are the testes and the gonads in females are the ovaries.
Me: sea urchin reproductive organs according to wiki:
Sea urchins are dioecious, having separate male and female sexes, although there is generally no easy way to distinguish the two. Regular sea urchins have five gonads, lying underneath the interambulacral regions of the test, while the irregular forms have only four, with the hindmost gonad being absent. Each gonad has a single duct, rising from the upper pole to open at a gonopore lying in one of the genital plates surrounding the anus. The gonads are lined with muscles underneath the peritoneum, and these allow the animal to squeeze its gametes through the duct and into the surrounding sea water, where fertilisation takes place.
Claudio: This makes me want to eat Uni even less… a lot less.
Me: ditto…DIT-TOE.
Claudio:
Me: maybe we can convince Dwaine to eat it as his first sushi experience.
Claudio: I think we’d have to bribe him with a bionic knee or something. ***
Me: maybe we ought to first wiki what a bionic knee costs these days before making promises like that.
Claudio: It’s Dwaine. He’ll forget all about it in 3 days…
2 if he’s been drinking
Me: THEN LET’S SEE WHAT ELSE WE CAN MAKE HIM EAT!!
Claudio: *blush*
Me: nice.

*** This has reference to another conversation that actually involved Dwaine, which went a little something like this:
Dwaine: Heart pounding, lungs burning, just puked a little. On the plus side, I ran for the first time in over a month and my time was much better than I tought it would be. …pardon me, I gotta puk…
Claudio: It looks like Ima haf to bust ur kneecap. Any preference?
Dwaine: The left one. It’s been acting up anyway. Plus I wanna replace it with something bionic. I’ll be faster than EVER!!!! …on that side at least. …better make it both.
Claudio: Good luck with all that. Do u know why they also called the “Bionic Man” the “Six Million Dollar Man”? Becuz that shit costs money!
Me: I say Claudio goes with Dwaine’s 1st inclination and just bust the left kneecap. I’d love to see Dwaine spinning in clockwise circles after his bionic knee replacement surgery every time he tries to run.
Dwaine: I’d STILL win!
…it would just take me a little longer…

Those two are so competitive. But now I get to sit back and see how long it takes Dwaine to discover this post. Lord knows Jordan hasn’t discovered HERS yet.