cindy's world

Vanessa came over last nite and for some time, sat on the floor with Dodo and petted him as the little boy ate up all the attention. And then she did the Dodo no-no, which is touch him on his tummy. Apparently her kittens like to be tummy-rubbed, but Dodo just goes into defensive mode. I saw her pull her arm back really quickly, as Dodo’s white paw whipped through the air in a blur. I heard Dodo’s irrate “Grr!” of dissatisfaction.
“I forgot!” Vanessa said. “What do I do now?”
Dodo was now glaring at her, having rolled over to his side away from her.
“Oh, just leave him alone for a few minutes to get over it and he’ll approach you and get all affectionate again, like ‘I’m sorry I swatted you! Please be my friend again!’ ”
A minute later, Dodo went back into his passive “Err?” as he rolled onto his feet, trotted over to Vanessa’s side and leaned against her arm, meowing his apologies. And then everything was normal again. “My cat’s so predictable,” I said.

This morning, a coworker whose kittens I’ve babysat in the past while she was out of town emailed me:

“Morning…I have some random kitty information to share with you:

(1) Scout–Scout was sick (vomiting orange all over my carpet for a day and a half) so I took her to the vet. He gave her a shot, and she’s fine. He also had to take a urine sample to see if she had a UTI. I’m picturing trying to get her to squat over a cup and voluntarily pee. Not so–the vet felt her tummy and said there was pee in her bladder. I held down Scout’s legs and he injected her and withdrew pee. Makes sense, but who knew?

(2) Gabby–I think Gabby is destined to be a circus cat. I started doing Pilates recently and leave the big ball in the living room. The cats kick it around on occasion. Yesterday, it was resting by the chair, so Gabby climed on the ball and actually took 4-5 steps on the ball as it rolled underneath her. She did it twice, both times resulting in her falling off into something. But still…I see some talent there.

I bet Dodo doesn’t do anything that interesting.”

I wrote back:

“1.) I JUST learned yesterday from my friend that fish tends to give kitties bladder infections because of their high acid content. Who knew? Not I. So now my friend only gives her kitties food made from chicken and/or turkey. I hope Scout feels better soon.
2.) I saw a lion do that at the Honolulu zoo, except the ball was made of cement and about 4 feet in diameter. I would’ve thought Scout would play around like that, since my impression of Gabby is…well, I don’t have one cuz I never see her.

You can’t have Dodo do that…he’s an old kitty now! We figured out last nite that he’s 10. But Dodo’s good in other ways, such as sensing when you need a cuddle, or when your black pants are in dire need of some white fur residue.”

Don’t you all want cats now? Vanessa, my coworker and I all don’t have kids, so we talk about our kitties like they’re our children.

BTW, Vanessa and I went to sushi last nite and because we split a rather large bottle of sake, we found it advisable to avoid the gym. So I ate 3 square meals yesterday, and I didn’t work out at all. Come Saturday I’ll probably not fit in that dress anymore.

Mr. W and I are invited to his boss’s awards ceremony banquet this Saturday evening, where we’ll be rubbing elbows with high society as Boss is awarded [Her High Position] of the Year. It’s a black-tie optional affair, so that means “pretty formal.” I thought I’d try to wear a classic black designer original gown I’d purchased my freshman year in college, a $400 number I’ve had occasion to wear all of twice. It’s not like me to blow that much cash, especially as a poor starving student, on non-tax-deductible stuff like clothing. But eleven years ago, my college roommate was a karaoke video model and a slave to Chanel makeup and United Colors of Benetton clothing. What happens when I shop with someone like that is I make a frivolous purchase or two with no occasion to use the new attire.

The dress has a strapless straight neckline, a fitted bodice down to the hip and a slightly A-line skirt going down to my ankles. A wide slit up the left side of my leg is partially covered with two layers of slightly flared, sheer black chiffon. It’s timeless, romantic, classy, and…a size 4. Nervously earlier in my bedroom before the floor-length mirrors covering my sliding closet doors, I stripped and stepped into the dress. I pulled it up, reached behind me, and zipped the sucker right up to the top! Woohoo!! I can sit in it and bend and everything! I should probably be able to eat, too. Talk about making my night! Oh, and also, now I’m a bit guilty for skipping the workout at lunch today. Vanessa’s on her way over to meet for dinner and hopefully we’ll make it to the gym afterwards.

Now I gotta figure out if I have shoes to go with the dress. And jewelry! Because of the simple neckline of the strapless bodice, I’m free to accessorize as much or as little as I want. Maybe I’ll go with pearls, something simple to complement the simplicity of the dress. But I think I may have to go shoe shopping.

Whoa. Suddenly…prom flashbacks.

I’ve been going strong at the gym, not because I’m motivated, but because I’m being dragged. I had Saturday off because the various activities Mr. W and I had planned, but we more than made up for it on Sunday’s 3-hour gym sesh in which I killed myself. Monday, I hit the gym at lunch as usual, then met up with Vanessa for that cardio weight-lifting class after work. Tuesday (yesterday), I skipped the gym at lunch to actually eat with some coworkers since I was too sore to do more weights, but after work Mr. W got me to a gym local to his house and he pounded out an hour of cardio on the elliptical trainer as I did 20 minutes on the bike, 22 minutes (2 miles) on the treadmill, 25 minutes on the elliptical trainer.

This morning, it seemed to pay off. While I was getting dressed, I noticed that my lower abdominal flab, which hangs like a smile under my belly button, was less smiley today. It was more like a tight-lipped smirk. So it’s going away! My reporter said something about how I must be losing weight, too. My pantsuit yesterday felt looser in the thigh, butt and lower abdomen area.

“It’s the gift that keeps on giving,” my gym trainee said yesterday when I told her that I was being dragged to an hour of cardio after work despite taking the noon workout off. “Yeah, apparently the gift also ricochets,” I said.

I can’t tell whether I’m bitching or bragging.

(In case anyone’s wondering about Mr. W’s progress, he had to tighten his belt one notch down this weekend.)

I heard this on the radio news but didn’t hear the location and the arrest date because I wasn’t paying attention until a few key words entered my ears. You’ll see…

A 33 year-old man was found naked, laying on a tree stump, masturbating just off a nature trail. He was arrested for indecent exposure. Shortly after he was confronted by the authorities, they also charged him with possession of a concealed weapon, because he had a 6-inch (or maybe longer, I wasn’t sure I heard it right) metal ice pick, covered in duct tape, inside his rectum.

It’d never occurred to me to get off on that. “I can do it in public…ooh! The danger of being caught…ooooh! And to be completely naked so that if I were seen, there’d be no getting away or an excuse that I was just taking an emergency pee break…ooooh! And I’ll put an ICE PICK up my ASS! ooOOOooOOOohhh!!!

My mom’s on a wacky roll today. This morning, an email string was going back and forth between my mom, Mr. W and me regarding an upcoming vacation he and I are planning. We’re going on an organized China tour in the near future and my mom’s got travel agent connections. Plus, she’s gone on 2 organized China tours herself so she has opinions on what places are worth visiting. The gist of the trip is that for about $1500, you get round-trip airfare, all transportation within China, all admissions into special parks or places on the program that require admission fees, all meals, all hotel accomodations (4-star hotels and higher), and tours for an 11-day trip. So my mom’s answering questions, giving us her feedback, telling us what her travel agent was quoting on tour packages and prices. And then all of a sudden out of nowhere, this paragraph from her:

11 days trip include Suzhou, wuzhen and Hangzhou, only 9 days trip exclude those places! I’d go for 11 days trip, only $60.00 more and you got 2 more days trip, meal and hotel! Any question, you can email her or call her tel# xxx-xxx-xxxx. She is very nice and she also can arrange Honeymoon trip!

Ehh??? That’s not subtle at all! And she doesn’t even know about a whole bunch of my friends who suddenly got engaged in the past few months. Mr. W thought it was so amusing he read the paragraph aloud to his coworkers.

And then later, my mom emailed me that my grandma’s birthday is this Friday, and that we should go out to dinner to celebrate. So this exchange followed:

Me: okay, we can both make it on Friday night. I suppose I should get Grandma something…what do you suppose she wants for her bday?
Mom: Money?
Me: really? that seems so impersonal.
Mom: Sign your name on it!

What the –? When did my mom get all wacky and smart-ass?

Vanessa invited me to attend a 24 Hour Fitness recreation class with her last nite, something called “24 SET.” I understand that SET is an acronym, but I don’t know what it stands for, except that it was a Seriously Excruciating Time. I didn’t realize how hard-core that class would be, so I maxed out all my major muscle groups plus biceps during a 3-hour workout the day before, on Sunday. Everything hurt during class except my ass, and I’m sure that’ll hurt later. The class, as it turned out, did some Seriously Excruciating sTuff on every muscle group, plus cardio. Hopping around the stepper while doing bicep curls (with weights), one-legged dumbbell squats and squats with the bar over our shoulders, pushups, crunches, lunges, hammer curls, tricep extensions, hip extensions, bench presses, deadlifts, we worked our shoulders, chest, back, hamstrings, quads, abs. The last time I sweat that much in just an hour of exercise was in a spinning class. Jeebus!

Vanessa asked at the end of class, as we dripped and oozed our way back to the locker room, whether I’m up for taking the class with her again next Monday. I said, “Okay.”

I’m in so much pain today that I’m skipping the gym. I’m going to lunch.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever written something based solely on request before, but I suppose there’s a first for everything. On the last post, the comments revealed that some readers had misunderstood the title to think that I was about to post some information that may be “too much information” for the general public. Thankfully, the post was rated PG. And yet, there was some disappointment about the family-friendly nature of the post, and even a request for a real TMI post. So here it is. If you don’t want to subject yourself to TMI, you don’t have to click on the “more” below.
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An earlier phone conversation between Mr. W and his 17-yr-old son…

W: Hey, what’re you doing?
Son: I’m playing “Guitar Hero” [at mom’s house].
W: Playing “Guitar Hero?” You’re not hanging out with your girlfriend?
(We just found out earlier today that son asked a girl to be his first girlfriend yesterday, and she said yes.)
Son: Yeah right, you think I can get my girlfriend to play “Guitar Hero”?!
W: Your girlfriend doesn’t play “Guitar Hero”?! What’s wrong with her? My girlfriend plays “Guitar Hero”.
Son: Yeah, I know…you have a tight girlfriend.

And that would be the first compliment Son’s ever paid me. 🙂 Blogworthy moment. Unless he was being sarcastic, which I hope he wasn’t.

On a double-date with two of Mr. W’s oldest friends, we saw the musical Camelot at a local stage production theatre, in La Mirada. This theatre is the first stop in Camelot’s national tour. I’ll have to say that this is much better than I expected, as the acting was amazing and funny. Laugh-out-loud moments were peppered throughout the show. Even tho the headliner Michael York (who plays King Arthur) was the only one with a 40 year career in screen, stage, and recording with bragging rights to the movies The Three Musketeers,” “Logan’s Run,” “The Island of Dr. Moreau, and all three Austin Powers movies, the two who really blew me away with their voices were Rachel York (Guenevere) and James Barbour (Lancelot). I mean, wow. What amazing singing. Mr. W was uncomfortable with Michael York playing the husband of Rachel York’s character, firstly because of the huge age difference, and secondly because we speculate that the two are real-life father and daughter. It was all a little Electra Complex for us. However, I think it works in the sense that King Arthur and Guenevere seemed to share a deep respect and love for each other, but when Lancelot stepped in, it was immediately apparent that the two, closer in age and attractiveness, had more of a lover-like, passionate chemistry.

If you’re local and interested in seeing Lerner and Loewe’s musical Camelot, it’ll be at the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts from January 12th to the 28th.

Let’s see…what to say about the new belly dancing class?

Instructor – Fahtiem has a cutsie personality that comes across in her dancing. Her choreography is playful, like she doesn’t take her dancing too seriously. She was trying to get the class to smile while dancing, and since so many of us were concentrating and not smiling, she stood and turned in a circle in the center of the class making clown faces at all of us in turn to get us to laugh. Because of her personality, she’s likely a better belly dancer than my last instructor. My last instructor was much better on teaching technique, however. She was very clear on how each move is done, she tells you what the move is called, and you practice the moves individually. Fahtiem, on the other hand, you just have to follow and hope you’re doing what she’s doing.

Class – The usual variety of people you’d find in a mixed-level dance class. There’s the newbies who’re self-conscious and confused. And then you have the semi-newbies who think they’re better than they actually are and get all in your space doing exaggerated moves that don’t look as good as they seem to think. And then there are the old-timers who dance with their noses in the air, except when they’re facing a mirror in which case their eyes are glued to the dancing image of themselves and they are apparently enraptured and deeply in love with what they see. A very large girl who was supposed to be to my left in the dancing circle kept making what my coworker called “elephant steps” and overstepping her bounds into our space. My coworker, annoyed, finally told her to move over and stay within the circle instead of stepping in front of it.

Me – Man, do enough unfeminine stuff like jujitsu and weight-lifting and suddenly, all the grace is gone. I felt stiff, awkward, uncoordinated, and definitely not sensuous. I couldn’t bring out the playfulness of the routine because I was concentrating so hard on just remembering the steps first and not being rammed by the elephant trunk arm of the big girl to my left. Hopefully the artistic expression of the dance will come through soon, once I get the technical parts down.

My coworker remembered the class cost wrong and we each wrote a check for $54 for the remaining 7 sessions instead of the $50 advertised in the course guide. When we realized this, my coworker went back to the instructor and told her, and the instructor wouldn’t refund the difference, saying if we had paid through the City instead of to her directly, it would’ve cost us an extra $10 for not being City residents. But we’re not paying through the City, she wanted us to pay her directly so she gets all the money without the City taking a cut. Whatever. 6 weeks left. You know it’s bad when I’m doing a countdown of sessions left already in the first class. I did that all through yoga with the Crazy Yoga Instructor.