cindy's world

Today, I heard something about a friend posting some disciplinary slip on his office door. His own office door. So I asked him about it. Turned out that it’s his son’s disciplinary note sent home. I asked him what happened. He said his son got in trouble for repeatedly punching some other kid in school.
“Already?! Isn’t your kid, like, 4? 3?”
“He’s two and a half,” my friend said. “And not just punching. He was also yelling out ‘Fuck you!’ ”
Gosh. And I thought parents only displayed artwork or high-grade test papers from their kids at work. And those things, even kiss-butt things like “I LiK my Dad becaus” lists that teachers make kids write, are at some discreet place like on a low wall next to a desk, not on the office door, for gosh sakes.
The proud dad pointed out, “But the teacher was very impressed that he had the coordination to punch this kid out at his age, and he did pronounce ‘Fuck you’ correctly AND use it in the proper context. He’s very advanced.”
I laughed because I thought I was supposed to.

Thanks to the friend who gave me permission to post this proud moment publicly.

As a reminder for those of you who’d expressed interest in participating in the 2nd Disneyland Half Marathon/10K/5K, registration for next year’s event opens today. (California’s Disneyland, to be more clear.)

As for myself, I’m undecided as to whether I want to put myself through that again. The toenail is still missing. At least, I think it’s still missing. I seem to have developed a very thin but hard layer of something over the nail bed. I always thought nails grow from the bottom cuticle up. Do they really grow from the topmost surface of the skin out?

Huh. It seems that in finding you guys the link to register, I saw that they postponed registration to January, 2007. Consider yourselves just temporarily off the hook. *pointing at YOU*

2007 Disneyland Run registration info

*Warning: Raunchy, Unladylike, Crass Post Ahead*

Today, an ex-DA returned to our courthouse for a hearing on his case, so he thought he’d visit his old courthouse coworkers and get as many people together as possible for lunch. Lunch turned out to be 6 DAs and me. I’ve always enjoyed these DAs’ company, however, because it frees me to put on my bar hat, which is a persona I haven’t worn for a long time. And they seem to accept me for it, and everyone gets a good laugh, no one gets offended at my lack of political correctness. I got to do stuff like this:

DA next to me on cell phone: …It’s definitely brown.
Me: [looking at 2 DAs across from me, who heard the conversation the same time I did because our conversation had just died down when the DA next to me spoke] But with some yellow specks. Yeah, it’s definitely corn.

And then it just went downhill from there, something about stored corn poopies in 25 baby food jars, referencing a story the phone DA told earlier about finding himself in line at the store with 25 tiny baby food jars and a Playstation game.

Or the conversation about one of these DAs’ current trial in another department. I told them I was coming up the elevator with a cup of yogurt in my hand this morning for breakfast, and a court reporter was saying something about her trial. Another reporter said, “Oh, is that the yeast trial?” I said, “Yeast?” thinking it’s a civil lawsuit over product liability and bad bread yeast that didn’t rise or something. The reporters said, “Yes. And it’s the bad kind of yeast, too.” I said, “Oh. Ew!” They confirmed my thoughts with, “Uh-huh.” I looked at my yogurt and suddenly didn’t want it anymore. So at lunch, I asked which one of these DAs have the “yeast trial.” Turned out it’s one of my favorite female DAs, and I asked her what the trial’s about.

Apparently a woman has bruising and rips in and around her vagina and they’re alleging assault, or rather, forced digital penetration, by the male defendant. There are actually photos of this woman’s nether-regions as exhibits. I asked where the yeast comes in. And then the DA said that the defense theory is that the woman did it to herself. She said the alleged victim is about 250 lbs at a height of 5’1″, and the defense says she had a vaginal yeast infection at the time of the alleged crime and the itchiness must’ve made her scratch herself down there so hard that she caused some damage.
I said hesitantly, “Well, large women’s fat folds tend to prevent evaporation so it’s moister down there for ideal yeast cultivating conditions –”
The DA said, “That’s exactly what the defense’s expert witness nurse said. But I argued that to scratch that hard to cause that kind of damage would be like a guy having some jock itch that makes him scratch so hard that he rips off bits and pieces of skin. It’s just not very probable that you could itch that bad.”
The phone DA said, “As we all know from our own itching experiences.”
I followed, “Well. The last time I had crabs…” and had to reassure two of them that I was really just kidding. They laughed, and in the post-laughter silence, I said, “So who ordered bleu cheese?” Everyone did the “Eww!” thing while laughing and exclaimed that they were not going to be able to eat the food when it gets to the table. One proudly touted his decision to have his salad dressing on the side.

I had to run out on them early since I was in trial and had to get back, and it wasn’t until I had said my goodbyes and gone back to my car that I saw I had the guest ex-DA’s suit jacket in my car. I ran it back into the restaurant and as I put it on the back of his chair, I said, “When you strip in someone’s car, you have to make sure to remove all the evidence.” Everyone laughed and he topped me with, “Oh, I thought I’d just pick that up from you tonight.”

Good stuff.

I think I’m burned out on my rec classes. I started jujitsu in late June last year, and then belly dancing 2 semesters ago. This year, on a good week I’ve been attending about half the jujitsu I used to, and this last semester I’ve attended 5 out of 8 belly dancing classes. I don’t even feel bad about ditching, despite the fact that the belly dancing is a paid class. I really thought that after returning from Hawaii, I’d be much better about attending jujitsu, especially after noticing in the clinics how behind I am in skills and familiarity with some basic moves and arm bars. Jujitsu started back up this past Monday, and I haven’t been to one class. I also bought some belly dancing hip scarves (colorful gauze triangular scarves you tie around your hips decked out in bells and little coins that jingle when you move) in Hawaii, not realizing until last night that belly dancing ended last Wednesday, a day I’d ditched.

I also only went to the gym for the first time in almost 3 weeks yesterday at lunch, but only because all other lunch options fell through. The weights punished me for neglecting them for so long, and my triceps and quads are appropriately sore today. My abs aren’t, though.

Mr. W agreed with me that I appear to be burned out already and these classes have lost their value to me. “But you only took those classes to take up time anyway, and how you have me!” he said happily, curling his arms around me.

I can’t help thinking, tho, that I need to find something physical to do on a regular basis, even if it means switching genres (altho I’m not going back to the crazy yoga instructor Mr. W and I went to earlier in the year again, either). Besides, Mr. W needs his “alone” time to be a gamer. I don’t know what to do next. Maybe take up hip hop again? Or maybe I’ll try a different belly dancing instructor, one that some coworkers go to, since they’d been trying to talk me into that class for some time and now I have jingling hip scarves.

Or MAYBE I’ll take something easy, like ESL. I can pretend to be a total English dunce, fake an accent, and then be the most improved student at the end of the semester. That’ll be good for all the foreigners’ self-esteem. It’ll give them a raised bar to work toward. We’ll call it public service.

I just checked my email, and it turns out that Wilco had lightened up and fixed my bed photos and emailed them back to me, along with a note that says he hates to see photos go to waste. That’s so nice! And maybe this version will be less creepy for Jordan’s taste.

See original bed post (har har) here.

I love my friends. I think I have hand-picked a wonderful group of people who have proven their quality and worth to me, and their existence in my life enriches my own existence. They subsidize me when I have shortcomings, they set me straight when I’m off-balance, they give me emotional, intellectual and psychological support. They’re great company, and they’re a mixed company. Which leads me to some thoughts bouncing in the back of my head.

Teenagers and young people today have platonic friends of both genders. There are things one gender gives you that the other gender doesn’t, and sometimes the best minds and compatibility happens to be in a person of the opposite gender. And it’s totally acceptable these days. Looking one generation up, however, I see that my parents have “their” friends they hang out with in a married group, and of course that’s co-ed. But my mother does not have men that are exclusively “her” friends and not my dad’s, and my dad doesn’t just go out and do lunch with some chick he says is his friend. In fact, if I were to come home one day (we good little Asian kids still refer to the parents’ house as “home” whether we live there or not) and my dad’s home alone, telling me that she’s out having dinner with Mr. So-and-so, I’d be extremely uncomfortable. I’d have awful pictures in my head of my mom at some white table-cloth date with some sleezy man determined to undermine my father’s place in my mother’s life. I’d want to drive out there and glare at them. And I’d hate the man, no matter who he is. But first and foremost, I’d shake my dad until his glasses fell off for letting his wife go out to dinner with another man. Luckily, this has never happened. The few times my parents weren’t together due to a social reason, it was because my mom was out with her coworkers (all female) for their monthly gaggle, or my dad was out fishing with his fishing buddies (all family friends).

Now I turn to myself. I’m 30. That’s a grown-up! Sure, I’ve never been married and I have no kids, so I still categorize myself as a single person with single person habits and lifestyle and friends. I can be a little irresponsible and go out late, and have tons of friends. But is this supposed to be given up if I enter the next stage of life? If I got married, would it be no longer appropriate to accept Dwaine’s spontaneous invitations to go wine-shopping with him, or to go on an impromptu run after jujitsu with other dojo-mates, or to grab a drink or bite with James after we wash our cars and work out at the gym?

Or is the difference that my parents have entered this country as an established married couple, so all friends they have, they met together, whereas I grew up here so I had plentiful time to establish long-term bonds and friendships as an individual?

Running these self-induced guilty thoughts by Mr. W, he waves the whole thing off simply with, “Well, I trust you and your judgments. If you had inappropriate feelings about these ‘friends’ that’d be a different story.” I think one saving grace about my male buddies is that they have always only been just that — buddies. I am not in regular contact with men I’ve had a dating or non-platonic relationship with. I think that’s unnecessary stress on the relationship to have my significant other think, “She found him attractive before, and they gave in to temptation before, how do I know it won’t happen again?” But I am on civil enough terms with my 5-year relationship ex so that if we needed information or something, we can call the other and they’d help (Gary, for example, gave me the connections for my recent car purchase), and he’d called me for some legal guidance a few months ago, too. Although we don’t communicate on a regular basis and we don’t make plans to see each other, I think that it’s pretty cool how we are.

There’s something about schizophrenic Southern California weather that would wake me up with Christmas memories and, five hours later, have me running around the city in a 5K in 85 degree sun wishing for shade.

The run (with Mr. W, who’d called and invited me on his regular noontime run course) felt good, though. The breeze, at least, was cool. I hadn’t run outdoors since the Disneyland Half-Marathon in mid-September. In leaving work in my running clothes, my gym trainee (who’d laughed at me when I invited her to come jogging) drove by on her way to the gym, rolled down her window, and yelled out the car, “Call me if you need a ride! I’ll have my cell phone!”

It’s finally chilly in the mornings again. It started to cool off a bit in California before my Hawaii trip, but right before we left, the dry, cow-scented Santa Ana winds heated up SoCal again. This weekend it was so dry that, having forgotten to smear body butter on myself after the shower Sunday morning, my skin felt itchy at the Getty Center, like it was gonna rip if I bent over too suddenly.

Even though the high was forecasted to be 85 degrees F today, the morning was icy. I wrapped up in a thick terry bathrobe after my shower. Dodo-Puff’s fur was cold to the touch, too. He’s fluffier than usual, which means his body’s sensing the climate shift as well and is growing extra fur. (Either that or I need to brush him more to get rid of the old fur.)

I like chilly mornings. It reminds me of winter mornings past.
* Me as a 6-year-old in the country for the first time, away from the tropical island I was born, looking out the window minutes before dawn breaks, admiring the water-colored people-less tree-lined streets that is America.
* Reading Calvin & Hobbes cartoons in elementary and high school, wishing I could relate to the sled-rides, the snow monsters, the snow fort, the mittens/scarves/snow pants.
* Reading other stories of 60s and 70s American life, wanting so badly to tap into a maple tree for maple syrup that I could boil on the stove, then bring outside to pour on some tightly packed and pounded snow on the ground to make crunchy maple candy.
* Awakening in the mornings at UCLA in the chill, seeing Diana up and moving around making tea, or plodding along in her pajamas getting set to study with her gigantic headphones.
* Walking the Naples water canals in Long Beach with my coworker Sandy and our significant others, admiring the extravagant Christmas decor of the rich with endless money to throw at electricity.
* Curling up on my sheepskin rug in front my crackling lit fireplace the first time I was really truly happy in my own skin being single, smiling at my house, my Dodo boy and multitude of lit candles around me.
* Mr. W lighting his fake fireplace for me knowing I love the dance of flames, and finally allowing me to throw in a pine cone so I could watch it change to carbon (I had a blog by then, and I wrote about that here).

There are so many more memories, in between all these events, that I savor and relive when the temperature drops. =)

I fell in love with this bed at the Getty. It was taken from Paris in the 1700s. The embroidery is beautiful on this robin’s egg blue silk fabric, and the detailing is amazing. The tassels were neat and different, the top corners of the canopy had plumes of real ostrich feathers. I’m bummed the photos didn’t come out (no flash allowed in museums).

My mother, ever the muse for my runaway imagination, said, “Maybe you like that bed so much because in the past, in another lifetime, that was your bed.” Well, in that case, I think it’s really messed up that I used to run from across the room and leap onto the bed, and it was my bed, and now, just because it’s a few lifetimes later and I’m in another body, I’m not allowed to even touch my own bed anymore. Hmmph.

Today Mr. W and I took my parents to the Getty Museum. My mom had been wanting to go, which my supersleuth powers picked up through her barely perceptable hints, as follows:

Mom: Have you ever gone to the Getty Museum?
Me: Yeah, I have, with my friend Lily.
Mom: Oh. I really want to go. I’ve been wanting to go.
Me: I see.

It was a beautiful day in L.A., uncharacteristically clear, after the 3rd day of a long weekend.

Mr. W stopped to take a picture of a pretty yellow flower in the lawn. A chicken stopped by to admire the flower, too.

I can pose for a sculptor, too.

In the gift shop, I found this really cool paper camera with a scalloped lens!

It makes me look like this.

Ha! Stupid kids.

Fun with Mom & Dad!

Afterwards, we all went to Beverly Hills for some garlic lunch at The Stinking Rose. It was a very nice day.

All photos courtesy of Mr. W (except for the one of the kids crying, which I took on his camera). Roll mouse pointer over photos for captions.