cindy's world

Last night was oodles and oodles of fun! You can tell by my giddy delirious diction. But that very possibly is also caused by lack of sleep.

After work I drove to Vicky’s new house in the newly burnt Chino Hills. Altho Mr. W and I had considered buying a house there when we were looking, I now know that I could not have handled living there. Although it is 10 miles closer to work than our house is, the drive took twice as long as it wound through scenic single-laned roads with motorists who had to brake down to 15 mph at each turn. I was awed by the charred land and could still smell the smoky carbon aftermath. Vicky’s house itself was great. It was so spacious that when I called Dwaine upon my arrival there, he could hear my voice echoing through our cell phones. It is evident that she and her handy boyfriend worked hard on endless renovations there, and although they say a lot of detailed work remain, I think the house is ready for furniture. The textured dark wood floors were especially breathtaking, even without the excited dog charging full speed toward me as I entered and instead skidding sideways past me as his frenzied feet pedaled Looney Tunes style in a fruitless attempt for some traction to turn around. Vicky’s house has the exact opposite problem as ours — they have 3 spacious common areas for entertaining, not including the formal dining room, kitchen and breakfast nook, and were trying to figure out what to do with all that room. Mr. W and I had trouble fitting 8 teenagers into any single room in our house for Daughter’s birthday party a couple weekends ago.

I left Vicky and her boyfriend an hour later to join Dwaine at a nearby new Yard House Bar & Grill. The menu looks different from other Yard Houses, but I almost recklessly and randomly decided on the Porcini Crusted Halibut, which is described on the menu thusly:

Porcini cream sauce and white truffle oil, asparagus and bok choy over parmesan mashed potatoes.

I pushed the plate toward Dwaine, who had ordered a chicken and mushroom pasta. His eyes widened as he tasted the perfectly seasoned flakey halibut. I then took my first bite, which was of the mashed potatoes dipped in the truffle cream sauce, and my eyes rolled into the back of my head. I grabbed his fork and insisted he try that, too, and got him a clump. As soon as he tasted that, he looked angry. Looking at his own dish in disdain, he announced that although he always gets that pasta dish because he’s always enjoyed it, he now wants what I had. I laughed and said it happens all the time when people eat out with me, but now he knows what to order for next time. Dwaine vowed to return the next day for lunch and order what I had. In fact, he said, he would bring someone with him so they could also enjoy this amazing dish and understand what we were experiencing in food. I don’t know what it is about that place — even the Framboise Lambic (raspberry ale on tap) tasted better than I’d ever had it. Maybe it’s the company. We chatted for two hours at the restaurant, and then went to his house 10 minutes away (Vicky’s house was 5 minutes away) and continued chatting so that we didn’t have to yell over the bar noise. We hit lots of topics, introspected, made jokes, caught each other up on stuff, psychoanalyzed other people, reminisced, shared photos and inside information, and I only left because he yawned and I had a long-ass drive back home.

Today childhood friend (and bridesmaid) Sandy called out of the blue and we had a long catch-up chat, and are tentatively planning to finally hook up this weekend. I hadn’t seen her since the wedding, and she still has my watch. 🙂 I think I really do have the world’s coolest people in my friends group.

OH, I ALMOST FORGOT. Hey girls, if you’re described by someone as physically “thick”, but you don’t have the benefit of knowing the context of the description (like you don’t know the tone or the sentence it was used in, just that someone described your body type as “thick”), do you automatically take that as a negative description? Like, do you think “fat”? I’m taking a survey.

As pleasantly surprised as I was at my cardio ability yesterday, I was inversely dismayed at how weak my abs are today. I wonder how I even sit up in the mornings. Nevertheless, I hit the weights, did 3 sets of each major muscle group in resistance training, 5 minutes of stairclimber, bunch of abs. That cute little inspiring DA smiled at me and settled into the ab bench next to me. MAN I felt fat next to her. Well, in time…

Meanwhile with two workouts under my belt, I’ll feel less guilty about seeing my friends. I met up with Anny last nite and had a tasty shrimp angelhair pasta in a light tomato cream sauce, and today I’m meeting up with Vicky at her new house (which I’ve never seen), then catching some drinks and maybe dinner with Dwaine after that. As I’m heading to Vicky’s directly after work, I made sure to bring a change of clothes that are looser-fitting for food and alcohol consumption.

(photo of the beautiful 5’2″ Alyssa Milano courtesty of www.sofeminine.co.uk)

I haven’t had a meaningful workout since before the wedding. Yup, you heard me right. Some days after the wedding in early September I stood in front of the mirror staring at my smaller boobs and the bones poking out disgustingly in between them, while grabbing and jiggling the omnipresent lower abdominal fat roll, and thought, “Geez, I can’t lose any more fat, I already look kinda gross and my curves are disappearing, and it’s apparent my body isn’t gonna burn up fat from where I WANT it to burn up.” So I decided that I’d rather put on a few more pounds and bring the curves back. Rather than being gross AND lumpy, I could just be lumpy. In the following 3 months the holiday chaos made working out at lunchtime pretty difficult; either I’ve had to work through lunch, or Gym Trainee (my ride) had to, or we both just didn’t feel like gymming and would take a brisk walk around the neighborhood instead. Our handful of gym days produced unmotivated and uninspired workouts. Knowing I wasn’t giving it my all in the calories spent area, I made an effort to control the calories taken in. The results aren’t bad; I probably gained 2-3 pounds since before Thanksgiving, maybe 8 overall since the wedding. My weight and fat percentage are acceptable, but I’d like to look more toned, so I knew I was gonna have to find my motivation somewhere.

New Year’s Day, Gym Trainee and her son woke up at our house from spending New Year’s Eve with us. More acurately, with me; Mr. W spent much of the evening playing a computer game while the remaining 3 of us hung out. He explained it was the only way he could stay awake. He eventually, after deflecting half a dozen death glares from me, left the computer and came to sit with us in the living room, and then called it quits and went to bed at 11p. So I rang in the new year with Gym Trainee and my godson with Martinelli sparkling cider. I’d actually missed the transition and countdown while I was in the kitchen struggling with the bottle opener. Oh well. I’ve had worse new years. So anyway, New Year’s Day we watched a marathon of The Biggest Loser, Season 3, and Gym Trainee and I got so inspired to work out. She has this week off on vacation, but promised to hit the gym and catch up on her cardio training on her own so that we can meaningfully weightlift next week when she returns. I’d invited Mr. W to go on a jog with me that day after our guests left, but he declined. You see, he was not as inspired because instead of watching The Biggest Loser with us after watching the 120th annual Pasadena Rose Parade, he was in the backyard digging big holes and planting rose trees. I look forward to all the colors that will pop up next spring.

Over the weekend Mr. W and I discovered a new show called “What Would You Do?” or something like that, in which 3 “out of shape” people in each episode are faced with a simulated disaster and they have to go through a sort of obstacle course to survive the disaster, or save a loved one. Like, there’s been a major earthquake while you’re at a movie theatre and various things collapsed. They had to climb over some collapsed theatre chairs, pull 5 sandbags off a large wooden box blocking the pathway, then pull the box out of the way, get down and crawl underneath a low obstruction, then up some narrow fire stairs after pulling a beam out of their way. Or they’re driving along an unpopulated road when they blow a tire and skid into a pile of stuff on the side of the road. The driver has to run around to the passenger side, pull a 250-lb barrel out of the way, grab the passenger (a dummy) who simulates a loved one knocked unconscious and carry/drag it 100 feet away in case the car blew up, then jog the 1 mile up the dirt road to a gas station where they could call for help. (I, too, was thinking, “Why don’t they have a cell phone?!”) Of course everyone fails the challenge the first time around, either because they couldn’t complete it or they took longer than the time allotted which is calculated by how long it would take an average “fit” person to complete the scenario. Then the 3 people are monitored by a doctor provided by the show, given nutritional training and fitness training by three Marine Corp drill sergeants (the hot young one was also a kinesiologist) for one month, and then they get to repeat the challenge. Most of them pass this time, or get really close.
Mr. W and I were like, “MAN. I wanna do those challenges and see how well we do!!! Why don’t they have stuff like this for non-obese people?!”

Today, the postage stamp sized iPod Shuffle that Mr. W gave me our first Xmas together is finally charged after years of neglect, and I was inspired to push myself. Just a little, though, don’t want to burn out. I figured I’d see if I can run a mile on the treadmill and then do some light weights. Ideally I’d do more cardio than that, especially when I haven’t conditioned my cardiovascular system for so long, but I didn’t want to get discouraged right off the bat. I started a light and easy jog pace. To my surprise, a mile flew by and I was so spirited I felt like I could run forever. Each new song I hadn’t heard in so long pumped new adrenaline and excitement into my veins so that as my hands tingled with it, I wanted to sprint right off the treadmill and through the walls. Everything was motivating; the large women on the elliptical trainers in front of me struggling through their new year’s resolution, Kanye West talking in my ear telling me to “work it, make it, do it, makes us, harder, better, stronger, faster,” and that what “don’t kill me can only make me stronger,” and seeing in my mind that I was running toward my goal, the look I want in tangible forward-running steps so that if I just run those steps it will lead me to looking how I dream (forgetting for the moment that I’d need liposuction in certain areas to actually make that happen).
And then mile 2 hit and I was bored. I took a sip of water which threw off my breathing, and I had to struggle for concentration again. Step step inhale, step step exhale. Mr. W appeared in front of me another half mile later, pale and dewey. “I’m spent,” he complained. “How much more’ve you got?”
I glanced down at my digital stats. “I’m working toward a 5K,” I explained in a stronger voice than I thought I had the energy to produce. I saw his eyes flutter wider in surprise. “I didn’t mean to — I was just hoping to do a mile, but I felt good, so…”
“That’s good, I’m gonna go shower and if I’m done first I’ll wait for you,” he said eagerly, and limped off toward the men’s locker room.

Well, I finished that 5K (3.12 mile) run and walked another eighth of a mile for a cooldown, teetered off the treadmill, and wobbled my way into the locker room, where I ran into a really cute new district attorney a few years younger than me, a little shorter than me, who has the anomaly of sharing my last name. I thought I saw her on another treadmill farther down but wasn’t sure, and now that I see her in her tight jogging clothes I thought, “I have GOT to look like that.”

I’m on call for jury duty this week. I haven’t been called in yet, but we’ll see for tomorrow. Meanwhile, in honor of courts and holidays, here are some season’s greetings from the legal site mlaw.org:

“Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, our best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced with the most enjoyable traditions of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.”

“We also wish you a fiscially successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2009, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make our country great (not to imply that the United States is necessarily greater than any other country) and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.”

Mr. W’s niece and her mom (Gamer Bro’s daughter and wife) are visiting friends in San Diego, and will spend the weekend with us. Yay! Niece was recently married and even more recently preggers! I haven’t seen them since Thanksgiving when we went to Vegas and I’m sure she’ll be softly glowing. 🙂 Or maybe the hormones have made her glinty, we’ll see. She seems to be cheerful so far and has said that pregnancy has been easy on her.

You know what I wish I had? A really cool, artsy, maybe black and white photo of me in some eye-boggling but not gross contortionistic pose. And then I can make it my profile photo everywhere and frame it in a simple thick-edged black wooden frame. Yeah.

I stole this from Flat Coke & Flies’ blog, because I thought it’s a nice way to think back about the past year.

1) Where did you begin 2008? at Mr. W’s house; I was shocked he wanted to stay up and celebrate New Year’s Eve for once, and then he explained that it’s got new meaning because we were now engaged.
2) What was your status by Valentine’s Day? 7 months engaged.
3) How did you earn your money? playing Bejeweled, mostly.
4) Did you have to go to the hospital? just for check-ups.
5) Did you have any encounters with the police? *sideglance*
6) Where did you go on holiday/travel? NorCal for a friend’s wedding; Vegas for a few visits of Mr. W’s family and his niece’s wedding. I think that’s it. 2008 was about saving up for the wedding.
7) What did you purchase that was over $1000? we wrote lots of $1K+ checks for stuff, but the only PURCHASE was this house.
8) Did you know anybody who got married? me (which Flat Coke seems to have forgotten about), Mr. W, my college buddy Jimmy, another college friend “Little Dave”, Mr. W’s niece Jenni, my cousin Diana, an acquaintance (college roommie Diana’s close friend) Sabrina, my cousins’ cousin Wydd. I have 2, POSSIBLY 3 more in 2009 to attend, too. *shrug* We’re at that age.
9) Know anyone that passed away? no one I know personally.
10) Did you move anywhere? Yes. Mr. W and I moved into our new house in August.
11) What concerts/shows did you go to? we hit up some local shows in Vegas with Mr. W’s gamer bro.
12) Are you registered to vote? APPARENT-FRICKEN-LY NAWT. *fume*
13) Where do you live now? near the Lake in the OC.
14) Describe your birthday. pretty quiet and low-key. The day itself was spent running errands in preparation for the wedding. Mr. W took me and his kids out for a joint bday dinner (his son’s bday is 2 days before mine) at an upscale steakhouse the day before my actual bday.
15) What’s one thing you thought you wouldn’t do but did in 2008? almost die of exposure, exhaustion and dehydration with Jordan in the middle of a lake on a pedalboat.
16) What has been your favorite moments? hanging with the NorCal friends when I visited for Jimmy’s wedding, staying up late and chatting with college roommie Diana like we used to 10 years prior; having just about everyone I could possibly want in 1 place with me on August 31; spa day with a sinful lunch and dinner with the girls for my bridal shower organized by MOH Vicky and bridesmaid Diana; Dodo’s cone coming off after 6 years; the process of earning my bartending certification; dancing with my new husband at my cousin Diana’s wedding; realizing last week that EVERY NIGHT is date night living with Mr. W; goofing off with Jordan running amock in Long Beach; my first mani/pedi courtesy Jordanabanana; finding Mr. Englyng and hanging out with him, his wife and Dwaine in Mr. Englyng’s backyard all night; packing with Vicky’s help and finding a planner from high school that totally insulted her; I could go on…
17) What’s something you learned about yourself? I *really* don’t wanna open that can of worms on this post.
18) Any new additions to your family? oh my gosh. Mr. W, his parents, his 4 brothers (one of whom I’ve still not met) and their respective families, my cousin Diana’s new husband Doug, and I acquired my godson this summer.
19) What was your best month? prolly August, my skinniest month.
20) What music will you remember 2008 by? Edwin McCain’s “I’ll Be,” “Fascination,” “The Prince of Denmark’s March,” Kelly Clarkson’s “A Moment Like This,” Celine Dion’s “I’m Alive,” (specifically, Mr. W’s daughter’s versions of the last 2, which I enjoy more than the original singers’) Kardinal Offishaw/Akon’s “Dangerous” (because of Jordan’s slideshow of us playing)
21) Who has been your best drinking buddy? Gym Trainee, during our bartending “homework assignments.”
22) Made new friends? surprisingly, yeah. I’m also surprised how MUCH I like these girls.
23) Favorite night out? wow, um. there were so many. the nites alone with a days-old new husband drinking wine on the sand, staring out at the lake come to mind.

Right now, my college roommie Diana is vacationing in Australia, where it’s apparently daytime, cuz she sent me this not long ago from her cameraphone:

I am extremely jealous, as she appears to be doing what Dwaine and I have only dreamt of doing long before. I don’t know whether Mr. W was trying to make me feel better or just being a poo-poo head when I showed him the cameraphone picture and he said, “Pssh, she’s probably visiting a zoo.”

Meanwhile, in my life right now, I am hosting my first stepmother duty event: Mr. W’s daughter’s 18th birthday shindig at our house. We ordered food from the Newport Rib Company, got a giant chocolate coma-inducing cake from Costco, decorated the back yard into a winter wonderland, and let the teenagers entertain themselves. Right now, we handed out hot chocolate, lit a fire, got the music going on our outdoor speakers, and they’re cozy and content.

Here they are again from the opposite perspective.

The great thing about chilly weather is that outdoor fires become a very nice thing. This is the first time we’re lighting up our outdoor firepit, and earlier in the week, we lit our living room fireplace for the first time, too. Even Dodo has been permitted to cozy up to us on the bed. Not a flattering photo of me right before bed a few days ago, but it’s a great one of Dodo.

Tonight, I expect to go to bed to the same thing. A sleeping fuzzy boy in each corner of the bed, with a space in the middle just for me.

Did I tell you guys that when Jordan was laying out yesterday in 80-degree sun in Florida, Mr. W had to scrape ice off our windshield with a spatula so that we could see enough to get us through the drive to work in Sunny Southern California?

Mr. W’s kidlets left some time ago to attend Round 2 of Christmas with their mother’s side of the family. I guess it doesn’t hurt for them to get used to all the traveling for when they’re married and have the spouse’s family to add to the partyhopping. Having made myself a 4-shot Screaming Orgasm drink over ice (Bailey’s, Kahlua, vodka, Amaretto), I got sleepy and went to take a cat nap with Dodo in the bedroom. He’s so warm to snuggle my face into during the winter. I woke up and came downstairs to this:

There’s nothing like father-son bonding over fishing together…on the Wii.

As I type this they’re playing House of the Dead 3. Shooting zombies together just like in the good ol’ days right before Santa’s reindeer trot their way onto our roof as the aroma of gingerbread wafts through the air.
What’s Christmas without hearing in the background: “Reload. Re-re-reload.” “What’re you shootin’ at them heads for?” “Cuz that’s the weak point.” “They’re comin at us from all areas, too!” “Re-re-reload.” “Oh my God, the shotguns!” “He’s not feeling them, though.” “Ahh! He got me!”

Since Thanksgiving when we were in Vegas visiting Mr. W’s family, “the brothers” were working on a Christmas Scam to pull on their parents. It started with Gamer Bro asking Mr. W, “Hey, you wanna pitch in and get Mom and Dad a Wii for Christmas?” I wondered aloud if they’d ever play it. Gamer Bro said that his parents have said that they want one, and that a lot of “old folks homes” have them in their recreation room for fun and exercise. Gamer Bro got their Rocker Bro involved, and then said they were going to call their Chicago Bro to join in, too. After the four brothers all gave the thumbs-up, their parents decided to come to us for Christmas. Mr. W called Gamer Bro and asked if we should just buy the Wii here and give it to their parents, but Gamer Bro already bought it, so it’s in Vegas. How to get it to their parents for Christmas?

Gamer Bro boxed up the Wii and the extra accessories he got, wrapped it up, and put a tag on it that made it look like it was a gift to Mr. W from Gamer Bro. And then he got THE PARENTS to transport it themselves! The parents asked what the present was, and Gamer Bro lied, “I got him an XBox Live access card. It’s the size of a credit card but I put wood blocks and bricks in a box to throw him off.” So when the parents got here, they said to Mr. W, “This is for you from [Gamer Bro.] Isn’t it HEAVY?” Mr. W wondered aloud what it was. They kept making a point of, “It’s heavy! Be careful, it’s HEAVY.”

Just now on Christmas morning, Mr. W sat his parents down, put the box in front of them, and said he was gonna open his present. Mr. W’s father warned him again that it’s heavy. Suddenly, Mr. W ripped the tag off and explained that it’s ACTUALLY to THEM from their four sons and their families. I snapped photos of their shocked expressions as they learned they were duped, having lugged and driven their own present here from Vegas. They seemed happy with the Wii, and Mr. W’s mother warned her husband, “I’m gonna be hitting you playing this.” The father’s phone call to Gamer Bro after opening was a simple voice mail, “Hey, thanks for the Wii, you con.”