cindy's world

Tonite for dinner, Mr. W’s mother made meatloaf, I made (by special request) onion mushroom soup with seasoned cheddar French bread toast, Mr. W threw some veggies into the nukebox, I spun up some cocktails (Chambord Manhattans for Mr. W and his mother, Bloody Mary for Mr. W’s father), and we had a nice homemade dinner listening to Dean Martin and Brian McKnight crooning Christmas songs. Now, the fireplace is lit with some organic coffee log crackling, and we’re hanging out in the living room. Dodo’s curled up napping on our bed. Life’s pretty sweet. Here’s our front yard, in a crappy cameraphone pic:

Mr. W’s about to show his parents his fobby side by making loose-leaf tea the old-fashioned Chinese way with all his special tea utensils and precious tea service sets. “What the HECK is that?!” I just heard my father-in-law exclaim. Haha!

We weren’t gonna do Christmas this year, mostly cuz we’re just feeling lazy. Christmas seems to be more about the kids anyway, and since Mr. W’s kids aren’t with us and Dodo doesn’t seem to care one way or the other, we decided to skip it. But then there was always the “Well, this IS our first Christmas as a married couple, we ought start SOME tradition” guilt hanging over us.

And then, Mr. W’s parents decided to drive aaaaall the way out from Vegas (where it SNOWED last week! we saw photos!) and then the decision was made to have Christmas at our house. Up went the Christmas lights and lawn decorations and pine mantlepiece and garlands wrapped around the stairway railings.

My mom sorely disappointed me this year. They were invited but she immediately had a ton of excuses why she (meaning her, my dad, and her mother) can’t make it. It was so ungraceful and left me in the awkward position of having to explain to my new in-laws why my parents and grandmother won’t be joining us, while I could not think of any reason that wouldn’t make them look bad. So the in-laws arrived yesterday, did indeed ask about my parents, and I chose the least offensive reason my mother gave me.
In-laws: When’re your parents coming?
Me: Oh…they’re not coming.
In-laws: They’re not? [Mr. W] told us they were invited.
Me: They were…but they think we live in Egypt.

The in-laws chuckled and nicely left it alone. If it were MY mom in their place, she would’ve said, “We drove all the way from VEGAS and she thinks driving from your home town is too far for one day, even though you guys drive out there EVERY WEEKEND to see them?!” But luckily we only have one of those kind of moms in this marriage. =P

Okay, enough talking crap about my bloodline. We’re gonna have a nice few days together, just me in a house of white people. Including Mr. W’s daughter’s 18th birthday party on Sunday at our house, just her and her closest 7 friends for a winter-themed semi-formal dinner, games, and firepit fun. We’re having it catered by the Newport Rib Company and I know there’ll be good music because she sat with me for a couple of hours last nite picking out 90s R&B, which I grew up with. I’ve always thought it was the best decade of music, but wasn’t sure if I was falling into the ol’ stereotypical, “All this crap you kids listen to these days is just noise! Now music in MY day…”

The mountains around us are white with snow;
Surrounded by furry bodies and flannel sheets,
the tapping of rain lulls me to sleep.

Two nights ago, I spent a couple of hours watching the season finale of The Biggest Loser. I hadn’t seen any of the other episodes this season, but that show always inspires me to work out. To watch these people push themselves at the gym with fitness trainers yelling at them to suck it up and give them 5 more, and the triumphant weigh-ins as their lifestyle changes begin to remold these morbidly obese bodies…makes me feel guilty that I’m sitting on my butt popping Junior Mints after not seeing the inside of a gym for weeks. That night I dreamt I jogged to work, jogged at lunch, and was surprisingly not winded.

Last night, I spent the evening watching the Victoria’s Secret 2008 Fashion Show. I LOVE the below segment, the Ballet de Fleurs, which has great music and my favorite wings of this year’s show: a gorgeous pair of butterfly wings with an assortment of floating life-size butterflies around the model’s big wings (1min30secs into this video). I also love that these models were allowed to show off their angelic smiles, and not just strut around smoldering. And they DO strut…I couldn’t strut so hard my hair’s bouncing like theirs without everything else on me jiggling, too. Blech. Mr. W was shockingly disinterested in watching supermodels strut for an hour in lingerie. He said he doesn’t understand fashion shows because who in their right minds would wear crazy concoctions like giant feathered gold wings on the street? I had to explain that they are exhibiting their 2008 lingerie collection and the decor is just eye candy interest, like when you order a simple vegetable at a French restaurant and it comes out on a plate decked out in swirls and whorls of sauce and shaved truffle and decorative hand-carved carrots in the shape of a rose. You’re still just eating that vegetable in the plate, but the presentation adds a lot. I’m sure model after model in just lingerie would start to look the same after awhile, too. Nevertheless, Mr. W’s attention was unbroken from his computer while I called out name after name of stars the camera panned to in the audience of the fashion show. You’d think he was watching porn or something. What could be more interesting than half-nekkid strutting? Here, see for yourself.

So anyway, I was again inspired to hit the gym. I should watch this video daily for motivation. So I can hit the New Year on a running start, instead of just starting out New Year’s Day on a diet resolution like everyone else. It takes awhile to get going so I’m gonna start early, hit the ground running.

It is POURING right now. The streets are flooded, up to 4-5 inches deep along the edges of the roads. The gutters and storm drain systems are unable to handle this amount of water. On the way to work splish splashing other cars next to us, Mr. W griped about how California (unlike his hometown of Chicago) has no clue how to equip itself for any type of weather except sunny days. I shrugged. Why spend billions establishing a system for something that only happens 15 days of the year? Hopping over the flowing wide rivers trying to get to the building from the parking structure, it did feel a lot like UCLA finals weeks (when it seems to ALWAYS be pouring).

Here are some memories of sunnier days, taken from a walk Mr. W and I took around our neighborhood just last month.
The afternoon before our walk:

The Lake:

Mr. W, taking a break on the path:

While Jordan and I were pedaling our heinies off on the 2-person pedalboat the day before the wedding, we came across one lakeside mansion that Jordan claimed to be hers. She took a bunch of photos of it, and then suggested we get close enough so that she could climb onto the property. “Drop me off! I can be in there a WEEK before they even realize I’m there!” she said. This is the front entrance of that property. The backside is the Lake.

(as always, rest mouse pointer over photos for captions)

This was something new this year. The judges in the building each donated big bucks to make an off-location Christmas party happen. Our administrators and some volunteer coworkers rented out a rec hall on Friday from 11:30a to 2p and we had an impressive catered lunch (turkey, ham, all the trimmings, cakes) along with tons of raffles. SANTA walked in to hand out the prizes.

It was a pretty convincing acting job, and if I hadn’t been told shortly before his appearance that Santa is one of our judges, I would’ve been tempted to sit on his lap and tell him I’ve been a good little girl this year. Of course, knowing who it is and THEN doing that would be sexual harassment.
It soon became a pattern that each winner of a prize would go up, collect his/her prize, and then stay to take a photo with Santa, and then it’d be on to the next prize. It soon became apparent that all the pretty girls were being directed by Santa to sit on his lap as the photo pose. That was when I shrunk down and prayed, “Don’t pick me. Don’t pick me.” I got my wish, by the way. A lot of my female coworkers who were dragged by their hands onto Santa’s knee looked embarrassed. And then there were the judges, like the presiding judge and MY judge, who pranced up when called and threw themselves on their colleague’s lap for the photo op. My big boss even raised both his legs up and sat across Santa’s lap as if Santa were about to carry him over the threshold. Everyone shrieked with laughter and camera flashes went off.
As much as I enjoyed being a spectator, I was happy to have averted disaster this year. I was in a fluffy gauzy and, in some coworkers’ opinions, very short skirt.

Mr. W has gotten so many compliments on his new hat that he wants to go back and buy a few more (different colors).

I wish I had photos of me and Jordan playing in the hat shop.

My mom’s xmas wish list (stuff she wants from me) this year includes a new TV, boots, string of pearls (necklace), diamond earrings, and a puppy, but my dad won’t let me get her the last item.

Wrapping presents with a cat around is always a great challenge, as Mr. W found out this year for the first time.

How in the world did we get invited to so many Christmas parties?

The first off-site work xmas party is tomorrow, and altho I half-agreed to step it up a notch and make myself halfway attractive, I’m really too lazy and don’t feel like it.

I’ve been so tired lately, skipping the gym and taking naps at my desk at lunchtime instead.

It was funny today when my judge and court reporter were discussing their reviews of nonfiction books about the Black Panther movement, first-hand accounts of Al-Qaeda from the inside, secret government surveillance of our military, etc., and during a pause in their conversation I offered, “I’m reading an adolescent novel about a teenager’s romance with a vampire,” and my judge had looked at me in horror and exclaimed venomously, “You’re not reading that Twilight crap, are you?! …no thanks, reading about government conspiracies is scary enough.”

That was a very long 1-line sentence.

We worked a bit into lunch today, taking a verdict, so Gym Trainee and I decided to just take a walk instead of going to the gym for what little time there was left of lunch. We were circling the neighborhood and looking around at the wadded-up fast food bags thrown on the sidewalks and at the shady-looking people coming out of pawn shops when I thought, “This is a really bad area.” That was when we approached an intersection where the cars next to us were stopped at a red light. A Hispanic guy was crossing the street toward us, walking in front of the stopped cars. When he stepped onto our sidewalk, he started saying something to three black guys in a car, also stopped at the light, closest to us at the corner. I was wondering if they knew each other, when we got close enough for me to realize he was challenging the three guys to come out in a hostile voice. “C’mon, bring it,” he was saying, along with other slangy stuff I wasn’t picking up on, sprinkling some colorful adjectives in there as well. I couldn’t tell if the three guys in the car were saying anything, but I certainly didn’t hear them. The Hispanic guy reached into his jeans pocket at this point and I briefly wondered if he had a gun. He pulled out something small and colorful, and waved it at the car. A utility pocket knife, it looked like. And then he walked farther down the sidewalk so that he was behind us, still challenging the carload of people. I got PISSED. Get the f out of my WAY when I’m trying to cross the sidewalk, and stop dancing around behind us! Go stab the car or something, their passenger window’s open! The car took off when the light turned green and the Hispanic guy said cockily, “YEAH, thass wot I THOUGHT! Chickenshits.” WEREN’T YOU just bouncing around behind TWO WOMEN, trying to put us in the middle of your idiocy? I almost wish the carload of guys had gotten out and beat the crap out of him. How stupid does a guy have to be to start crap with a car of 3 people to his 1, and all he had on him was a dinky little keychain pocketknife? What if they pulled out a gun? What’s he gonna do, stab his way through a metal car as they ran him over? Idiot. Gym Trainee’s take on the situation was that as the guy was crossing the street, the car may have pulled up a little after he stepped on the sidewalk, so the guy took offense, like the driver was trying to hurry him up or play like he was gonna run him over. She also thought the guy overreacted because he was “trying to look hard” in front of women. Ooh. Score. *eyeroll*

Mr. W and I watched “Four Christmases” on Friday with two coworkers. I still think Reese Witherspoon is adorable. Parts of the movie made all of us laugh aloud. Like when an old family photo portrayed a young version of her character in couple-like poses with a very butch looking female, and Reese’s character denied naively that her buddy was gay, saying that they used to play-pretend they were laying out on the beach sunbathing, and they’d lay in the basement naked, and her friend would be very protective and didn’t want her to burn in the pretend-sunlight, so she’d rub sunblock lotion onto Reese’s skin everywhere — and then realize halfway into her sentence what she was saying. There was one part of the movie that was exceeding disturbing to me, though. The boyfriend’s sister-in-law, towing a toddler with her, was telling Reese’s character that breastfeeding doesn’t hurt her at all anymore. It did at first, she explained, but then the nipples toughen up like leather and she can’t feel them at all anymore; “here, look, flick one,” she invited, offering her left boob to an alarmed Reese.
I turned to Mr. W with my eyes wide. “Is that true?” I gasped.
He wouldn’t answer me!!! Waaaah! I’m loathe to lose two of my erogenous zones.

Today was spent reading the fourth book of the Twilight series, Christmas shopping, wandering around the Irvine Spectrum outdoor shopping, exploring a new crepe restaurant and then a new coffee shop that claimed to have live music (turned out it was more like some teenage kids goofing off doing more party karaoke than actually performing for strangers; we left before we were even halfway done with our specialty coffees), then finished off the night at the Lake. And I went back to reading.
I guess it’s somewhat noteworthy that I did do a tiny bit of hat shopping. Enough to know that I can not pull off the cabbie cap. The hard brim and low bulky top turned the girl in the mirror (me) into a Communist. I quickly took it off. Ironically, Mr. W found a short-brimmed Fedora that he really liked. The tag said it was on sale for $9 and it looked good on him. After he came back from the register, he explained his wide grin by telling me that it rang up as an even deeper sale item, $4. I ducked his efforts to find me a hat as well, dodging the bulbous colorful yarn caps and the hunter-in-the-blizzard style lambwool-lined plaid hats with ear flaps.

Welp, back to the book. Stephenie Meyer is getting really good at her characters’ dialogues in this last book of the series. I actually chuckled aloud quite a few times.

On the way home from work, we pass a huge warehouse-sized Halloween Store. It’s still open every day despite the fact that costume purchases can’t be a regular thing on people’s shopping lists anymore. My head turns, my eyes glued to the store window displays of colorful, skin-tight, skanky costumes every evening as Mr. W drives obliviously by on the freeway.

Recently my desire to add a little something different to my wardrobe returned. I’d thought about this last year, and blogged a little something trying to explain how I feel. I think I go through this annually for some reason. On the way to Vegas, I mused about this aloud. “I think I should get a hat,” I said.
“You don’t wear hats,” Mr. W noted.
“Yeah, but a hat can change my look dramatically. Like…ooh! A cowboy hat! I should get a cowboy hat. But I probably won’t have much of a chance to wear it.”
“You can get one of those puffy hats, like — what do you call those? They’ve got a short brim and they’re puffy on top?”
“A chef’s hat? I KNOW I won’t get much of a chance to wear THAT.”
“Nooo, like a Strawberry Shortcake hat.”
“That’s a giant chef’s hat.”
“Not that big of a puff. It’s kinda flat on top, slants down…it’s made of that nice fabric…”
“I am not gonna wear a cabbie hat,” I said. “I won’t get much use out of that. I want something cool, something bad, like, OOH, a pirate hat!”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll be getting a lot of use out of THAT.”
“With a big feather sticking out the back!!” I got really excited.

I didn’t end up getting any hat, and the pirate phase has passed. Maybe a triangular furry red hat with a white furry brim and a white puff ball at the peak will be the practical hat purchase for me. Something I can get a lot of use out of for the next month.