cindy's world

Yesterday after work, Mr. W and I double-dated with my bailiff and his girlfriend. We went to see comedian Jeff Garcia perform at the Brea Improv. First we all met at Taps Brewery and waited 50 minutes for a table, then another 40 minutes for our food. Man, if it weren’t for good company, my PMS would’ve totally taken over and they would’ve had human tissue all over the nice Taps walls. =P However, I must give props to the “really good cuts of fish,” (Mr. W) i.e. Chiliean sea bass and seared Ahi tuna.

The comedians were pretty entertaining. Some of them were very animated. It was a very Latino-based jokes evening, which is pretty much what we expected from the lineup.

Last nite I truly felt old as I dozed off sitting there (and standing in line) at 11:15p or so. I’ll blame it on the medication mixed with the alcohol. Two drink minimum. At least I’ve stumbled on a cure for my insomnia.

It rained in Sunny So Cal on Sunday. Mr. W and I met up with college roommie Diana and her “friend” at King’s Fish House in Long Beach Sunday early evening. Turned out the two men grew up in the same city (out-of-state) and had a few things in common. Such as a favorite local food.

Diana had to split to catch her flight but I wasn’t in a rush, so after dinner, Mr. W and I walked around the Pike at Long Beach in the drizzle. I was holding my closed umbrella in my free hand, and watched others hurry by huddled underneath their umbrellas, too rushed to enjoy the lingering chill, full moon, apricot sky, and changing neon-colored lights against the buildings, bridges, and lighthouse.

We wandered in and out of quaint stores, looked at American Indian crafts and rocks, I bought some sugarfree chocolate truffles, barks and meltaways as he enjoyed his candied apple. I marveled as how much he was like my dad.

This morning, the crisp, wet air brought into mind childhood memories of Christmas, and I re-experienced the twinge of excitement I used to associate with anticipation of large family gatherings, the promise of fun with cousins, family friends and special Christmas desserts. And presents.

After my noontime workout at the gym, I deliberately walked sans umbrella slowly from the parking structure back to the courthouse, enjoying the cooling mist of the October droplets on my skin and hair. I received a phone call shortly after lunch from Mr. W, who asked how my lunch was. Turned out he took the same type of lingering walk in the rain before he went back to work, too.

These are the days of crackling fireplaces, flannel blankets, candles, and hot chocolate.

After Special Olympics, Mr. W and I wandered around some local shops (reptile, exotic saltwater fish, Asian market, Asian wares, and of course Costco) then headed over to Huntington Beach for my cousin Diana’s birthday potluck at her friend’s house for a joint birthday venture. I went a little jello shot crazy. But aside from the 25 jello shots I had (fine, it’s a slight exaggeration), I only had one Twisted Watermelon Bacardi, so I didn’t drink that much. The food was delicious — Korean BBQ ribs, BBQed chicken and corn, various dishes ordered in bulk from Claim Jumper, Chinese food. There was, just like last year, 7 or 8 desserts, including a carrot cake birthday cake that in mid-bday-song, took a nose dive from the arms of the bearer straight onto the patio floor, frosting-side down. (Last year, another girl had done the same with an apple pie, about 6 feet away from the death of this carrot cake.) This carrot cake was scooped up and placed, face down, on a nearby picnic table. Because we are Chinese and we don’t waste food, a few people we were hanging out with later ate a significant portion of it with their respective forks, Joey-Tribbiani-style. (Mr. W and I didn’t participate in this, because I don’t like carrot cake and because he, I have a sneaking suspicion, thought it was gross to eat motor oil flavored carrot cake. I understand; carrots are vegetables and should not be sweetened and baked into a pastry.)

Late into the evening, I noted to him that I seem to be doing a lot of the same things that I would be doing had I not met him, which must mean that he’s changed his lifestyle a lot to do these things with me. I thanked him for participating in my life and my activities, promised to do one of “his” style weekends soon, and inquired what he’d rather be doing. He smiled and said he’d rather be doing this with me.

Saturday morning, Mister Wonderful (there has been some confusion as to what Mr. W stood for, and some hapless men whose last names begin with the letter ‘W’ misaccused of being smitten with me) and I went to Fountain Valley Bowl to volunteer for a Special Olympics bowling event, which volunteer effort was organized by my cousin Jennifer through her company, Pacific Life Insurance.

Mr. W and I were in charge of 2 bowling lanes (7 special needs bowlers) and may I just say, Mr. W impressed both me and my cousin Jennifer. He was the total perfect volunteer parent type, enthusiastic, encouraging, responsible, had an eye on everybody, remembered everyone’s names, cheered for everyone, kept up the scores in the computer, took care of technical malfunctions. I basically just sat back and did the occasional clap or cheer (just kidding, I kept paper score and made sure my lane of 4 bowlers were content, happy, and went up to bowl in the proper order in their proper lanes, and chased down the one that kept wandering off).

This was Mr. W’s first volunteer experience. You couldn’t tell by looking at him. I’m already just so happy that he’d go along with it just because I’m doing it.

Guten morgen! Bitte sehen sie 10-11-05 entry, Oktoberfest. Danke! (Rest mouse pointer over photos for captions.)

Group shots (of just the early arrivers):

The Oompa band:

The ostentatious octagenarians:

Those of you looking for photos of Mr. W, sorry. I’m respecting his anonymity. But here are some wacky photos of ME!

Doesn’t this just LOOK like a disaster waiting to happen? The boulder may as well have “ACME” printed on it:

Enjoying the view…

And what view am I enjoying?

My phallic shot:

Mr. W’s pretty and pristine shot:

Of course I climbed this after the photo was taken.

Another photo of me in contemplation.

This past weekend was a long weekend (Columbus Day on Monday) so Mr. W and I did an impromptu weekend at Palm Springs. I don’t think I’d ever gone there before, just passed by it on the way to Palm Desert/Indio with my ex Gary. We stayed in a luxury fully-furnished two-bedroom condo that belongs to a coworker who has timeshare. I had a blast! Some things I absolutely loved:
* he let me listen to my CDs on the entire drive there and back, even tho he didn’t know a lot of the music
* walking everywhere; exploring things on foot is so much better than driving from destination to destination.
* taking the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway up to elevation 8516 feet and hiking in the wilderness up there
* finding and climbing lots of great rocks and cliffs and sitting up there to enjoy the view; having someone who enjoys the sights, sounds, scents, wind with me and outclimbs me (even tho I’m usually the monkey whenever I go on these things)
* exploring some model homes of a new project being built; I love model homes, and Mr. W was game for wandering thru there…he says they give great decorating ideas. (The ex didn’t like to go thru model homes with me because he says he doesn’t want to shop for something he’s not planning on buying.)
* great photos, great conversations, better memories
* hanging out in the room watching hours of “Friends” on DVD while having pizza, Bacardi Twisted Watermelon and mint chip ice cream

We drove back Monday, stopped by Cabazon Outlets, then after we got home, went to Uptown Whittier. He hadn’t been there in a long time, so we parked almost as soon as we turned onto the street so that we could walk up and down the main street and he could check out all the things that had changed. Then we went to Brea and at his recommendation, I ate for the first time at the little French cafe at a wing in the mall that I’d always thought was obtuse in its location. It was delicious. We ate at a table in the walkway of the mall so that I could “peoplewatch.” It’s nice that he’d offer that, because I’m not nice when I peoplewatch. But I have been able to be completely open and unreserved with him without fear of judgment or any negative reaction. If something I reveal about me or my past isn’t exactly positive, he doesn’t recoil physically or emotionally. He accepts it as a part of me and strives to understand it.

…

=)

After work (and after I flew home to vacuum and do last-minute tidying), I drove to Huntington Beach’s Old World for their annual Oktoberfest to hang out with my staff and other coworkers. It was a bailiff’s 50th birthday, so she got adequately wasted. At one point, her friends switched out a shot with water, and she took the shot and commented dazedly about how “that’s strong stuff! Yeah! Whoo!”

Our clan took up 2 picnic tables against a wall and a conga line danced past us. I saw a guy who looked familiar and remarked to my court reporter how I thought that’s Steve, someone I knew from UCLA. And later, I saw Sabrina in line for the women’s restroom. Sabrina is another fellow Bruin and one of roommie Diana’s closest friends. I had a coworker take a picture of Sabrina and me on my cameraphone and sent the photo to Diana to freak her out. Turned out, a bunch of other UCLA people were there. I didn’t stop by to say hi as I shortly thereafter skidaddled out of there.

Interesting evening. Beer, buddies, and a pair of octagenarians doing Cirque du Soleil style contortionism. I kept wincing, hoping that that night wouldn’t be the night that one of these women broke a hip mid-act.

So as to not fall too far behind due to Cancun entries, I decided to post current things in between the Cancun posts. (I can only do Cancun from home anyway, since my photos are on the home PC.)

Saturday evening, Mr. W greeted me outside LAX with a big hug and a yellow rose. I had called him from the plane during taxi-ing into the gate and said, “Remember what I look like?” He’d replied, “Of course I remember! I’ve been dreaming about you all week!” I said, “Well, take that mental image, and darken me 8 shades.” Seriously, I came back a different race. My tanlines are so intense that the contrast looks like I’m wearing a white bikini when I’m naked. All this despite continual reapplication of SPF 50 waterproof, sweatproof sunblock every hour. When we got back to my house, he loaded my photos into my laptop and I introduced him to Cancun, I unpacked, then got reacquainted with Nintendo GameCube’s “Donkey Konga.” I kept hearing songs in Cancun that I’d characterize as “bongo songs” and Diana suggested I plug in the ol’ video game console and bongo to my heart’s content when I get home. So we did.

Sunday, Mr. W and I got to cross one thing off our local to-do list. We went to UCLA late morning and I gave him a tour with the telephonic help of tourguide Diana, my college roommie. She remembers UCLA and the locations and names of buildings in surprising detail, and I remember remarkably little of it. I thought the inverted water fountain was taken out and replaced with new art buildings, and in one of like 5 calls to her for reference or direction, I complained that we’d been all over North Campus and I can’t find it. She said, “That’s cuz it’s not in North Campus, it’s in SOUTH CAMPUS, behind Knudsen Hall!” Oh. We found it. *blush* I swear, I really did attend undergrad there! We parked right by my old apartment so we did my senior year walk to class and around campus and throughout Westwood. Had coffee (iced capp royale) at the coffee shop in Kerckhoff Hall, a late lunch at Mustache Cafe on Glendon in Westwood, dessert of ice cream and cookies at Piddy Reese. I was giddy with reliving my college days, drinking the same stuff I did 10 years ago, walking the same roads, sharing my memories at various locations.

Sunday evening, I met up with my parents, grandma and some of my mom’s friends (married couples) at a Chinese restaurant to celebrate my parents’ 30-yr wedding anniversary. There was lots of funny talk about how miserable each couple was in having been tricked into being with the other one for the past few decades, obscene tips for making a marriage last. Altho I was stunned at how crass and profane my dad’s sense of humor was (as I played dumb, pretending I didn’t get the innuendos delivered in Mandarin, as they clearly expected me to be some non-bilingual deaf moron), I was more stunned to realize that it’s HEREDITARY. I make the same kind of jokes (albeit not in front of people’s offspring), except in English. Then I went back to my parents’ after dinner to show them my Cancun photos.

I just realized that my cell phone is at home. It must’ve been at home since Saturday morning, since I didn’t pick it up to leave yesterday. No wonder it’s been so quiet lately. I think I’m enjoying the fact that no one can get a hold of me right now.

I’ll probably snap at people anyway — I was at WORK for four hours yesterday evening. If that won’t make you cranky, then being at work for four hours doing divorce cases will. >=( The only redeeming thing is that I had wonderful company who volunteered to come along and keep me company. As his laptop played several episodes of one of his favorite TV shows on DVD, he helped me do some of my busy work, i.e. stuffing SASEs w/conformed copies of these annoying litigants’ stupid finalized divorce papers. If he weren’t there I probably would’ve taken an extra hour to do what I got done. I didn’t even have to drag him in! He totally volunteered himself and insisted on helping to ease the stress of my workload, since I am SO annoyed about my stupid divorce cases that I’ve been working on them thru lunch and after work. This is because my supervisor threatened to cancel my vacation unless I get thru the 70-some case load. And I’m not even a family law court! I am actually having psychosomatic symptoms from the family law stress. I won’t go into what those symptoms are. Okay, enough complaining.

After leaving work at 10pm, we went to BCD Tofu House and had a good meal. And a good Asian meal is not complete without a stopover for boba. Unfortunately, I opted for something different — Thai iced tea w/pudding — and he didn’t take to it as much as he did the boba. (I got him into eating boba and hummus. Hee hee. Altho this was his first time with Korean soon tofu, he already liked tofu anyway so it was just a cool little experience for him, not a food preference overhaul.)

Mr. Wonderful is cutting up potatoes to make brunch. I should get off the computer to at least keep him company.