cindy's world

Yesterday, I had to forego my noontime workout because we had a mandatory meeting. Something about sexual harassment policies and how we’re strongly urged to report any harassment we feel we’re victim to. At the end of the meeting I asked the district administrator, “Does this mean I have to stop making racial slurs?” He laughed and said that’s probably a good idea for workplace conversation. I asked, “What if I just make fun of my own race?” He indulged me (knowing who I am, after all) but still said in a supervisory way, “Well, people who overhear you may still take offense to what you said. Like maybe you’re perpetuating the negative stereotypes or something. At our meeting downtown about this, they talked about tons of things that I never would’ve THOUGHT would be offensive to some people, but to some, it’s harassment.” I bitched about oversensitive, overly-PC people these days with no senses of humor, but we all know people like that we have to tiptoe around at work or in social circles because they take everything wrong. Those people are so no fun, always looking for an opening to accuse someone of racism, sexism, bias, so they can file a grievance. I think those people are the least colorblind of all, reading color issues where there were none.

After work, I called Vicky and dragged her out to the gym with me. Actually, I didn’t have to drag, she eagerly agreed to meet me there at 8p. She’d just gotten her gym membership reinstalled at my gym corporation, so I got a solid lower body workout in plus we did a heaving hour’s worth of cardio together on treadmill and elliptical trainer. It’s fun to catch up while being physically productive, so different from a few days ago, catching up while shoving food in our pieholes.

Yesterday evening, I went to meet MOH Vicky and commenter ‘a’ (also “anny”) for dinner at Curry House in Irvine. The two of them have known each other since before I knew ‘a’ through this blog, and had been meaning to get together for awhile. Small world now that we have the internet. I pulled up a couple of minutes after 5:30p, the agreed-upon meeting time, and spotted Anny’s car first right in front of the restaurant. She was sitting in there looking down at something. I looked to my right and directly behind Anny’s car parked across the aisle was Vicky’s car, and Vicky was seated inside with her back to Anny, on a call. I thought it was hilarious that these two were both so punctual they had to wait for me and/or for Curry House to open at 5:30, AND they were both unaware that they weren’t alone.

We had a girly chat over dinner. I ordered a giant spicy chicken curry plate while the other two girls ordered some dainty feminine combo. I totally ate too much cuz while we talked, I just kept shoving food into my mouth. It wasn’t until afterward that they both said they were impressed (I’m sure they meant “surprised” and “disgusted”) at the sheer quantity of food that went down. I badly regretted not taking half home with me.

After dinner, we had dessert at Mochilato, where Anny and I first met. Vicky had been curious about that dessert shop. Again, the girls ordered daintily, Anny with her tiny cup of gelato and Vicky with her two little gelato-filled mochis. Trying to be good about saving calories, I ordered a Japanese-style green tea flavored shaved ice, that was made by coating the bottom of a large bowl with sweetened condensed milk, green tea syrup, then shaved ice, then green tea syrup and condensed milk, then sweetened red beans, then vanilla gelato, then shaved ice, green tea syrup, condensed milk, red beans, and finally a generous handful of mini mochi balls. Vicky watched that sucker being made and kept saying, “There’s more? She’s still adding MORE stuff? Condensed milk AGAIN?” I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I thought, “Shaved ice is just water.” But add water to the giant portion of rice I had with the curry and suddenly *I* felt like a huge mochi ball. I badly regretted finishing all of the curry AND ordering a shaved ice instead of a modest little cup of frozen yogurt.

We had a lot of fun chatting and catching up, and parted with promises to do it again as a triple date.

Yesterday, we had our homeowners association meeting at 7:30p. And it ended at 9:15p. I got to clear up the roofing misunderstanding with the people who were there, who questioned me because they had the COMPLETELY wrong idea about how contributions to an association responsibility such as repairing my roof worked. They thought I never contributed but I’m asking THEM to. Where the hell did they get that?! Apparently the secretary was a total moron when she talked to them on the phone about it.

Speaking of the moronic secretary, she not only resigned, but also refused to attend the meeting and return any email or calls about needing her to attend or participate. She also never gave HER contribution to my roofing, which I now know, because in the spirit of if-you-want-anything-done-right-you-gotta-do-it-yourself (and the thunderous silence of people volunteering when it was announced we need a new acting secretary), I am now acting secretary of our association. We also have a new president now, a young Asian guy, new neighbor, whom I’ve met before and totally respect as he seems to not only be intelligent, proactive but also sensible and eager to get to the bottom of “what the hell is wrong with this association and its funding issues?”.

Time to whip this association and its CC&Rs into shape.

On food:
Yesterday after work, I saw that a supervisor who usually has a variety of cookies in his clear pastic cookie jar (how he lures us into his office) had individually wrapped Ding Dongs in there instead. “OMG, I haven’t had one of these since I was 8!” I exclaimed, and he told me to enjoy one. Since I’m an obedient little girl, I grabbed one on my way out. I guess I’d expected my childhood food preferences to be tainted with kid-like ignorance, like when I thought Pixie Stix, colored rock candy, and button candy were cool. As adults revisiting these things, Pixie Stix is just sourish sugary sand; rock candy is just hunks of sugar crystals, and button candy was RETARDED with the amount of paper you had to spit out after ripping those little tasteless sugar dots off the strips. But that DING DONG…omg…it had a thick chocolate coating, the inside chocolate cake was moist, and that white cream in the center added the “MMM!” to “YUMMM!” It was a good thing I was in the car leaving work when that thing was finished, or I would’ve gone back for more.

On drinking:
I was emailing with Dardy and he mentioned that he didn’t like hearing about girls getting drunk, because it made them seem irresponsible or something. He wondered if it was a double-standard, since he’s fine with guys drinking. I told him that I don’t think much of girls who get drunk either, but that it was more of a safety issue to me. I think safety has to always be in the forefront of a woman’s mind, and when she’s hobbling and being stupid, she can’t defend herself in a situation and she doesn’t have the good judgment to remove herself from a bad situation before she steps in it. (That, and you don’t see men getting wasted and jumping into bed with a stranger then waking up the next morning crying about how lonely and cheap they feel.) I think it’s more responsible of women to drink when they’re in a secure safe environment, not like at a bar or out at a party with rowdy strangers when they need to drive home hours later.

On safety at work:
Today while my judge was engaged with some attorneys in a closed-door settlement conference in our jury room, I heard a big boom and crash, then lots of metallic jingling. The noise came from the back hallway behind the courtroom, right outside the door that’s 10 feet away from me. I gave the commotion 2-4 seconds to settle before I realized from the cussing and yelling in the hallway, as well as the continued banging around, that there is a struggle between our bailiff(s) and an inmate. I stood and hit the “emergency!” red button, only the 2nd time I’ve had to do that in my entire career. The loudspeaker instantly came on, connecting my courtroom to the sheriff’s office downstairs, and a female voice asked what was happening. I announced the struggle and location into the intercom. I then moved away from the door. My court reporter gave some time to pass before she opened the far end of the courtroom door to peek into the hallway, and by then she described 5 sheriffs trying to contain an angry hostile inmate who was already on his knees on the floor. One sheriff was saying over and over to him in a soothing tone to calm down, calm down. By the time all the sheriffs who were available in the building responded to the call, there were probably 12 deputies in the hallway and only minutes had passed. Impressive. One of the female deputies who was there first hurt her arm and elbow when the inmate tried to kick and rush her. This deputy came by after things settled down and thanked me for calling for help. I’m glad I wasn’t drunk at work, or I may have opened the door and walked out in the hallway to see what all the noise and banging was about!

On wedding etiquette:
One of the black belt instructors from jujitsu (who’s become a friend over the years) is getting married in 18 days. I know this because that’s what his wedding website ticker said when I visited online yesterday, due to his email urging me to visit his site. It was a very well-done site, entertaining and all, but it’s like, “18 days? I guess I’m not invited.” That’s not a big deal, tho, especially since he soon emailed me after sending me the website, to explain that he’d wanted to invite us but had limited capacity at 120 people. As it was, he said, even some family were not invited. I told him I totally understand and am dealing with the same thing myself, and that I didn’t take it personally. Today, I get another email from him. He writes that he really does want Mr. W and I to attend because we’re “fun” but that there’s no room for us, so how about we go and crash the wedding? There’s no seating room for dinner, but come after dinner, after 7pm! All the information’s on the website! Come anyway!
Now that puts me in an awkward situation, cuz altho it’s nice that he seems to genuinely want us there, to ask us to CRASH? After dinner? What if people we know there think we’re rude for being soooo late, or if they know we weren’t invited, think we’re rude for crashing? And are we supposed to bring a wedding gift when we crash a wedding? I suppose I have another 2 weeks to think about this. There’s no RSVP to mail back when you’re crashing.

Here’s another photo from the wedding, the wedding couple ‘twixt me and the W. Thanks, Warren!

Last nite/this morning, I dreamt that I was on my way over to work (or school) and met up with Gym Trainee at an outdoors playground-like gym on the campus. I did like 1 exercise and realized I was half in a dress I wear for work altho I had my running shoes and workout gloves on, and I told her I was going to finish changing into gym attire and will be right back.
I went to my courtroom to put my stuff down but on the way there, was ushered instead to a lecture hall-sized classroom. Oh, the bartending class was starting! I sat down in class, feeling bad that I’d told my trainee I would be right back but couldn’t now that class has begun. I saw a few people I knew in high school, people too popular to hang out with me back then. I sat next to one of these girls, who seems perfectly content to socialize with me now. And then some other girls came in that the girl I was with wanted to hang with, and we moved back a row to sit with them. I looked around the classroom and thought, “The class description said this was a ‘SMALL GROUP short term, fast paced course’, my understanding was 20 people per class, and there must be like 200 people in here! This is ridiculous!” Thinking about the class description, I also remembered/realized that this is a 4.5-hour course. And I’m supposed to be taking it with Gym Trainee, who isn’t here. Wait, how could I be taking a 4.5 hour course in the MORNING, before I’m excused from my other classes? I’m gonna fail my other classes! As the class segmented into 6 TAs (which I guess would explain the smaller classes advertised, altho I was disappointed to learn the course would be taught by a TA and not the professor who DID look like a bartender whereas our TA was a Hispanic young man whose English I had a hard time understanding), I walked with my group out and noted aloud to my new friends, “Some of these kids in here don’t even look 18! Why’re they learning bartending?” And then I realized/remembered that I’d made a point to register for the evening classes so that my daytime schedule wouldn’t be disrupted. How’d I end up in the wrong session of the course? Because they didn’t take roll, that’s why.
That means there’s someplace else I was supposed to be. I checked the time. 10:30a. “What period is this?” I asked a blonde woman, who in real life is my court district administrator’s secretary. “It’s second period,” she answered me in the ever-resourceful way she has in real life. I thanked her and thought hard. 2nd period…2nd period…what do I have 2nd period? Where am I supposed to be? 1st period was homeroom with my judge in the courtroom, but I’m past that now. Math? No, I made a point not to take any math classes in college cuz I hate it. Didn’t I? Okay, so process of elimination. Science? No, that’s later on in the afternoon. So what the hell is 2nd period? Where do I go EVERY DAY at this time? Maybe I can just go thru the motions and my legs will automatically walk me to the right place out of routine habit. I didn’t make myself take CALCULUS, did I? I don’t remember doing any math homework, which means if I DID take math, I’m about to commit scholastic suicide. Like so many other nightmares I have about being in school again; getting lost on campus, forgetting to study all quarter for a course which had a midterm or final the day of the dream, etc. It was usually a math class, too. *vomit*
Walking around still thinking hard, my memories starting poking a finger though the fog. I…don’t have a second period because…I’m not in school. So where do I go all day long? What’s familiar to me now? Work! I work!
And then I woke up, late for work.

I “borrowed” these photos from Warren (Jimmy’s best man), and as I get more from other people I’ll post them.

Jimmy and Sabrina’s wedding party standing inside the Shakespeare Garden:

This is the “blogger picture” I made everyone take. I totally felt like a geek, but everyone was really good sports about it.

Top row, left to right: Dardy (twenty-five seconds of silence blog), strange guy I don’t know, Mel (herro… blog), ex-blogger Diana, Jen (Jen’s blog), Warren (Meet Me in Montauk blog)
Bottom row, left to right: Christi (Better Together blog), Mike (what fools these mortals be! and Better Together blogs), me (Cindy’s World blog, duh), Cheryl (The Adventures of Cheryl and Greg blog; her hubbie Greg totally refused to join in the photo, ashamed of having sold out to blogging a few times).

I did nothing all day. And I did a lot of it. So to help you enjoy yourselves as much as I have, here’s a little amusing song that made my mouth agape and then laugh:

“Ooh Girl”: An Honest R&B Song

One morning in Diana’s house, Mr. W and I were lying around before we got up and I asked him what if the missing engagement ring is delivered while we’re up north? He had it set up for delivery to his work address, would it just sit in his mail slot in the open? He said that would not be good. I asked if he should call his office to let them know to look out for it. He didn’t say anything and didn’t call. < -- foreshadowing. I said I wish the ring got delivered a week ago so I could’ve worn it for Jimmy & Sabrina’s wedding. A friend of Diana’s had come up to me after the ceremony and said, “I heard you got engaged! Congratulations!” I saw her glance down at my bare left hand and then look back up to my face. I thanked her, and wondered if she thought we were one of those couples who “don’t believe in rings.” The only guys I’ve heard make that kind of statement were either too cheap or had an ulterior motive to not wear jewelry showing a commitment.

Yesterday, while I was sleeping all day, Mr. W went to work. I got a call from him as he was going home telling me that he has something to give me, something small and shiny. I asked if it was edible. He said no. I said then I wasn’t interested. He said, “Guess what was sitting in my mail when I went to work.” It DID arrive while we were away, and it DID sit in his exposed mail slot since nobody knew what it was! Eeks!! Anyway, I didn’t go over to his house last nite and he’d left the ring there, telling me I’d have to go over today to try it on. I hope it finally fits!

Our original plan was to leave Tuesday and drive back along the coastline, stopping whenever we wanted, staying overnight at San Simeon Pine Lodge where we’d stayed last year, and then take a leisurely drive home Wednesday. But because we were having so much fun with the NorCal folks, we decided to stay another night and leave Wednesday early morning instead. We figure if we leave at 7a, we’ll avoid downtown LA rush hour traffic.

We’ll never know if that timing would’ve worked, because I could not get up Wednesday morning. As Mr. W packed around me, I woke up in a start having been jolted out of a very disturbing nightmare of betrayal by a girlfriend over some jerk I wanted nothing to do with, who nevertheless swallowed my housekey (which I didn’t even know he had) instead of turning it over to me as I screamed louder and louder at him demanding my key back. ANYWAY, I tried hard to get up, but I kept falling over to the right. I looked up and the ceilings swirled to the left, over and over. I made it to the bathroom and while sitting on the toilet, I got deeply nauseated as the bathroom continued to spin counter-clockwise. I crawled back to bed and said I think I have vertigo. Diana soon came back up and asked for my symptoms, and confirmed it sounds like vertigo, which she used to get and which her mother gets occasional severe attacks of. She suggested motion sickness medication, and told me to just lay down. Mr. W went out to his car and got some Dromamine for motion sickness. I chewed two tablets, fell over sideways to the right again (there seemed to be this weird rightward gravitational pull), and knocked out. I woke up again at 11:30a. The room was still doing its counter-clockwise turns, but the nausea was now gone so the dizziness is tolerable. It’s not unlike being on a moving ship. I packed up my stuff and we soon took off. Diana had left for work already by this time.

I slept most of the drive, until we stopped by Magic Mountain and ate a late lunch/early dinner at Marie Callendar’s. Then I slept again in the car until we got to Mr. W’s house. I’d wanted to watch “Buffy” and “Angel,” but every few seconds I’d get the sensation of falling backwards into my own head, so I eventually just closed my eyes and slept on the couch. This morning, Mr. W woke me up, dropped me off at my house on his way to work, and I crawled into bed at 7a and slept. I’d wanted to get up a few times, 10:30a, 11:30a, 12:30p, but every time I pushed the covers away, the cold air would make me pull it up again. I finally made it out of bed for the first time at 3:30p.

The nausea never came back (thank goodness, cuz that’s the most awful part of this vertigo thing), but the dizziness didn’t completely go away until maybe late evening. I was concerned I couldn’t drive, but I badly needed groceries, so I visited the new “healthy” organic grocery chain “Fresh & Easy” near my house. After eating, I now feel a lot better. Thank goodness I’d taken the whole week off.

On Monday evening, Mike & Christi had wanted to join us for frozen yogurt at Mel’s shop “Yogurt Fantasy” on Castro, but couldn’t because they had St. Patrick’s Day dinner plans with Christi’s dad, who she was surprised to find is a great chef. He made his own Irish dish of corned beef and cabbage from scratch! So we volunteered to do yogurt a second time on Tuesday evening after everyone got off work.

As everyone else worked, Mr. W and I had a decent gym session, a late breakfast, and returned to Diana’s to shower and get ready for going out again. Diana was seated at her dining table in the exact same spot where we’d left her early in the morning, working away on her laptop. The work was about to pay off, however, as the deadline was later that night. She suggested that since the weather has continued to be beautiful, warm and sunny, that it was a great day to visit the campus of Stanford University, about 10 miles away (as everything is). She drew us a quick map and off we went, leaving her to her selling her soul work.

On the way, we thought we’d try to hit up another food joint made famous by my NorCal blogger pals, Pizz’a Chicago. Dardy and Mike’s favorite pizza on their menu is the Great Chicago Fire, comprised of spicy Italian sausage, sport peppers (like peppercinis), fresh garlic, cilantro on a thick Chicago deep-dish crust. Oh…my…gawd. It was spicy enough, I never would’ve thought of adding cilantro to pizza to give spicy ingredients a refreshing twist, and the crust was crispy on the outside while the soft cottony inside melted on the palate. DELICIOUS. It is nothing like the greasy bottomed, soggy uppered BJ’s Pizzas, which chain also claims to be Chicago deep-dish. Mr. W especially enjoyed the menu and the wall decorations, as he’s from Chicago and gets all the inside jokes. For me it was like, “Huh? Fire? Mrs. O’leary? Cow? What?” His rocker brother even played at the Cubby Bar or whatever that one pizza was named after. He took a to-go menu to share with the family. I also loved the flexible ordering; we could’ve gotten half-pizzas if we couldn’t decide what we wanted but didn’t want to order 2! They also let us half any appetizer order for half-price.

Stomachs happily digesting, we drove out to Stanford University, parked in front of the Alumni Building, and took a nice long walk on campus. The center quad is grandiose, with its many rows of archways and columns. We found the church in the center and walked in. The intricately detailed stained glass lining the wings, the giant wall of brass pipes to project the 2nd story pipe organ, the soaring arched ceilings all dropped my jaw. I tugged on Mr. W’s sleeve. “Can we get married here if I convert to Catholicism for a day?” I asked. We noted while walking in the sunshine, smelling the trees and flowers, seeing all the green around us, that the campus is very aware of natural aesthetic beauty and plays up all the gardens and trees in its giant stone architecture. I wondered aloud whether Dardy appreciates how beautiful this campus is, but doubted it as he’s a graduate. We never appreciate what we’re used to, right?

On our way to Castro St. yet again, I called Dardy. “Guess where I called you from earlier! Your alma mater!” I told him excitedly.
“What?”
“We were on campus at Stanford!”
“…why?!” he said, totally unimpressed. I went on and on about how beautiful I thought the buildings were, and he said flatly that yeah, they’re Spanish. I protested that I didn’t think they were Spanish. “They’re not? They look Spanish to me. It’s like a giant Taco Bell.” What? (Later, while relaying this conversation to a laughing Diana, she said she thinks it’s Spanish-Renaissance, not Taco-Bell-Spanish.)

We were supposed to meet up with Mike, Christi and Dardy at Yogurt Fantasy, but even tho we got to Castro St. first, we got to the yogurt place last as Mr. W found a Chinese loose leaf tea shop and stayed there for awhile to indulge his fobby side. He tried to buy a $17 ginseng oolong, but ended up walking out with a $45 high-energy oolong tea that’s supposedly sold nowhere else except at that store, according to the storeowner’s claims that he dispensed for half an hour to an enraptured Mr. W. Walking out with his leafy loot, Mr. W wondered aloud if he may have been swindled. I kept my lips shut.

I got a strawberry fro-yo mixed with chocolate this time, and it was delicious. I found strawberry strings and seeds in there, so it’s definitely made with real fruit! How I wish I had some right now, but not even the NorCal folks can have some; we caught Mel’s shop just hours before they were going to shut down for a week for major remodeling.

After Yogurt Fantasy, we drove out to a new Japanese restaurant that Christi and Mike had been wanting to try, called The Red Crane. It’s an artisan sushi place, and served some fancy stuff. Jen joined us there. Mr. W and I had gotten there first and I gave the host my card ahead of time, explaining I was to pay no matter what and to please keep it discreet. He said he understood. Unfortunately, he got off work before we were done eating and handed the card with directions to our server, who was totally oblivious. The bill came and was placed at the other end of the table so I didn’t even know it was there until after people had already looked at it and tallied up what they owed. Mr. W got up and talked to the waitress, who pulled my card out of her apron and said she’d forgotten about it. “Now we’ve got people fighting over the bill, which is what we were trying to avoid,” he told her. I’d wanted to treat everyone to a last dinner to thank them for coming out and hanging with us, even tho every one of them had work. NONE of them would let me. The cash sat on the table until I finally had take it after it was pushed back to me two or three times. *sigh*

We told them that the next time they’re in our neck of the woods, it’s going to be our treat.

Monday was St. Patrick’s Day, which we’d totally forgotten about until Mr. W and I wandered the 1.3 miles over to downtown Sunnyvale from Diana’s pad and saw Murphy Avenue completely decked out in green. It was only noon, and there were patrons in green wigs, green plastic bead necklaces, green shamrock sunglasses, green clothing, sitting outside this restaurant- and bar-lined street enjoying the day. It seemed like every bar there was an Irish pub, and most restaurants Indian.

We selected Scruffy Murphy’s Irish Pub & Restaurant, and walked into the very crowded parlor. We opted to eat upstairs where there were less people, and ordered off their special St. Patrick’s Day menu. I had corned beef and cabbage (delicious) and Mr. W had a lamb stew. He also had a green beer (Harps Lager) and I wasn’t as daring with my Bailey’s Irish Cream on the rocks. We put on our green beads and shamrock sunglasses and walked back to Diana’s, where we took a nap. (She was at work.) Then we got up and drove out to the beautiful Hakone Gardens in nearby Saratoga. (One of the funny things about NorCal is that we think everything’s really close, within 10 miles away from Diana’s, but to people who live there, we went far.) A few scenes from the cinematographically-acclaimed film “Memoirs of a Geisha” were filmed there. I loved that garden. I thought it kicked our wedding venue Japanese garden’s ass, and one of my favorite things about this garden, aside from its beauty from every angle, is that it allows visitors to go on each footpath and go exploring. I found some discreet sights of bamboo, flowers, zen gardens and hidden seats, stunning views that continued to take my breath away as I turned angles. Mr. W took some photos, but I was disappointed how the photos could not come close to doing the sights justice.

Aside from attending Jimmy’s wedding, the other thing I absolutely HAD to do on this trip was to visit Mel’s frozen yogurt shop, a new business venture of hers. We made plans to meet up with Dardy on the same street (which is like Restaurant Row), parked at the start of Castro St. in Mountain View (yes, 10 minutes away). Mr. W and I wandered by the shop first, saw Mel and chatted with her a few minutes, I sampled a couple flavors, and we walked off to meet Dardy for ramen at Maru Ichi restaurant. I kept feeling like I was having celebrity sightings this whole trip, as we’d drive by places I read about on my NorCal friends’ blogs but had never visited myself. I got all stupidly excited when I spotted HC Dumpling, too, one of Dardy’s other favorites. I thoroughly enjoyed my miso ramen (dude, that ramen’s messy! it’s impossible to eat the stuff without spraying droplets of soup everywhere unless you painstakingly wind noodles onto the soup spoon and then put the whole spoon in your mouth, which I did for awhile until I got too hungry for the slow process.), and then we walked to Mel’s shop, Yogurt Fantasy.

I’d heard that her yogurt texture is different from PinkBerry or other yogurt places, and it’s true! Her yogurt is sooo creamy and rich tasting. It doesn’t just liquify and dissolve right away. Her flavors are also very true to their name; my blueberry tart was very blueberry-y, and paired with the chocolate, I felt like I was in taste bud heaven. It was the perfect nightcap before we returned to Diana’s place where she was again back at her dining table working away (impending deadline). She’d passed on dinner to stay at home and work, opting to eat Jimmy’s banquet leftovers with Jen who was due to arrive after work. She worked late into the night while I stayed and chatted with her a bit until I felt too guilty for stealing her time and went off to bed myself. Her boyfriend also stopped by late to visit, having just left the office himself. Lawyers!