cindy's world

I was sitting on the new couch with Mr. W over the weekend, deep into Season 3 of “Ally McBeal,” when it occurred to me how much I was enjoying myself. We had just come back from Disneyland (where it was too crowded thanks to a cheerleading competition event there), we were curled up with our strawberry lemonade silver needle tea, we have a roof over our heads, I had no worries, and my cat’s so low-maintenance that he pets himself. Dodo has taken to petting his own head with his forepaw when we pet his body. He’d lay on his side, purr, and then the little white paw would pop up and down as he pet the top of his head. Cutest thing.

Aside from Disneyland and Ally, we visited my parents’ house on Saturday. My mom was in the mood for a different sort of dinner so we made our own Vietnamese spring rolls. We’d pick up a sheet of the round dried rice paper, dip it lightly in plate of water, then take it out and put it on our own plate. Next, we’d layer on raw carrots, cucumbers, and cilantro, then add cooked mushroom, a meat and tofu stir-fry dish, some grilled fish, drizzle on some garlic peanut sauce, wrap it up in a roll, and pig out. Then we’d do another and another until we were full. At home, I had a crock-potted beef, vegetable and wild rice stew waiting.

Our biggest decision right now is where to go on vacation. We’ve got 2 weeks in spring and 2 weeks in fall. I’m kind of thinking of these as our last major trips before we’ll have to stop extreme vacationing for awhile, cuz I’ll be 34 this year and I don’t want to have a baby after 35 (the most recent trial we had that dealt with amniotic testing for Down Syndrome didn’t help ease the heebie jeebies for me. Giant needle? EEK!!). We were thinking of a simple vacation to Canada (Niagara peninsula) for spring, but my Canadian cousin Mark in Toronto warned me that their temperatures then would run about 40 degrees if we’re lucky. I don’t want to spend money to go somewhere where I’d be too cold to be outdoors. We can always go to Canada and visit relatives there with a baby in tow, so that can hold off. I guess we can visit family in Taiwan or go to Bathhouse Row in Arkansas with a baby, too. What Mr. W thinks we can’t do with an infant and therefore should do now, is Africa. Aside from the big lions I’m hoping to ride in Africa, the country doesn’t hold much appeal for me. He’s trying to convince me that terrorists will probably not kill us. I’m thinking I need to brush up on jujitsu if he’s not going to bring firearms. Or maybe I can just brush up on my animal communication skills. It worked for the natives in “Avatar.” Apparently animal friends will defend you at the last minute if you’re in need. I witnessed this in “Sheena,” too. I want to do New Zealand and/or Australia for a high-adventure trip which I definitely can’t do with a baby, but our spring is their autumn/winter. I think it’s narrowed down to this…
* Low budget: American River white water rafting (Mr. W wants to go for a week-long training course to get certified in being a river rapids guide, so our stay will be paid for by the school AND we’ll have discounted future trips, plus the potential to earn money if we take a group) in Spring, save up money to go to New Zealand and/or Australia for high-adventure land/great barrier reef exploration in the fall (which will be their summer).
* High budget: European highlights trip in spring (escorted tour that includes meals/hotels/transportation in London, Paris, Rome, Munich, Amsterdam…), Japan/China/Taiwan trip in fall. Or Australia.

Man, we could do high-budget if we hadn’t just bought that piano and sofa set. But I did discover the “movie ballad” accompaniment button on the digital piano on Sunday, and the fun I had with playing on that mode is pretty priceless.

What about Ireland?

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.

Today, Mr. W and I went to have lunch with my parents and grandma to celebrate my dad’s and grandmother’s birthdays. My dad had always gone by his Chinese birthdate (on the lunar calendar), which falls on a different day every year on our regular calendar, and this year my mom decided she was tired of looking up what day it’d fall on and emailing me as she’d done the years prior. So she researched all the way back to my dad’s birthyear in the 1940s to figure out exactly what regular calendar day it was that he was born on. Turned out it was January 30, so she announced that we are all gonna base our celebrations of his birthday on that date from now on. He protested, and she waved him off. He accused her of having too many birthdates of her own to remember (her lunar birthdate, her regular calendar birthdate, the erroneous birthdate someone in immigration had put on her information that she’d just lived with rather than correct, and some other date that falls on a leap year so that she actually only gets that date once every 4 years), but she said that’s different and refused to budge. I also found out that my dad’s office coworkers celebrate his birthday every year on December 20. Why? I got no explanation, but I think I did receive a shrug and a “they just do.” I complained that I only have one birthday, and that I feel unspecial. They offered to look up my lunar calendar birthdate for me, and thinking about how my dad’s birthday celebrations had ranged from December to February, I passed.

My grandmother’s birthday was a few days ago, and she turned 80. My mother had wanted to do a dinner banquet for her, inviting family and friends to a Chinese restaurant, but grandma passed on the idea. I had wondered whether she refused it to be polite while in secret hoping for a big to-do, but my mom answered that her mother really wanted to pass. Apparently grandma was afraid that if a big celebration in honor of her birthday occurred, that it would draw the gods’ attention to the fact that she’s still here and aging, and they’d go, “Oh! We’d forgotten about you! Thanks for the reminder, old lady!” and take her away from this mortal coil. For obvious reasons, then, she’d KILL me if she found out I just broadcasted her birthday on the internet. Gotta love Chinese superstition.

Grandma got me back, though. Throughout lunch, she kept staring at me from across the table and saying to my mom in Mandarin as if I weren’t there or as if I didn’t understand the language (which is a very Asian parent thing to do, cuz kids don’t “count”), “Eh? I think maybe Cindy’s gotten pretty. How did that happen? That’s so strange.” I did what I’d always done; pretended not to hear the grownups talking, because that’s how they treated us and expected us to behave in return.
But she kept going on and on about it that my mom got offended and snapped, “What are you TALKING about? What’s so weird about that?!”
Later in the privacy of Mr. W’s car (where I was sole passenger), I translated that for him. He laughed about it, thinking it absurd. “You were already pretty when I met you,” he claimed.
“I think I got pretty after I met you,” I said thoughtfully.
“No, if you weren’t already pretty, I wouldn’t have asked you out,” he said in typical tactless guy fashion.
I pretended to balk. “YOU’d told me that what attracted you to me was my ASS!” I said accusingly (which was true, he did say that). Now, he backpedaled a bit.
“It’s the PACKAGE,” he said. “Your ass is a PART of the PACKAGE.” Right.

After lunch we all went to my grandma’s so Mr. W could set up my gift for her, a large digital photo frame in which I’d already preloaded photos and Mr. W had programmed to play slideshows with Jim Brickman’s “Angel Eyes” as background music. My dad also got to play with his presents: 3 nice Cubavera style shirts and a wooden 3-D puzzle (which he solved in like 10 minutes). Then Mr. W and I regrouped my parents’ house and caught some movies. We watched “Management,” which is a Jennifer Aniston movie that I’d never heard of. (I give it **1/2 out of ****) We also saw “The Blind Side,” the Michael Oher movie starring Sandra Bullock. (****!) It was SO good that I want to watch it again right now! The acting was superb, and comedy was conveyed impeccably by things such as simple timing and a look. I didn’t think I’d like a football movie as much as I’d enjoyed “The Longest Yard” (remake), but this movie is so much more. Maybe I should give “Rudy” a shot next.

… I got a great reminder of just why yesterday.

Anny had made plans to see the 7:15p Imax 3-D screening of “Avatar” yesterday at the Irvine Spectrum, and it was an enjoyable movie the first time (regular screen, 3-D), so I tagged along, bringing Mr. W and his daughter. Mr. W and I got there first and bought advance tickets, then we had delicious crepes and coffee as we passed the time. Ann then arrived and we got to hang out for the first time in awhile, and we walked around poking into random stores as we chatted, waiting for the movie to start. (Mr. W was generously holding our place in line as he waited for his daughter to arrive.) There was a great sale at Hollister, I was happy to see that the maternity clothing look in women’s fashion appears to be on its way out, but the tops are still super-long. All the shirts would look like dresses on me. Daughter showed up as we returned to the theatre, and we all started the movie in a great mood, marveling at the gigantic screen. The movie was ridiculously crowded. We had one empty seat to our left, and before the show started, that seat was filled. Since the screen is so large, the state-of-the-art theatre had seatbacks that reclined slightly so people can see the whole screen without having to crane their necks to look up.

Halfway through the movie I was ripped out of my Pandora-flying reverie by a pulling against the back of my seat. I waited for whomever was behind me to settle down, except it never really happened. Throughout the rest of the movie, my seatback was pushed, kicked, bumped, moved. And then when I tried to get myself back into my original position of a slight recline, I realized the person behind me had locked up against the back of my seat to where the back absolutely was forced upright and unable to budge whatsoever. I was PISSED. This reminded me of the whole airplane fiasco with childhood friend Sandy, when we flew to New York on a red-eye and two Cheetos munching middle-eastern men behind us refused to let her recline her seat and kept pushing her back up, the one behind her finally locking her seat up with his knees. I pushed back against the seat, it gave a little, and then the jerk locked up tighter and prevented the seat from moving again. And then there were the bumps. Mr. W is over 6′ tall and he said there is no way his knees even came close to touching the back of the seat in front of him, so he didn’t understand how it was possible that someone had to be totally up against the back of my seat and headrest. I pushed back consistently and hard, using my legs on the ground to brace me. So there was this stupid battle going on through the entire second half of the movie. Seeing my body move here and there from being bumped and watching me struggle back, Mr. W turned around a few times but it didn’t stop. After the movie, I told Ann what had been happening, and she turned and said that there it was some chick behind me. WTF! There’s no way she could’ve needed the extra legroom unless she were 7 feet tall, so she must’ve put her feet up against the back of my chair and used it as legrest. What a BITCH. I think people have no business being in public these days with their absolute lack of boundaries and manners. This is why I hate going to the movies.

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… =/