cindy's world

Well, there you have it. Not guilty on all 10 counts, lessers and all. The first commentary I heard on radio after the live verdict reading was, “I can’t believe it. The sonavabitch got away with it all.” There was apparently some lady fan outside the courthouse with 10 doves and every time there’d be a ‘not guilty’ read, she’d release one dove. All 10 doves are, as I type, circulating happily over the courthouse, probably pooping on the cheering and crying fans. “So what would she have done if there were ‘guilty’s? Kill a dove?” asked the bitter radio DJ, who apparently lost a bet to his co-DJs now that MJ is acquitted of all charges.

I was at my parents’ house last nite for my usual weekly visit. I thought I’d run the motorcycling thing by them and see how strong the parental reaction is.

Me: Dad, have you ever ridden a motorcycle?
Dad: Yeah.
Me: I’m considering getting one.
Dad: Well, you should be okay learning because you already know how to ride a bike. They’re somewhat similar. But you get more of rush and a feel of power when you’re on a motorcycle.
Mom: That’s dangerous! It’s flesh hugging steel. [Translated Chinese saying is that a bike is “zen bao tieh”, flesh hugging steel, as opposed to a car, which is “tieh bao zen,” steel hugging flesh.]
Dad: It’s not that bad.
Me: I plan to take the full courses, learn about the bike and everything, not just buy a bike and try to ride it on my own until I can take the DMV test.
Dad: That’s good, because then you can do the simple repairs by yourself, too. It’s of course a lot less complicated than learning the inner workings of a car.
Me: Yeah, I also don’t want to be in mid-ride and unaware that something’s wrong with my bike.
Dad: That’s good. What kind of bike are you thinking about? A cruising bike or a street bike?
Me: I don’t want a Harley. I want a street bike.
Dad: Harleys give a comfortable ride! But you can get a street bike that have the really wide tires, and your posture on those bikes are different. You can turn at a very steep angle and almost lay the bike flat on the ground without scraping your knees on the asphalt. You can’t do that in a cruising bike.

Either my dad knows I’m really responsible and trusts me, or he has never really loved me.

The workout I just had kicked my ass! As I told my court reporter in the locker room, you know you had a good workout when the heat coming off your body makes you smell your shampoo. 10 min bike warmup, 20 mins weights (3 sets each of a chest, back and leg exercise in a superset circuit), 20 mins biking cardio. I can no longer claim that I don’t sweat, I merely glisten.

Awaiting the Michael Jackson verdict… Got the radio on for live coverage, Jackson’s ETA is in 7 minutes. They’ll do some court stuff on the record first so the verdict will probably be read closer to 2pm.

Had a long, productive, and very mature conversation with The Flake on Friday night. We resolved some things and came to understandings on others. I’m in a much better place now that I got all that stuff off my chest.

I’m all for nipping things in the bud. A big problem with the ex is that he would never take my concerns and our problems seriously because he felt they were “no big deal.” That “no big deal” became betrayal, cheating, lying, and ultimately cost us the relationship. You have to take care of things while they’re small, because if you allow these wounds to fester, they become bigger and bigger and soon you have to amputate a limb.

At Rob May on Friday, I couldn’t find any dresses I could wear to Lily’s wedding, but did find my dad an awesome Father’s Day present. It’s a foot-tall liquor dispenser, shaped like an old-fashioned gasoline station pump, complete with sterling silver base, dispensing arm and handle. Clear glass top with liquid level indicators on side. Beautiful. I can see him pulling out the arm and dispensing a precise 4 ounces of brandy, neat, for his friends.

The sales lady commented about the cute shorts I was buying as she was ringing my purchases up. She said she’d like to wear them, if she could get into them, and that she’d lost some weight recently. It became a conversation about how her weight loss and depression was due to the fact that her husband of 13 years is going thru prostate cancer and surgery, and he’s bedridden presently with a catheter, which situation prevents her from being able to confront him about the fact that SHE JUST FOUND OUT HE’S BEEN CARRYING ON A LONG-TERM AFFAIR FOR THE PAST TWO YEARS.

Men suck.

—‘—,-{@ ~ THE WEDDING ~ @}-,—‘—
My friend Lily’s wedding was 4pm at the famous historic Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills. After the graduation brunch (see Part I, below), I rushed home to change, shower, apply “wedding makeup”. The road closure at Hacienda Rd. sent me on a long, slow-moving detour before I was able to get home, and that delay, along with what felt like rush-hour traffic (bumper-to-bumper at 5 mph) on the freeways, caused an otherwise 50 minute drive to be 2.5 hours. When we arrived at Greystone Mansion, the wedding had concluded and the photographers were taking guest/family photos w/the happy couple. The only thing more beautiful and breathtaking than the hilltop estate was the bride, in a Vera Wang-esque strapless princess-skirted wedding gown. I slid right in and mingled, feeling horribly guilty for missing the wedding, and upset because I REALLY wanted to see the ceremony. The bride’s best friend (whom I also know from high school) almost blew my cover a few times. “Hey Cindy!” she greeted me.
“Oh, Deborah! I didn’t even recognize you!” I continued, trying to make conversation, “I heard you got married! Congratulations!” Brownie points for me for remembering, I thought.
“Yeah, I did! My husband’s around here somewhere.” She looked around, and not seeing him, continued, “He’s the one that was up there with me.”
“Up there?”
“Yeah! He was playing the guitar! You know, when I was singing?”
[a beat.] “Oh. That was your husband,” I said thoughtfully, as if suddenly realizing the answer to a question that was burning in my mind as I watched them perform.
About 15 minutes later, I ran into Deborah again. “Hey, do you have a younger sister here?” I asked her. “Cuz I saw someone down there that looks EXACTLY how you looked in high school!” Brownie points for me for remembering and noticing, I thought.
“Yeah! That’s my sister! She was up there with me. Singing.” She looked at me oddly.
“Oh.” I should just stop talking to people.

—‘—,-{@ ~ THE RECEPTION ~ @}-,—‘—
I asked Lily’s dad at the photoshoot, “When’s the reception? The invitations didn’t say.” He said, “Just whenever we’re done here, probably 6, 6:30. It depends how long this takes.” Wow. He booked an entire restaurant for the evening?! Chinese banquet at Mission 261 in the scenic and classy San Gabriel Mission District, the traditional course after course of seafood, shark-fin soup, chicken, delicacies. The table we were assigned to sit at was strangely full, and it looked as if some people there had brought others to the table who aren’t supposed to be there (cuz I can’t imagine that Lily would mingle us young English-speaking peers, and some of us attended HS together, with 75 year old men). So at least 4 of us who were supposed to be at that table went to the “overflow” table at the back of the room. Which was just fine, because our adopted table got served WAY ahead of the original table. I had fun catching up w/an old HS friend and chatting w/her friend about my writing and publications, and about the politics involved in writing Asian American literature. Lily did the customary mid-dinner changes from her wedding gown to traditional Chinese dress to fancy ballroom gown, and after the meal, everyone migrated from the dining hall to a separate ballroom in another part of the restaurant for the games, bouquet/garter tosses, dancing. Open bar thru the whole event. Wonderful turnout, impressive banquet, and I’m sure it was a very lovely wedding ceremony.

—‘—,-{@ ~ THE GRADUATION ~ @}-,—‘—
The CSULA graduation was yesterday morning, commencement from 8a-10a, then brunch at 11:30a. I was told “She can only get like 6 tickets for the graduation.” I’d quickly calculated: Mom, Dad, brother, brother2, bro2’s wife, boyfriend. Okay, understandable. “Why don’t you just meet us at the Cheesecake Factory for brunch?” I agreed. And I did my own thing in the morning. Not that “my own thing” wasn’t engrossingly enjoyable, but upon my hour-long drive from home to Pasadena, I was informed, “Everyone’s here at Cheesecake Factory early; we all came straight from graduation.”
Wait a minute. I had made reservations for 18. “Everyone’s there? As in, everyone except for me? Seventeen people came straight from graduation and are there already?”
“Yeah.”
“And she supposedly only had 6 tickets?”
“Well, I didn’t know they wouldn’t check for tickets at the door.”
When I got into brunch and the graduate finally showed up with her boyfriend and friend (45 minutes late), she walked up to me and demanded, “Why didn’t you go to my graduation?” I felt bad because she had personally called me at home to invite me to her graduation, so I pointed to the person responsible.
“I was told you only had 6 tickets, and I was supposed to just meet you guys here for brunch!”
“Everyone else got in,” she said.
“That’s what I was told.” Brunch was yummy. Cheesecake Factory’s food presentation is getting better and better. And it tastes WAY better than what I remembered from the Beverly Hills one when I attended UCLA.

My reporter’s daughter works for Robinsons May, and today there was a treat left on my desk. RobMay is extending their 20% employee discount to friends and family of employees, so I got 2 of these cards to take in for the 5-day discount (which ends Sunday). There are virtually no exclusions! That’ll take care of the Father’s Day shopping, and I just found out that my friend’s wedding tomorrow is semi-formal attire, so I probably want to buy a new dress, too. That’ll keep me busy after work!

I changed up my lunchtime workout. I’m gonna do cardio every day (as opposed to alternating cardio and weight training days) to crank up the fat-burn factor. How much more muscle does a girl need, anyway? Once the fat layer’s burned off, the existing muscle will show up nicer. So Tuesday I resistance-trained all the minor muscle groups; Wednesday I biked; Thursday I ran 3 miles (hills and all); today I biked 5 mins, then supersetted 1 chest, 1 leg, 1 back excercise in a 3-set circuit (15 reps per set), then went back on the bike for 20 minutes. The workout kicked my butt! But I felt much better coming back to work after that.

The day is off. Something is in the air. My gut says I need to lay low today.
* woke up terribly late
* forgot my cell phone at home
* the sky’s dark, muggy, thick with dark cloud layers
* it’s raining not the feel-good rain which gives a vicarious cathartic release of rainfall, but the floating misty water that just gets the windshield translucent and makes the car gray
* we were just handed a Family Law ex parte case that was just transferred from Arizona this morning; there’s no file created yet, and nothing exists in the Family Law computer system yet so I can’t look up the case nor add today’s minutes to the case, or create any sort of a record at all of today’s hearing
* my judge loathes whining sniveling family law issues, and is in a foul mood (we’re not a family law court so it’s a double-insult that we got this case instead of the 3 family law courts in the building, altho there’s probably an explanation somewhere about that)
* my HS friend’s wedding is tomorrow evening and I don’t know what I’m wearing, or what gift I’ll be bearing; the “out” is that her online registery allows you to sponsor part of her honeymoon for the wedding gift, which I think is a GREAT idea (instead of collecting a bunch of useless clutter) and easy for the guests
* a friend’s sister’s college graduation is tomorrow morning and I haven’t bought her anything, either; the “out” here is that I don’t have a direct relationship with the graduate; I’m going along as company for the friend. And I did put together the ensuing brunch at Cheesecake Factory, so I feel like I did more than I’m obliged to already
* Father’s Day is next weekend and of course I’m also unprepared