cindy's world

Mr. W and I spent our evening at home assembling our patio furniture, until it got too dark to see. And then we took out his camping lanterns and finished assembling by flourescent lantern-light. We’re excited to see the finished products in the light of day. We expect to do quite a bit of entertaining in our pretty back yard, hence the outdoor dining table that seats 6, and the separate firepit conversation set that seats 4. Ideally, I’d also like a bar out there. But for now I can mix in the kitchen and pass it out through a window or the back sliding door.

Of course you can’t just get guests into the back yard without letting them walk through the house, so we put up as much wall stuff as we could. My giant oil paintings found homes in the living space walls and over the fireplace, his giant maps of Hawaii are the focus of the entire foyer along with his decorative antique-looking suitcases, globes and stone vases, and his framed medieval prints of knights and princesses and gilded gold framed mirror found their niches in the master bedroom. We were too tired to clean up the floors and vacuum, but the place is shaping up to look like a home now. The first guest to see this will be MOH Vicky, who’s gonna pick me up in the morning.

Speaking of morning, it’ll start with an 8:30a appointment at the city’s private Lake so we can take photos for our Lake privilege ID cards. After we get that in order, our visitors can accompany us to the Lake for summer concerts, annual events like July 4 fireworks, sand volleyball, picnics at the clubhouse, boating, swimming, fishing, bbqing.

After our membership appointment, Vicky will come to our new house for the first time, and we’re going to a bridal shower that she, with some assistance from bridesmaid Diana, put together for me at the fabulous Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel. About 10 of my favorite girls are meeting up with us there for a spa day, lunch at trendy 230 Forest Avenue Restaurant and Bar, dinner at the very classy Restaurant 162′ (dinner is Vicky’s treat and gift to all attendees), or any combination thereof. Anny, having recently received her new digital camera, volunteered to be my paparazzi, so we can thank her for documenting photos later. I think there’ll be a walk down to the beach somewhere in there, so I’ll be sure to bring a bikini. =D Screw the fact that I’m getting bloated. This is my bridal shower, goshdarnit. This is also the first time that all three of my bridesmaids will be together at the same place at the same time. Diana has to do a one-day turnaround flight from San Jose, I’m very touched she’d do this for me, and expect nothing less for her and us than a truly classy, fabu-loso time.

And I have no idea what to wear.

But I DO know what I’m gonna wear for our upcoming Halloween party that Mr. W has agreed to let me throw when I uncovered all my Halloween season props and decor while moving.

Life is gonna be amazing.

The house is getting close. There are still some boxes left in the garage, but my car is now in there, too. I think the new plan is to not unpack those boxes, since the house is pretty full as is. We’ll make do with what we have on hand, and when we have time in the future, we’ll sort through the remaining boxes and see what we want to get rid of, what we want to bring in the house to replace other stuff already in the house. A lot of people are gonna be staying with us the week before the wedding in rotation, so that’s the more important deadline in getting our house “ready”.

Today, we bought patio furniture. A lot of places are doing outdoor furniture clearance sales as the summer draws to an end, and we picked up a nice outdoor 6-seat dining set and a 4-seat firepit conversation set for about half off the original prices. Over a thousand dollars later, gigantic boxes join our leftover boxes sitting in our garage. Tomorrow will be outdoor furniture assembly, putting the wall stuff on the wall (paintings, framed photos, etc.), and floor cleanup.

I’d been wanting to take advantage of the two bathtubs to take a fizzy bath bomb bath for over a week, but we always get home so late after running home supply and repair errands, and I’m too exhausted to draw a bath. Tonight’s lining up to be no different. Because I now have to get up at 6a to carpool into work with Mr. W (who has earlier hours than me), I’m tired a whole lot earlier at night. I feel geriatric. I miss sleeping in till 8a.

Photos will be forthcoming once the place becomes fit to be photographed.

(written earlier today at 3:36p and emailed to myself)

Pretenders Lyrics
I’ll Stand By You Lyrics
I was listening to the The Pretenders’ song “I’ll Stand By You” and the female speaker sings about how the man she’s singing to could show her his dark side, and when he’s upset he can act as upset as he feels without censorship for her because no matter what, she’d still stand by him and she won’t leave him.

“Nothing you confess
Could make me love you less.
…So if you’re mad, get mad
Dont hold it all inside
Come on and talk to me now
Hey, what you got to hide?”

I thought about myself listening to this song, and realized that I’m still somewhat in self-preservation mode. I don’t know that I can say I’ll stand by someone who’s being really mean to me just cuz he’s having some personal issues. I’m a lot less inclined to be a doormat now than I used to be, and definitely won’t put up with what I used to. It infuriates me to read in my past diaries about the things a guy would say or do to me, and how passive my responses were, always forgiving or tolerating it while convincing myself it’s not him, it’s me, and that it’ll get better if I could just find the right set of soothing actions and affirmations to make it so. In retrospect I never resolved these problems because the problems were never mine to resolve, they were the guy’s. If he’s acting or being a jerk, nothing I do could cure him of that personality defect; he’s just a jerk, period.

And I feel a little bad about my current hardness, because if anyone deserves my old forgiving, overly-tolerant approach to relationships, it’s my imminent future husband. But even Mr. W himself had said before that he can’t believe the level to which I’d tolerated my past boyfriends’ injustices done toward me, so it’s more than likely that this feeling bad is only one-sided. I don’t think Mr. W feels very gypped.

Which is good, because I don’t think I’m ready to let go of the protective shield yet. The thought of being without that arm’s distance of protection makes me feel naked and scared. And of course I didn’t use to fear loving with abandon, even tho I was never as emotionally safe before as I am now in the arms of Mr. W. But who he is, is why even if he perceives the shield, he’d give me a kiss on the top of my head and tolerate it, just to make me comfortable.

I heard from all 3 of my bridesmaids today on the phone one after the other! That was pretty cool. Turned out that MOH Vicky and childhood friend Sandy both were at the bridesmaid dress fitting together and ran into each other there. College roommie Diana had her fitting yesterday. I had called all of them and warned them that the dresses may not fit correctly and to give themselves time to go in for adjustments and allow time for the dresses to be remade before having to schedule a second fitting.

When Mr. W’s daughter, my mom and I went for our fitting last weekend, I looked hideous in my dress (this is the Chinese qipao, not the white bridal gown). The thing hung on me, I had no figure in it, and my boobs disappeared. Even my mom kept saying that I look like I have no boobs and I’d have to figure out something with an appropriate backless bra. The dressmaker had to take in 2 inches on either side of my dress and redo darts under my boobs and down my back so that I could have a figure again. My mom’s dress was too big, too. She had to have about an inch taken in at either side, too. Daughter’s dress was misfitted at the top and it wrinkled and hung over when she bent, and it was way too tight at her hips, butt and thighs. So we’re all getting majorly adjusted and have a second fitting next weekend. The dressmaker said I lost a ton of weight, but really, I think all her measurements were way off. Daughter and my mom got measured less than a month prior so how could all THEIR measurements have changed that much? (Just for statistical purposes, I’m now at about 116.5 lbs, 21.5% body fat.)

Diana’s fitting yesterday went very well; everything fit pretty closely except for a minor adjustment with her upper torso area of the dress. She said if the dressmaker hadn’t insisted on perfecting the upper body fit, she would’ve been happy to have simply taken the dress home with her that day. I asked her what her boyfriend, who had gone with her as they were in town for her friend’s wedding, had thought about the dress. She held the phone to him as she asked him my question, and he said, “Smoking HOT!” I was delighted. No bridesmaids of mine are gonna look tacky if I could help it! I think if my girls look good, I look good. Who wants to stand up there on her big day with a bunch of losers? People judge you by your company. And I’m not about to look insecure or superficial.

Vicky’s fitting went okay; she said the body fit fine (good thing she dropped some pounds recently, or hers would’ve been too tight, too) and there were some logistical adjustments on the fit of her upper torso design. I’d meant to ask what her boyfriend thought of the dress but forgot.

Sandy’s fitting went something like ours. The lower body was fine, but she couldn’t zip up her upper body. I think the dressmaker screwed up Sandy’s dress measurements the way she seemed to have with mine, my mom’s and Daughter’s, which the dressmaker tried to cover for by criticizing Sandy. Apparently the old-fashioned Chinese dressmaker had mastered the typical 1st generation Chinese bluntness taking it to a level of rudeness, asking Sandy how she could’ve gained this much weight, that she started off with the smallest measurements in the group and ended up with the largest, that she (the dressmaker) has to take almost everybody’s dresses in but has to instead take Sandy’s dress out, that the largest downsizing was on me and the largest upsizing was on Sandy, and could she lose weight before the wedding? And then she said she’s gonna have to figure something out with the dress because she can’t let it out enough to cover the difference. Sandy told me when relaying this story that she knows she’s gained some weight recently, and now she’s bummed. She suggested trying my cabbage soup diet. Vicky said that Sandy had told her that she’d had pizza yesterday and so was probably not in the best physical shape. =/ Maybe the dressmaker can come up with something creative to give the dress some extra inches, such as make the back open or something, I don’t know. But Sandy’s next fitting is going to be in about 2 weeks. Eek!

Men are so lucky that they just have to button up a loose tuxedo or suit and can gain or lose 15 lbs with no visible difference in their attire.

Man, moving was rough. I packed for 8 consecutive days and moved stuff from house to house for the last 4 of those days. I have learned that
* packing is probably the worst home life chore ever;
* you can’t fill a big box with fragile stuff, books, tons of small stuff, or heavy stuff;
* heavy stuff have to be split up into small boxes;
* you have to pack boxes according to weight and durability and not according to category, even tho it’s instinctive to put all “bathroom stuff” into one giant box;
* oil lamps always tip over;
* I have chosen my sister-friends well and they came through big time.

Last Friday after work (day 2 of packing), Gym Trainee picked up her son and came over after work and packed much of my kitchen for me, which is great cuz I have no idea how to pack oddly shaped glassware and pots and pans. Then over the weekend, Busykitty Vanessa came over to help pack the remaining kitchen stuff and some of the other rooms, but first she brought over a light dinner of multi-grain tortilla chips, salsa, a couple of apples, some containers of cut melon medleys, a container of cut pineapple, a pack of mixed nuts, 2 bottles of water, and last but not least, a drum of mint chocolate cookie ice cream. We got to chat and catch up before we got to work. I dumped three giant trashbagfuls of stuffed animals and two bags of clothes on her; the stuffed animals were for her niece Lizzy and the clothes were to send back to Costa Rica with her aunts to give to the poor (which they do regularly on their visits back). I got rid of as much stuff as possible because Mr. W had already pre-scolded me repeatedly about not bringing “clutter” and “useless shit” to the new house. Monday, Vicky came over and traded me a small pepperoni pizza for the remainder of the ice cream (since I couldn’t eat that much ice cream before I had to move on Tuesday), and helped me pack my many many books and random leftover things upstairs. After moving all the larger items and heavier stuff like furniture on Tuesday, there were still little things at the house I could move on my own but couldn’t get done. Hence started the many little trips back to the house after work to pack some more. Each trip back, I’d thought would be my last; each time I kept finding more stuff, I contemplated suicide more graphically. I packed and transported carfuls of stuff EVERY DAY this past week until the final trip on Friday, when Vanessa again came over for the third time. She’d come over to pick up more things I’m giving away to her and her relatives on Thursday night, stayed to help me pack, and on Friday, she emptied out her SUV and we left a ton of stuff at my front door for a Salvation Army pick-up I’d scheduled for Monday, left some odd furniture in the living room the future renters may want, and made the long drive to the new house. Turns out the new house is totally in Vanessa’s neck of the woods as she works around the corner and regularly visits the shopping area visible from our back yard for lunch.

Today was spent unpacking. At least half the boxes in the garage are gone now and their contents distributed around the house. There were lots of disagreements between me and the W about stuff, cuz like Vicky said, when you’re consolidating two households of stuff, the general perception is “My stuff is stuff, and your stuff is shit.” He basically wanted me to throw all my stuff away and have only his stuff, whereas I feel that his shit, especially his silverware and drinkware, are ugly. He kept calling my stuff “cheap” and I told him my Oneida service for 12 flatware is NICE (looks similar to this) and HIS multi-colored, cracked plastic giant drinking cups are tacky. But he insisted on keeping his plastic “glassware”, throwing away my plastic sink rinse/cutting board combo and keeping my nice service for 10 squared drinking glasses and matching rocks glasses unopened so that we can “get rid of them.” He’d simultaneously used the opposite excuse of plastic being unacceptable and cheap to get rid of others of my belongings, like my Sharper Image DVD Power Tower.

But living together with a man for the first time (who isn’t my temporary roommate) had its surprising and unexpected advantages, too. For example, by the time I started moving in, Mr. W had already called the electrical, gas and water companies and set up our accounts; made arrangements for cable TV/cable internet/phone service to be installed; and arranged for our moving crew and U-Haul truck. I’m sure that once we get over this adjustment period of trying to fit into each others’ day-to-day lives and tastes, and he stops saying insulting things like pointedly saying that I’m to be in the kitchen and cooking for him and then the next moment say that it’s “his” kitchen and that his way goes while my way is rejected, and that I “never” cook, we’ll be fine. Or he’ll just tick me off and I really will make his “never cook” proclamations a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Oh, almost forgot. The Dodo. His first night was pretty bad; he was needy and up all night making noise, trying to dig a hole underneath the doorway into the closet. I finally couldn’t take the noise anymore as it was keeping me up so I kicked him out of our bedroom and closed the bedroom door. The exact same noise, the scratching and digging and yowling and pushing, simply transferred to this new door. He hid in the only closet I’d allow him in, an empty one in our master bathroom, for the entirety of the next day, leaving only to go to his litter box downstairs a couple of times. But now he’s fine; his tail’s up and he’s cheerily exploring the house and hanging out with us downstairs in the living room, sprawling on his side on the cool tile floors.

This house is coming together pretty nicely, altho I think Mr. W’s fear is coming true that it’s going to look cluttered due to the quantity of stuff we have and the small space we have to put it in. He’s now stopped opening boxes and is letting a bunch of them stand in the garage, saying that if the house is full now, he must not need anything in those remaining boxes, threatening to discard them without looking to see what they contain. I had to throw out some very difficult and personal things (I’m a total sentimentalist), and I don’t want to go through that again. It was fun having Vicky packing up old mementos with me because we go so far back that we have a lot of the same memories. I can’t imagine having all of those old tokens gone forever.

I am so, extremely, exhausted. Today I finally finished moving out of my old house. I’d been packing and moving things since last Thursday night. I’ll respond to comments and blog more later, but now I just wanted to say hello out there and yes, I’m alive; yes, we’re finally completely moved in; and no, we are nowhere near done unpacking. We basically have no garage right now, just a giant maze of boxes. But I am going to crash for tonite and do as much as I can this weekend. If Mr. W doesn’t make me throw everything I have away on sight.

We’re moving. Right now. I’m in the new house with the new cable internet. Mr. W got his son and three of the son’s friends to help out. They’re taking a pizza break in the back yard. We got most of the stuff out of my house this morning on the U-Haul, there are other personal things I need to go back to get, most importantly of which is the very freaked out, hiding-in-the-closet Dodo.

See you soon!

I had an action-packed day!

I had planned to meet up with some coworkers in their jury room at 10:30 a.m. to decorate their jury room for a surprise wedding shower for another coworker. It was tricky and ingenious how we’d planned it; the guest of honor actually works in the courtroom whose jury room we were decorating, so it was nearly impossible to sneak the planning by her and yet somehow get her to go to the jury room at the right time, so we told her everyone was planning a surprise wedding shower for ME. And we told her to keep it hush-hush, and that she was to show up at 12:15p after leaving early at 10:30p to get her wedding license. Meanwhile, while she was at the County Registrar-Recorder’s Office in line to get her wedding license, a bunch of us collected in her jury room and decorated like mad, laid out the food, cake, presents, etc. to transform the dull space into a festive Hawaiian wedding (their wedding theme) party central. I’d bought all the decorations Tuesday after work and had white crepe wedding bells, metallic palm trees, a coconut monkey, silver Congrats banner, coconut shell bowls, butter mints individually wrapped in hibiscus print wrappers, wedding bell confetti, even an inflatable monkey and palm tree. The court reporter brought leis, food and cake, the clerk arranging this brought more food and went with the wedding couple to get the license so that she could keep an eye on their timing and sneakily be our double agent contact. They were shocked to say the least. The party was a raging success. There are photos forthcoming taken by other coworkers.

And here’s where it got complicated for me. Although I was supposed to be down there at 10:30a to decorate which from all signs seemed perfectly reasonable since we hadn’t been busy all week, right at 10:45a, as I was about to go down, a 16-count criminal molestation trial walked in our door. I couldn’t believe it. Now I was stuck and was going to have to pick a jury. Luckily, the defense attorney needed a little more time to talk to her client in lock-up, so my judge, also to free me up, excused the case until after lunch.

And THEN, as I was making my second attempt to leave, I got a call from my real estate agent. Some background: the bank financing our new home loan had been playing games with us and giving us an extremely hard time. It basically felt like it was stalling and trying to find a reason to reject us. We understood we’d have to submit the loan application fully documented in this economy. That’s fine. We gave copies of our paystubs, copies of verification of funds. A couple of weeks go by and we’re in Escrow at this point, but now the bank says they need more documentation. Two months of paystubs, three months’ worth of bank account statements for every bank account we have, verification of the current values of our cars (even though both our cars are paid off), current account statements of all our retirement plans. We keep clean records, so we provided all this stuff, shaking our heads at how intrusive these requests are. Apparently the bank’s digging around for collateral, looking for a reason to say we’re not good enough. And then last week, the bank’s final request: give them signed rental lease agreements showing that people are lined up to rent our current properties for our asking price, AND a photocopy of these renters’ deposit checks, AND proof that these checks were deposited into our bank accounts. WTF! We let our management company take care of these requests and he faxed the appropriate materials. How violating of our privacy! It seemed like we were going to miss our Escrow closing deadline before our loans would fund. We were in a 35-day Escrow, the last day of which is August 1.

Well, when my realtor called this morning, he said all the documents were received, written up, pushed through in record time and that we HAVE to be at the Escrow office that afternoon to sign the closing documents in order for the loan to fund by tomorrow to meet our Escrow closing deadline. “But I JUST got a huge trial and I can’t leave!” I wailed. It never fails; I hadn’t had much to do all week and now THIS today of all times. I said I’d see what I can do and call him back. And rushed down to decorate for the wedding shower after 3 failed attempts to get a hold of each of my 3 supervisors on the phone.

While I was down there in panic mode, late for the decorating and busting my butt to get it all done before the return of the guests of honor, freaking about needing to leave that afternoon but not being able to find a supervisor for permission, a coworker stepped up and volunteered to handle my trial mid-afternoon after her own hearing so that I could leave early. And then later, another coworker agreed to take over my courtroom immediately after lunch before the first coworker is available, so that I could leave even earlier than that. I was so touched!! As soon as the party was over at the close of lunch, I rushed off, but not before learning that my trial is going away; the defendant had decided to take a plea bargain! What are the odds on THIS kind of trial?!

Mr. W and I met at his house, dropped off my car, and we went to his bank to withdraw a cashier’s check for his portion of the down payment, and then went to my bank to do the same for my portion. We got to the Escrow office near our new house at exactly the time requested by the Escrow officer, a mere minute before our real estate agent himself showed up. We did a new incredibly efficient thing of “e-signing” our Escrow documents, signed off on the house stuff, and then Escrow said it needed proof of home insurance as the last thing before we’re done. Wait. I didn’t take out home insurance on the new house yet. I’d brought my insurance bills with me to work today, intending to call to cancel insurance on my current property, but wasn’t able to before all insanity broke loose. I remembered that coincidentally, my insurance company had called for me earlier as I was in front of the teller and I’d told her I couldn’t talk at the moment but would call back. I called back in the Escrow office and turned out they’d received a request from Escrow to send proof of insurance, so my insurance company and I, over the phone, set up the required insurance as Mr. W finished off the e-signing. By the time Escrow signing was done, my insurance was faxing the Escrow office our quote and new policy (at an incredible price, too!) for us to sign, and everything required was fulfilled perfectly and simultaneously. Escrow should close on time tomorrow, our loan fully funded. Even our agent was amazed.

WHEW!

But we still had a final inspection of the house to do. So Mr. W, myself, and the realtor did that after leaving the Escrow office. Everything was fine. I’m taking tomorrow off to pack so we can move over the weekend or at least at the beginning of the week. INSANE!!! And none too soon; our management company called Mr. W as we were doing our home inspection and said happily, “You need to get out! The renters want in ASAP!” Woohoo!

Yesterday evening, Dwaine and I met up at our former German teacher Mr. Englyng‘s house. I think it’d been 8 or 9 years since I’d last seen him, and 14 for Dwaine.

I got there first and when Mr. Englyng opened the door, I pensively hoped we’d still look familiar to each other, and he looked EXACTLY THE SAME. I mean, he may have lost maybe 10, 15 lbs but he had not aged AT ALL. He was as sharp as ever, as opinionated as ever, as tongue-in-cheek as ever. The four of us (with Mr. Englyng’s wife Kirsten) chatted in the living room until Kirsten left for her weekly painting class, then the three of us had hot dogs and fresh fruit in the back yard patio (the house looked nicer than I’d remembered, they definitely upgraded beautifully and he has a veggie garden patch in the back yard), and didn’t really come back. It got dark, Mr. Englyng lit candles, then eventually turned on some rope lighting he had on the inside perimeter of his patio rafters. And eventually his wife returned from her class and joined us and we kept chatting and laughing.

As we prepared to eat, Dwaine in his usual style suggested we toast to something. We couldn’t think of anything, and Mr. Englyng made a suggestion for something that the Germans do. The German language has a “polite version” of addressing someone and a “familiar version”. The English language used to, too. “You” used to be polite, and “thou” was informal. I would say “thou” to my kid, but “you” to my boss. Kinda like how we don’t say “you” or “him” to the judge or to refer to the judge; we say “your honor” and “his honor.” Anyway, Mr. Englyng proposed that we drop the formal polite “you” and go to the informal “thou”, i.e., call him Finn instead of Mr. Englyng. But only if we feel comfortable with it. I thanked him and Dwaine gave it a few seconds of hard thought, and said he couldn’t do it. There’s a certain level of reverence in our minds about our high school German teacher and we’re just not on his level, we’ll always be a step down. People like us never sleep with our teachers or bosses because we always have that separation in our minds.

We had a great time, I admired the couple with their 44 years of marriage and their apparent respect, love and support of each other, new hobbies they’ve grown to enjoy together in his recent retirement (sailing, hiking, road trips). We reminisced, caught up on each others’ lives, shared stories, ranted about the housing crisis (which Dwaine took personal responsibility for), shared current philosophies on different countries, cultures, political systems, even made a few confessions (Dwaine). I got home at 2:30a tired but very fulfilled. Mr. Englyng made us promise not to make it another 14 years in-between visits. Well, how about a month at the wedding?

Due to the 5.4 magnitude earthquake yesterday before lunchtime, our building was evacuated as the Sheriffs worked through lunch with shotgun rifles in hand to check the floors for leaks and damage. Apparently they didn’t want to take the chance that inmates in the building got worked up over the rumble. Our building’s on wheels, so the quake felt more dramatic than it actually was. We had a lunchtime meeting that was canceled because of the mandatory evacuation, so I went to the gym instead. Then I went home to check on Dodo. A bunch of my things, including all my bingo daubers, had fallen on the floor, but luckily nothing broke. Dodo was fine and normal. He did make strange whimpering sounds in the middle of the night, as if he were stuck in a nightmare. It took my calling him three times to wake him up. I wonder if he sensed the impending earthquake.

So our lunchtime meeting was postponed to today. It’s supposed to start in 2 minutes, so I’m borrowing a coworker’s internet access to post what I’d been doing during my lunchhour while waiting for the meeting to start:

There’s all the guests on little slips of paper, clustered into groups for tables, using the map of the Garden as a seating guide (center).

I had to step back and take a photo with my cameraphone cuz it looks like such a masterpiece. You guys have no idea the dynamics of people I had to take into account. That was fun, like working out one of those math equations like, “Tommy has 4 brothers and 2 sisters. One of his sisters has a female and a male friend. The male friend is 3 years older than Tommy’s youngest sibling, and Tommy has 3 siblings older than his sister’s female friend. Arrange them all in order by age keeping in mind that Tommy’s younger sister can not stand the oldest brother’s cologne and hence can’t stand next to him although the female friend likes the sister AND the cologne…”