cindy's world

Here’s a meme I filled out earlier at work for anyone who’s bored, or looking for a blog post topic. If you fit in either of these categories, I tag you!
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44 ODD Things about you!

Okay – Copy the body of this meme, paste it into a new post, FILL IT OUT with your own answers and pass it on! Learn 44 things about your friends, and let them learn 44 things about you!

1. Do you like blue cheese salad dressing? I love chunky bleu cheese. With tabasco stirred in. and fries dipped in.
2. Do you own a gun? not me, personally.
3. What’s your favorite drink at Starbucks or other specialty coffee shop? UCLA – iced cappuccino royale. Starbucks – caffe mocha with soy or hot chai. that specialty peppermint one they have during the holidays.
4. Do you get nervous before doctor appointments? not unless it’s surgical or invasive.
5. What do you think of hot dogs? Eh. Kinda phallic.
6. Favorite Christmas song? Sleigh Ride, instrumental version w/all the bells and whistles, like Leroy Anderson’s. But that’s only if Wham!’s “Last Christmas” doesn’t count cuz they’re looking for a “traditional” song.
7. What do you prefer to drink in the morning? nothing.
8. Can you do push ups? yeah.
9. What’s your favorite piece of jewelry? I don’t really wear jewelry. Favorites change seasonally. Currently, my wedding band.
10. Favorite hobby? blogging, I guess. Especially reading everyone’s comments! *nudge*
11. Do you have A.D.D.? No, so if I tune you out, it’s intentional.
12. What’s one trait that you hate about yourself? I’m not gonna even think about this question.
13. Middle name? my phonetically-translated (poorly) Chinese name.
14. Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment.
1. “Arrrgh.”
2. “I’m glad my staff is open-minded to try fresh longyans.” (dragoneye fruit)
3. “It’s freakin freezing in here.”
15. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink? water, iced tea, the occasional protein shake
16. Current worry right now? Am I gaining weight?
17. Current hate right now? annoying people. and when people don’t know when to shut up and/or defend me and/or leave me alone.
18. Favorite place to be? under the covers with Dodo. Not that we’ve ever done that. But I used to lay under the covers with my arm sticking out, and Dodo would curl up on top of the bed in between my arm and my side.
19. How did you bring in the New Year? Dude, it’s SEPTEMBER. I guess I’ll have to check my blog diaries.
20. Do you like to travel? In small doses.
21. Name three people who will complete this? a bored person; a person looking for a blog topic; a person who loves me.
22. Do you own slippers? lots.
23. What color shirt are you wearing? white knit top.
24. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets? that stuff scars too easily and slides off all the time. annoying.
25. Can you whistle? yeah, but just the one note.
26. Favorite color(s)? yellow.
27. Would you be a pirate? sure, I’ll be Corolla Slayer.
28. What songs do you sing in the shower? whatever’s in my head. Most recently it was Michael Buble’s “Home.”
29. Favorite girl’s name? Hildegarde.
30. Favorite boy’s name? Billdegarde.
31. What’s in your pocket right now? no pockets.
32. Last thing that made you laugh? Last nite, one of the comments on Flat Coke’s MySpace photos.
33. Best bed sheets as a child? smurfette sleeping bag that I was allowed to use in bed during cold winter months.
34. Worst injury you’ve ever had? I don’t want to think too hard about this one. I’m just gonna say the broken heart.
35. Do you love where you live? sure.
36. How many TVs do you have in your house? 2 big screens. And one little hand-held packed away somewhere.
37. Who is your loudest friend? My husband. Yesterday while he was roaring I even said, “Ow, ow!!”
38. How many pets do you have? One, but he’s really a roommate and therapist. In a batman mask.
39. Does someone have a crush on you? That is not confirmed.
40. What is your favorite book? There are lots. Cecilia Ahern’s “P.S. I Love You” isn’t bad.
41. What is your favorite candy? San Francisco Brickle, See’s. Or a Lindor’s mint truffle.
42. Favorite Sports Team? Uh, Bruins, hello.
43. What were you doing 12 AM last night? trying to convince myself to ooze from the downstairs couch into the bedroom upstairs to brush my teeth and go to bed.
44. What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up? “My arms are asleep.”

We had Mr. W’s male best friend/ex-bro-in-law, his adult son and the bro-in-law’s wife over Saturday night to see our house for the first time. Daughter came by, too, with her friend in tow. We all went down to the Lake for a jazz festival and a Taste of the Lake outing. Lots of local restaurant vendors had their best appetizers, meals and pastries available for tickets, which you buy at the front entrance. It was a lot of fun sitting on a blanket, hanging out with everyone, listening to various live jazz bands play. We also got to see the Lakeside clubhouse for the first time, as they had an art exhibit going in there. Daughter got some information about hosting her 18th birthday party there. All I can say is, if we’d had our wedding there, we could’ve cut costs in almost half.

Sunday being moon festival, my parents brought my maternal grandmother over and pretty much made it a potluck. My grandma made a pork hock dish and bought some other little dishes of chicken wings and sea kelp; my parents marinated and skilleted Korean sliced ribs; and Mr. W made a salad and a fruit salad. My contribution was just my appetite. Yeah, I’m pretty useless around here. But I supplied the parents who supplied most of the food, so that should count for something. After eating in the back yard, we all took a drive down to the Lake and ate moon cakes watching the full moon reflect off the water surface. Aside from the family letting their young boys kick red-hot coals around and into the lake (which was very annoying, I wanted to call the lifeguards on them), it was a nice evening. If you ignore the insulting presumptions my grandmother would constantly banter about me.

Moon Festival is this Sunday. My mom emailed me to make sure Mr. W and I would be going to visit them. I reassured her that I would, and got this email in response:

“Remember the Moon Festival night last year? me and your dad at Diamond bar senior club park enjoy the moon light and You were on vacation in somewhere, talked about the ring over the phone with me and end up I paid for it. it’s been a year already, don’t forget to wear that ring Sunday. I think after dinner, maybe we can bring moon -cakes and tea there to enjoy the moon light for a while.”

The “on vacation somewhere” was on the Big Island of Hawaii for Mike (Wilco) and Christi’s (Flip Flop Girl’s) wedding. That ring was my birthstone, an incredible quality of natural color-change Alexandrite set between diamonds on a white gold band. I just got the ring re-rhodiumed recently and picked it up with Jordan when she was here for OUR wedding. How funny the things that link together.

I found out through the grapevine the other day that a bunch of my coworkers are waiting for me to get fat. That’s right. Gym Trainee said these people don’t realize that I didn’t make physical fitness a priority just to bag a man, I did it for longevity. (I mostly did it for vanity, but I didn’t correct her.) While it is true that personal health is more important to me than attractiveness, my health is usually not in jeopardy so I have the luxury of not having to think about it much. Hence, the goal had always been to look cute in a particular outfit or dress or…bikini. =P The way I see it, the awesome blood pressure, low bpm, ability to do stuff without being winded, all the other health benefits are just side effects of working out and looking good. Who could fault that? Altho…if I’m gonna get sucked into or apart at a black hole in the very near future, maybe it wouldn’t matter cuz I couldn’t even leave behind a hot corpse.

Anyway, I asked whether people are expecting Mr. W to get fat, too. And I was surprised to learn that indeed, some people ARE happily awaiting him to meet that fate. Why? Cuz apparently that’s just what married people DO. They get fat together. “What makes them think we’re just all of a sudden gonna get fat when we’ve worked out together before we were engaged, during the engagement, and even now?” Mr. W asked absurdly. On some level I think the people who are expecting and hoping for this need to. Cuz it makes them feel guilty every lunchtime Gym Trainee and I pass by them on our way to the gym and they’re on their way to Jack in the Crack or MickeyD’s. Cuz watching me maintain my figure and watching Gym Trainee lose fat, tone up, and get hugely improved blood test results at the doctor’s make them feel like they need to get off THEIR lazy butts, too. But they don’t want to, so if they see us fail, they can say, “See, they worked out that hard for that long, and see where it got them? Nowhere. I’m glad I stayed put and just enjoyed my food.”

Based on what Mr. W has told me about this experiment, it scares the crap out of me. Apparently some scientist is about to start blasting particles at some nucleus at light speed using a new machine called the Large Hadron Collider, hoping to spin the nucleus and then explode it to see what’s inside a molecular nucleus. The experiment’s hope is to discover and recreate the start of life, i.e. to prove the Big Bang Theory. This experiment is scheduled to start on Wednesday. Meanwhile, three other scientists say that this experiment could produce a black hole that would suck matter into it insatiably until the Earth itself is completely sucked in and/or destroyed, and that once begun, there’s nothing we could do at this point to stop it. These three scientists use their warnings to sue the first scientist, and all three have emergency petitions to the Courts for a preliminary injunction (a preliminary court order to stop the experiment from happening while the case is being decided in Court).

I’m really not cool with the thought of the world ending, or of my dying, in the next couple of days. I imagined being with my family, clinging to each other and crying. Or frantically trying to call loved ones on the phone and not being able to get through as everyone is calling everyone else, too, getting the “all circuits are busy” recorded message. Or cringing with my eyes squeezed shut on our bed, Mr. W holding me, as the edges of my reality start dissipating alarmingly, my whimpering about to be cut short by the molecular breakdown of my vocal chords. Or, as this last scenario is happening, Mr. W holding a gun to my head, asking me if I’m sure I want to be euthanized in this most violent but quickest of ways instead of finding out what happens on the other side of a black hole. Or of my floating gravity-lessly in black space, unable to breathe, panicking internally as the vacuum I’m floating in explode the blood out from the thin membranes of my eyes.

Then the rushing thoughts and stages: Who the hell gets to say how the world ends? Who the hell gets to trade in the lives of billions, of this entire planet, to satisfy his curiosity? Why don’t the billions of us get a say? Am I so helpless? Should I prepare for death? At least I got to experience love, marriage, and I’m glad I didn’t bring a child into this world to be taken out this way. And what about all the people with plans for the weekend? For Thursday? For their next birthdays? For their children? I remember that in AP English IV my senior year, we studied a poem that I only remember the ending of (cuz I was a bad student and didn’t pay attention), which is
“…this is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends,
Not with a bang, but a whimper.”

And then I read this just now. And feel a little bit better. Just a little bit.
One dark comedienne’s take.
THIS still scares me, reading between the humor.

I was planning to go to bed early tonight but now I’m thinking I’ll go spend some time gazing up at the hubby with big watery eyes instead. While hugging my struggling cat.

I was never one for the super-fancy cell phones. To me, functions like MP3 playin’, movie-watchin’, video-takin’ just drain cell phone batteries too fast. I wanted a reliable cell phone that’s easy to use with basic functions quickly accessible, and Nokias have always done that for me. It’s got a pretty decent little camera, too.

However, since I lost internet access at work, I’ve felt totally crippled. I can’t get information about things, spellings of streets or specialized terminology, or get store hours and addresses. I also can’t check my account balances or pay bills online. It’s just totally sucked. So I decided to get an internet-capable cell phone, since my current cell phone needs to be replaced anyhow. It keeps dropping calls and telling me I need to insert a SIM card. The problem is that AT&T, which I have now, doesn’t have reception in my courtroom. I wasn’t sure if this meant that even the powerful iPhone would not work in there. My courtroom assistant’s Verizon phone works in the courtroom, but she didn’t have internet so I don’t want to switch companies and then realize that after buying a SmartPhone, I have to leave internet at the door.

So today, I called around and found a coworker with an iPhone. Indulging my reception experiment, she walked into my courtroom watching the reception bars on her iPhone. Immediately, the bars dropped. By the time she’d reached my desk, it said “no signal.” I still had high hopes for Verizon. I found another coworker with a Verizon internet-capable SmartPhone, an LG, and things seemed great when she came in. She even pulled up a website standing by my desk. However, the website froze, and everything we tried afterwards just brought up a “server inaccessible” error message. DAMN IT.

I guess I can save the moolah on an internet-capable cell phone and just get another Nokia freebie with AT&T. The monthly service plans would be cheaper, too. Maybe this time I’ll even relax the purse strings enough to get a plan that includes text messaging.

On Sunday while visiting my parents, Mr. W and I were shooed by a phone call over to my aunt’s house, where apparently a bunch of my relatives had gathered to share photos from our wedding. My mom said the wedding was all the talk at her office all last week (as she’d invited a handful of her closest coworkers and their spouses), and that it had inspired the friends to plan more regular get-togethers. And it’d apparently been the talk in the family circle, too. I feel so special! Anyway, thanks to the marvels of modern digital photography and data storage, I got some CD roms from my aunt and cousins, and when I go to work today, was delighted to find another CD rom of photos from my coworker. Thought I’d share how the wedding looked from the guests’ perspectives. (As with all my photos, rest mouse pointers over photos for captions.)

PEOPLE
My adorable cousin Jennifer and her wonderful new fiancee, Bradlee, helping me at the guest table:

My mom and dad:

Some family members:

Jordanabanana and James:

I know who took the now-famous photo of Thee Fantastic Four!

My gym trainee with her son:

See the handsome man in sunglasses in front of them? Apparently his mysterious presence created quite a stir among some single women. He reappears in many photos taken by my coworkers.

He sat alone through the ceremony. Did we have secret agents protecting us?

Did the CIA want to keep an eye on us?

Who IS Mr. W really, and why is the CIA here at our wedding? The world may never know… 😉 But I will tell you that the handsome man is as pretty without sunglasses as with, and if the seating were divided into groom’s side and bride’s side (which it wasn’t), he’d be on bride’s side. The plot thickens…

THE VENUE
before guests:

with guests:

THE KEY PLAYERS
My beautiful new stepdaughter sang Kelly Clarkson’s “A Moment Like This” to open the ceremony:

I think you can see us smiling from BEHIND:

I don’t know what I was doing in this photo. I know I hugged my dad before he walked off at some point.

Handing my bouquet to MOH Vicky. I could be wrong, but it looks like Sandy’s holding back tears.

Making eye contact with my guests:

Judge made a funny:

My judge told me at work today that during the ceremony, he’d looked up from his reading material at Mr. W a few times, and that Mr. W had an expression on his face that looked like he’d hitched his carriage onto a star and was just delighted at his good luck. Isn’t that the sweetest…?

Daughter sang our closing procession recessional, too.

The new Mr. And Mrs.:

Walking down to the koi to do our crowd presentation:

The koi are making puckering faces at us. They’re trying to tell us something, I think.

Ya gotta do what the koi say. When in Rome…

THE RECEPTION/CAKE CUTTING

Yup, dress #2:

I’ll have to say that Mr. W did good at the cake cutting.

By that I mean that he did not smash any cake in my face.

Apparently my earlier threats for instantaneous annulment worked.

Oh yeah. My #2 dress has a keyhole opening back; no, I didn’t forget to zip it up.

BOOGIE NIGHTS
Bride & Groom’s 1st dance, with dress #3:

We waltzed to Edwin McCain’s “I’ll Be.” My 2nd choice would’ve been foxtrotting to The Temptations’ “My Girl.”

A shot of our awesome DJ whom I’d recommend to anyone.

Okay, those of you who know me KNOW that the real reason the above photo is in there is cuz I get a kick out of Mr. W looking like Godzilla about to shoot laser beams out of his eyes to attack Tokyo. And I’m not just knockin’ his size.

One of my favorite guest photos — entering the dance floor with my dad for the father-daughter dance:

Mom and Dad gettin’ DOWN:

My mom’s happy that my dad’s actually dancing with her. As opposed to not dancing at all, I mean.

My normally ultra-conservative uncle, gettin’ DOWN:

My aunt and uncle, gettin’ DOWN:

My relatives, gettin’ DOWN!:

Still taking it all in:

This isn’t captured in the photos taken by my family, but JORDAN danced, too. On a high bench platform. With TWO MEN. At the SAME TIME. I can’t wait for my professional photographers’ photos.

The problem with getting on social networking sites, is the ease with which you naturally try to reach out and touch someone. Sometimes you touch something warm and it’s fun. Other times you touch something cold, it brings you into a dark place you’d left behind, and now you’re in a crappy mood remembering why that door was closed to begin with. Then it’s a struggle to remember where you really are in life and recover again. And by then it’s been a few hours and you have to go crawling back to your newlywed hubbie and beg for forgiveness for neglecting him just to go around opening and slamming old crusty doors.

We’ve been getting a lot of house things done, much of it financed thanks to all the Target, Home Depot, Nordstrom, Macy’s, etc. giftcards from wedding guests. =) I’ve also spent a lot of time doing one of my favorite pastimes, sitting online chatting with friends. Mr. W even walked in last nite and threatened to clock the exact time I’m spending on the computer so that he could give himself the same time for computer gaming. =P So I quickly ended my IM conversations and left the room, sheepishly realizing I’m kind of a crappy wife between all the online stuff and phone chats with my friends. My mom’s been calling me like 3-4 times a day, too. She’s putting together a small Chinese banquet for those friends/family who were unable to attend our wedding, since I had departed from tradition by not having a Chinese seafood banquet at the actual wedding. We keep getting really positive feedback from wedding guests on the food, though. The coconut-crusted mahi-mahi was an especially big hit.

Speaking of being on the internet and the cell phone, I’m now considering getting an internet-accessible cell phone. My current Nokia is having issues, dropping carrier constantly and telling me that I need to insert my SmartChip. I think it’s just past its prime. Mr. W’s cell phone has been temperamental also, so we’re gonna go to the cell phone store in a little bit to shop around.

Yesterday evening, Mr. W inflated all the bike tires and we biked the mile down to the Lake and hung out at the beach watching the sun set and the stars appear. Bunnies appeared in the grassy areas, too. We were surprised to see a bunch of people still playing sand volleyball, but the courts were pretty well-lit. We decided to bring some wine or mojitos down tonight with a blanket. The weather was very comfortable, the Lake is private, so it still feels like a vacation without the cost. I am really digging our new life together.

My wedding photographer Josh and I are really good friends. We met in jujitsu almost 4 years ago, and have fought each other on the mat, wrestled, seen each other half-naked. He was at my 30th birthday shindig at Disneyland. I’ve been over to his house. Mr. W suggested today that something Josh had said to me was just to be polite, and I told him that Josh has no qualms about being absolutely blunt with me, such as telling me that I’m kinda bitchy that day. “I guess after he’s slammed you so many times on the mat there’s no need for politeness,” Mr. W laughed. There indeed is not. That’s how Josh and I could have the IM conversation we had below, which began innocently with Josh asking me what Mr. W and I were gonna do the next day.
me: there are things we need to do, like take my cat to the vet
get oil changes on both our cars
you know, usual honeymoon stuff.
I also should clean up the post-wedding mess and clean up my bills.
Josh: oh i thought banging the brains out of each other was honeymoon stuff
me: eh, I don’t really care about that anymore.
i’m too old for that teenage stuff anyhow.
Josh: ok
me: i’m gonna go buy a 10-pack of granny underwear tomorrow.
from costco.
no, Ralphs.
Josh: haha
lol
funny
me: and I’m gonna have headaches every night.
Josh: right
thats not cool
me: but it won’t be MY fault, it’ll be caused by the rollers I’ll wear in my hair, after I chop it off to look like a lesbian haircut.
Josh: mmm i don’t think you could do that
me: and then I’ll gain 50 pounds, which will likely be caused by all the baking I’ll do, which baking will cause me to always have a big rolling pin in my hand.
Josh: sure you keep thinking that
me: and since I’ll be spending all my time at home baking and with rollers on my head, I wno’t have time to work so I’ll quit my job and walk around in a bathrobe all day. with curlers in my hair, holding a rolling pin.
Josh: how about a moomoo
me: yeah, a big yellow one.
Josh: haha
me: instead of talking, i’ll yell everything.
just cuz I think it’s important enough for the whole neighborhood to hear.
Josh: you could move into a trailer park as well
me: i guess we’d have to cuz we’d be down to 1 income.
we won’t be able to afford bottled water, so I’ll drink beer all day.
Josh: right
yeah the cheap stuff like coors
me: what about O’Douls?
maybe I can drink Taiwan beer.
Josh: yeah sounds good
we’ll join you next door
us and our 25 kids
i’ll lose a few teeth too
me: sure, they can play with my 25 cats.
Josh: sounds good
[10-minute pause]
me: can I blog this conversation?
Josh: yeah sure
me: yay, thanks!
Josh: 🙂