cindy's world

James had told me about some amazing sushi in Tustin that’s served traditional omakase style at the sushi bar, meaning you don’t pick items off a menu, the sushi chef just starts serving you all the different fresh fish of the day until you tell him to stop. Altho I was forewarned that this meal would be expensive, I was eager to try out the restaurant.

Last Friday evening, Mr. W and I met up with James and Vanessa at Sushi Wasabi for this delectation. James was right; all four of us enjoyed every single cut of fish. When the chef puts the hand roll, sushi or sashimi on your plate (each fish/oyster/scallop/crab is served slightly differently depending on the best way to showcase each flavor), he’d tell you what it is and where it’s from. “This is salmon from Austria,” or “This is blue crab from Alaska,” or “This is oyster from Seattle.” I’m not quoting him as I can’t remember where anything’s from, but it went a little something like that. I felt like I was taking a seafood tour of the world from my seat! The experience was also unique in that altho I’ve had yellowtail, ahi, oysters, etc before, they never tasted like this. Each savory bite melted in my mouth and had a fresh, refeshing and almost sweet aftertaste.

In the midst of the funny and entertaining conversation we were having together, James happened to mention that the last time he was there with 2 male coworkers, it was a no-holds-barred type of meal celebrating his promotion, so they’d gone through the entire fish menu twice plus some change, and polished off more than one liter-sized bottle of sake, and the total bill came out to over $700. Mr. W balked. I’d already expected our meal to be expensive because I was forewarned a few times by James, but I think Mr. W didn’t expect it to be that expensive since he kept saying that the restaurant is located in a ghetto Mexican area where there wouldn’t be a lot of sushi connoisseurs in attendance. Our total came out to be over $330 including tax and tip. Vanessa plunked down her card, and I wrote her a check for my and Mr. W’s half of the price (I’d never reimbursed a friend for a meal with a check before, but I don’t have that much cash onhand). James of course paid her in cash, the wealthy guy. But even he was $2 short. Haha.

I think it was worth the experience to try this amazing place out once, as it has totally blown all my past sushi experiences out of the water. But Mr. W lamented the entire weekend about how altho it truly was the best sushi he’d ever had in his life, no food is worth that price tag. (He’s sick at home today with food poisoning he got from some other food Sunday afternoon [my poor little boy], NOT from the Friday nite sushi, and Vanessa speculated maybe it’s a karma thing from all the complaining he did about the sushi all weekend. Food has feelings, too! At least it may have before we chopped it up and ate it over rice. Yum.)

Also worthy of note is that James remembered to bring his happy Magic 8 Ball (see comments on that post), which turns out is actually a Magic 8 Ball that’s yellow with a big smiley face on it, a promotional item from some company’s recruiting.

Mr. W and I went to my parents’ newly remodeled house on Sunday evening to help them put away a few things and do some finishing touches, paint touch-ups, etc. The place is amazing, by the way. They ripped up all the carpeting in the house and put down either marble or rich deep floorboards. All countertops, sinks, toilets, tubs were redone; all tiles in the restrooms are new and very artistic. Each bedroom and bathroom has a new color and design scheme. The windows were replaced and the blinds have been removed with French wood shutters put in their place.

While I was up in my parents’ new bedroom upstairs lining shelving paper inside their drawers and cabinets (we are still Asian, after all), I saw that they have a new state-of-the-art glass digital scale. I stepped on it and it registered 127.9. I was not happy with that reading, so I dragged the scale into the bathroom, closed the door, and proceeded to lose weight. I peed myself dry, shed the clothes, and then stepped back on the scale. 125.9. There, that’s an acceptable number! Satisfied, I got dressed and came back out, and bumped into my mom in her bedroom. Sheepishly, I told her I just weighed myself. She said she was going to weigh herself, too. I put the scale down on the ground, and she stepped on. Immediately, she stepped off and handed me a small pair of scissors she’d been using to cut the contact paper. She stepped back on. I laughed at her, and confessed what I’d done in the bathroom. She said, “It’s okay, your dad does that, too!”

Genetics are strong, I tell ya.

You know how sometimes you get ready to go out and in the mirror, you think you’ve created the most perfect version of you possible? The hair’s behaving, the makeup’s just right, a glint of vixen-like coyness is in your eye; you smile at yourself, or if you’re a guy, you do that click with the inside of your cheek against your teeth and wink, while pointing a trigger hand gesture at your reflection in the mirror? And then you go out, take photos that you can’t wait to see cuz the last time you checked, you were on fire! And in the pictures, your face looks NOTHING as nice as you thought it did in the mirror. It looks like a whole different person. (And if you don’t know what I’m talking about and this has never happened to you, well, then, poo to you! 😛 ) I’ve come up with the perfect solution to ensure that it doesn’t happen to you again.

me: I’m gonna carry around a big paper bag with me wherever I go.
and cut 2 holes out of it for eyes
Josh: right
me: and draw red lips on the center in red permanent marker
which is ironic cuz I don’t wear lipstick
Josh: you do that
me: ooh! and fangs! I’m gonna draw fangs coming out the lips
Josh: that be would realistic
me: OOH, and whiskers! long whiskers!
Josh: keep going
me: …I can’t. that’s all I want.
except for the tiny cat ears I’m gonna tape to the top
Josh: ok
me: I’d be so cute!
and I wouldn’t even have to do my hair
Josh: saves time
me: i know, when the other girls see it, they’d all want one.
and the great thing is, you don’t have to make do with what you got, you can draw whatever you want!
whatever you really feel like you are inside!

I asked Josh what his mask would be and he said probably a girl. I asked what kind of girl? He wasn’t sure. So I suggested he draw a mask of me, and we can go out together and I’d be a cat and he’d be ME. We’d be a hit.

What would YOUR mask be?

I’m too ticked to sleep. I brought up to Mr. W earlier that I don’t understand why he’d take all these random chemical diet aid pills and “supplement” stuff that his ex left laying around his house, but it’s so hard for him to listen to ME and not take ephedrine despite how much I explained that it was dangerous for someone with high blood pressure and a history of heart problems in the family, or to take other things I suggest that are good for him, such as glucosamine for all his creaking crackling joints especially since he runs. I said it’s a different thing if she were a nutritionist, or had actual knowledge about these products, but judging by the crap laying around the house that she’d bought, she’d simply bought into all the ineffective and/or dangerous trends. He yelled at me about not understanding why I have to pick a fight with him and feel threatened by an ex-girlfriend of his that doesn’t even live in the same state anymore. I was so pissed off that he said that. He’s back to the same old problem — not hearing what I’m saying but projecting other fights he had with his exes over, apparently, other women and other exes. I told him I would’ve said the same damn thing if his dad were the one who’d bought those pills, but does that mean I must be jealous of his father? He wouldn’t listen and instead got into bed and went to sleep.

AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No, all women are NOT alike! No, all women are NOT catty! No, not everything is about some fear that I’m gonna lose you to some ex! I’m so upset I’m shaking right now. I hate, HATE when I’m falsely accused of something like this, cuz it means 1) he didn’t hear me or didn’t take me seriously; 2) he can’t see that I’m not like THEM; 3) we’re making no progress in our relationship in getting to know each other; 4) I get no credit for NOT being like his jealous exes. This is like when someone who’s innocent is accused of cheating and they say, “Well shit, I may as well go cheat cuz I’m gonna get blamed for it either way.” WHY do I make the effort to keep the peace between him/us and his exes, then? Why don’t I just have a fuss and have a fit whenever the mother of his children calls, instead of getting along with her, going with him to pick up the kids and then greeting the ex and having a nice warm chat with her? So when he’s got me totally wronged like this, I find myself trying to explain what my issue ACTUALLY is instead of what he’s ACCUSING ME that the issue is (and his reaction to that was to practically call me a liar and then he ignored me), and now it’s so much uglier than it would’ve been if he’d just listened to and stuck to the original real issue. Now, I can’t sleep and I’m too upset to go lay down next to him.

As an immigrant, I had the opportunity to be heard as to my chosen English first name. Well, not initially. A non-English speaker at the tender age of 6, I remember standing in the social security registration line with my mother. “We’re going to call you Sing,” she said in Mandarin. “That way it sounds kind of like the middle character of your Chinese name. Is that okay? You like that name?” I really had no opinion as to the name. The English sound “Sing” was unfamiliar to me, so I just agreed. And so, that’s how I was registered in this country. Some days later, in the waiting room of a doctor’s office (I think I was there to be immunized), my mother and aunt Jessica were discussing my translated name. My aunt asked if I liked it. I again nodded, simply because I didn’t have an opinion. She then told me what “Sing” meant. Dude, it wasn’t even a noun! It was a verb! I protested the name then. Like that mattered. The full translation of my Chinese name into the registered legal English version isn’t even something I can pronounce to this day.

Apparently it wasn’t something a lot of people could pronounce. First through second grade, the name just became ammunition for me to be teased. As if kids pulling their eyelids out into narrow slants and saying to me, “ching chong chang chone” and throwing sand at my face weren’t enough. Now they could encircle me and chant, “Sing…sing a song…sing along…” which I guess was a popular song on the radio that year, unfortunately for me. I don’t remember what kind of a fuss I made regarding my name, except that whatever I did, my mom finally agreed to give me an a.k.a. to use in school aside from my legal translated “English” name, the full thing of which I haven’t told you guys and which the teachers struggled to say when calling roll. My mom suggested “Jean,” because that sounded somewhat like the 3rd character in my Chinese name. I readily agreed to that. Finally, a real name! One which didn’t have a dictionary definition! My mother wrote a note to my 2nd grade teacher, informing her of the name change and asking her to please start referring to me as Jean immediately. My teacher made a brief announcement of my name in front of the class (to the bewilderment of the American students, to whom a name change was unheard of), and good-naturedly started calling me Jean. It wasn’t a few weeks later when my family was having dinner with some family friends, and the 2 sons of the other families started making fun of my name. “Jing” in Mandarin means “near,” or “closeness.” The boys said, “Jing. Ta lee wo hun jing.” Roughly translated: “Near. She is very near to me.” And guffawed. The rest of the evening consisted of them making up sentences with “jing.”

The next school day, I handed another note from my mother to my 2nd grade teacher. Miss Lawrence cooperatively started referring to me as Cindy, which I’d picked myself out of a dictionary.

***
Some years ago, I briefly dated a Chinese guy named Arlington. Asian immigrants are kind of known for naming their kids the last names of prestigious (at least prestigous-sounding) Americans, so I wasn’t too weirded out by Arlington. I’d already known a Jackson, a Nelson, a couple of Wilsons, an Edison, and a Rockefeller. (Just kidding about the Rockefeller. There’s probably at least one out there, but I don’t know any.) But I thought I’d ask the origin of his name anyway. He told me that his mother didn’t have a name for him until she was in the delivery room of the hospital. After he was delivered, she asked the doctor to help name him. Her only requirements? The name must start with the letter A because she was in Delivery Room A, and it should sound similar to her other son’s name. The doctor came up with Arlington.

“What’s your brother’s name?” I asked. I mean, what the heck sounds like Arlington?

Apparently, Wellington.

Oh, he also has a younger sister. Her name is Joyce. Joycington? No, just Joyce.

***
Okay, I’ve shared. What’s the origin of your name?

I met Mr. W at the gym during lunch today and we took a yoga class together. I held off coughing through almost the entire hour by not “inhaling deeply” when the instructor told us to but taking shallow breaths, until the last relaxation pose. At the last pose, my body wanted to cough so badly that I was spasming. My throat was closing up, my lungs were involuntarily pushing the air out. I finally let out a cough, and once I did I couldn’t stop. The hacking echoed off the hardwood floors and mirrored walls, completely shattering the illusion of shaded tranquility in the room.

A minute ago, my bailiff, who had been reading a magazine at his desk, walked up toward me with an article and announced, “I’ve been doing some reading, and I know now why you’ve got that cough.” Curious, I let him show me an open page, which features a review on the Lexus IS 250, the lower version of my car. Compared to my IS 350, the 250 is the same car and body without the V6 engine, with 100 less horsepower. I was confused as he summarized the article. “It says here that the IS 250 has ‘top-notch handling and a firm suspension’, and that it ‘takes technological features to the next level’.” Right, I agree, but what’s that got to do with my cough? He continued to bullet other points in the article. “It says that the Lexus succeeds in ‘making complex features simple.’ And then it talks about all the luxury car comforts in the cabin. It says here ‘Exterior styling is on the muscular side — lean, not bulky — a departure for buttoned-down Lexus. Handling is taut… The base engine, which is strong but quiet, is a hair underpowered but makes up for it with great fuel economy’.”
“Yeah, but that’s the IS 250,” I said. “I have the 350, which has a stronger engine than what you’re reading there.”
“I know, wait a minute, but here’s where it talks about how you got your cough. The last sentence in the article says, ‘Those who want to notch up the power can cough up an extra four grand for the IS 350, which has a 306-horsepower V6.’ Have you been coughing ever since you bought that car?”

Oh my gawd.

Of course I had to blog it.

Oh, cites from the January/February 2007 issue of Westways magazine, published by Triple-A.

Got this as an email forward. It’s good to see that I’ve been living the life of a dog and I didn’t even know it.

~ * ~

If a dog was the teacher you would learn stuff like:

When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.
Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride.
Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstasy.
When it’s in your best interest, practice obedience.
Let others know when they’ve invaded your territory.
Take naps.
Stretch before rising.
Run, romp, and play daily.
Thrive on attention and let people touch you.
Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.
On warm days, stop to lie on your back in the grass.
On hot days, drink lots of water and lie under a shady tree.
When you’re happy, dance around and wag your entire body.
No matter how often you’re scolded, don’t buy into the guilt thing and pout … run right back and make friends.
Delight in the simple joy of a long walk.
Eat with gusto and enthusiasm. Stop when you have had enough.
Be loyal. Never pretend to be something you’re not.
If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.
When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by and nuzzle them gently.

Self-reflection:

I’m posting this with the express written consent of Vanessa. She finds herself at a 4-path crossroads with regards to her next stage in life. She asked her spirit guides for guidance. I did not inquire as to how she made contact with her guides, but Vanessa has her ways. Their response to her discouraged her. It was, “be true and loyal to that which you believe.” Vanessa’s reaction: “WTF? I was like HELLO I am asking you for advice and you don’t tell me anything else but that???”

Before she told me all this, she told me her path possibilities and asked for my feedback. All of her paths involved some pretty hefty uprooting of her lifestyle now. I advised her to not choose one of these options now, but to explore all of them before committing to any of them. Go to the locations and check ’em out before deciding whether to dump yourself there indefinitely, so to speak. And when she told me about her advice from Beyond, I felt it was not inappropriate or irrelevant advice, it was just a little ahead of her. I believe that if you go for an informed decision, then whatever path you choose will be the right one. That’s what they’re telling her. “The key here is for you to have conviction for the path that you BELIEVE in. That means you have to first establish a sense of conviction to HAVE a belief. They didn’t say ‘be true and loyal to that which you randomly stumble upon with a toss of a coin.’ They said BELIEVE. All I’m doing is giving you an idea for how to arrive on something that you’d believe in.”

Vanessa said she had been hoping to have a more directive answer from them, like “pick this and then do that.” I don’t think they’re supposed to tell you to do a and b and c, or life would be their puppetshow and we won’t learn anything. It’s not free will if we do things cuz “my spirit guide told me to.” She felt that at confusing times like this, tho, she wished the answers would be clearer to make things easier for her. So here’s my theory on that.

The reason we’re not more closely connected to the Other Side is because we’re supposed to be here to learn from our experiences, and the only way to do that is to see what happens when we act in a certain way. If we already know exactly what would happen, this incarnation’s pretty useless. Sure it’d be “easier” if we’re given a map (at least one we can access consciously), but the opportunities for the largest personal growth ARE these difficult spots. You are called upon to pull out every resource you’ve collected in your experience this life — be it your own past experiences, your friends, your intellect, your understanding of human nature, your ability to do research — to make an educated gamble about some aspect of your life. Not that it’s really a test to see if you were paying attention throughout your life, but this is a chance for you to USE the skills you’ve gone thru so much, decades’ worth of acquisition, to collect! And after you emerge from this rough experience, you’ve now gained MORE knowledge, experience, tools for you to use in bigger, harder tasks in the future. Cool, huh?

I think life’s sort of like an adventure/rpg video game.

On the opposite side of the coin, toward the end of the email discussion with Vanessa, I got an email from a “California genius” that got me heavily involved in a discussion about someone else’s inability to take or even acknowledge the myriad possible paths in life, opting instead, it appears, to play the safe if unfulfilling role.

This makes me wonder if my spirit guide is trying to tell me something, or at least get me to think about something that Mr. W’s been trying to get me to think about, i.e. settling for complacency and letting my own dreams slip through my fingers.

I was walking down the hallway toward the elevator at lunchtime, looking at the package label of a protein bar I’d just purchased. I was shocked to see it had 320 calories in it. That’s a lot for a stupid protein bar! I heard a male voice in front of me. “Hey! It’s my favorite clerk!”
I looked up to see a friendly bailiff walking toward me. “320 calories in this little thing!” I exclaimed, shaking the bar at him. “WHY is this thing so high in calories?!”
He stopped and said, “That’s all you have to say to me? Is calorie talk? I don’t want to talk about excessive calories. We haveta figure out a way to put calories ON you.”
“NO we don’t!”
“Yeah we do, you girls these days are getting too skinny.”
“NO I’m not!”
He started backpaddling as he realized he just called me too skinny in a way that meant too skinny is not attractive. “Well, not gain fat overall, but just in selected places to be curvy.”
“Which places are you saying I need more padding on?!” I demanded.
“Uh, it’s just that…some girls these days don’t have a butt cuz they’re too skinny, they lose their butt–”
“I have a butt!!”
“Yeah, uh, I mean…”

The elevator dinged and for some reason he didn’t get on it with me, turning instead to go into the restroom with a see-ya-later. Something I said?

I’m on my old desktop, the one I’ve had since college, and lookie lookie what I found! Old stuff! It’s like, Cindy in another life! Rest mouse pointer over photos for captions, like always.

It all started here…

And then she pulled this out of her bag o’ tricks (aka uterus):

And they thought it’d be funny to dress me up like some China communist baby:

21 years later, the Commie Baby grew into this herre:


Funny thing is, hanging out with the Northern Cal folks this weekend, I was telling them about this photo shoot, in the short black leather dress and go-go boots. And here’s the photos! Well, very few of ’em. I don’t know why the photos on the left are stretched out. It’s supposed to look like this:

And here’s a ring I designed when I was in college: