cindy's world

You know how when a toddler does something remotely coordinated, such as bend a knee halfway in time with music, or spin around lopsidedly, or almost make palm-to-palm contact when asked to clap, the grownups all go crazy and cheer and compliment the kid, and the kid’s face lights up and suddenly everyone’s watching this toddler just go nuts showing off and repeating movements that really weren’t even that interesting to begin with?

Well, thanks for all your encouragement and compliments on my Hawaii photos! Here’s MORE!

The reason there’s a rainbow on the state license plate:

Some place on the North Shore (I think):

I had to climb a tree hanging over water to get this shot (photos of tree climbing to come; they’re in Mr. W’s camera right now):

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This is Roxy. She is the happiest dog I have ever seen. She pounces around the waves, and jumps in and ducks her nose underneath the foamy waterline. I wish Mr. W got a photo of her doing that, but this is the only photo he took of her. I met her when I emerged from snorkeling.

Earliest vacation memory of this trip: Walking down the temporary ramp linking airport to the plane to board for Hawaii on Saturday morning, there was a sign posted about 7 feet up the wall inside the tunnel ramp thing. I looked up to read the sign and consequently, tripped. The sign said “Caution: Step carefully when inside the JetBridge. Floor surface is uneven.”
Weather in Oahu: Saturday through Tuesday was sunny with the occasional rain drizzle. Wednesday and Thursday poured so much that it caused mudslides, one of which trapped an SUV and caused the closure of a major freeway. Friday, Saturday and Sunday were beautiful, sunny, and humid. Surf conditions were pretty rough, altho there were beautiful aquamarine barrel waves in the northeastern part of the island, and surf contests were in full swing. Snorkeling conditions were poor as the rain and rough waves churned up enough sand to cause uncharacteristic murkiness of the waters for this time of year. The water, however, was usually a comfortable high 70s Fahrenheit.
Most noticeable difference between Oahu locals and California locals: the driving. Hawaiians don’t cut you off, don’t tailgate you, and when you signal, they wave you in. When you let someone in your lane, they wave in gratitude. I do that here, but it generally goes unacknowledged, and when the occasional driver waves his thanks, it nearly moves me to tears. (An example of Californians: The week before I left for Hawaii, I was signaling for minutes to go into a lane to my right the freeway in stop-and-go traffic, and finally a big cargo truck backed off and let me in. I waved my thanks, and still signaling, started my merge into his lane. Suddenly, this stupid white trashy Corolla came out from the other side of the truck and stole my lane, nearly side-swiping my car, never signaling, and I honked to keep her from hitting my car. In front of me, she flipped me off. WTF, you stole my lane, nearly hit my car, cut me off, and then you flip me off?! I honked again. She flipped me off again as she changed another lane to the left. I SO wished I had something to throw at the bitch.)
Bonding quality: Extremely high with my jujitsu buddies. We laughed and joked and hung out and battled each other. I didn’t know some of my classmates were so damn funny. Several comments had hit my funny bone and even now I chuckle as I think of them. I’d write about them, but they’re those you-had-to-be-there things. Some of my favorite people in the world were on that island.
Celeb sighting: Wally Amos of Famous Amos Cookies. He didn’t even identify himself to us! We walked by a cookie shop called Chip n Cookie that looked really good, and there were 2 guys standing behind the counter but the sign said “Closed.” We figured they were still setting up to open. But they waved us in, and we told them their sign said closed and Wally said, “No wonder we were standing in here with the door wide open and nobody was coming in! You guys must be readers!” We chatted awhile, Wally directed the younger guy to give us free samples, and Wally popped a few of the little cookies in his mouth as he was taking them out of the oven. I asked how he stays so fit working so close to cookies, and he said, “A lifetime of the cookie diet.” He also told us you can buy their cookie dough from Costco now. I told them how my high school economics class showed a video of the Famous Amos success story, and they pointed out Amos’ book. And then we left. Later on in the hotel room, a children’s program came on TV, Reading with Wally Amos. And it was him!! I had seen the “reading with your children” sign at the back of the shop, too!
Injury count: various bruises from a 7-hour long martial arts clinic day; tweaked neck that’s getting better; 5 hugely swollen and itchy, rashy mosquito bites obtained from the Polynesian Culture Center; no sunburn! (altho a distinctive attractive flip flop strap tan and a bikini tan)
Photos: forthcoming.
What I learned: people can be really nice; friends can feel like your family; coconuts are really hard; Mr. W is a romantic gentleman; it takes a 4-year-old boy 17 minutes to break open a ceremonial coconut with a rock; a rolled up magazine can break cement bricks; pineapples are expensive; hotel guest parking is a rip-off ($15/day); Tahitian pearls are ridiculously cheap with vendors; swap meet style vendors don’t bargain as much as you think they would; marijuana smells like rotting vegetables in a dumpster (and I would know about the dumpster smell); sand finds and hides in every crevice on your body imaginable, even if that part of your body never made contact with any sandy surface.
Time of return to home: 3 a.m. this morning
Current location: work, feeling funny in heels instead of flip flops. *sigh*
How I feel now: rested re-energized pooped.

Childhood friend Sandy got her first professional massage today. The OC Spa & Wellness Center located in Huntington Beach, CA isn’t swanky with whirlpools, saunas, steam rooms, complimentary fruit and shampoos the way Burke Williams and Glen Ivy are, but it also costs less. It’s a service-only day spa that also doubles as a boutique selling new age things like organic vitamins and soy candles.

My pet peeve with massage places is that you’re practically paying $3 a minute, so they should give you your money’s worth, but some places (this happened to me in Cancun and this in Glen Ivy Hot Springs’ Corona location) will start late and end on time. I’m okay with that if the customer’s late. But when the massage therapist is 20-30 minutes late, or screws up the service, your time should be given back to you in the end. Today, my therapist was running late for my 5:30. Someone had come out to tell me, at about 5:30p, that my therapist will be out in about 5-10 minutes. She came out about 5:40p, and apologized for being late. When I got undressed and laid on the table and was ready to go, that was 5:44. In my head I was doing the math on what kind of a tip I’d give her if she still ends on time at 7p. She didn’t; she ended at 7:15. So I tipped her 20%.

Sandy did not have a light massage like my 90 minute Swedish which focuses on circulation and relaxation. She had a 90 minute deep tissue combination. She always said she wanted a firm massage because she knew she had knots from all her recent stress and lack of sleep, and the girl who gave her the massage went all out. Her therapist said that she normally has burly tough men as her clients, and she’d only put about 25% of the strength into what she was giving Sandy before the men would wimp out. Sandy said she was sore from the massage, but knew she needed it. Her therapist told her that she should get more massages, if not from her, then from anywhere, because she was so unbelievable tense with knots on top of knots. So I may have gotten her to be a regular.

Oh, and I thought I lost my watch there, because the last time I had it, I was taking it off to put in my purse as I undressed in the room. Sandy and I were sitting at California Pizza Kitchen before I realized my watch was not in my purse anywhere. I called OC Wellness and the receptionist looked around the front desk, in the room I was in, and in the restroom and couldn’t find it. She asked if it was possible it may have fallen out in my car. I said maybe, and she asked me to call her back after I check the car so that they don’t tear the crevices of the place apart looking for me. I agreed, and thankfully, it’d dumped out of my purse in the backseat, so I called back and let them know. The service there is sooo nice.

P.S. I Zainoed the car again this weekend. Wash, swirl-remover polish, deep shine polish. Both cars. Uh-huh.
P.P.S. Mr. W and I visited my parents today and my mom had made a black chicken stew with Chinese herb medicine. Mr. W’s sick, and he chowed down 2 bowls of soup. He also had a tablespoon of that Chinese herbal cough syrup made of honey and loquat, Pi Pah Kao. My mom said that he was turning Chinese. I said he started off more Chinese than me. (See here for just one example.) We’d also brought over some Vietnamese sandwiches, and my dad fed the bread crumbs to his ten or so gray fish in his huge fishtank. He does have actual fish food he bought last week; he told us how the fish store salesperson, being helpful, asked what kind of fish he had to make sure the food is right. My dad answered that he believes his fish would eat anything, because Dad was too embarrassed to admit that presently, his fish tank is filled with talapia he caught himself last month. My dad’s silly; last month when I visited, he asked if I wanted to see the fish he caught the day before. I said okay, expecting him to lead me to the freezer or maybe a cooler outside, but he led me to his giant fishtank where a ton of wild gray fish were confusing his one remaining bright orange parrot fish.

Just got back from watching The Departed, starring Mark Wahlberg, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Alec Baldwin, Jack Nicholson. I’m still a little bit in shock.

Synopsis: The mob (i.e. Jack Nicholson) grooms a young boy (Matt Damon) into one of their own, and because the boy starts young, he was able to build his life in a double-agent way, entering the State Troopers police academy and legally became a cop, quickly promoting within its ranks thereby working on the inside and spying for the mob. The police (i.e. Alec Baldwin and Mark Wahlberg) takes one of their own (Leonardo DiCaprio) with a shady family history and has him infiltrate the mob as their informant. Add a few guns and blood and you have a fun, intense, cat and mouse and rat game. There’s even a hint of sex when the two rats schlup the same shrink.

Hot guy hubba hubba factor: pretty damn high. Shirtless and muscle-clad.

Entertainment value: great if you like violence and mafia and deception; twists in plot

Acting: pretty damn good. You really do believe the characters and stress out with them. Leonardo DiCaprio has redeemed himself out of the Titanic Guy role for me. Matt Damon is no longer the innocent underdog from Good Will Hunting.

Ending: seriously. Really? Come on. The only conceivable worse cop-out (no pun intended) ending would be if Leonardo DiCaprio suddenly wakes up in bed in a cold sweat, in his nice neat suburban home next to his beautiful wife, 2.5 kids and dog in the yard, and his wife asks, “What happened, honey?” “Oh, I just had the worse nightmare!” The End. I mean, it was like Quentin Tarantino stepped in the last 10 minutes of the direction and said, “I’ll take over from here. You guys liked Natural Born Killers and Kill Bill, right?” Tightly woven plot, clean script through a complicated situation all the way through, great smart-ass cracks, nice one-liners and suspense, and then BAM! Pulp Fiction. I dunno. Mr. W and his daughter are hoping for an alternate ending when the DVD comes out.

Not being a fan of violence or blood and gore, I watched this because I wanted to support Jennifer Aniston (and Brad Pitt, :P)’s production company, Plan b Productions, which produced this movie. At the ending, Mr. W turned to me and said, “Your girl produced this?” and laughed at me. Sigh…

Despite the fact that I ditch jujitsu like it’s an ex-boyfriend or a divorce case, last nite I missed my first belly dancing class. The parking lot was so full that I had to park on the street, and then I was concerned that the crappy Nissan Sentra parked in front of me was gonna back up into my new Zainoed car while I was in class. I, along with a bunch of other belly dancing students, opened the door to the regular room where class is hosted and were surprised by the sight of various occupied banquet tables with two little girls performing violins on a stage. There was no notice given to us that there’d be no class that day, and nothing posted on the doors. I caught Vanessa in the hallway, and we decided to go to the gym instead. Not to work out, oh no, but to sit in the steam room. Both our backs were bothering us.

We sat in the steam and rubbed Epsom salt on ourselves, hung out and chatted for almost an hour. Afterwards, we drove back to my house (where she’d left her car) and she got to visit with Dodo, who was plenty happy to see his prior roommate and catnip dispenser.

My back really is feeling better today, and Vanessa had written me an email earlier saying she finally got a great night’s sleep after the steam room. It reminds me that I haven’t pampered myself in awhile, not since I tightened the purse strings after the car purchase in order to get back to my original state of finances in 3 months. Maybe it’s time to book a massage appointment. (Last night, I also restored my finances by 50%, so I’m well within the 3 months I gave myself.) I’d forgotten the importance of the occasional stress-relieving luxury.

I’m cat-sitting this weekend for Vanessa, who’s out there somewhere looking at some redwood tree as I type (presumably). Today, the sky was overcast and I spent a couple of hours in her apartment playing with her two tabby kittens. Few things make me sleepier than being indoors on a cool-weathered day with 2 furry warm bundles around me, and watching them blink slower…and slower… until they doze off. *yawn* I’m sleepy now just thinking about it. I took a brief cat-nap on Vanessa’s couch with Maxwell, the affectionate male, tucked against the crook of my bent knees purring away…

…and with Angelina, the independant Amazon female, curled comfortably in the rocking chair next to me.

*yaaawn*

Dwaine finally posted photos of his and Andrae’s 30th bday party. Looking at the photos, I was like, “Aww, me with long hair.” Haha.

This was the photo taken when Andrae suddenly realized that altho we’ve known each other for 18 years, we do not have a photo together.

If you’re thinking, “Wait a minute, she must’ve had a photo with him before because I’ve seen him before,” you’re thinking of his identical twin brother Dwaine.

HEY! I just realized I never had any of this cake!

The DJ is another high school German pal of ours.

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Mr. W and I discovered the coolest restaurant yesterday. S.Pellegrino water was sponsoring a prix-fixe menu with a lot of upscale restaurants, and I made reservations at a chic global fusion place called AIRe Global. It’s located in Costa Mesa, deeply and invisibly embedded in a plaza called The Camp on the corner of Bristol St. and Baker St.. The food is ama-a-a-a-zing. Alcohol is a bit pricey at $15+ per drink, but the food is a steal for the quality and presentation. We had melt-in-your-mouth tataki tacos (3 each of miniature flour hard-shell tacos filled with guacamole mousse and diced raw albacore tuna and ahi tuna) and a refreshing heirloom tomato salad (3 types of tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, lemon olive oil dressing, and some sort of a Japanese greens leaf that’s a cross between basil and mint) as appetizers, followed by entrees of sliced prime angus filet and Chilean seabass, then finished off with a Japanese donut-like dessert and a yogurt dessert. *drool* $35 a person. Unfortunately, yesterday was the last day for their prix-fixe faire, so you’ll have to pay full price. But lemme tell you, if you’re a food connosieur, it’s well worth it.

Yesterday was the first “Los Angeles” Angels vs. Chicago White Socks game in the series. Because the game was on Sept. 11, the stadium paused for a minute of silence for our people in memoriam, as the advertising banners turned off. The screens flashed the American flag with the words “We will never forget.” Orange County Sheriff’s Dept.’s bugle squad performed in the beginning, and some uniformed military men marched out on the pitcher’s mound and were honored. In front of me was a navy officer in uniform, complete with the little white cap. Mr. W’s brother said, “It’d just be perfect if he started eating a box of Cracker Jacks.” They were indeed selling Cracker Jacks. I was shaking my head at how disrespectful that comment was, until Mr. W said, “Yeah, and a little dog ran up to him,” and I had to burst out laughing. The guy got so much free stuff for being there in uniform. People came by to take photos of him with his little girl on his lap, to shake his hand, to give his little girl souvenir baseballs and other little doodads. “I never learned to milk the uniform like that,” Mr. W, who was a Marine, observed. I don’t think he was milking the uniform as much as honoring the country on Sept. 11 by going to the great American pastime in uniform. BTW, there were a couple of people there with a large handmade sign that read, “AUSTRALIA REMEMBERS AMERICA’S HEROES OF 9-11-01.” That’s really nice. I don’t know that the average American would go to Australia and hold a sign for them in the same respect.

I think it was really cool and fun and funny to hang out with the people we went to the game with. But as far as the game itself went, I still don’t think baseball is a great spectator sport for me, and that’s not just because we lost (unless you’re a Chicago fan, in which case you won), or because there were only 5 runs scored total in the game, or because the first run was scored in the 4th inning and before that (and after, actually), we couldn’t keep a man on base. I found myself people-watching more than ball-watching. The loud tattooed guys to my left kept whooping at some blond girls whenever the girls would stand up and cheer. The large young lady in front and to my right kept eating throughout the game and dropping food on her stomach, sandwiches, nachos, pretzels, cheese drowning everything. (I had to take a cameraphone pic of her and send it to college roommie Diana, who received it ironically while she was at the gym.) The uniformed officer in front of me with his little girl on his lap with the identical profiles, gray eyes and sandy brown haircolor, made me wonder whether his Asian wife had any genetic input at all. I guess I could’ve eaten junk food and drank beer, which was what everyone around me was doing, but my response whenever someone would ask if I wanted something was “Bikini…2 months…can’t.”

Driving home after the game, I touched base with James who said he was on his way to the gym in Brea. I seriously considered going to work out, too, but changed my mind because it was almost 10:30p, I already hit the gym at lunch yesterday, I have 3 hours of jujitsu after work today, and I can’t afford to be sore for my half marathon run on Sunday. *biting fingernails*