cindy's world

I thought vacations were supposed to be relaxing, or at the very least, relieve some stress by freeing up time so that we can get stuff done.

I’m on vacation this week and next, and I’d planned to pack it with wedding stuff and house preparation stuff. Yesterday was pretty productive; Mr. W, his son and I went to a tuxedo connection Mr. W had and bought 4 Ralph Lauren tuxes, complete with jacket, shirt, bowtie, vest, pants. Mr. W and his son looked very sharp in their fittings, very 007. The other 2 tuxes are going to Mr. W’s two brothers who will be groomsmen next to Son, who’ll be Best Man. All four are identical classic black tuxes that can be worn again for some formal event in the future. Mr. W and I are visiting his parents for Mother’s Day weekend coming up so we’ll drop off the tuxes to his brothers and double-check the fit, with plenty of time to adjust or tailor if the measurements the brothers sent us weren’t accurate. I remarked how the men are gonna be fancier than the bride with their designer digs. (I’m not a name-brand person at all; I go where the savings are.)

With Monday so productive, I figure I’d throw in a dental visit on my vacation, too. We drove by a dental office recommended by Mr. W’s best bud ex bro-in-law, and the office very efficiently booked me as a new patient for an appointment the next morning at 8a, telling me I can fill out new patient forms online, which I did last nite. This morning, I went in for my visit. Right after the office finished impressing me with their technology (digital full-mouth x-rays!), it all went downhill. The female Vietnamese doctor right away started upselling me on the services, telling me my insurance covers X, but X is horrible and Y is better, nevermind that it costs $735 out-of-pocket more PER TOOTH, times 3. Insurance covers standard teeth cleaning, but THIS deep cleaning is better and necessary, nevermind that it costs $60 out-of-pocket PER QUADRANT, times 4. And my teeth need MAJOR WORK, and in fact, I need SURGERY pronto to remove all 4 of my wisdom teeth, nevermind that I don’t have problems with them and have had them in since I was a teenager. She paused at one point and I don’t know what my face looked like, but she said, “It doesn’t look like you want to get your wisdom teeth removed.”
I said, “I really, really don’t. I’m not a fan of unnecessary surgery and if they’re not giving me problems and my right upper wisdom tooth will never descend, then I don’t see why I should get them removed.”
She backed off quickly and said, “Okay, okay, it’s up to you!” And then she added, “You can think about it and come back when they REALLY start hurting.” WTF?! Why would they start hurting?! They’ve been there for half of my life. My dad went to a bad dentist who insisted his wisdom teeth had to be pulled in his late 40s, so my dad trusted him and had it done. Not only was it painful, torturous, inconvenient and expensive, but the extraction left holes in my dad’s jaws that filled with fluid and gave him a major infection. Mr. W’s dad is having a similar problem with a newly pulled wisdom tooth.
So the cost of this dentist’s services, not including wisdom teeth extraction and all THOSE related costs, is over $3000 out-of-pocket, over and beyond my insurance. I told them a bunch of excuses about how I can’t afford that right now because of the upcoming wedding expenses and turned down their financing options saying I can’t afford for my credit score to drop with the acquisition of new credit because the banks are being so tight with their mortgage lending practices, and walked out of there with nothing but x-rays done.
Then I called an old childhood friend, bridesmaid Sandy’s older brother Andy, who’s now a dentist in Pasadena. (We’re actually attending his wedding in Corona Del Mar at the end of the month.) He told me to book an appointment with his receptionist so he can take a look for a second opinion, and his receptionist suggested I pick up copies of the x-rays I’d just taken with the first dental office. I was uncomfortable doing that, but she assured me dental offices do that all the time and to explain to them I want a second opinion for such expensive services. Apparently it’s not good for the patient to take a lot of x-rays in close succession so they’re reluctant to do it if there are perfectly good current ones in another office. And then talking to the receptionist more, turns out Andy’s practice doesn’t take my insurance. GREAT.

I then called my catering director to make an appointment to discuss and finalize our food and beverage for the wedding, but she was at a meeting and wasn’t available. And then I called my cousin Oliver, who’s a mechanic specializing in Hondas, to ask about ordering a replacement right mirror for Mr. W’s son’s Accord (my old car), since he backed into some trash cans with his mirror and cracked the mirror. Turned out that was $175 because the entire casing had to be replaced, and the thought of MORE money going out just made me exceedingly tired. It didn’t help that I took the time waiting for return calls from Andy to reconcile my checkbook against my bank statement and organized my receipts for my credit card, so now I feel REALLY poor.

My horoscope for today, which I saw right before I started blogging today:
You may feel as if you are running out of steam, whether or not you have reached your goal. Something important is about to shift, but this doesn’t mean you can’t finish your work. Trying to speed up your productivity won’t be effective because sloppiness won’t be rewarded. The truth is that you have more time than you realize. May 6, 2008
My daily horoscope shows up on my internet start page, along with a Word of the Day, which today is:
amalgam: an alloy of mercury with other metals; also, a mixture.
Amalgam is what started all the expenses at the dentist this morning. The silver fillings that apparently cause more problems over time, that you have to drill more aggressively to apply, that fell out of one of my teeth creating a hole in the middle of a molar, that the insurance covers but is not what’s recommended by this dentist for long-term teeth health.

My bartending instructor sent me an email yesterday explaining that he wasn’t at the bartending competition this weekend because his son-in-law had passed away on Friday. He invited me to the first day of his new class today, so I can pick up some margarita salt/sugar rimmers he wants to add to my collection as a thank-you for the editing work I’d done for him. I think I’ll go and stay for a little bit because being at a fake bar is somehow stress-relief for me, too. Playing with colored water. Fun stuff.

This weekend was the United States Bartenders’ Guild‘s National Cocktail Competition & 60th Year Anniversary Celebration in Long Beach. Saturday, Mr. W and I volunteered for the after-dinner cocktail competition located at the Westin Long Beach Hotel. The winning cocktail was made by a competitor from Las Vegas with a drink he called “The Big Easy.” His garnish was a kumquat with a big smiley mouth cut out of it, candy eyes, a small sprig of broccoli hair, and the best part — he stuck a tiny twig of dried rosemary stem into the mouth, LIT IT, and as it glowed red and smoked, that was the kumquat head’s cigar! It was beautiful weather, free food and open bar. We walked away with a big bag of those little 1-oz sized bottles of a new vanilla liqueur by Grand Marnier called Navan and another bag of little bottles of Hennessy Cognac VSOP, leftover from the goodie bags they were giving out to guests. We also got some nice Boston shakers from their Absolut Vodka sponsor and Mr. W scored some nice shirts and an odd handcarved wooden bowl. Since we helped out, we were also invited to the formal banquet dinner that night…at the famed Sky Room in Long Beach! $200 formal dinner, open bar, live 1940s style entertainment, 360-degree panoramic view of the city and the ocean and Queen Mary, for free! It also appeared that I rubbed elbows with some big wigs in the industry. But not as much as Mr. W did; I guess it’s a male-dominated field or he just looks more professional than me, but he walked away with tons of contacts and business cards. The only downside to the night was a big group of rowdy disrespectful people who ended up sitting at our table, and they could not stop laughing and throwing napkins, doing stupid drunk things throughout the speeches and award ceremony. It got so annoying that Mr. W and I left early in case a food fight broke out or something. How rude.

Sunday, we again volunteered to help set up for the last event: a champagne buffet brunch aboard the Queen Mary ship. Gym Trainee and her son came by and ate with us, since Gym Trainee volunteered for the competition setup on Thursday or Friday. The event coordinator gave us a care package before we left: 2 unopened bottles of premium vodka, 2 new bottles Tabasco Bloody Mary Mix, 3 or 4 bottles of a rose champagne from the brunch. She also said that if we want to join the guild, just fill out the application online, send it to her, and we’re automatically in (I get the feeling they’re normally selective, requiring a resume and certifications to be sent with the application). It’s nice to work closely with and make a great impression on influential people!

Since Sunday’s Bartenders’ Guild activities were done around noon, we were free in the afternoon to attend my old friend Lily’s get-together at their new beachside apartment in nearby Seal Beach. We stopped by a supermarket and picked up some orange juice and cranberry juice, and with the liquors they had on hand at home, I played bartender and Lily’s husband Arnold gave me a standing invitation to go to any of their future parties to share my new trade. Haha.

I think all in all, I had a total of 2 drinks on Saturday and 2 small glasses of champagne on Sunday. Mr. W drank his weight in alcohol. We definitely made out well.

I had an old-fashioned date last nite. After work, Mr. W took me to a sushi restaurant near my house, we had dinner, briefly separated as I went to drop some stuff off at the post office and he went to get gas, and met up again at my house for a romantic comedy DVD movie (“27 Dresses” — had its funny moments, cute story, nothing earth-shattering). At one point I left for a restroom break and coming back downstairs I overheard Mr. W talking to someone. Turned out he was sprawled out on the floor having an affectionate conversation with Dodo while my little black and white cow flopped back and forth happily at Mr. W’s rubbing and scratching. The movie ended around 9:30pm, at which time Mr. W gave me a hug and a kiss goodnight and went home.

The going home part sucked a little bit.

I think I realized last nite that I’m finally ready to be married now.

Tuesday night after bartending class, I met up with Christi (flip flop girl) at a charged-by-weight, make-your-own frozen yogurt place called Cherry On Top in Diamond Bar. She drove all the way there from her meeting in LA and I drove there from my class in Cypress and we pulled up about 20 seconds apart. That’s what you call synchronization! I’d told her about the shop over dinner Monday night, saying that the first time I’d gone in there, I’d instantly thought, “Christi would love to see this.” The decor is like teeny bopper chic done up in the cutsy Sanrio way. Round stainless steel table with swanky swivel-out round seats in the middle, giant clear plastic cherries rain from the ceiling over the main table, lit up from within, circular cushions attached sideways to the walls like big naugahyde buttons, all tables aglow from light within the patterned frosted glasstops. Flat screen TVs playing MTV (Tila Tequila was on) mounted high on the walls.

Christi instantly whipped out her camera and retreated to the far end of the room and started focusing away. One of the guys behind the counter strolled up to her, blocking her view, and told her that photos aren’t allowed in the place. So after we got our yogurts (hers was all tart flavors with healthy fruit toppings, I had the PMS formula of random yogurts with chocolate chip cookie dough, yogurt chips, Heath bar bits, chopped Andes chocolate mints, blueberries, and candied pecans), she sat with her back to the register counter, lined up her little digital camera to point at the center of the room, turned off her flash, and nonchalantly looking forward, she clicked the camera from underneath her arm. A few photos later, the best one was unfortunately blocked by some weird shadow in the corner. I pushed her to post it anyway (she was preparing for the debut of her upcoming Food Blog).

After the yogurt, she asked how far I lived from Diamond Bar, and the navigation device told us just over 8 miles, so she came over and visited Dodo. Just as she’d previously said, she loves all things furry (and it’s a rare animal that’s furrier than Dodo with his dense otter-like fur coat) despite the fact that she’s allergic to cats. She instantly befriended Dodo and as he meowed his side of the conversation at her and rubbed his face into her hand, she cooed greetings at him and commented on how soft he was in between sneezes. After the visit, she had a long drive back to LA but I was happy she finally met the other significant fuzzy boy in my life!

Tuesday evening was our last bartending class. We got our certificates. I’m now certified! Yaaaaay! We even got new dipschticks in our class who’re normally enrolled in another session. There was one guy who was very quick and smart, whom I found myself chatting with more than the other people, cuz it was just easier to communicate with him and he had knowledge to share. Such as, drinks that have only 1 mixer or 1 liquor are served in the short chimney glass; tall chimney glasses are for drinks with multiple ingredients. I don’t think our instructor gives all his classes an equal distribution of knowledge.

OH. And I made the most crass joke ever. We were doing Brain Hemorrhage shots. 3/4 of a shotglass is filled with Peach Schnapps, and then we carefully, using the back of a barspoon, layer some Baileys Irish Cream on top. Then we even more carefully drip some drops of Grenadine into the concoction, and the heavier Grenadine syrup makes the Baileys drop into the Schnapps. Since Baileys is a milk product, it curdles inside the Schnapps and with the red Grenadine syrup, the result is something that looks like a little brain in the shotglass with blood around it. The instructor said, “You guys wanna be real fancy? Don’t use a barspoon to float the Baileys. Use a cherry and let it dribble off the cherry. Then just drop the cherry inside the shotglass when you’re done.” The result of that is a shotglass with a cherry, and a brain hemorrhaging on top of it. I said, “That’s a virgin Brain Hemorrhage. Cuz it’s got its cherry.” Only an older assisting bartender and the smart guy from the other class laughed. Everyone else was like, “Huh? It’s not a virgin drink, it’s got alcohol in it!”

This weekend there’s a bartending competition, formal banquet dinner and champagne brunch sponsored by the United States Bartenders Guild at the Queen Mary in Long Beach. Volunteers get to participate in the $200 banquet and brunch for free, plus a free bottle of booze. Guess where I’m gonna be.

Sometimes you get crap in life, but you may also be surprised by the bright yellow dandelions that grow out of crap. Excuse me if this post doesn’t make as much sense, I had bourbon for lunch today (with cherries and sugar muddled together, plus vermouth) because I DESERVE it after the day I had yesterday, goshdarn.

Yesterday we were “dark,” meaning my judge took the day off (to take care of some family issues), so his staff was available to float. At 8:30 a.m. yesterday in my regular courthouse, my supervisor said, “Sorry. They need you in Torrance. General Civil department.” That’s 3 freeways and over 30 miles away.

Crap Chunk: I walked into a criminal courtroom in the middle of morning calendar call, and NOT a civil courtroom. I didn’t bring any of my criminal law materials with me. Calendar was also hard because criminal attorneys have a tendency to assume you know who they are so they don’t check in with you. You have to guess or flag them down after the hearing to know who they are.
Dandelion: The court reporter was wonderful. Things that I had missed, she read back the proceedings. (The clerk who was temporarily subbing in there when I walked in didn’t take notes on the morning calendar hearings.) Also, a supervisor walked in with two giant manuals so that I at least had some of the codes necessary to work the program.

Crap Chunk: Since the courtroom handled a lot of cases in the morning and is in trial, I knew I would have to work through lunch. I didn’t have breakfast, and would now not have lunch. I can’t leave during lunch anyway because I didn’t have keys to return into the building.
Dandelion: The bailiff walked in during lunch carrying a large Pizza Hut Stuffed Crust pizza, saying “Anyone want pizza?” He told me to help myself, and then left to do some work. I had two slices, they were my saving graces.

Crap Chunk: The regular clerk screwed up her verdict forms for the jury so bad that it caused major confusion when the jurors THOUGHT they had reached verdicts and turned out they didn’t. The judge wanted the verdict forms corrected. I don’t have access to her computer profile/login so I can’t touch her old verdict forms, so I had to retype 3 verdict forms (a full page long each, single-spaced on MS Word) from scratch. After 4pm. Regular courtrooms would’ve already adjourned for the day at 4pm. But this judge wanted me to retype the verdicts and give them to the jurors pronto. I got them done around 4:20pm cuz I’m a fast typist. The judge sent the jurors back into the jury room with the new forms, and everyone including 5-6 backup deputies (since this is a gang-related murder trial with defendant’s peeps in the audience) waited until 5:05p, when the jurors finally reached their verdict correctly. I read the many looong verdicts (all guilty), and the jurors were finally discharged at 5:30p. The judge did some last minute things and got off the bench at 5:45p. (A normal courtroom would’ve recessed 1 hour 45 minutes prior.)
Dandelion: The judge came back in after 6p and said, “I like your work ethic. Let me know if you ever need a job.” Another clerk working late in the building said that for THIS judge to say that, he really really really means it and she’s never known him to have ever said anything like that to any relief clerk, it’s an extreme compliment. Yay.

*Guys (males), avert your eyes and skip this one*
Crap Chunk: I went to the bathroom for the first time since I’d left the house that day at 6pm, and found that surprise! My period had come early.
Dandelion: There just happened to be a tampon sitting outside the dispenser in the restroom, so I “stole” it. Plus, getting my period early means that hopefully, it’ll come early the month of the wedding, too, so I won’t be PMSing and bloated during. Otherwise I’m estimated to get it right around the wedding day.

Crap Chunk: I’d been dying of thirst but the jury room drinking fountain had an “out of order” sign on it, and the drinking fountain in the back hallway squirted water back against its spigot so that I can’t get to it.
Dandelion: I thought I’d try my luck and open the little fridge in the jury room. Sealed bottles of water!!! I “stole” one. First bit of liquid I’ve had all day, after 6pm.

Crap Chunk: The looooong trial minutes took forever to type (over an hour to be exact) and the overtimer bailiff could only stay until 6:30p to let me out of the building. But I still had to close up the trial file, inventory 100 trial exhibits, photocopy the verdicts and question while blotting out the jury signatures (to protect their anonymity) and seal any original documents with juror signatures in a confidential envelope, paginate and file the jury instructions, blah blah blah. I wasn’t gonna be done for a long time.
Dandelion: The overtimer bailiff (not the same one who bought the pizza) inventoried ALL 100 exhibits for me, put them in order, locked them in the judge’s chambers for me which is where the judge said I could keep them for his clerk. And another clerk who was working late in the building had a “bate stamp” which paginated all the jury instruction pages for me. And she stuck around for AN HOUR until 8:30p to direct me on where to turn in the various things I had to turn in after work, and to let me out of the locked building. And she drove me to my car cuz it was dark and I didn’t park in the nearby employee lot.

Crap Chunk: There was a 6pm Homeowner’s Association meeting that I told everyone I would be available for, that I had to miss cuz I was stuck in Torrance Court. It was a presentation put on by a termite company we’re considering hiring to treat our homes. The president had called me 3 times while I was in the courtroom, but I didn’t know cuz my phone was on “meeting” mode.
Dandelion: There was a 6pm Homeowner’s Association termite treatment presentation that I missed.

Crap Chunk: It was now almost 9pm, I hadn’t had dinner, and I was over 40 miles from home.
Dandelion: Christi (Flip Flop Girl) had flown in on business just 5pm that evening, and had called to tell me her whereabouts, asking if I was free for dinner. She was about 4.5 miles away. We met up and she treated me to an authentic Japanese dinner, saying I deserved a treat after the hellish day I had. We had a nice dinner, nice chat, and planned to meet up again tonite after bartending class for frozen yogurt.

Crap Chunk: I spent 11.5 hours in Torrance Court.
Dandelion: My supervisor approved 5 hours of overtime pay (giving me my lunch back in money) plus mileage. Cha-ching!

But just barely. (Figuratively speaking, of course.) I’m not ready or able yet to write about the crapola that happened to me yesterday, so I just thought I’d drop a hello to my readers and say that yes, I’m still here, and yes, I’ll be blogging at some point in the future.

The air’s been either super-dry or over-irritant-enriched lately, cuz my eyes have been irritated. I didn’t even put in contacts this morning, and my eyes are STILL dry. I keep yawning to stimulate the ol’ tear ducts, but they’re apparently all dried up. AND, I look rude and bored to the jury.

Tonight Mr. W and I are going with his ex bro-in-law best bud and best bud’s wife (same couple we went to see Formula D with last weekend) to see a play called “I Do I Do” or something like that. His best bud got us tickets. It’s a 2-person play that follows a couple from the point of engagement or marriage through 60 years of marriage, through their joys and tribulations, trial separations and reunions. I hope the friends don’t think I’m rude and bored when I yawn through the whole evening. Maybe I should bring eye drops.

I hope that when I’m married and even after we’re married for a loooong time, we’d still be happy to see each other, happy to cook together, happy to sit and watch TV alone, happy to hold hands, and not end up like this:

A man with a gun went into a bank and demanded their money. Once he was given the money, he turned to a customer and asked, “Did you see me rob this bank?”
The man replied, “Yes sir, I did.”
The robber then shot him in the temple, killing him instantly.
He then turned to a couple standing next to him and asked the man, “Did you see me rob this bank?”
The man replied, “No sir, I didn’t, but my wife did.”
~ joke forwarded to me via email by a friend

There are still gnats flying around the courtroom, so the Venus Flytraps I brought in the other day weren’t doing much on my desk. My courtroom assistant complained yesterday that the bugs were at her desk a lot, so I loaned her the container of flytraps. She jammed the entire plastic cylinder into the wide bowl planter of dirt that her large ficus tree is in, next to her desk.

After everyone left for the day, I walked over to her planter and looked. There are visible gnats walking around the dirt of her planter, so now I know the source. (Gym Trainee said if the courtroom assistant would quit dumping tea, coffee, anything she could think of into the planter, maybe there wouldn’t be a living compost pile in the courtroom.) Peering into the clear cylinder surrounding the flytraps, I saw that a gnat was already in there. Excited, I looked around for something to cover the top with so the gnat couldn’t escape. I ran to my desk, grabbed a few half-page sized Request for Time Off forms, and clapped them over the top of the clear plastic cylinder, and I watched from the side.

I watched the gnat flit around, and land inside the open pink mouth of one of the flytraps. I watched the gnat walk around in there for awhile. I watched the gnat get bored and fly off again. The flytrap didn’t even move! Perhaps the gnats are too small to trigger the traps. My plant was gonna starve to death.

Today at lunchtime, I took a brisk walk with Gym Trainee so we can enjoy the sunny 80-degree weather. I spotted a dead bee on the sidewalk, took 5-6 steps past it, and then decided to go back and pick it up. Gym Trainee gave me a receipt and I folded it into a makeshift compact-dead-bee-transportation-device. Back in the courtroom, I used two pencils like chopsticks, picked up the bee, and dropped it onto the open mouth of a flytrap. The weight made the trap vibrate a little. I stared at the open trap. Good gawd, did this plant have a suicide anorexic death wish? I poked around the trap with the tip of the pencil, and finally it sprung closed.

I can’t believe I bought a dependent PET instead of a clever and helpful resolution to our insect problem.