cindy's world

What a Saturday. Mr. W woke up and decided that it was such a beautiful day that we just HAD to go hiking. So we grabbed his neighbor-buddy, who just happened to have an annual National Parks pass, and drove out to the mountains to hike. Turns out strong ankles and a good sense of balance is really important as we stepped carefully and hopped from rock to bark to rock to cross the rushing streams. The recent California rain made all the water levels rise and the waterfalls were much wider and faster than usual. I did almost fall backwards into the water once, but the neighbor, who spent most of the time behind me (Mr. W was in front leading and I was in the middle for safety reasons), stepped up and grabbed my arm when my ass was a foot from the ground. I managed to keep my shoes and socks dry until the last stream, tho, when some water ran over my left toes and since I was in my running shoes, the fabric upper sucked the water right in. Man, I was pissed. I hate walking around in wet socks. I did enjoy the doggies on the trails, tho… they just jump right into the water all happy and waggy.

After a long afternoon of hiking, we went to Big Mama’s Rib Shack and pigged out on soul food. Good times.

Another progress update on my projects:
* Roof – Friday, I selected my roofer and left a voice mail with the 2nd company thanking them for their professionalism and blamed it on my association that I’m going with another roofer. In truth, the association left it up to me to decide. I went with the more expensive one that seemed to give me more for my money. But I felt incredibly guilty calling off the second company cuz those people were so professional and so nice. In thinking about it now, I STILL feel bad and almost wish I had another leaky roof to give business to them. =P Anyway, the roof job should begin in about 10 days.
* House Hunting – Mr. W found a really nice short sale in a very desirable area nearby to his current home, and we’ve gone over there 3 times this weekend already to look at it in the day, at night, and met my agent there today. The price is right, the inside could use a little work but it’s not bad at all, and Mr. W really likes the house’s potential. The only thing we both don’t like about it is that it has a pool. Ick. But it also has a huge enclosed patio, so can we say, par-tay house? We decided to put our offer in today. Maybe next summer, my bday can be celebrated at home with a house pool party!

Yesterday was Chinese New Year Eve. After work, Mr. W and I went to my grandma’s house, where my parents were already poised to dig into a Chinese feast, to ring in the new Year of the Rat. (That’s right — if you’re pregnant now, you’re going to hatch a rug rat.)

At one point during dinner, my grandma asked Mr. W in broken English (plus a lot of gesturing) whether he voted in the Primaries on Tuesday. He said that he didn’t, even tho he’d intended to. I obviously didn’t cuz I was at work late and then I went to Vicky’s to do my parents’ taxes until midnight. Turned out my parents didn’t vote, either. My grandma raised her hand proudly. “I did,” she said. We looked at each other.
“So at this entire table, the ONLY ONE who was a good citizen is grandma?” I said.
My mom said dismissively, “She always votes. She also votes in the Taiwan elections. She flies back every year to vote.”
My grandma said, “I vote 91, and I vote 92…” which I took to mean she’s been voting annually for the past 18 years. Turned out, as she started saying “yes”es and “no”s, that she was telling us how she voted on the propositions. She’s informed on the propositions, too? I felt like a putz as she showed everyone her new “I voted!” sticker, which she had in a protective plastic sleeve. Haha.

After dinner, we had an exchange of gifts. Mr. W had designed and embroidered a circle featuring all the animals of the Chinese zodiac, the Chinese word for that animal next to the animal, and the English word for the animal. My dad’s animal (boar) and my mom’s animal (dragon), with their Chinese characters, are on either side of this zodiac wheel. He made a similar one for my grandma with her animal, and framed both. They were impressed and my mom remarked how Mr. W is like my paternal grandfather, who used to make me clothing and baby comforters. Traditionally, the older generation gives the younger generation(s) red envelopes of money, so Mr. W and I made out. We made out so much, in fact, that I felt guilty and returned half of what my grandma gave me and Mr. W did the same. Of course she wouldn’t simply take it back, so my mom stealthily stole a new red envelope from my grandma’s bedroom and gave it to me, and I stuffed it with $120, wrote “To Grandma, Happy New Year! From Cindy and [Mr. W]” on it, and propped it up against her toothbrush in her bathroom.
“You have to call her when you leave and tell her it’s there,” my mom said.
“She’s going to see it, it’s on her toothbrush.”
“Call her! What if she misses it?”
“Only if doesn’t brush her teeth!”
“Call her!!”
“All right!”

When my parents and we (us?) parted ways at my grandma’s door, my mom said her goodbyes to us and said, “Call her!”
“Okay!”

When Mr. W and I were walking to his car at the parking area, my parents, who’d gotten to their cars first, drove by us. My mom paused her car in front of us, rolled down her passenger side window, and called out her car, “Call your grandma!”
“Okay!!!!”

I forgot to call her.

I was reading Wilco’s recent post about Super Tuesday and the primaries election (he actually has photos of the ballots when he went to go vote; if he took these himself I can’t believe they let you walk in with a camera), and it reminded me of a conversation I had with Dwaine a year ago in my living room.

Dwaine: Obama is not going to be elected.
Me: You think the country isn’t ready for a black president?
Dwaine: I think the country is more ready for a female president than a black president.
Me: Really!

Although Barack Obama won more states than Hillary Clinton yesterday, Hillary Clinton got the states with more delegates, which is more important in the big picture. One of these states is California. Damn it, damn it.

Despite my opinion about these two candidates and their neck-to-neck race to be front runner for the Democratic party, I was disheartened by the way Obama has presented himself to the average public voter. That thing when Hillary Clinton extended her hand to Obama for a handshake and Obama turned his back to her at the media-heavy State of the Union Address by President Bush on January 28, that was captured in photographs and talked about everywhere. Also, a local but widely-syndicated radio station, 102.7 KIIS FM on the morning show hosted by Ryan Seacrest, invited Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Mitt Romney to come on air the morning of Super Tuesday to address the sector of the public who listen to pop radio on weekday mornings. The only one who accepted the invitation and did address these voters was Hillary Clinton. Obama’s people said he was too busy to call the radio station.

*sigh*

I haven’t weighed myself in like a month cuz the digital body fat scale I have at home has finally run out of battery after like 8 years. Mr. W’s old bodyfat scale, which I knew how to operate, went on the fritz and he’s got a new one that I can’t work, so I haven’t been using his scale, either.

When I arrived at Vicky’s apartment yesterday, she was out walking the dog but had told me to go ahead in as the door was open. So I went in her bathroom, and saw that her digital body fat scale, the same model as mine, was out. Of course I had to get on it, curious and nervous after my prior 2 weeks of only going to the gym twice to do cardio. And of course I had to strip from head to toe so as to eliminate any possible excess weight (You think I’m bad? My mom wouldn’t even step on her scale if she was damp from her shower.).

This model of scale had always placed me at approximately 28% body fat, and I had been about 126ish pounds for a long time. When my weight fluctuated down, the body fat would go up, and if my weight went up, my body fat would drop, indicating that if I put on or lost weight, it was muscle. But yesterday, I was at the lowest weight I’d been in a long time, 120.0 lbs. The body fat percentage was 24%. I had never been at a LOW body fat percentage WHILE weighing less, too! At least, not in recent memory.

What I think happened was that with the increased weights my gym trainee and I had been doing before we took a break, my body composition had changed dramatically to put on a lot of muscle which burned off a lot of fat. And with the two weeks of not doing weights but doing a little cardio, my body burned off some of the accumulated muscle but did not put the fat back on due to the elevated metabolism created from the new muscle. So the result is a drop on both ends.

I’m 5 pounds to goal!

(Click here to see a post I’d written last year about what body fat percentage is right for your body type.)

I think I’ve generated some positive karma in the past 24 hours or so. Yesterday after work, I went over to Vicky’s so we can have a tax filing party. By that I mean we sat there on our laptops in her living room and I did my parents’ taxes while she did hers and then when her boyfriend arrived home, she did his. I left my TurboTax there with her in case she decided to be nice and do her parents’ taxes, too. Haha. We were tax-filing fiends until midnight, when I left to go home.

After I arrived home, I made 4 separate trips from my bedroom upstairs to the the garage downstairs to haul down the four heavy filled-to-the-brim trash bags plus one big box of clothes that I had cleaned out of my closets, with Gym Trainee’s help, last year. (You can read about those antics here.) I was going to donate them but didn’t get around to it, which was a good thing because yesterday I received this email from a coworker:

The brother of a dear friend of mine lost his home to a fire. He was renting and did not have renter’s insurance. He and his 3 children literally ran out of the house with just the clothes on their back. My girlfriend, Irene, and her husband, Matthew, have taken them in so they can get back on their feet.

So if you have any old clothes lying around ready to go to Goodwill, please consider bringing them to work and I will deliver them to Irene and Matthew to give to their niece and nephews. If you can help, it would surely be appreciated. If you do not have children’s clothing, as you do not have small kids, you can help by just keeping them in your prayers.

I wrote back to her:
I have 3 giant trash-bags full of old clothes. They were from the ’90s so that was my “dress like a boy in big baggy clothes” stage (in high school). There may be things in there that could be unisex, especially because of their oversized nature and my androgynous taste at the time. The clothes are clean and washed; I had simply cleaned out my closets last year and hadn’t gotten around to getting the clothes to goodwill yet.

I guess I had more clothes than I’d remembered. Anyway, we just did the trunk-to-trunk switch a few minutes ago. My coworker was shocked how much clothing I had. I told her I had to fight Dodo for them, too, because he wanted to play with the plastic bags and chew on the plastic drawstrings. There are tiny puncture marks and tooth marks on the tops of several bags.

I’m working away…but I’m here to do a quick status report of my projects.

1.) Roofing – My association treasurer’s letter “to clarify the secretary’s letter” arrived yesterday. He explained the situation to the homeowners about having to pay for my roof, and brought up a good point: if my roof had been replaced 2 years ago when everyone else’s roofs were replaced, everyone would’ve had to pay an extra $300 THEN, so it really doesn’t make a difference whether they pay then or now because either way everyone has to pay for my roof. I got the 2nd estimate yesterday, too. It was only $200 less than the first estimate. So I’m gonna compare the 2 contracts and see who gives me the more bang for my buck.

2.) Parents’ Trust – Vanessa’s a huge advocate of setting up a Living Trust, because she found out the hard way when her dad passed away without having done one, that there are major messy, extensive and expensive probate issues that they’re still trying to clean up. College roommie Diana sent me a Living Trust format which I customized the best I could and this past weekend, Vanessa (who’s a legal notary until February 8, which is in 3 days) came with me to meet my parents, have lunch with us, and she notarized the Trust and Deed for them. I had a judge look the papers over but he had some concerns, so he referred me to a good Probate attorney for document review. I submitted my documents to his office today and set up an appointment for Valentine’s Day (the first open appointment).

3.) House Hunting – No significant progress. Just keeping an eye on the market and on the places we’d like to live. House prices are still dropping (woohoo!) and more nice houses are coming up for sale (woohoo!) and interest rates just dropped another half percent last week (woohoo!).

4.) Wedding – I got my photographer booked. Josh, my buddy from jujitsu, is gonna do it. He’s a new Orange County Sheriff but was a professional photographer, so he’s, like, friend/photographer/security all wrapped up in one! Talk about multi-tasking! Plus, he’s going to give Mr. W all the raw digital images he (and his photographer assistant) will take and Mr. W likes to play with Photoshop, so Mr. W will make our wedding album. I’m pretty sure I’m way ahead of schedule; all there is left to do as far as vendors go is to find a florist for our bouquets.

5.) Taxes – Done and mailed out yesterday. Why wait if I’m getting money back? I just have my parents’ taxes left to do.

6.) Exercise – My gym trainee and I are back in the gym. Yesterday we did upper body and today we did lower body. I’m sore, but I guess that’s a good sign. Aside from being a little weaker, it doesn’t look like my 2-week hiatus did much damage. Whew!

Okay, I guess this update wasn’t that swift.

Last Saturday (I know, I meant to post this earlier, but my last week was cRaZy), Mr. W and I went to dim sum with my maternal grandmother and my parents. While eating, my grandmother mentioned a grove of 150 cherry trees donated by a Japanese benefactor to a fairly local city park. The cherry blossoms should be blooming, she said. Off we all went after brunch to see the cherry blossoms.

Turned out the blossoms weren’t in full bloom yet; the trees were rather twiggy, but the early blooms were beautiful and incredibly fragrant. Thankfully, this was like the one day in 2 weeks when it didn’t rain.
3 generations of women:

my immediate family:

On our walk thru the park, my dad saw a low leaning tree and tried to hop on with his butt to sit on it. He missed and landed back on his feet. My mom laughed at him and I told him it’s too high to do that. So he turned to me and challenged me to walk onto the tree trunk from the base without using my hands. Which I did.

After I triumphantly turned around, I saw that they’d deliberately left me behind.

Envious at all my tree-climbing fun, Mr. W found one of his own.

And that was our day with blossoms. The end.

(as always, rest mouse pointer on photos for captions)

I think I’ve been up since like 2am. Laying there. Listening to an incredibly detailed (I can distinguish each instrument and hear the exact voices in the lyrics) reproduction of the theme song from the prime time cartoon “Family Guy” playing over and over in my head. “Where are those old-fashioned values, on which we used to rely?” I’ve already manipulated several instrument parts in my head to bring out the horn, add a trumpet for a bit part, created a dramatic pause in percussion at one point just to see what it would “sound” like, added a marching band beat on the drums for the end where the people sing, “It’s…the…family…guuuuuy!” (that one didn’t end up sounding very good, but kinda goofy). I liked the version in my head that ends with the horns doing “shave and a haircut, six bits”. I’d always been able to “hear” in extraordinary detail in my mind’s ear; I imagine it’s a bit of what Mozart did when he wrote full symphonies with all the complete instrument parts in a first-and-final draft. Less interestingly in my head while this music was going on are the foreground thoughts — consumed by Mr. W’s ex situation. (She called him tonight and left a message demanding child support money despite the fact that Mr. W’s daughter has moved back in with him full-time for weeks now and made it clear she is there to stay.) So 2.5 hours go by of this, and I think I’m losing my mind cuz altho I can control the music, I can’t get it or the thoughts to simply stop.

Okay, so I’ll blog.

I’m very excited about being a new member of the Bare Escentuals mineral makeup consumer community. A friend bought me a special edition color kit for Christmas (2 eyeshadows, 1 blush, 1 powder eyeliner, 1 gold dust accent powder, 1 loose powder, 3 different application brushes), and I liked the way it worked, and was interested in trying the all-natural mineral foundation cuz hey, it’s supposed to be good for your skin and improve skin over time. “Makeup so pure you can sleep in it.” So yesterday I went to Sephora and paid $60 for this Starter Kit.
I was skeptical as to how long it would last and how well it would cover. With my oily skin, the only decent foundation I’ve been able to find (and stuck to like glue for over 10 years now) is the Revlon ColorStay brand which boasts the motto, “It really won’t rub off!” Well, it does transfer, but only after a couple of hours, and I’m sure with normal skin it’d stay put pretty much all day. I get shine breakthrough in an hour and have to blot. However, I’ll say that I don’t have to reapply even if I go to the gym.
I applied my new Bare Escentials mineral foundation without washing my face beforehand (altho I was wearing no makeup, I had been up for quite a few hours), and although I wasn’t happy with the immediate coverage and kept dumping out more foundation powder to brush/buff onto my face, the end result after a first layer of Mineral Veil as oil-absorbing base, spot-concealing specific areas with the foundation powder using the included concealing brush, quite a bit of foundation powder all over, and finally ending with another layer of Mineral Veil as setting powder, well, the end result was really decent. Mr. W liked it better than my original liquid foundation because he said it looked less “masky” to him and more natural. So then I popped in the DVD and watched the tutorial tell me all the things I did wrong. Apparently you’re supposed to apply as many layers of foundation as you need coverage for, not dump a bunch on the brush to apply cuz you don’t see immediate full coverage. And for fuller coverage, you’re supposed to use a special included “Kabuki brush,” not the “full face brush” I’d been using. Oops. BUT, this foundation, even tho I did it “wrong” and didn’t optimize what it can do, lasted longer than the “high-tech,” chemically created ColorStay brand! Not only did I not get shine break-through (altho I looked slightly dewy, not shiny, without reapplying, repowdering or blotting after 6 hours), but at 10pm, I pressed my face lightly against Mr. W’s white T-shirt and the makeup did not transfer! (He didn’t appreciate my little test after I told him why I’d just leaned my cheek into his shirt-sleeve, stared at the sleeve, leaned again, checked again.)

And that is…the most exciting thing happening in my life right now. It even beat out the fact that I couldn’t stop peeing today as I debloated and it turned out I didn’t gain any weight after my 2-week gym hiatus. Well, I did do a half-hour cardio session once each week, a few days ago I ran 3 miles at lunchtime. Hmm. Looks like I should’ve stopped this post a few sentences ago. Sorry.

I met with the 2nd roofer yesterday. He was nice and professional and had the same proposals as the first roofer. I’ll get an estimate in a day or two. Meanwhile, I find out this is what’s been happening with my retarded association…

I’ve been keeping the 3 officers of the association updated about estimates and appointments and such. The secretary, a chick new-ish to the neighborhood, wrote back that she doesn’t think the other homeowners would want to pay for my roof repairs since it’s not their problem, and that the roofs are pretty new. I wrote back to her, CCing the other officers who have lived there longer than even I have, explaining that
1. it is the Association’s responsibility to maintain and repair the external structure of the houses, i.e. the roof;
2. when the Association doesn’t have enough money in its reserves to pay for necessary repairs, the homeowners must and have always contribute equally to beef up the reserves, which is then used for whatever repairs are needed;
3. that in ’05 and ’06, when several leaks were found in the 11 attached units which shared one long roof, EVERY HOMEOWNER, including myself, contributed $1300 to beef up the reserve in order to replace those roofs, but MY roof wasn’t touched because it didn’t leak at the time;
4. NOW that my roof is leaking, and again there are no reserves in the Association, all homeowners need to again contribute to beef up the funds so the Association can do its job and repair my roof. It would come out to about $300 per homeowner, much nicer than the former $1300.

She seemed to understand, and I requested that when she writes the letter to request money from the homeowners, that she explain this so people don’t get mad at me and think I’m making them pay for an unnecessary new roof; that my roof was never changed when theirs was. The treasurer and president wrote back to the emails, CCing her and me, agreeing with my statement of the facts and history.

So days go by and I see another email from the treasurer urging the secretary chick to write the request letter ASAP. More days go by. I never receive a letter. And then YESTERDAY, in my mailbox, I see a short letter the secretary (i.e. moron) wrote to everyone that she also gave me a copy of, which said that she’s writing the letter at the treasurer’s request, and that she called the homeowners last week to discuss the roofing problem of my unit, and then she typed in bold that according to the treasurer, the $300 must be paid by each homeowner as soon as possible or I (yes, ME, Cindy) may “suit the association.”

WTF?! I’d written her 2 emails requesting her to nicely explain the situation so that people wouldn’t be upset about having to pay their contribution, practically wrote the letter for her in an email, and she writes them a THREAT?! That I was going to sue my neighbors?! Since she claimed that this was according to the treasurer, I called him.

I hate calling the treasurer, btw, as his wife always picks up the phone and is a major bitch. Anyway, I finally get thru her ridiculous screening process and speak to the treasurer about the letter I received, saying that I’m sure everyone is actually MAD at me now, and he said that he can’t believe how ridiculous this secretary is and tells me what happened was that instead of writing a letter to everyone, she CALLED them so there’s no documentation, we don’t even know what she told people, and then told the treasurer in an email that people don’t want to pay. The treasurer’s response to her email was that she should’ve sent them letters, not called them, and that they have to pay because it’s the responsibility of the Association to take care of it, of which everyone is part, and that if the Association doesn’t take care of the roofing, I have a right to sue. So she took what he said and wrote THAT letter to everyone. I couldn’t believe it.

The treasurer comforted me on the phone and said that he’d already written another letter that he will mail to everyone to explain things correctly, and not to worry. He then forwarded their email exchange to me to keep me in the loop. Prepare for a jaw drop…

The secretary:
Rather than sending or delivering any letters regarding the roof repairs for Unit [#], I called the residents/tenants in our building. So far 4 residents/tenants have stated they will not give the $300.00 you asked me to request. I’m waiting to hear from the other 4 units (voice messages were left Thurs. 1/24/08 for each of those residents/tenants). The following comments were made: “I am not going to pay for someone else’s repairs.” “Have [Cindy] take up her situation with the original contractor.” “She waited too long to take care of the problem.” “If [Cindy] gave $1300.00 to the association & her roof was not repaired, then it is up to the association to give her that money back.” My understanding from the last statement is that the person who was in charge of collecting the money back in 05-06 should not have used [Cindy]’s money if no service was being provided. According to the resident/tenant who stated this, [Cindy]’s money should have been put aside until she needed the service provided.

Treasurer’s response:
Making phone calls is no documentary proof of anything we do. Members should be informed by letter only. We all agree that unit [#] is part of our association and she had been paying all her association dues in time.
When we put new roof for our 11 units, it was not necessary to change for unit [#] as it had no problem at that time. But as she was member of association we had to collect from her and she did pay her share. Now if she has problem with her roof, it is responsibility of association, all members, to get her roof fixed. I fear, if we do not fix her roof and she is entitle to file law suit against association (all members) and we all have to get her roof fixed. Not only that, she could claim other damages also to get her ceiling repaired if we do not get her roof fixed.”

I wrote back to the treasurer after reading this:
Thank you for forwarding this, [Treasurer]. It is clear from what [Secretary] stated the other homeowners’ responses are, that they do not understand the situation properly. Their opinions that I waited too long (which I strongly disagree with; the leaks were reported the DAY that I discovered them, and estimates were obtained as quickly as the contractors were able to provide the appointments) or that my money should not have been used for the other 11 units’ roofing work are irrelevant to the situation at hand. Of course there’s no way of knowing what was explained to them or not in [Secretary]’s phone calls.
I think what you suggested in our phone call yesterday may be necessary with responses like these; we should turn over our association to an outside management company and have everyone pay higher dues because they are unwilling to allow for a self-managed association.
I still thank you for writing a separate letter to the homeowners to properly explain the situation, and look forward to receiving it.

I’m fucking tactful! Can I die now?

I didn’t sleep except for a few faded minutes here and there this entire night. I feel absolutely sick; head pounding, febrile, nausea, cold chills, heart palpitations, you name it.

How many sleepless nights is this in a row now? How long can I keep this up? Are these the symptoms leading to stroke? Am I gonna mentally snap soon? Is this gonna make me lose weight?