cindy's world

Childhood friend Sandy got her first professional massage today. The OC Spa & Wellness Center located in Huntington Beach, CA isn’t swanky with whirlpools, saunas, steam rooms, complimentary fruit and shampoos the way Burke Williams and Glen Ivy are, but it also costs less. It’s a service-only day spa that also doubles as a boutique selling new age things like organic vitamins and soy candles.

My pet peeve with massage places is that you’re practically paying $3 a minute, so they should give you your money’s worth, but some places (this happened to me in Cancun and this in Glen Ivy Hot Springs’ Corona location) will start late and end on time. I’m okay with that if the customer’s late. But when the massage therapist is 20-30 minutes late, or screws up the service, your time should be given back to you in the end. Today, my therapist was running late for my 5:30. Someone had come out to tell me, at about 5:30p, that my therapist will be out in about 5-10 minutes. She came out about 5:40p, and apologized for being late. When I got undressed and laid on the table and was ready to go, that was 5:44. In my head I was doing the math on what kind of a tip I’d give her if she still ends on time at 7p. She didn’t; she ended at 7:15. So I tipped her 20%.

Sandy did not have a light massage like my 90 minute Swedish which focuses on circulation and relaxation. She had a 90 minute deep tissue combination. She always said she wanted a firm massage because she knew she had knots from all her recent stress and lack of sleep, and the girl who gave her the massage went all out. Her therapist said that she normally has burly tough men as her clients, and she’d only put about 25% of the strength into what she was giving Sandy before the men would wimp out. Sandy said she was sore from the massage, but knew she needed it. Her therapist told her that she should get more massages, if not from her, then from anywhere, because she was so unbelievable tense with knots on top of knots. So I may have gotten her to be a regular.

Oh, and I thought I lost my watch there, because the last time I had it, I was taking it off to put in my purse as I undressed in the room. Sandy and I were sitting at California Pizza Kitchen before I realized my watch was not in my purse anywhere. I called OC Wellness and the receptionist looked around the front desk, in the room I was in, and in the restroom and couldn’t find it. She asked if it was possible it may have fallen out in my car. I said maybe, and she asked me to call her back after I check the car so that they don’t tear the crevices of the place apart looking for me. I agreed, and thankfully, it’d dumped out of my purse in the backseat, so I called back and let them know. The service there is sooo nice.

P.S. I Zainoed the car again this weekend. Wash, swirl-remover polish, deep shine polish. Both cars. Uh-huh.
P.P.S. Mr. W and I visited my parents today and my mom had made a black chicken stew with Chinese herb medicine. Mr. W’s sick, and he chowed down 2 bowls of soup. He also had a tablespoon of that Chinese herbal cough syrup made of honey and loquat, Pi Pah Kao. My mom said that he was turning Chinese. I said he started off more Chinese than me. (See here for just one example.) We’d also brought over some Vietnamese sandwiches, and my dad fed the bread crumbs to his ten or so gray fish in his huge fishtank. He does have actual fish food he bought last week; he told us how the fish store salesperson, being helpful, asked what kind of fish he had to make sure the food is right. My dad answered that he believes his fish would eat anything, because Dad was too embarrassed to admit that presently, his fish tank is filled with talapia he caught himself last month. My dad’s silly; last month when I visited, he asked if I wanted to see the fish he caught the day before. I said okay, expecting him to lead me to the freezer or maybe a cooler outside, but he led me to his giant fishtank where a ton of wild gray fish were confusing his one remaining bright orange parrot fish.

Driving to work this morning, I was coasting to a stop and passed a car on my right that I happened to glance into. The woman driving was putting on mascara in her visor mirror. And her SUV wasn’t even stopped yet. I rolled my eyes, and mid-eyeroll, when my eyeballs were positioned at the top of my head, I happened to catch reflected in my rear view mirror that the woman in the truck behind me was madly scrawling on her eyeliner, and HER truck wasn’t stopped yet. At least wait till you’re at a full stop, ladies! Or do it at home! I wonder if any of these people have ever poked an eye out.

…pronounced “hh-ugh-ah!” You know, that grunting sound you make in triumph after accomplishing some testosteroney task, especially one that involves physical agility. I don’t know how to spell that sound. “Hugh!” looks like Hugh Grant or Hugh Hefner. “Huh!” looks like, “Huh? Wha-?”

Anyway, after jujitsu tonight, four of us went to a nearby college track to go running. They only wanted to do 2 miles, which was great, because the short run almost killed me. I had to check between my ankles to make sure my uterus hadn’t fallen out. I cramped up so badly, I’m hoping that I’m gonna get my period early this month. Presently it appears to be “scheduled” to arrive mid-way through my Hawaii trip. Why does that always happen? No matter when we plan a vacation, we’re gonna be on our period during it.

And then after the run, the most physically fit of us, a green belt named Gerardo, waved us over to “the wall.” He ran lightly up to the cement brick wall, ran halfway up it, and pulled himself over, landing neatly on his feet on the other side. And then it dawned on me. “Is this a six-foot wall?” I guess Josh, who is in the running for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, needs to be able to scale a 6-foot wall to pass the physical exam. Coincidentally, it was about a month ago that I mentioned to Mr. W, “Do you think I could climb over a 6-foot wall?” I don’t remember what he answered, but I don’t remember being mad at him either, so he probably responded affirmatively. Gerardo explained the mechanics, and Josh did it on his first try. Jackie was able to leap up and hang onto the top of the wall with her hands, but couldn’t bring herself up and over. On my first run, I realized as I approached the wall that I could not see it in the darkness. I had no idea how close I was to the wall, and I perhaps jumped wrong, smacking my wrists onto the upper edge of the wall. I wasn’t getting anywhere that way. I tried again, and realized I’d jumped too early when my feet didn’t make contact with the wall on my attempt to run up its side. Jackie was totally motivated, and managed at one point to jump straight up from a standstill, then get up enough to swing her right ankle up to the side and over, and pull herself up with her foot. “Women’s lower bodies are stronger than their upper bodies, so as long as you can get a leg up, you can pull yourself up,” Josh tipped. I finally walked up to the wall, took a vertical jump to get an elbow past the top, and pulled myself up with my upper body strength. Once high enough, I put a knee up and was over. I did it twice! “I’m so surprised, you made it look so easy!” Josh said, giving me a big hug. He said at the sheriff’s obstacle course over the weekend, when it was open to practice, the women who were trying to scale the wall spent an hour being counseled and directed by the sheriff trainers, and one of them even looked like a fitness instructor, they were ALL taller than me (I’m pretty dang short at 5’2″), and none of them managed to do it.

HWAH!

Okay, you people. Just cuz I’m posting an entry doesn’t mean you’re off the hook on the last entry. But I figure this blog needs a little levity right now. (Mr. W walked into the room yesterday after I’d just finished re-reading my last post, and I turned and looked at him with large, haunted eyes. He laughed. “Why do you look so sad?” “I scared myself,” I whimpered.)

I’m flipping through the most current The Sharper Image catalog, and I see an ad for NEW: 20Q Electronic Questions Game. You’re supposed to “secretly think of an object and the amazing 20Q electronic party game will read your mind! Just answer ‘yes,’ ‘no,’ ‘sometimes,’ ‘rarely’ or ‘unknown’ to a series of 20 questions.” So this game is supposed to narrow down whatever the thing is you’re thinking thru its huge database based on your answers, and tell you in 20 questions or less what you’re picturing in your head.

I’ve played with this in a game store last Christmas. It doesn’t work. I went through the questions, and in the end, it either suggested something totally wrong, or had a message that it couldn’t figure out what I was thinking of. “This doesn’t work,” I complained as Mr. W walked by and looked over my shoulder.
“What object were you thinking of?” he asked.
“Endoplasmic reticulum,” I said.
He rolled his eyes and left me behind.

I’m at my desk processing paper divorces. In reviewing these files, I see a trend. The parties are married for a short number of years, and then I look down and see they have offspring(s) of the marriage listed. The offspring are often older than the length of the marriage. So I can only imagine that the people had a kid or two together, didn’t get married for awhile, and then decided, “Eh, let’s do it, let’s make it official,” and then in a short married time they realize it doesn’t work.

This isn’t criticism, since I have no experience in this arena, but don’t they know beforehand that it wouldn’t work? I mean, there’s gotta be SOME reason the two hesitated in getting married when they first got pregnant, right? So if they knew then they aren’t compatible, why bother getting married when the kid’s like 4, and then it turns out they were right originally and they SHOULDN’T be together, but now they have to go thru formal divorce proceedings and explain to the kid why mommy and daddy aren’t gonna live together anymore? What happened there? Anyone have any stories/examples for me? I don’t think this is about a woman getting knocked up to trap a man, since if that was gonna work, they would’ve gotten married before the kid’s that old. I just don’t understand why, if you’re already holding back, you’d go ahead and take the plunge so much later.

And then it makes me wonder about other stuff, too. My mom says that today’s society is so full of divorce because people (in this country) don’t value the relationship enough to compromise. People these days are selfish, and if something doesn’t make them happy, they just up and leave instead of work toward a solution. Sure there are things you shouldn’t stay and accept (cheating, abuse, etc.), but there are a lot smaller things that people leave over these days. Like finding a porn magazine in his briefcase. I used to think that going from relationship to relationship is just the dues you have to pay to eventually make it to The One. But now I wonder whether today’s fast-paced world doesn’t leave room for The One, it’s just whatever fits in your lifestyle or desires right now, i.e. Mr. Right vs. Mr. Right Now. Life and times and careers and friends keep evolving, so maybe someone perfect for you now would no longer fit in in a few years when you advance in your career or develop new interests. We’re no longer in a small town life where you can marry your high school sweetheart and stay together forever because all you’ll be doing from that time on would be minding the farm together, and if he can milk a cow now, he’s gonna be great at milking the cow later, and nothing’s gonna change. But if it’s true that life today doesn’t lend itself to stability, then why contractually obligate yourself to anyone? It’s like building an expensive house on a fault line when you know earthquakes hit there every few years and plate techtonics will tear the property apart as a law of nature.

Isn’t that freaking scary?! To think that we may no longer be able to make a beeline toward a juicy rewarding hive; that we’re just spending life flitting from flower to flower, forever.

Don’t know what it is about my body lately. I’m absolutely uninspired at the gym. Yesterday I dragged myself around the small city gym at lunchtime with weights that are just too heavy for me to deal with (yes, I know that’s the point of weight-training), oozing from set to set of exercises, reducing the number of reps per set as the whining drones on in my head. Today, same thing. Gym trainee couldn’t get out of the courthouse until late, so we just did cardio for a little under 40 minutes on the elliptical trainer.

In the elevator on the way out to lunch earlier:

Random bailiff: Where’re you going?
Me: [dully] I’m going to the gym.
Random bailiff: [looking at me so not excited about that prospect]
Me: I’m so tired, I’m probably gonna drop a weight on my face.
Random bailiff: Well, that‘ll wake you up.

For the millionth time, I think about how I could push my body through a workout despite my mind’s uncooperation, and hope that the brain and body are disconnected enough such that I get the exact same benefit to a workout unenthused as I would enthused.

And yet, and yet, it occurred to me as I drove to the gym that tonight is belly dancing, and Vanessa has resolved to go to the private gym after every session of belly dancing until Hawaii, so that means she’d be there tonight after class. And I want to go along, too. I can call up some friends (like Vicky, who Vanessa saw there last week) to be at the gym, and that’ll be fun! So despite the fact that I feel so blah, I may have 3 workouts today.

I was standing in the elevator earlier with a judge, who mentioned to me how bad traffic was this morning. I replied, “Yeah, is it just me, or are people ruder now on the road than they were even 5 years ago?” He said in a calm, pacifying tone, “Society in general is in a decline, and there are obvious reasons for that.” This would’ve been an interesting conversation to pursue, but I was about to enter my courtroom door and he was about to walk down the hall to join other judges in their morning coffee klatch.

His implications are obvious, however, especially given his conservative political views and the fact that we’re in Southern California, working in a largely unprivileged area, on a job that deals directly with people who have gone wrong in their life choices. But I don’t want to get into politics or education or funding or immigration reform.

I just think that people in general, in the areas that I frequent, drive like jerks. I drive more and more defensively because I don’t want to get suckered into one of their traffic messes, where they’ll claim I was at fault somehow because they see an affluent car and they’d want to sue me. Worse yet if they’re illegal and uninsured, like the guy who hit Vanessa a few months ago. But aside from their aggressive driving where they’ll cut people off and try to piss you off by slamming their brakes in front of you while gesturing with their arms and trying to instigate something, people are also just audacious in what they do in their cars. This morning, I was stuck at a section of traffic lights in close succession, so that although my light was green, I couldn’t go because the block in front of me was full of cars waiting at a red light. If I went forward, I’d be stuck blocking the intersection. So I didn’t go. The guy behind me honked at me, then went around and blocked the intersection in the next lane (altho he did see the cop car in front of me, the last car in the block, and hesitated. HA!), and the woman behind him almost did the same thing except the block in front of me loosened up and I moved forward so she came back. That’s a peeve of mine, when people KNOW they can’t go anywhere because the block is all stuck at a red light, and they go up and block the intersection anyway, ignoring people trying to turn left or pull out of the intersecting street into the blocker’s street. And these jerk blockers make a point of looking straight ahead, avoiding eye contact with people they’re selfishly blocking off. The last time I checked, blocking an intersection like this is illegal, and I really, really want patrol cars to start giving tickets for this. It’s becoming an epidemic!

OH, and later on in the same intersection this morning, I pulled up to see the driver’s side door 2 cars in front of me was open. I wondered what he was doing, because the light had just turned green and he was taking his time closing the door. Turned out he was pouring coffee or some beverage out his car into the street. The car right behind him splashed into it driving forward and it got the side of his car all wet. What’s so urgent you can’t wait to get to your destination to throw that beverage away?!

I was telling an ex-coworker today about my dull blogging topic (in italics, 2 entries below), and he was laughing, calling it a Jerry Seinfeld episode. So maybe all there is to liven up writing on a dull topic is in the telling. So lemme try that again.

So today, I RSVPed for my coworker’s surprise baby shower next Friday at lunch by pre-paying five bucks for the food. Then I come back into my courtroom to write the event into my planner and I see, *gasp* I’m on vacation all next week. What kind of a loser forgets a vacation?! That’s all that keeps some people alive, is longing glances at the calendar as they count down the days till the shackles will be dropped for a week, and the iron cage door swings open. And my retarded self forgets about it. “So I guess you’re not going to attend the shower,” you think. Dude, I am still Asian, I’m not happy to have paid five bucks for nothing. I do realize that that’s lame, but going up to the shower organizer to ask for a refund on five stupid dollars is lamer and embarrassing, especially when I explain my reason. I’m also not crazy about looking like a cheap ass.
So I’m gonna have to go.
“But Cindy, isn’t going all the way to work for a baby shower on your week off even lamer than just letting the money go?” you ask me logically. And I’ll answer you logically. Yes, yes it is.
But I already paid.

We were at The Block at Orange this past weekend when Mr. W’s teenage daughter pointed a T-shirt out to me. It said:

‘TIS BETTER TO HAVE LOVED AND LOST
THAN TO BE MARRIED TO THAT ASSHOLE FOR 25 YEARS

How true that is. 🙂

You know there is no drama going on in your life when you consider blogging this:

I RSVPed today for a coworker’s surprise baby shower which is to take place next Friday at lunchtime, and went downstairs to the event organizer and gave her my $5 contribution (for the catering). Then I came back up to write the event down in my planner, but in doing so I realized that I’m on vacation all next week so I won’t be here! But I think I’m gonna come in to work during lunchtime for the shower anyway. Since I paid my $5. I get to dress casually. Yay!

I’m not sure what to think about the peaceful state of my life right now. It’s not boring, exactly, as at just about any given time, I have various things I could choose to do and various people to do it to. Err, with. 😉 Take weekdays after work, for example. I could go to Mr. W’s to hang out, or I could go home. Once home, I could go to jujitsu for a few hours and hang out with the people there who’ve become good buddies, or I could go to the gym, or I could call up some friends to have dinner, or I could stay home, hang with the Do-fuzz, and do laundry. There’s not much stress on my mind these days, unless I let my imagination run wild and freak out for the exercise of it. I think this is the peace that I kept dreaming about when I first started this blog, but honestly, I didn’t think I could ever find it unless I was alone with no one to bring me down or disappoint me. And let’s face it — alone is good, but only for a limited time. After the initial sigh of relief as you wriggle into your own skin, you start looking around and goin’, “Hey, how come no one’s hitting on me? I don’t have a date to bring to my friend’s wedding! I want to try this new restaurant, but I have no one to take!” I feel so balanced right now. I got my friends for me, I got my exercise for me, I have stable work, stable relationship, I’m healthy, my parents are healthy (for the most part). I have Hawaii in a few weeks with my jujitsu dojo. But I still look around for what’s next. What’s hiding around the corner? Anything? Hello?

I hope this isn’t the calm before the storm.