cindy's world

When we were up in Napa Valley a couple of weekends ago, Mr. W and I had wandered into a small shop that sold metaphysical items, trinkets from peaceful religions, various energy stones, etc. I had been looking for black tourmaline for years (for protection) but could never find one I could put on a pendant or somehow get on my solar plexis, which is where it needs to be. This shop had a large hunk of natural black tourmaline, but it really worked better as a paperweight. The salesgirl said apologetically that they rarely get a black tourmaline pendant in, and when they do, it sells out almost immediately. I guess a lot of people need protection out there. I left empty-handed, but Mr. W bought a Coexist bumper sticker that he’d always admired on other cars.

About a week ago, Mr. W and I decided to go to San Juan Capistrano after work to watch the movie Eclipse. Since we were there well before showtime, we explored the cute little train town. He pointed out another little metaphysical store, and I excitedly went in. Not only did this shop carry small pieces of black tourmaline, but tons of other loose stones, many of which I’d never heard of, and they also sold wire coils that you would pop the stone in to turn the stone into a pendant. I happily selected my piece of black tourmaline. And then I walked by another stone. I can’t recall what it is, but it’s irridescently speckled with browns and blacks and its use is ideal for acting like a mirror to reflect back negative energy someone puts to you so that whatever they send your way goes exactly back to them. I spent quite a bit of time trying to find the right stone, altho I had my piece of black tourmaline picked out right away. None of the brown stones felt right, like they’re too small or the wrong shape to fit right in the coil, and none of them jumped out at me or “felt” right in my hand. I didn’t connect with any of them. I know this sounds ridiculous, but I usually know when something is “mine” the way people pick pets at a pound. It’s how I knew both houses I own are “mine.” Mr. W read the powers of this stone and sort of scoffed at me, saying something like, “You don’t need that! What do you need THAT for? When’s the last time you felt attacked, like YEARS ago?” I felt instantly indignant because I was considering this stone for the exact same reason I wanted the black tourmaline, and he was well aware of my long-time search for black tourmaline. It felt to me like it was okay with him if I protect myself, as long as I don’t hurt the person attacking me, which given who the person is, brings up a not-new issue between us. It was my ego that pushed me to buy that second stone. With Mr. W at the other side of the store when I paid for the stones, I felt enough doubt to ask the salesperson’s advice on karmic backlash from a stone with passive-aggressive powers. Before I could formulate a question, however, Mr. W came by the register and I instead picked out two leather ropes to put the stone amulets on.

I didn’t wear the stones or even take them out of the bag, until yesterday morning. Until then, I’d thought about them and wondered why I’d bothered getting them if I didn’t feel the need to have them on or around me, but that was about it. After I dressed for work yesterday, however, I reached into the bag and put the brown reflection stone onto the brown leather cord. It took me awhile to even figure out how the clasp unscrewed. Then I was unable to screw it on behind my neck. It screwed together easily enough in front of me, but I couldn’t get it to go on when it was being worn. I finally gave up and hung it up with other necklaces on my jewelry case, and went to work. After work, I was sitting in the car in the front parking lot texting Ann, and saw out of the corner of my eye the torso and hips of someone walking by. Normally I wouldn’t care, but this time my brain scrambled madly to attach an identity to the torso. Was it a coworker? No, this torso was too thick (heavyset) to be the torso of the coworker I was thinking of. I turned and looked out the back window just as the torso turned and looked straight at me. It was THE reason I needed the protection, whom I hadn’t seen for MONTHS. I understood my battle that morning with the stone. My intuition and ego said I would need it, but my higher self or maybe my guides were against a stone that would retaliate negativity.

Luckily, I had plans to visit our clairvoyant Rebecca in the evening. Mr. W dropped me off at Ann’s after work, where Claudio drove all the way out from San Diego to meet with us, and Ann drove the three of us to Seal Beach to the coffee house where Rebecca was hosting another informal workshop. As we got there early, we stopped around the corner at a bar and Claudio treated us to some drinks — margarita for him, mai tai for me, Gibson martini (dirty) for Ann. Claudio had never heard of a Gibson and asked what that was, and cringed when she got to the part about the onion. As Ann and I finished our drinks, Claudio had a Patron Silver shot. If drinks were I.D. badges, our drinks would say that Claudio’s Mexican, I’ve got island vacation on the brain, and Ann is too sophisticated to hang with either of us. She may have been too sophisticated for the bartender, too, who made her a Gimlet and then got confused when she asked why he was putting lime juice in her vodka martini. Then we were off to the coffee shop to meet up with Maggie, grab coffee, and see Rebecca. I got a round of coffee for these friends, as I’d promised on this very blog. 🙂

The only question I asked of Rebecca this time was about my internal conflict about the second stone. She said that a stone is not essential for protection except to the extent that I wanted it for comfort, but that the most powerful protection is prayer and God’s light, which I could access through visualizations and meditations. She said it was wonderful of me that despite psychic attacks (I specifically refrained from using that term because I didn’t want to freak out the newbies there, but of course Rebecca knew exactly what I was talking about without my having to get much into it), I did not want to send negativity back to my attacker(s). She said that the guilt I felt is an unnecessary human convention and is not real in the spiritual realm, but that karma is real. If I felt uncomfortable or “wrong” about reflecting back to my attacker, then return the stone or give it away; there were other things I could do for protection that did not involve contributing to negative energy. She suggested visualization of surrounding myself in a white or gold light (which I’d utilized before), and even to visualize the attacker encapsulated in a white bubble or sphere of light. The purpose of the shield is so that only positive energy can permeate my seal and enter to my aura, and it’d keep negative energy out for the universe to utilize as reformed energy for whatever it needed. She used the metaphor of a dog pooping onto grass. It’s gross and we don’t want to deal with it, but the earth will absorb it and turn it into fertilizer and next thing we know, pretty flowers grow because of it. As for the attacker’s bubble, the purpose is so that only positive energy will escape from her and come out to touch others, and negative energy stays inside with her to force her to deal with it and resolve her own issues within herself and between her and God, and not dumped on others around her (I certainly have heard enough testimonials from many others to know she craps on everyone). Rebecca suggested another meditation, which I also really liked. She said to picture my earth self and the attacker’s earth self, then to picture our spirtual light selves floating up and out of our earth bodies. See the spiritual umbilical chord connecting me to her, and visualize cutting that. What’s mine comes back to me, what’s hers goes back to her, and we’re still connected to the godsource above us, but we are no longer associated with each other. My only concern is that I am not actively seeking her out so I have no problem not connecting with her (and I’ve already cut my connections wherever possible), but she has shown herself to actively seek out people around me, even my family. Rebecca said to visualize these family members in a protective light bubble, too. Her suggestions put me a lot more at ease and flow better with my energy.

On the drive back to Ann’s, the three of us chatted about other stuff going on in our lives. One touched a sensitive button I only briefly tried to dodge, and with encouragement from Ann, I spewed some venom. Later when it was just me and Ann by ourselves, Ann said that in this short amount of time, I have become one of the best friends she’s ever had and that she truly believes I’m a good person, especially given the sage advice I’d give people and my own take on living and life, but that when she occasionally sees such anger from me, she’s always taken aback and confused by the level of it because she doesn’t understand how that kind of emotion could be consistent with the person she knows me otherwise to be. I understood that, there’s always been an Earth Cindy subject to human ego, hurt, jealousy, stubbornness, in opposition to a more evolved Spiritual Cindy who watches Earth Cindy’s tantrums but is silenced by the volume of Earth Cindy’s passions. Because Spiritual Cindy is a big-picture pacifist who believes it will all be all right and could SEE that it will all be all right, she indulges and lets Earth Cindy have her little fits here and there. Not that I explained this juxtaposed existence to Ann. But it is Spiritual Cindy who gives all the advice, in case Ann’s reading this now. Spiritual Cindy’s the one who tells people to not bloody their own hands in the wasted effort of revenge, but to let karma take care of things like it is meant to imminently. Time and energy should be spent untying one’s own knots and not in trying to tie someone else’s knots.

My enemies are lucky to have me. =P

I’m getting a LOT of feedback, opinions, attempts at persuasion, warnings, all attempting to discourage me from my decision to not use an epidural during childbirth. This advice comes from friends who are mothers and a couple are even nurses with delivery room experience, so I believe them and I know they absolutely know what they’re talking about, and the warnings are given in love and concern for me. However, my refusal to consider an epidural is also made in love and concern — for my unborn, as yet nonexistent-on-this-plane kid. Studies show that the IQs of children born without the use of an epidural are higher than those of kids whose mothers used the drug, and the natural newborns are more responsive during the Moro Reflex Test given upon birth, whereas epidural babies act kinda doped up. I don’t know for a fact that these studies are 100% conclusive or that there is a guaranteed correlation or causation relationship, but if there’s a chance I can give my child an edge in life by just suffering through some pain at childbirth, I can not imagine not doing it. My experienced friends tell me that they greatly appreciated their epidurals and didn’t know how people could go through childbirth without it. I had responded that there are mothers through time who worked on the fields or farms until their water broke, they went aside to push out their kid, and they returned to whatever they were doing as soon as the kid was bathed and fed. But that’s not the life I’m subject to, they reason with me, I don’t have to go through that because I’m in a position where modern medicine and painkillers are available to me. I don’t fault their logic, but I’m all the more determined to do this the way I’d intended. I realize I’m the ignorant one here, but if that ignorance and lack of experience is gonna carry me through, I’m gonna hold on to that ignorance until my own experience forces the light of knowledge on me. But here’s what I know…I know I will be fine. I know it will be pain beyond my wildest imagination, but it will be over soon, and I will know for the rest of my life that I did everything within my control to give this child what I could from the moment of birth, no matter the pain to me. What’s some screaming at childbirth compared to the rest of his/her life?

Besides, I could hold this over the kid’s head when (s)he acts up.

We’re picking a jury for a month-long civil trial. I just watched “Flags of Our Fathers” so that when we swear in our jury and begin our trial, I could follow better. I’m not one to handle violence well, and although the war violence depicted in this movie was on the subtle side and nowhere near the red fountainous phantasms in “Kill Bill” or “Ninja Assassin” (the latter of which some friends wanted to watch after my July 4th shindig — photos forthcoming [of the shindig, not the gross movie] — and I spent much of the time memorizing the way our ceiling looked as these friends made sounds of horror and disgust every 20 seconds), I’m still left perturbed. So I need to do this light post to settle my stomach.

The evening of Friday June 18th, Mr. W and I drove up to Northern California for Eddie & Michelle’s Calistoga wedding ceremony. We left at 3:30p hoping to get to Sunnyvale around 10:30p to visit with college roommie Diana and stay overnight. We didn’t get out of Los Angeles in time and hit nasty rush hour traffic, so we didn’t actually arrive in NorCal until almost midnight, having made one stop for gas along the way (I drove as Mr. W napped). After arriving, we did our usual — we all chatted in Diana’s living room for awhile and then Mr. W and Diana’s fiance Eric went to bed, and Diana and I stayed up and chatted some more until past 3 in the morning. Then we went to bed only because we’d planned to hit up their local Farmer’s Market first thing Saturday. On Saturday, Mr. W woke up early as normal, I got up soon after and since Diana and Eric were still sleeping, Mr. W and I went to the Farmer’s Market. I bought a string of colored pearls and matching earrings to go with my dress. Diana and Eric soon biked over and met us, and then we all went out for brunch at a nice restaurant on Santana Row. I don’t remember the name of the restaurant, but here’s a picture of me and Diana there.

I know, the drinks look yummy, but the martini in front of me is actually staged. It belongs to Mr. W; I wasn’t drinking. After brunch, Diana and I went to her bridal boutique for her final decision on her bridal gown. Her friends Caroline and Melanie met us there. (Mr. W hung out at a nearby Starbucks.) Diana tried on the 3 dresses she’d narrowed it down to. All 3 have the same simple A-line silhouette that she’d already decided she looked best in. The first had stitchwork and lines in a chevron that drew attention to the smallness of her waist and was very flattering, and when she walked out of the dressing room I had to hold back tears. I knew this wasn’t her favorite, but I couldn’t imagine how another dress could top how beautiful she looked in that one. She popped back into the dressing room and came out in her favorite, dress #2. If I didn’t cry seeing this, it was only because I was in shock that she found a dress that topped dress #1. Dress #2’s design had embellishments and embroidery around the ribs but left the top and bottom simple, and not only was the dress itself impressive, but it seemed taylored to showcase Diana’s figure. SHE looked beautiful in Dress #2. I wish I could post a photo I took on my cell, but her fiance Eric may read this and he’s not allowed to see the dress (which makes me really wish I had photos of the other 2 dresses so that I could post them). Dress #3 was gorgeous and had a jeweled bodice and jeweled skirt and intricate beadwork everywhere, but it was way fancier than Diana would normally be, and certainly not as simple as the wedding she was now planning. It also took the attention off Diana and focused it on all the bling. She finalized her pick for #2, said, “Yay, that was easy,” made the transaction, and was done.

Mr. W and I left from there to Napa Valley for Eddie and Michelle’s pre-wedding dinner at Cole’s Chophouse. We got there early and explored the quaint small town, did a little winetasting at a local bar, and walked to the restaurant to meet the couple and the other guests. Here’s the couple of the weekend at the restaurant:

After dinner, Mr. W drove through miles of dark windy forest roads (much to his aggravation) and checked in at our hotel in Santa Rosa, The Fountaingrove Inn. I liked the place and the restaurant where we had 2 mornings of breakfast. Loved the zen of the lobby. The next morning (Sunday), we drove to Calistoga’s Hans Fahden Vineyards for the wedding. What a gorgeous location! I took a lot of photos, but I’ll hold off posting them without the couple’s permission. 🙂 The ceremony was short, sweet, fun, pretty, and they even incorporated some wine drinking into the symbolism. When in Rome…
After the ceremony and a dessert reception with delicious dulce de leche cake, we all left the vineyard and met up in town for lunch. As it was father’s day, I made sure to call my dad and wish him a happy daddy’s day after I ordered. Cuz I’m thoughtful like that. =) Of course, this is the first year I recall doing that. I’d even forgotten to wish Mr. W a happy father’s day that morning as we were in a rush trying to eat and get ready to go to the wedding. His kids didn’t forget to text him, tho. Most of the wedding guests left to fly or drive home after this lunch, but we had reserved our hotel until Monday, knowing we couldn’t drive back in time after the festivities and get enough rest before having to go to work, so the four of us hung out and had dessert and coffee in town.

The above photo convinced me that 1.) I need to go back to the gym, and 2.) I need a haircut and new style. Just for fun, I’m gonna post something Michelle recently emailed me…a photo when the 4 of us hung out for dinner at a boutique hotel in Newport Beach the evening after their official wedding at our courthouse in February, cuz they’re sort of identical situations.

We said our goodbyes to Eddie and Michelle after that as they were driving to San Francisco later that evening. We went back to the hotel and went to bed early.
Monday, Mr. W and I went back to Calistoga. We couldn’t leave the city without doing the 2 most touristy things there. The first is the hot springs mineral mud bath. We booked a combination thing for couples at Golden Haven.

For a set price, we were first immersed in our own tubs of mud enriched with the local natural hot springs water (“hot” is an understatement; the guy had to dump ice cubes over the spot where my feet were so that I could manage to submerge them)…

…and then we rinsed the mud off in a large shower area that was in our private mud room. Of course these showers used the hot mineral spring water. Next we got to soak in a mineral spa at the other side of the same private room. Lastly, we were taken to a massage room where we were wrapped in blankets to help the body have a slow cool-down. I fell asleep there.

The 2nd thing we couldn’t leave Calistoga without doing is, of course, wine tasting at a vineyard. We weren’t big wine people, so some other wedding peeps recommended we visit Sterling Vineyards.

For a reasonable price, we were put in an aerial tram…

…and taken up into the mountain where the factory (are wine places called factories?) is located, and we get a self-guided tour of the place, learn about how wine is made…

…and get 5 samples of wines at areas throughout the tour. It beats just sitting at a counter and drinking a bunch of red stuff.

What a picturesque area! This is the view from the terrace of the building.

We did end up buying a pack of wine, which we didn’t expect we’d do…but of course it was the sweet pack with all the dessert wines and stuff. Haha! It was a great first visit for both of us to Calistoga and Napa.

OH. I need to add that all photos except for the two “foursome” photos were taken with my new LG Ally cell phone. Pretty decent, huh?

I owled it again last nite. I guess I had too much tea at my parent’s house Monday evening after dinner. My dad serves up tea traditional Chinese style, and while chatting, you have no idea how much caffeine you’re sucking down when it comes in a one-ounce cup that constantly gets refilled. So I was awake till 5a, altho I went to bed before 2a.

One of the things swirling around my head while I was trying to get unconscious was a memory from back in ’95. It was my freshman year at UCLA. I didn’t have a car in college (cars were mostly unnecessary; we walked everywhere cuz parking’s too expensive and hard to find. My legs were awesome in college), so when I’d go home on weekends, either my mom would come pick me up after work on Friday or I’d hitch a ride from a friend going that way. I was sorta seeing (long story) an OC boy, and one weekend he offered to come by, visit, pick me up, and take me back for the weekend.

I realized when he got there Friday night that he hadn’t told his parents that he was staying over. I realized this because he borrowed my phone to call his mom fairly late that night. The conversation went something like this:
“Hey mom. Did I wake you up? …Oh, well don’t wait up, I’m not coming home tonight…. Because! I’m out! …I’m with Ryan…[I could hear his mom’s voice through the phone at this point, altho I couldn’t understand what she was saying. This is how I know he was cutting her off.] I had some beer, so I’m not gonna drive. Look, do you want me to get in my car and get pulled over on a DUI? Is that what you want? … Or do you want me to crash into someone get killed? …Well okay, then! No! I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll see you tomorrow!! BYE!!” He hung up on apparently an upset mother.

What blew me away listening to this is…
1.) We were not drinking. He did not have any beer.
2.) He LIED to his mom about drinking and about who he was with in order to stay over.
3.) I was 18 and he was 19. I certainly didn’t drink, knowing I’m underage. Did he?! Was this acceptable or normal to his parents that he would go out drinking with a buddy when he was underage?
4.) Lying about underage drinking is BETTER of an option for him than to tell his mom he’s hanging with a girl? Really???

At the time I figured it was just a white boy thing. I better not get a phone call like this one day.

I have all these events to blog about, but this topic is faster, easier, and more immediate.

Last week (June 28), I noticed on a social networking site that I’m involved in that my elementary-school age nephew (Mr. W’s brother’s son) had changed his profile picture. The new photo was just him making a goofy face at the camera. He had labeled the face on the picture as himself, and then labeled his brown T-shirt “Mr. Owl.” Upon closer inspection, I recognized the owl as the owl in the Tootsie Pop commercials of the my childhood. On the T-shirt was even written “Mr. Owl, how many licks does it take?” So the following conversation ensued with regard to that photo.
Me: “Boy: Mr. Turtle, how many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?
Mr. Turtle: I never made it without biting. Let’s ask Mr. Owl.
Boy: Mr. Owl, how many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?
Mr. Owl: Let’s find out. A-one…*lick*…a-two-hoooo…*lick*…a-three. *CrUnCh* Three.”
Ryan: “haha”
Ryan: “=DDDD
nice shirt right =DD”
Ryan: “the front of my hat looks so awesome but i look stupid with forward hats, which yah…”
Ryan: “imma take a picture of my hat, and show and upload it
(the front) wow i just have a convo with myself…”
Me: “…and it was very entertaining to watch you talk to yourself.”
Ryan: “HA HA….”

And then, 2 days later (June 30), Ann and Claudio were involved in an online conversation about my then-upcoming July 4th BBQ.
Ann: for the record, i think u suck bc ur not coming.
Claudio: I know, I know. I am a horrible human being. 🙁
Ann: nah. i wouldn’t go that far 🙂
Claudio: 🙂
Cindy: how do you do an eyeroll in a smiley?
Claudio: &_&
Cindy: o.O
Claudio: ?_? [ascii picture of indignant-looking eyeballs]
Cindy: Geek.
Claudio: ??? [ascii picture of large round eyes with a dot in the center of each, meant to look bespectacled, but I thought it looked like an owl especially given that the nose was an ascii symbol of something with a downward droop that looked beaklike]
Cindy: Mr. Owl. How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?
Claudio: Let’s find out. One! Tahoooo. Thrrreeee.
Claudio: *crunch*
Claudio: Thrrrrreee.
Cindy: How many licks DOES it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop? *sadly* The world may never know.
Claudio: ?_? [ascii picture of big tearful eyes]
Cindy: argh. I can’t out-Ascii you.
Claudio: \m/ *.* \m/

(I thought the Ascii face Claudio made above looked like an owl. Hopefully all the ascii comes across on this post.) I need to note that Claudio and Ryan do not know each other, so they did not see each others’ conversations on this site.

And then waaaay earlier today (past midnight), I announced on the site that my plan for the night was to medicate my cat (Dodo’s getting eyedrops and antibiotic liquid meds), get ready for bed, and them come downstairs and fall asleep to the TV. My UCLA friend Ansen (who does not know Claudio or Ryan) commented, and this followed.
Ansen: um. its almost 2am fellow owl.
Cindy (just now): You know what’s funny? We just came back from visiting at my parents’ house, and my mom was all, “We have a gift for you!” It was a little pendant of an owl. I was like, “Huh? Why would she get me an owl?” Now it all makes sense!
Brigitte (Gym Trainee): She knows you better than you think. Yeah Cindy’s mom!
Cindy: she’s weird like that.
Ansen: hoot hoot. how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop?
Cindy: OMG. This is the 3rd [social networking site] reference to that commercial I’ve had in a week. And you guys are all not friends. I think the universe is talking to me.
Ansen: dunno what to say? i go on tangents alot. all this talk of owls and my sweet tooth remembers the old commericial ;p haha
Cindy: actually, all 3 references began with an owl. the 1st was actually THE Mr. Owl on my nephew’s shirt on his new profile pic. the 2nd was an ascii picture my friend Claudio put up in convo with me [on here]. And third is you! Hmm.. what do owls mean?

What DOES it all mean? Ah-let’s find out. A-one…a-two-hooooo…three.

Yesterday on my birthday, Ann took me out to dinner at Gulfstream in Corona Del Mar. As we placed our drink order (dirty martini for Ann, chocolate cake shot for me), the waitress, instead of carding us, simply asked obligatorily, “You’re both over 21, right?”
As Ann nodded, I said, “I’m well over. Actually, 34 today.”
The young blonde waitress said, “Oh, today is THE day? Happy birthday! *eyes widening* Wow, 34? You REALLY don’t look it. Wow.” I smiled at her and thanked her for the compliment. As soon as we placed our dinner order, I went to the restroom. Looking at my reflection in the mirror, it kinda hit me. The waitress was SO impressed that I don’t look 34 that really, what it means is that 34 is a very, very large number to her. *sigh*
~ * ~
Mr. W told me earlier that he was chatting with some coworkers yesterday about it being my birthday. They asked how old I was turning. He told them 34, and added, “Yeah, she’s getting kinda old. I may have to trade her in for a younger model soon.” (Note that Mr. W is almost a decade and a half older than me.) His coworkers laughed at him and said something to the effect of, Oh please, she’s gotten better-looking every year since she met you. He took that as a compliment for himself and happily told me the story after work, practically glowing as he did so. I wasn’t totally sure how to take that…but I did happen to have a very recent experience wherein I was digging through early digital photos of us dating back to 2005 when we first started going out, and I was shocked at how unpresentable we both looked. His family members joke about how he gets younger every year that we’re together, and I have to say that based on photographic comparisons, they’re not wrong. I don’t know what we saw in each other back then. Lower standards maybe? haha.
This is a recent photo from our Tahiti cruise.

For comparison, here’s a similar pose from 2005.

Mr. W surprised me this year… he bought Sylvia Brown’s autobiography “Psychic” and it was wrapped and waiting for me with a card next to the alarm clock when I woke up. I woke up so late that I overlooked it. =P It sucks getting old. And then at work, flowers came for me, yellow roses with accents of irises and some purple flowers. Also from Mr. W. People passing by the courtroom have been admiring them all day.

I also got a Prince tennis raquet from my judge along with a sporting good giftcard (Ann and I thought we’d brush the tennis rust off ourselves and start playing tennis together), a big bottle of Patron tequila and two gourmet mini cakes from my reporter…

…an efficient plug-in water boiling kettle from my courtroom assistant, and a surprise floral basket delivery from a mystery person. I figured out pretty quickly, as the card was written to “Cindy Lou,” that it was from Jordan, and I was right.

I had wanted a quiet birthday at work, mostly unnoticed, but you can’t be invisible very effectively when you walk out of a building with this stuff in your arms. I did feel very loved and appreciative. =)

Another thing I had asked Rebecca last Thursday was about Dodo’s health. I said I had concerns because he appeared to have lost weight. I didn’t give Rebecca any more information than that, but what’s been happening was that starting from a year back, he started to sleep all day. I barely saw him. He’d come by on his way to eat or drink or use the litterbox, meow a greeting, ask for ice, and then he’d disappear again. Sometimes he’d sleep on our bed and I’d go up and snuggle with him. I was always welcome; he’d purr, push himself against me as I petted him. I was just happy that the cone’s still off and there hadn’t been a recurrence of the compulsive eye-scratching. Then I started noticing he appeared to be smaller. I wasn’t concerned cuz he was a 10-lb cat. His vet says he’s the perfect weight for his breed (Scottish Fold), altho I remember back when we lived at the other place he was up to 12 lbs. A second vet visit about 8 months later, he’d dropped a little to where he was under 10 lbs. The vet asked if anything had changed with his diet, and I said I’d switched food (which I do periodically) to an indoor cat weight-loss formula. The vet said that’s good, cuz if Dodo just dropped a pound arbitrarily, they’d be looking into what’s wrong, as that’s 10% of his body weight! He then reminded me that Dodo’s not fat. And then in the past couple of months, I switch Dodo to a Purina wellness formula, i.e. Purina One: Vibrant Maturity 7+ Senior Formula. The packaging says this formula is “designed to promote your senior cat’s body condition and healthy energy level while helping maintain lean muscle mass.” The commercials always talk about how it’s like their pets’ biological clocks got turned back and they were youthful, playful, active again. Well, it WORKED. Dodo suddenly started hanging out with us again, he was awake most of the day, he would go outside and explore flowers, sing along when I played piano (he’s a little off-key, tho), visit with friends who came over, climb on the cat tree that he’d never used before, jump on the bathroom counters to sniff the faucet and taste the leftover drops in the sink after we’d run the water.

My parents came over recently and my dad noted, when petting Dodo, how every vertebrae on his back can be felt through his fur. I’d noticed it, too, and felt how prominent his hip bones have become on his lower back, but just figured hey, Dodo’s more active now. But my dad seemed a little concerned. So I thought I’d ask.

Rebecca came back with that Dodo’s kidneys are a little problematic. She said it wasn’t a big deal, it’s not terminal, but to get him to the vet so he could get his kidneys checked out for a possible bladder infection. I suddenly remembered how much water he’d drunk and how much pee clumps I’d found in the litterbox after returning from Napa a couple of weekends ago. “Is that why he’s sucking up all that water and going to the bathroom so much?” I asked. Rebecca affirmed. She again comforted me that it’s not a big thing, it’s an easy fix. Then she asked, “Is Dodo black?” I told her yes, he’s black and white. He’s black if you look from top-down, and he’s white on the underside.

Friday morning (the next day after talking with Rebecca), I looked at the litterbox again. Wow, there were a lot of pee clumps there from overnight. I mentioned to Mr. W that I need to take Dodo to the vet. He asked why. I told him what Rebecca said. He scoffed, “So you’re gonna spend all this money taking him to the doctor because some PSYCHIC told you to?! If you tell someone oh my cat’s been drinking all this water, frequent urination, of COURSE she’s gonna say bladder infection.” I said, “I didn’t TELL her anything before she said that!” I was annoyed that whole drive to work.

I made an appointment for Monday evening and took Dodo in. This is a new vet I hadn’t met before at the same clinic. She asked what my concerns were, as Dodo hid meekly behind my chair under a table. I gave her general info, and she checked his organs with her hands, checked his ears, eyes, joints, and weight. Everything looked all right, except for a little congestion around his sinuses from his allergies (which I knew about cuz he’d been sneezing and rubbing his eyes). And then she said, feeling Dodo’s abdomen as he struggled, “Hmm. He has slightly enlarged kidneys.” Eep! I asked about a possible bladder or kidney infection, and she said it’s possible. It’s also possible, with symptoms of weight loss, increased thirst/urination, more activeness, that it’s hyperthyroidism, diabetes, or kidney disease. WAAAAAAH!! She took Dodo to the back to check his weight. He’d dropped almost 2 pounds since his last visit, coming in at just over 8 lbs. That’s 20% of his bodyweight! Hyperthyroidism was starting to look realistic to her. We decided to get a full blood panel done to check organ functions and other potential problems. She tried to get a urine sample but couldn’t because Dodo had apparently just peed before we got home to pick him up. I comforted myself by thinking that Rebecca had said it wasn’t a big concern, just a kidney thing with bladder infection, she didn’t say it was something serious like kidney disease, diabetes, or hyperthyroidism.

As I was writing this post, I received a phone call from the vet with Dodo’s blood test results. “His bloodwork actually came back really clean! His kidney enzymes are normal, everything looks very good. He’s healthy, but we still don’t know what’s making him lose weight and what’s giving him the increased thirst and urination. I think he may have a bladder infection, so just bring him back in the next few days so we can get a urine test done.” WOW!! Just like Rebecca said! The vet ruled out everything else and it looks like a slight kidney thing with just a bladder infection! We can confirm this later, but meanwhile the vet already had me start Dodo on oral Amoxicillin drops twice a day.

My kid’s gonna be smart!!

I’m still up because I’ve been playing heartfelt lullabies to my unborn child for the past 2 hours. Ann had wanted to visit Rebecca with me since my first (and only prior) experience with her. I didn’t get consistent notices of when she was coming back to do another workshop at the coffee shop, so it had been a full year before I learned an exact date that I could attend (I was getting notices of her appearance days after it was already over, or I’d hear about my coworkers having attended earlier that week). Tonight (well, technically last nite now), Ann and I made it to her intimate group setting. She hit Ann’s life and her relationships dead-on with little to no cues from Ann, but that’s Ann’s business. Toward the end of the evening, it turned out that Ann, another coworker Frances, and I all had a question about my potential future pregnancy. It was Frances who raised her hand and said, “I wanna know if my coworker Cindy [pointing at me] is going to have children.” Rebecca smiled at me and closed her eyes to receive information. Her expression changed and I felt an immediate reaction in my own face and ears. I guess crestfallen is how I would best describe that moment, seeing her smile fade and a serious look cross her face. She opened her eyes and asked me solemnly, “Do you want to have children?” I was thrown.
“Well…yeah, but…” I thought about the timing and how we don’t want to get pregnant until November, and about my past of indecisiveness on the issue.
“Because I see one or two there ready, just waiting…” I don’t remember her exact wording, but as she went on I soon realized the confusion came from her SEEING that the souls of my “one or two” kids were present and unobstructed, so the only reason they didn’t yet exist is because there is something, perhaps a lack of desire, blocking them from incarnating. She also said there appeared to be some difficulty with conception.
Relieved, I explained that my husband had a vasectomy so there is no getting pregnant easily. She also seemed relieved as understanding eased her brow. She closed her eyes and looked to receive more information. I thought of how a lack of desire for these kids’ existence has certainly been the primary reason they weren’t yet on this plane; it’s what Mr. W had decided when he went for his vasectomy all those years ago. It’s the reason I wasn’t careless enough to get knocked up before Mr. W. Rebecca opened her eyes again, warned me that she’s just going to say it straight out. I got scared again. She continued, “I only see one side working.” What did that mean? She went on and described something about ducts connecting and not taking. “If he gets a reversal, only one side is going to function. I see the other side not ‘taking.’ You’d have to do more procedures, go the whole way, do other things — And he’s got a low sperm count.” She went on to describe what would happen and how slim the chances of conception are if Mr. W went in for a reversal operation.
I was relieved again. “Oh, we already looked into that, and we’re not going to do a reversal. We’re doing the whole extraction from both of us, inject in a petri dish and implantation.” She was nodding, looking again relieved herself that she was not delivering me bad news that would devastate me. She talked along with me, finishing my sentences, describing that all fertility procedures would have to be used. We know he has a low sperm count, that’s what vasectomy does, especially after a decade-plus of it. The urologist who examined Mr. W last month said as much, cuz I was hoping that we could just artifically inseminate (turkey baster) with the extracted sperm and he said they’d have to collect every day for a month to get enough sperm for that. The extraction and direct injection fertilization (ICSI) would resolve the low sperm count problem.
And then she said that I would have a boy. I couldn’t help it, I turned toward Ann and had a strong disappointing “Darn it!” reaction. I just always thought about my little girl. Maybe it was projection of myself as a little girl. But since I was in college, I’d decided (or saw) that I would have 2 kids, a boy and then a couple of years later, a girl. I guess since Mr. W and I figured we’d only have one, I’d “chosen” it to be the girl. My little Isabella. Rebecca laughed at my reaction and said, for the second or third time that night, that although her general accuracy is about 85%, she’s only about 50% accurate in reading the genders of unborn children. She said the baby just seemed to her to have a masculine energy, so maybe that’s a strong girl or a boy, she’s not guaranteeing anything. But since she said that, we started referring to this future child as “he.” I kept thinking how happy Mr. W would be to have another boy, and how disappointed Stepdaughter (and I) would be.
I took the plunge and asked about how difficult the labor and pregnancy would be. The group around me (all of whom happened to be women this evening) jumped in animatedly and joked about how of course it would be painful, but so worth it, motherhood is so rewarding, get a C-section, get drugs, get epidurals, etc. Rebecca’s eyes snapped open and she told me immediately, do NOT do a C-section unless it was absolutely a critical necessity. I said I was totally with her, I wouldn’t get unnecessary surgery. (Heh, I guess that means cosmetic surgery is out.) I wasn’t even one for drugs and I want to do this as naturally as possible. She nodded her approval and said I can get whatever pregnacy and labor counseling or training that I was comfortable with, naming a few terms I was totally unfamiliar with. The only terms I recognized were “lamaze” and “accupuncture.” I told her I’m determined to have the happiest pregnancy ever and that I wanted to abstain from epidurals during labor. She said that actually will be the case if I will it to be. She doesn’t see any issues with my pregnancy, she in fact sees the fertility procedures “taking” on the first try, and aside from a little nausea in the beginning which she assures me is common and normal, she doesn’t see any other problems. As for labor, she laughed a little and said she can SEE me in labor (in her head) and it’s not bad. I said, “Oh, so I’m not passed out or screaming or anything?”
“No, well, there’s a LITTLE screaming, but you’re fine. You can do this without the epidural. It’s bad at the transition, about 15 minutes, but leading up to it and afterwards you’re fine.” I can handle 15 minutes of “bad.” AND…I called it. See it here. I just read it earlier today. “This will be a normal healthy pregnancy, as your child will be. Healthy and normal.” I was SO happy to hear this. “And he’s smart.” She looked into some picture only she could tap into, and chuckled in amusement. “He’s REALLY smart.”
“Smart-ASS? I can totally see that.”
She laughed again and said, “You will definitely have your hands full. He’s one of those kids — like, he’s quiet and doesn’t say anything and then when he finally speaks it’s something like, ‘Can you take me to the bus cuz there’s something I need..’ ” I didn’t understand at first and then I realized she was talking about his first words. My godson’s first words also weren’t “mama” or “dada,” they came out in an argument with his mother, something about her telling him to pick up his toys or something, wherein she said to him, “Did you hear what I said?” and he responded indignantly, “Did YOU hear what I said?!” Before that, all baby babble. Rebecca looked into the ethers again, and let out another chuckle. “I can see [Mr. W] going, ‘I don’t know what to do with this kid!'” Awesome.
And then she said that it looks like we’ll have this kid, and then it’ll be 2-3 years before we decide whether to have a second kid. Interesting. I wonder if this is my girl. I know Mr. W does not want to have a fourth kid, at least not at this point. But then, a couple of years ago he didn’t want to have a third kid, and now we’re spending money to make sure we do.

When I got home, I was wired and Ann and I texted for a bit, neither of us able to sleep, excited about the stuff Rebecca told us about each of our lives. (Ann got some goooood news about hers.) And then I was inspired to hit the piano. I’m glad I have that release, because by this time I was so shockingly in love with my boy that the only way I was able to express it was by playing my heart on the piano, swaying under the enormity of the force of the energy pouring out of me. Mr. W was asleep when I came home and did not want to discuss my evening, and I was grateful for the digital piano and its plug-in headphones so that I could play as long and loud as I wanted and not have it heard anywhere but in my own head. Somehow, I felt that the music was being communicated to or from my future child(ren), somewhere up and out there. I felt very close to them tonight, like I could talk to them, reach out with my heart and touch their own.

I think that now, the excitement has worn down enough that I can finally hit the hay for a few hours before going to work tomorrow. I had started thinking about potential boy names a couple of weeks ago, caught myself, and wondered why I was bothering cuz wasn’t I going to have a girl? I guess I’m glad Rebecca’s only 50% accurate on baby gender because that’ll at least still be a surprise, then.

Oh, P.S…2012? Not the end of the physical world. The planets will all line up, which is a very unusual occurrence that hasn’t happened for thousands of years. This changes magnetic influences, so things are gonna feel or be a little weird, but it’s not apocalypse. To me, it sounds more like a “reset,” when the counters all reach 00000, to use a tracking dial metaphor. That makes sense that the Mayan calendar would end there, because everything has reached a full cycle. We don’t flip through our calendars and freak out that it ends in December; we know the year has cycled out and we get a new calendar for the next year. So it sounds like I’m getting what I was hoping for. I sort of called this one, too.

O.M.G. You guys have to watch this little 40-second clip with your sound on. I’m rolling!

I had an eventful weekend roadtripping up to NorCal, stopping by Sunnyvale to visit college roommie Diana and spending a few days in Napa for a meal and wine tasting, and Calistoga for Eddie & Michelle’s small private wedding ceremony. I’ll write about that when I’m able to get my photos together.

An odd memory played itself in my head this morning on the drive to work. I was 19, with my first boyfriend in the passenger seat of his mom’s Mercedes, which he was driving. We were on a main street in the Monterey Park area. We stopped at a red light. I looked left at opposing traffic, which was also stopped at their own light. I noticed a guy driving a pickup truck and stared at him because he looked exactly like an older grownup version of my then-boyfriend (whom we’ll call Jerome). This is unusual because Jerome is very unusual-looking, to put it euphemistically. I was just blown away that they looked this similar. That pickup driver, within the first seconds of my stare, looked up and weirdly turned to his left, looked across multiple lanes of stopped cars between us, and made direct solemn eye contact with me. That lasted 4-5 more seconds as I gawked at who appeared to be Jerome in the future. It took this long for Jerome to turn to his left. He didn’t see me staring, but he sure noticed that pickup guy staring, because he said irritably, “What the hell is THAT guy staring at?!” as the light turned and we started to move forward again. I didn’t say anything, and he thankfully didn’t turn to look at me. It seemed odd and ironic that he didn’t realize he was staring at himself. How many people in the world looked like that?! I was lost in thought for a few minutes after that. What is this, a wrinkle in time? I thought. Did the space-time continuum fold back on itself and give us a glimpse of the two juxtaposed realities? And if that’s the future, I thought with horror, Where was I? And what’s with the beat-up pickup truck? I also wondered whether the future Jerome, when enough time passed and he became the guy in the pickup staring at the younger version of himself with the girlfriend in the front seat, would remember that he was on the other side of the stare back decades ago. The stunned look of the pickup driver certainly suggested he made such a connection.

This morning, I thought with amusement about young love. We really thought we’d be together forever in our early relationships. I never told Jerome about this because it was creepy to me at the time and he scared easy anyway, so I didn’t want him to freak out that I was missing from his future AND he did not appear to be as affluent in his adulthood as his parents made him in his youth (something very important to him). I wondered if now is the time of the pickup driver’s present. Of course, knowing now what I didn’t know then, it makes more sense. Where was I, why wasn’t I in the pickup next to him? I was (am) having the time of my life with my handsome husband taking trips and goofing off at home and having fun with friends both in traveling and in home get-togethers. I happen to know that Jerome, after we broke up, rebounded to his best friend’s big sister and ended up knocking her up. I heard something about her telling him that precautions weren’t necessary because it was “medically impossible” for her to get pregnant. She explained the pregnancy by telling him that he must have some seriously lethal sperm so he walked around proudly saying, “Yeah, I’m the man! I’m the man!” (Typical him.) They got married in a small ceremony in his parents’ church when their daughter was very young, and then lightning struck in the same place twice as she once again got pregnant. The lie must’ve been apparent THEN, cuz she got her tubes tied after the second one. His parents didn’t like the union, didn’t like the age difference (she is older), didn’t like the racial difference (he’s Chinese; she’s Honduran), didn’t like the fact that they clearly had premarital sex (the parents are very religious and always preached to him about keeping his hands to himself), didn’t like that she was big, wasn’t college-educated, didn’t have a lucrative or prestigious career, didn’t come from a well-off family. They also didn’t like ME cuz I wasn’t good enough for their son, despite the fact that I straightened him out, got him to stop smoking and drinking (he was underage) and helped get him transferred into UCLA, where I was a student at the time. I reviewed his admission essay, application, hooked him up with the right people for recommendation letters, etc. But as soon as he got with the big sister, they partied together, drank, he picked up smoking again, because she made it a point that she was going to be exactly the opposite type of girlfriend that I was. And of course, she got pregnant (whereas I left him a virgin). She also made up a bunch of lies about me and talked crap about me with Jerome, wanting him to hate me, because in their early dating stage he’d broken things off with her and tried to get back with me (I’d ignored his attempts, which you’d think she’d be grateful for, but it apparently gave her a complex). His mom also treated me like crap. I remember, toward the end of our relationship, my driving Jerome back to their home after a day of my showing him around UCLA so he could buy the proper books and things to begin school there, and seeing his mother on the porch. I walked up and greeted her VERY politely in Mandarin. She completely ignored me, looked the other way, and called out to someone on the other side of her, thereby dismissing me. I left very quickly after that despite Jerome’s begging me to stay awhile. She had a large part of why I ultimately broke up with him; I didn’t think their own parenting failures should’ve been my problem, especially when I was not being appreciated for all the efforts I had put into their son. And he had serious issues.

So yeah, karma did her thing. I know about his lifestyle from mutual friends, and I’m happy I’m not still there. But I kinda wish I could be there when future Jerome drives his pickup one day and stares across a crowded street at past Jerome, makes eye contact with past Cindy, and realizes that she knew then who he was.