cindy's world

I had a great time at Disneyland! Mr. W and I got there right when the park opened at 8a; the crowd was thin, and we (along with my gym trainee and her son) managed to hit all the rides we’d wanted to in 45 minutes, i.e. the revised Pirates of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones Adventure, revised Space Mountain, and Buzz Lightyear’s laser shoot-at-targets ride.

REVIEWS: The Pirates ride is revised by making it more Jack Sparrow-themed. The pirates talk about Jack Sparrow, and Jack Sparrow mechanical dolls make 3 appearances throughout the ride. But other than that, it’s pretty much the same. Oh, and it’s wetter. As far as the new Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest movie goes, apparently this 2nd Pirates movie was just the interlude to the 3rd Pirates movie. There’s no payoff in the end. The entire movie was pretty much just a set-up to announce the 3rd movie. Johnny Depp, as usual, was entertaining and completely dissolved into his eccentric character.
The Space Mountain ride is updated in that the red pulsating laser beams that twirl around the coaster as you make your first ascent is gone. Other than that, it’s still completely dark inside save for the “stars”, the coaster still does a lot of drops and spirals. The music is still 70s “techno” meets 80s detective show theme songs, like “Simon & Simon” or “Hawaii 5-0”.

The hour-long scavenger hunt was successful. The winner, my bailiff and his girlfriend (who had annual passes to Disneyland for years and used to go 2x/month) got 8 out of the 10 items. One they didn’t get was a cameraphone photo of them rubbing Aladdin’s Lamp, because that show wasn’t open and they didn’t think to grab a fake lamp at a store for the photo. The other one they didn’t get was to get a cameraphone photo of them with an employee named Cindy. They ran around asking employees whether there was a Cindy who worked there, and they kept being redirected to different stores until they got a definite confirmation where a Cindy works. They ran into that merchandise store and the manager pulled out the work schedule and that employee doesn’t get on shift until later that night, way after the scavenger deadline would be up. I can’t believe that in all of Disneyland, there’s only 1 Cindy employed. So anyway, they won $80 cash. The 1st runner up, my trainee and her son, got 6 items and $40 cash. My childhood friend Vicky, who got to Disneyland late when the scavenger hunt was already in full swing, said that she was at the Carnation Cafe on Main Street hanging out while waiting for me to go fetch her, when she looked across the way and saw Esmeralda, the automated fortune teller doll, at the front of the Penny Arcade. She decided to walk over there and get a fortune. Right before she could, however, she saw some people run up to Esmeralda, read frantically from some colorful piece of paper, and get a fortune. She saw over their shoulder that the paper had something about “Cindy’s birthday” and “Treasure Hunt” on it. Haha!

The 50th Anniversary Fireworks Show was amazing. I wasn’t that interested at first, since parades and shows had always been the perfect time for me to hit all the rides with shorter lines while other people were clustered around the streets waiting for the shows. Well, I still did that with Navy Girl Vanessa, her boyfriend, and our jujitsu friend Josh; while the rest of our party were holding up the perfect spot for the show facing the Castle, the four of us rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. That in itself was a hilarious experience. Vanessa’s boyfriend and Josh were deeply involved in a conversation about martial arts and self-defense on the streets, so Vanessa and I sat together on the train with the guys behind us. As the coaster went, for about 30 seconds all you could hear were the roar of the train on the tracks and the screams of the other passengers, then it quieted down, and from behind us drifted, “…So anyway, when you’re grappling…”. They continued the conversation in totally normal voices in pieces in between coaster roars and other people’s screams! It was sooo funny to overhear.

Anyway, I was a bit nervous about mixing work people, childhood people, and jujitsu people, but it worked out really well. Everyone got along, and people were arriving and going home at various times but when we were at Disneyland, we all generally stayed together (except during the scavenger hunt and lunch). The 4 of us early arrivers stayed until midnight when the park closed. Oh, and Mr. W and I got annual passes, so we’ll be back. Good times!

This is probably the best birthday (month) I’ve ever had, with last year’s birthday up north coming a very close second. Oh, and the birthday celebrations still continue… Josh is going to pull people together after jujitsu today to take me out for my birthday drinks. I guess I’m going to jujitsu today! Vanessa promised to, too. And other friends who were unable to join us at Disneyland offered belated birthday meals and drinks, which I’m going to take them up on. Vanessa had always advocated “milking” your birthday, but I didn’t expect to milk it to this degree. Haha!

Mr. W got tickets for Pirates at lunch, for an early evening show. We’re gonna try to catch the Pirates ride at Disneyland early tomorrow, like at 8am, when the park opens. Anyone who wants to come early, you’re welcome to, but otherwise we’re still meeting at the agreed-upon time and place. The scavenger hunt list has been prepared and printed. I think you’d like the prize. I wanted the prize to be that winner gets to smooch Mr. W, but he refused. Well, I can’t very well offer that winner gets to smooch ME, cuz what if a guy wins? That’d be cheating.

My horoscope today says:
As the Moon leaves Scorpio this morning your optimism returns, helping you to overcome your serious emotions. Normally you might choose to keep your feelings to yourself as you process them, but now it is imperative for you to share your experiences with those close to you. If you can let others know what you need, you may be pleasantly surprised with the response.

Hmm. Lemme see…what do I need, what do I neeeeeed? I need some love, I think. Those of you whom I’ll see on Saturday, be prepared to spread the love! Unless I’m in an antisocial mood by then. In that case, just say hey and give me my space.

Actually, I do physically feel better. I was having problems for weeks that peaked last nite and I decided to do a meditation that’s always worked in the past for repairing my bodily blues. Wouldn’t ya know it, it worked.

We’re going to work half an hour into lunch today, but with that sacrifice, we’re going to have the afternoon free. My judge has a funeral to attend in the afternoon. I’ll probably use the time to catch an early movie after work, i.e. Pirates of the Caribbean II: Dead Man’s Chest, before going on the revamped ride tomorrow at Disneyland so I could understand the changes.

(cameraphone pic)
I had a low-key July 3rd evening. We watched a city firework show from the rooftop of a building, just me, Mr. W, his daughter and her girl friend, my gym trainee and her son. Later on, a coworker of Mr. W’s showed up with his wife. We laid a couple of sturdy army blankets on the edge of the roof and laid on it on our stomachs, peering over the edge at the many many people at the Independence Day event below, and sitting up staring into the night sky for the fireworks show. We brought fold-up chairs, cheese and crackers, wine, chips and dip, and a sushi platter. There was oohs, aahs, and inappropriate jokes. Okay, the inappropriate jokes came largely from me. All right, exclusively from me. I had a good time.

Yesterday after work, I went to meet up with a couple of my coworkers who regularly have an Outback Steakhouse happy hour on Fridays. It turns out that they actually invited the courthouse to a surprise birthday party for me on the outdoor patio deck. There was a huge cake, flowers, those blower noisemaker things (except they didn’t make noise), presents. Bailiffs, reporters, courtroom clerks, clerks’ office clerks, law clerks, family members of people were in attendance. I felt special. Except for the fact that Mr. W refused to attend because he wanted to sit around the house all day and night, even tho he was off from work the whole week. Aside from that breaking my heart, I felt truly special. It has really been a great 29th year for me. My life had taken a 180-degree turn for the better, and I am so grateful for the people around me. The old friends who continue their support and whom I’ve gotten closer to, the new friends I’d made in the last year who’ve become my close friends today. It’s enough to make me shed a tear, man. *sniff* Thanks for putting that together for me, coworker Sandy!

Tonight: birthday dinner with my parents at Chomp sushi.

That title up there was for all the confused blog readers. =D I didn’t realize I was vague about my birthdate.

I picked up Mr. W and his friend at the airport last nite. They really didn’t catch any fish. “YOU explain it to my dad,” I told him.

It was a great day today. A couple minutes past midnight this morning, Navy Girl Vanessa called and left a voice mail to say happy birthday, and then early this morning, at like 7am, my childhood friend Sandy called and sang Happy Birthday to me. Mr. W rolled over in bed and said, “Someone beat me to singing happy birthday to you?” After I hung up with Sandy, Mr. W sang happy birthday in my ear while hugging me in bed. It was soooo cute. And then my friend Erin called, sending me birthday wishes. And then Vicky called and we chatted, but she didn’t realize it was my birthday, altho she did later and called back and left a voice mail apologizing for being a crappy friend. Haha, I didn’t even realize it until then that she didn’t say happy birthday. Hee hee, I just got a call from Edgar just now wishing me a happy 30th and remarking how old I am. He’ll get his…in October. And I got the birthday voice mails from Diana and my mom. All day long my phone was ringing and it’s about to die on low battery right now. I’m unexpectedly happy for someone who just turned 30 and has become *gasp* a GROWNUP.

Lemme backtrack some. Yesterday evening was my first bellydancing class. Man, there are a lot of fat women in that class. I’m glad they’ve taken the initiative to get some exercise in a fun way. I realized that since I can already do dancing that isolates my upper body and my hips, bellydancing was not that hard for me on the first day when we went thru 7 or 8 basic moves/steps. The only thing that was hard for me was the shimmying, because as a fat-conscious chick, I’ve spent most of my time trying NOT to make my fat shimmy. I did work up a little sweat in the end when we were doing moves nonstop. It’s gonna be fun.

Before bellydancing, I got online to check Mr. W’s flight status, since I had to go pick them up right after class. As I was doing that, I got an email notification that Jordan had just written me. A line in her email said something about hoping a package she sent gets to me on time. Package? I stood up and walked out the front door to check the gate (my ingress and egress are usually done through my garage, so I don’t go by the front door), and there was a big white box sitting just inside my gate. Inside was an awesome care package of a comedian DVD she’d told us about when we first met on the cruise, a relaxation CD, a Jimmy Buffett CD (she was making fun of me on her blog for not knowing who Jimmy Buffett is), a book of love coupons (no, not the raunchy sex shop kind, the nice Hallmark kind), body scrub, and body butter. A bunch of confetti metallic stars fell out of the box also; I recognized them from the handfuls of them she put in my birthday card, which she mailed separately and I received the day before the package. I listened to Jimmy Buffett all the way to the airport picking up Mr. W and friend, and then I had to turn it off cuz it turns out Mr. W hates Jimmy Buffett. Haha.

So today, Mr. W and I got up early and headed out to my birthday treat. He’s so sweet, we first stopped by McDonald’s and he picked up 2 Fruit n’ Yogurt Parfaits, and then by Starbucks where he got me a chai tea with soy (I didn’t even tell him my order, I was on the car on the phone with Vicky, he did really good). And then at Glen Ivy, we got to hang out all day in the pools, bake in the red mineral clay, and watch turtles eat leaves and swim with koi fish. After our treatments (where my therapist gypped me 10 minutes on a supposedly 80-minute treatment), we changed and went to the local Tom’s Farms, bought a ton of fresh organic fruit, and came home and he just made papaya/watermelon/apple/carrot/rhubarb smoothies. Yum!

After I hung up with Vicky earlier today on our drive to Glen Ivy, I remarked to Mr. W how nice it is that all my girls had called (I designated the caller group “my girls” with a Beyonce song ringtone, and that was all we heard all morning), and they/we are all happy in our love lives finally. Everyone’s getting somewhere or are at a really good place. Man, we’ve all had our tough times in romance, walked through hell and back. Now, everyone’s glowing all over the place. Yay for all of us! I don’t even mind turning 30 cuz I’m having such a good time. I mean, it helps that everyone around me are at least 10 years older than me at work, but I’ve also been feeling 30 for almost 2 weeks. People would ask how old I am and I’d say 30, or I’d refer to myself as a 30-year-old, and then I’d kick myself for prematurely aging myself. But generally, I think it’s okay being 30 if you’re happy with your life, content with where you are, and are surrounded by good friends.

Oh. And people tell me I don’t look 30, either. That helps. Haha!

I had a really good lunch. I convinced my gym trainee to ditch the gym with me and have a margarita, on account of my birthday. Another coworker joined us. The three of us had some girltalk and strong margaritas at a local Mexican restaurant. I first dropped my car off at the carwash next door to the restaurant, so it was a productive lunch. My car was so heavily coated with dirt and dust that it looked an entirely different color from its “dark emerald pearl,” as the manufacturer named it.

I haven’t worked out at all this week. Yesterday, instead of going to jujitsu, I went to Cingular after work and bought myself a new Nokia flip phone. The 6102i is Nokia’s first flip phone authorized for sale in the US. I was up till 5am reading the instruction manual to get to know all its functions. It’s an amazing little phone. I felt bad for replacing my last Nokia phone, but it really was on its last leg. All my previous phones, I’ve replaced when there was nothing wrong with it, I just wanted a new phone. I love Nokias.

Tonight is my first bellydancing class, and after that, I’m gonna go pick up Mr. W and his “fishing” buddy from the airport. He sent me flowers on Monday, calling it my “birthday week,” and my birthday surprise, it turns out according to a flyer he made and emailed me so that I’d get it on Monday, is a day with him at Glen Ivy Hot Springs in Corona, where I’d been to with my friend Erin, but I’d never used the services there. It was expensive enough just to get in. But he’d booked me a 20 minute scrub and an 80 minute massage. =) My man’s the greatest.

Ooh, and since I insisted on not doing a birthday shindig at work this year, my bailiff gave me a card with a giftcard to Bed, Bath & Beyond and my reporter got me 2 nice photo frames, a red coral bracelet from Costa Rica (she was recently there on vacation), and a very cute maple photo flip display. I can’t wait to print out photos to remind me of what great people I have around me.

I keep saying San Jose when in reality, the time spent in SJ was very short compared to the time spent in The City, i.e. San Francisco. Early Sunday morning, Diana and I drove to Brad’s house and got there punctually at 8:30a. I got to see his house, meet his beagle Chloe (who tricked me into bending down and petting her and then she knocked me over and jumped on me and gave me French kisses), and meet his roommates. Then he drove us to meet up with other athletic friends of Diana’s at Crissy Park near the Bay Bridge to go to Muir Woods and do a hike. We got to Crissy Park at 9:30, the agreed-upon time, and I marveled at how punctual everyone else was who all pulled up to the lot about the same time, despite the necessary detours made because a major street, Market, was closed for the Gay Pride Parade (SF is so colorful, and not just because of the rainbow-colored flags adorning the buildings). A group of 8 on-time Asian people! Unheard of!

The original plan was to do a 5-mile hike through Muir Woods down to Stinson Beach, hang out at the beach, and hike 5 miles back. Partway through the hike, however, we realized that it was taking too long, and Brad needed to get back in time for his volleyball game and I needed to catch a late flight.

So we did the shortened version: a 6 mile hike which had us tripping over tree roots, poking at nasty 6-inch banana slugs, falling on our bleeding palms. My calves are STILL sore.

At one point, the 8 of us were in a row winding around a narrow mountain path, and Brad suggested that we should all sing something. No one had any ideas on a song singable that we all know. I suggested Sir Mixalot’s Baby Got Back, but only 2 of us knew most of the words. So we trudged on in silence, until somewhere ahead of me, I heard the whistling of a tune… it was “Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s off to work we go,” from Snow White and the 7 Dwarves.

Another funny thing to stick out in my head was when I was the last one in the row, and for some reason they’d all stopped. I stood there a second and thought, “What if I wasn’t looking up when they stopped?” So I took a large and sudden step forward, said loudly, “OOF!” and smacked into the back of Brad’s backpack. “WHAT the–?” he said and turned around really fast. I was laughing so hard I was doubled over, and he said, “You scared me!” And then turning back around to face the front again, he said, “Whatever, it’s YOUR camera in the backpack.” Oh yeah, that reminds me, Brad didn’t bring a backpack and I was using Diana’s rather large backpack, so he put his stuff in mine and gentlemanly offered to wear it. I was the only one without a backpack, and it was nice. Everyone else was dripping in sweat from the excess weight and material on their backs. I bet that’s gonna be the last time Brad uses someone else’s stuff to hold his bottle of Gatoraide.

Dwaine met me at the airport and we went back to his house, where my car was parked. He’d had a great weekend, too. At his house, we raised a glass of wine to great weekends with great friends to give us perspective about what life’s really about. And then he continued to drink a few more glasses…and a few more…while I sorted through some mail he had piling up and we told each other jokes (actually, “performed” jokes was more like it) in front of his lit fireplace…with the air conditioning on. At 3am, I drove home, marking the end of a weekend in which I never went to bed before 4am.

(rest mouse pointer over photos for captions)

We slept in on Saturday morning at Diana’s house in San Jose. By that I mean that I got up at 7a, went back to sleep, got up again at 9:30a and brushed my teeth, moseyed on into Diana’s room at 10:30a where she was just opening her eyes, and we hung out and chatted and then got ready to start the day. It was kind of like the ol’ college days if we both had late classes.

We called up Mike and made plans to meet up in the early afternoon. Mike and Christi were busy packing for their 9-day trip to Hawaii and running out of time as they were flying out the next morning, so I was really happy they made some time for a pearl tea meet at a really cute little outdoor shopping plaza. It was a lot of fun watching Mike’s brain gears turn when Diana would say certain things. Nothing goes over his head. We caught up on everyone’s lives, hypothesized on human behavior, and laughed a lot.

After we separated, Diana and I went to her gym to change and get ready for the night’s festivities. I’d like to note that MAN, is her gym hoity toity. It’s not my casual ol’ 24 Hour Fitness, it’s the exclusive Club One.


We jammed from there to Diana’s friend Phil’s house, and he drove us from there to dinner in San Franscisco’s Circolo restaurant, where we met up with Jimmy and Sabrina, already waiting for us there. Very nice place, very delicious food, very fashionable gay waiters. I had the spicy tuna tatare appetizer, Chilean sea bass w/sesame tempura veggies, and the most amazing peppermint ice cream cake dessert with a side of chocolate gelato. Yes, and a mint mojito. This place had a lot more crushed mint leaves that I keep sucking up through the straw, but I believe it was tastier than The Melting Pot’s mojito. Dinner was well worth the $67 a head it came out to. Poor Diana didn’t have dessert; she can’t stand minty stuff, and the peppermint cake was so minty I commented at dinner that it was like brushing my teeth. Everyone else agreed.

After dinner, Jimmy and Sabrina split to go watch The Lake House while Phil, Diana and I walked up the street to watch the Asian comedy troupe, 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors. Hilarious show. Lots of Asian “inside jokes.”

When the show was over, we met up with Jimmy and Sabrina again at a restaurant/lounge-turned-bar/club after hours, a middle-Eastern themed place called Medjool. I’m sorry if you guys think I look skanky; I figured that if I’m not gonna wear this in my 20s, I’m not gonna wear it in my 30s.

(rest mouse over photos for captions)

I’m here! In San Jose! Yes, I know it’s 1:20 in the morning. My flight got in perfectly punctually at 8:40pm. You know what I’ve never seen before upon entering an airplane? The first passenger I saw rounding the corner from the entry into the cabin, a corpulent woman in the first row on my right, sitting in the aisle seat, was breast feeding her infant. Now, this is Southwest Airlines, which means that there is no assigned seating. You get in and sit wherever you want. This woman apparently chose to sit front and center, knowing she was boarding very early on and that 90 passengers are going to board after her and walk past her, and popped out her left breast and stuck it into her baby. It was like a hidden camera show, and I bet every passenger looked twice, thinking, “She can’t be doing what I think she’s doing,” and then upon realizing she is indeed doing what we think she’s doing, we all tried to look away nonchalantly, as tho we’d never seen what she’s doing. I don’t have an opinion about women breast feeding in public, but if you’re going to make 90 strangers walk past you, can’t you use a breast pump and bottle feed the baby during the 45 minute flight?! Or at least wait until everyone’s seated so we don’t all have to file past you and avert our eyes. How inconsiderate. Yeah, yeah, I know it’s natural and beautiful, but if I had a boob exposed without a baby to justify its protrusion, I’d be arrested for indecent exposure.

Wow. I did not expect to rant that long about that, or to even rant about it at all. Must be the mojito. I had my first mint mojito ever today. Brad picked me up at the airport and we met up with Diana at The Melting Pot for dinner. While on the plane, I was reading about mojitos and I wondered why I’d never had one. It looks so refreshing! And indeed it was. The fondue was delish, too. The three of us shared a 2-people multi-course meal, and that was more than enough food. It started with an appetizer of breads, celery, cauliflower, to dip into a cheese and beer fondue. Then the main course, lobster, filet mignon, chicken, shrimp, pork, broccoli, potato, zucchini, mushroom, to dip into a broth fondue and then into various sauces. Finally, dessert: chocolate, marshmallow and oreo cookie fondue with flaming (blue flamed) Bacardi 151 rum, to dip with cheesecake, brownie squares, cookie-coated marshmallows, graham crackers, bananas, strawberries, pineapple. I’m sure I’m forgetting some stuff. The table, when we got there, was decorated with red rose petals (real) and a card with my name on it. The restaurant wrote me a birthday card! Thanks for my birthday dinner, Diana!