cindy's world

Can you tell I was a bit cranky in my last post? Almost as soon as I was done, something came in to cheer me up. My Zaino crap has arrived! Yay! UPS is awesome. Now if I can only squeeze out some time to wash and Zaino my car this weekend. Maybe after the run, after visiting my parents.

…at least that’s what I’m SUPPOSED to be doing. I’m not geared up. My run yesterday evening made my feet hurt, so maybe my new Thurlos socks made my shoes too small. I got some blisters from that run, too. That is not good. I’m not gonna do any exercise until Sunday’s run.

Vicky called me this morning to finalize our plans before the Disneyland Half-Marathon. Talking to her about preparation just makes it feel all too real, and makes me feel ultra unprepared. When I trained 3 years ago for a half-marathon, I just got up and did my 12-mile practice runs, no special diet, no special anything. I didn’t need to stop and drink water, to use the restroom, eat runner’s packaged goo, overhydrate the day before. I just took my time jogging along at a 10-minute mile pace until I was done. No biggie. No sunglasses, no special caps, no fanny pack to hold my cell phone, keys, goo, water, spare hair ties, socks. I keep telling myself that this run is gonna be no big deal. I’ve done the distance before. I can take my time, it’s not like I have any hopes of WINNING the darn thing. It looks like it’s gonna be a nice misty foggy morning all through the run, so I don’t have to think about heat or sunburn or sun-protectant gear. But the reality is, I haven’t run more than 4 miles in preparation for this race, and most of the time I run 3 with Mr. W.

So the plan is, today after work I’m packing 2 or 3 potential outfits for the run. In case it’s cold and I want to run in pants. In case it’s fine and I want to run in shorts. Or maybe I want shorts within my pants. Or maybe I want a sort of runner’s fitted capris. Should I wear a tanktop? Or a t-shirt? Or a long-sleeved shirt? Vicky recommends buying a cheapie sweatshirt to start the run in, and as I warm up, to just discard it on the side of the road. My Asian genes aren’t happy with throwing a perfectly good sweatshirt away. Anyway, so I pack up clothes today, then go to Mr. W’s. Saturday morning, I’m gonna pick up my race packet from Disneyland, which they’re requiring all runners to do. Then I’m off to Dwaine and Andrae’s 30th bday party at Dwaine’s house in Chino. That’s gonna be a 2-hour drive. But he’s gonna have Jamaican food CATERED so how can I say no? Then I’m gonna come back and meet Vicky at the Disneyland hotel where we got a room. She wants to be in bed by 8. She has Xanax she could take to knock out. I’m an insomniac as it is.

Crap.

I found this site that shows you what the gasoline prices are in any area of your choice (in the US and Canada) as of the past 48 hours. Just click on your state, then click on your city. Or, enter your zip code. For your convenience, I’m also including this site on my sidebar, to your right.

http://www.gasbuddy.com/

Local prices for my area are $2.65/gallon thru Costco. I’ve been looking at what Costco has to offer with renewed interest since Mr. W added me to his Costco account. Boyfriend perk.

Something interesting:
map of gas prices across the US by color-coding
I appear to live at the wrong half of the state for a premium gas car.

I think it was in the early months of 1996. I was a junior in college. Childhood friend Sandy and I were hanging out in another family friend’s living room during one of our multi-family get-togethers that our parents used to have with their fishing buddies. She was admiring a pearl ring I wore on my right ring finger. It was a one-month anniversary present from my first boyfriend, whom I’d gotten together with shortly after Christmas. Pearl is my birthstone (although I much prefer my alternate semi-precious birthstone of Alexandrite), and a white one was set in four yellow gold petals. Two tiny diamonds connected the petals to the band. Sandy was saying, “Wow, he must really like you. My mom says you can marry someone with a bad temper, or marry someone poor, or marry someone boring, but you should never marry someone cheap. Someone who’s cheap to you will make your life really, really bitter.” This was back in the day when Sandy started really taking to heart old Chinese proverbial advice from her mother about whom she should date because, at the ripe age of 20, anyone we dated seriously at that point is a potential husband. The irony, of course, is that 10 years later now, neither of us are married. And we’ve both swept through strings of men. Heck, we learned a lot about ourselves in the process of dating wrong people, though.

The fun part of this memory is what follows. I had to go pee, so I got off the couch and went to the restroom behind the living room. I closed the door behind me, then walked the length of the long restroom and sat on the toilet. The door was to my left. Suddenly, there was a bang as the door swung violently open and Sandy flew through the door into the restroom with an “Oof!”, stumbling. Then she paused, laughed, and ran out the door, slamming it behind her. I just sat there and looked down the length of the bathroom. What the heck just happened? When I left the restroom, I walked out to see her laughing hysterically on the couch. “Do you need the restroom?” I asked her.
“No!” she gasped in between gales.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I was just — *gasp* I was just — messing around *laugh laugh* — I was gonna pound on the door and say, ‘LET ME IN! LET ME IN!’ and mess around like you locked me out, but the door wasn’t closed and I fell in!”
HAHAHAHA!!!! Talk about a stupid practical joke/stunt backfiring and making you look stupid! I can just picture her sitting on the couch having this brilliant idea to be stupid, then walking around to the bathroom raising both fists to pound on the door, and then one pound and the door gives way and she falls in. HAHAHAHA!

Okay, you had to be there.

I secretly feel bad that my life has stabilized to the point that there is no drama to entertain people with on this blog. But I don’t feel bad enough to hope for drama just to keep my readership up. I also secretly feel bad that what little drama I deal with can’t be posted on here for privacy reasons regarding the people I would be bitching about. But that just gives my friends a reason to call me and see what’s new that I can’t write about on this very open, very public, surprisingly searchable site. I don’t like censorship. I also secretly wish people out there know enough “inside” stuff to get how boundary-flirtatious some of these posts truly are, but I’m not gonna spell things out. They just have to read between the lines or be on the inside path.

As a single-digit-age kid, I loved flipping through those thick Best department store color catalogs. Those things were like phone books! Best doesn’t exist anymore, but in the 80s it was a mega department store that had unbelievable inventories of jewelry, household appliances, bedding, knick-knacks, tools, and my favorite: toys!! When I was 6, I would turn to the jewelry section and “randomly” put initials by rings and such to designate a “random,” “fair” divi-ing up of loot between me and my 2 favorite playmates, my cousins Diana and Jennifer. And then I’d show them the book. And they’d realize that altho the assignments seemed random, I appeared to always have the prettiest rings designated to me. “No fair!” my cousin Diana had once said, throwing the book into the air. I had to later ask my mom what “no fair” meant. Hey, I was 6 and didn’t speak the language, okay? But darn it, at ages 7 and 4, my cousins were on to me and my youthful double-edged stealth.

My point is, at that age, I’d flip right by the bedding and appliance “grownup” sections in a catalog, and I’d wonder, “Who looks at this?! It’s so boring!” And here I am, blogging about INSURANCE. My inner child is screaming and rocking.

Yesterday after work, I jetted over to Mercury Insurance Company and signed up for car and homeowner’s insurance with them. I then called State Farm to cancel both policies with them. The lady who answered the phone sounded surprised and maybe even a little hurt that I’m killing a 14 year relationship with State Farm. And call me lame, but I feel bad. However, my previous State Farm agent, whom I really, really liked and who had helped me out a lot in the past, had retired, I got transferred to a new agent who left State Farm within a matter of weeks with him, and my polices have been in limbo ever since. The State Farm girl I’d been talking to about transferring to their office was really nice and helpful, but it’s been a couple of weeks since I’d last spoken to her about transferring my policies to that office from its present limbo state, I haven’t heard back from her, and now I’m afraid my car’s uninsured since the new car was never recorded. I need to drop the old car off my insurance too, since it’s no longer in my possession.

I’d emailed the lady at Mercury who gave me the car quote ($400/yr less than State Farm’s quote!) to see if she’s available to meet with me after work yesterday, and she emailed back within minutes with directions to their office. When I walked into their very large offices, the lobby had a whiteboard on an easel before the front desk that said “Mercury Insurance Companies welcomes CINDY [my last name]”. Awww! I felt all special. And after my numbers were tightened and input in the computer, my car policy, which is as amped up as they can offer with the maximum coverage possible on everything, ended up being $600/year less than State Farm’s estimate on my new car! I’m pretty happy with my decision. The auto insurance was so great that I also amped up my homeowner’s insurance too, wrote a full check for both policies, and was off.

I hope to never have to use either policy. Insurance is such a waste of money. We pay hundreds and hundreds for something we hope to never need.

Yesterday was the first “Los Angeles” Angels vs. Chicago White Socks game in the series. Because the game was on Sept. 11, the stadium paused for a minute of silence for our people in memoriam, as the advertising banners turned off. The screens flashed the American flag with the words “We will never forget.” Orange County Sheriff’s Dept.’s bugle squad performed in the beginning, and some uniformed military men marched out on the pitcher’s mound and were honored. In front of me was a navy officer in uniform, complete with the little white cap. Mr. W’s brother said, “It’d just be perfect if he started eating a box of Cracker Jacks.” They were indeed selling Cracker Jacks. I was shaking my head at how disrespectful that comment was, until Mr. W said, “Yeah, and a little dog ran up to him,” and I had to burst out laughing. The guy got so much free stuff for being there in uniform. People came by to take photos of him with his little girl on his lap, to shake his hand, to give his little girl souvenir baseballs and other little doodads. “I never learned to milk the uniform like that,” Mr. W, who was a Marine, observed. I don’t think he was milking the uniform as much as honoring the country on Sept. 11 by going to the great American pastime in uniform. BTW, there were a couple of people there with a large handmade sign that read, “AUSTRALIA REMEMBERS AMERICA’S HEROES OF 9-11-01.” That’s really nice. I don’t know that the average American would go to Australia and hold a sign for them in the same respect.

I think it was really cool and fun and funny to hang out with the people we went to the game with. But as far as the game itself went, I still don’t think baseball is a great spectator sport for me, and that’s not just because we lost (unless you’re a Chicago fan, in which case you won), or because there were only 5 runs scored total in the game, or because the first run was scored in the 4th inning and before that (and after, actually), we couldn’t keep a man on base. I found myself people-watching more than ball-watching. The loud tattooed guys to my left kept whooping at some blond girls whenever the girls would stand up and cheer. The large young lady in front and to my right kept eating throughout the game and dropping food on her stomach, sandwiches, nachos, pretzels, cheese drowning everything. (I had to take a cameraphone pic of her and send it to college roommie Diana, who received it ironically while she was at the gym.) The uniformed officer in front of me with his little girl on his lap with the identical profiles, gray eyes and sandy brown haircolor, made me wonder whether his Asian wife had any genetic input at all. I guess I could’ve eaten junk food and drank beer, which was what everyone around me was doing, but my response whenever someone would ask if I wanted something was “Bikini…2 months…can’t.”

Driving home after the game, I touched base with James who said he was on his way to the gym in Brea. I seriously considered going to work out, too, but changed my mind because it was almost 10:30p, I already hit the gym at lunch yesterday, I have 3 hours of jujitsu after work today, and I can’t afford to be sore for my half marathon run on Sunday. *biting fingernails*

Today, a little cat got into the building and went into the employee restroom behind my department. He lit up a cigarette and smoked a little bit while he was in there, while he sat in his litter box. He may have put out his cigarette in his litter box, too.

I know this because this is what the restroom smelled like when I walked in there earlier, as I held my breath and fought the gag reflex.

Reading Jordan’s blog today got me thinking about my September 11, 2001. I’ve never told anyone the details of what happened with me that day, mostly because I am ashamed of the first half of it.

Because New York is 3 hours ahead of California, when it all went down, I was still in bed. The phone ringing woke me up. It was my then-boyfriend, Gary. “A plane just hit one of the Twin Towers in New York!” he exclaimed. That meant nothing to me. I’d never been to the Towers, didn’t know about the now infamous landmark. I was just annoyed that he woke me up. I said something crankily into the phone and hung up, rolled over and went back to sleep. Some time later, I was once again awoken by Gary. “A second plane just hit the tower! You better call Grace and make sure she’s okay!” he said excitedly (but not in a good way). “I’m sure she’s fine!” I said, and prepared to hang up again. “CALL HER!” he told me. “They’re saying it’s an ATTACK on America!” What the hell. I hung up, once again pulled the cover over my face, made myself go back to sleep, and overslept. A third phone call woke me up, and when I saw the time, I leapt out of bed in a panic and did not get the phone. Turned out it was my court reporter. She left a message on my answering machine and said they were evacuating our courthouse and other government buildings are shutting down, so if I had not left for work yet, I needn’t come in. (She gets to work super-early.) I finally was curious enough about what’s going on to turn on the TV in the downstairs living room, and since every channel was playing the same breaking news, I didn’t even need to look for information. I stood close to the TV to see it since I hadn’t put my glasses on yet, and as the images processed in my brain, as tiny suit-clad people fell out of two smoking highrises on national television, I on the other end of the country fell to my knees. And cried, and cried and cried.

Grace lived and worked close enough to the Twin Towers to have the immediate air around her affected by the smoke and debris, but as I found out later, she wasn’t home, nor at work, because her leukemia recently had acted up enough that her concerned doctor had hospitalized her to keep an eye on her to make sure she wasn’t coming out of remission. Her then-fiance Justin had just walked through the Twin Towers and gotten on the subway to his office at Deutsche Bank, so was out of harm’s way. Grace’s father, who was visiting, was near the towers when everything went crazy. Grace’s mother, at the hospital with her, called and called her husband’s cell phone but could not get through. The rooftop of the towers served as a communications signal relay point and when the buildings were hit, many satellites and other cell sites couldn’t bring their signals down to the people. They eventually heard from her dad, who only managed a seconds-long phone call to say he was all right and trying to find a way through the mess to get to the hospital to them, before the phone call went dead again.

The next day at work, before we called our first case in Law & Motion, my judge took the bench and asked the courtroom to observe a moment of silence for the victims of the terrorist attack in New York, the Pentagon and United Flight 93’s foiled attack. The courtroomful of civil adversaries bowed their heads collectively and for once, was actually “civil” in their shared grief and patriotism.

We will never forget.

Vicky’s boyfriend introduced us to a great seafood champagne brunch on Sunday at Tom Ham’s Lighthouse in San Diego. The restaurant has some of the freshest tasting seafood I’ve ever had, and the buffet was just $25 a person. The big window overlooking the city skyline across the water was great, and service was more than tip-worthy. Our waiter kept calling champagne “grape juice,” as in “Ready for some more adult grape juice?” I didn’t know champagne was made from grapes. But I guess everything is. After brunch, the four of us walked around Seaport Village and explored the shops. There was a jewelry place that had a nice little selection of Alexandrite, so I got all excited, but then it turns out it was all simulated. Ever since I made the very difficult decision to turn down a $1000+ genuine Alexandrite/diamond/white gold ring on the cruise Mr. W and I took in February, I’ve been regretting it. Although the simulated Alexandrite at this place claimed to be better quality than natural Alexandrite, I did not see the dramatic color change from purple to blue-green when I put my ring-clad finger out the window into the sunlight. Mr. W noted that a genuine Alexandrite ring would make a better engagement ring for me than a diamond, because it’s my birthstone and it’s a rarer stone than a diamond. I agreed, and recalled a time when I’d told an ex a few years ago how I’d prefer not to have genuine diamonds because of the violence surrounding their mining in Africa. I’m gonna have to go another cruise again for the ring, it looks like. =P

I washed my car for the first time Saturday morning. Drying is a pain in the arse! Chamois, my butt! Those things just smear the water around.