OakMonster's Den

Separated at Birth: Battle of the Wills

Rubicon’s Will Travers (James Badge Dale) and Glee’s Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison).

Travers and Schuester: Brothers?

One is a math genius. Other is a musical genius.

I can see a crossover episode, y’all! ;-D

Mid-30s Crisis

It started with this picture of me with Olivia Munn.

I know she’s all professionally made up for the show and she’s already GORGEOUS.  But I looked at myself and thought: Fuck, I look like crap.

As I might have blogged about before, I don’t really like make-up.  I don’t like the feel of it. I don’t like the maintenance of it. But at 33…and another look at that picture…I’m rethinking that a little bit.

Armed with internet tips for doing make-up for girls with glasses, I adapt an easy new routine.  I’m already using tinted moisturizer, so I’m adding aqua pencil liner, my favorite cream blush, a little mascara and curler action, and lip tint blended with lip balm.

The first day I did it, Nhien noticed right away.  I don’t think anyone else did.  LOL.  So I gave it a week to see if I could maintain it.  And as it turns out, I can.  And I’m doing it!

After I reevaluate my face, serendipitously, other new things started to change too. Or maybe I’m starting to notice them more.

Holy crap. I’m having a little bit of a mid-30s crisis!

Naturally, after I upgrade my face, I decided on upgrading my work wardrobe.  Most things I have in there are either handed down from someone or things I don’t really like to wear.  So, I consulted Brandon and then my fashion forward friends and I dropped a bit of money on buying new nice shirts, pants, and cardigans.

I did get my hair highlighted reddish a few months ago. And I’m thinking about going in to get it redone fire engine red. But we shall see.

I’ve changed my beauty habit and my clothes.  But the biggest change of all is internal.

I am much braver at going out solo than I have ever been before.

And you’d think of all people I shouldn’t be scared of going it alone.  I mean, I’ve danced in front of hundreds of people as Zombie Slave Princess Leia after all!  If I can do THAT, going to events by myself should be a piece of cake, right?

Well, *I* didn’t know THAT.  LOL

Originally, going solo wasn’t by choice. At all.  Since there are a LOT of things I’d want to do that Brandon doesn’t have any interests in, I have to make new friends.  And I have.  But once in a while I found myself dialing down my phone list to find no one available…or interested in doing all that crazy shit that I do.  LOL.  Normally, if I have no buddy, I would cancel that plan and miss out on the event.

But I was determined to go to Phototasting event even after Gregg had to back out.  So, I grew some balls and I went alone anyway.  I had a wonderful time!

The proverbial light bulb went on in my head with accompanying proverbial “ding!”

Oh my god. Going out by yourself is totally fine!  Hellooooo!

What was I doing when I was single then if I don’t like going out by myself, you ask?  I am both a social butterfly AND a homebody. So those days when I was alone, I was either out with friends or perfectly fine alone at home.  I never thought I’d be going OUT alone.

I still feel a twinge guilty for not doing stuff with Brandon–who is perfectly fine being a home playing MMORPG with his buddies.  But I’m working hard on not issuing myself a ticket to that guilt trip.

Having gain my solo confidence, I signed up to join a GuerilLA improv “mission” without anyone going with me…which so far all of the past events I have missed was because I had no one to go with.  The result is this spectacular surprise musical we dropped on unsuspecting crowd at Universal CityWalk.  (Thanks Gregg for the video!)

And by product of that, I also abandoned Brandon’s family visiting from New Mexico for a day to run amok with other “Yellow Shirts” in Santa Monica ( Thai people don’t panic. It’s not what you think it is…heehee.) for ipOddyssey: an MP3 experiment. (Thanks Gen for the video!)

New make up. New clothes. New frame of mind.  All started because of Olivia Munn.  That figures. LOL.

Well, a life crisis doesn’t complete unless you get a new car, right?  Lotus Elise, darling, mama’s coming for you…

…in, like, 10 years when I actually have a midlife crisis…after a refresher course on driving stick shift…and a race car driving class.

In the meantime, I’m just going to continue working on my life.

Table for 2 and that’s just fine

We’re child-free by choice.

We don’t hate kids.  And we make great auntie and uncle.  We just like to play with them and hand them off to the parents at the end of the day.

We adore Brandon’s two nieces age 8 and 11.  We can hardly wait to hang out with Aurora and James’ 2-year-old Dresden and baby Chloe.  Olaina and Justin’s Ella is still too little to play with but we didn’t mind hanging out with her too.

I’m quite sure the fact that they are relations–or practically relations, our tolerance and patience for them are a lot higher than for that of complete strangers’ kids.

However, we don’t offer to baby sit the kids on our own.  Well, Brandon is okay with taking Dresden to the park for an hour or two, and Little D and I get along swell playing inside the house.  But overall, we never want to be left alone with the young ones for more than a few hours at a time before our patience run out and our heads explode.

We chose to be child-free for a reason.  And our friends know it.

Yet, it’s a constant question we have to dodge here and back in Thailand.  My dad especially.  I haven’t the heart to tell him, so my answer is usually, “I don’t have the money.”  My mom’s friends know I didn’t want kids.  Actually, and quite surprisingly, they were supportive of that choice.

I started to realize I didn’t even want kids back in college.  I still remembered the first time my ex-boyfriend mentioned our future children.  That freaked the fuck out of me out but I played along.  Hahaha. Yeah, sure, honey, a boy and a girl, right? Wonderful.  But in my head, Holy shit he already talks about KIDS?! God I can’t have kids?! I don’t want any kids!!

You can’t imagine the relief when Brandon brought up early on when we started dating that he didn’t want kids.

So far, our choice to be child-free has never been a problem in our social life because we can still hang with our friends who have kids.

We had Aurora and the kids over for dinner often.  And we were perfectly okay with going to the movies with Brandon’s nieces when we were in New Mexico.

On those certain days we weren’t up for kids, we politely decline the invitation for their company.  Most friends understand.  Some don’t.

We are child-free BY CHOICE. And that choice includes choosing to not be around a child when we don’t feel like it.  Because if we want to be with a child all the time, we would’ve chosen to have one.

We respect parents.  We do.  I mean, we can barely stand up to Dresden’s rambunctiousness for a few hours and Aurora has to do this all day with Chloe clinging on to her?  Holy crap!  And then there are friends and single parents who also work full time on top of being a mom/dad.  I mean, seriously.  How do you guys manage all of that?

Props. Mad props to you, parents.

We respect also your choice to have children. And we thank you for bringing your wonderful kids into this world and even share them with us sometimes.

We hope that you respect our choice to not have children–or not be with one when we don’t want to–as well.

I <3 Olivia Munn

One memorable hour on the set of Attack of the Show!  At one point, Olivia called me over during break.

“So Oakley, where are you from?”

“Los Alamitos…and Thailand.”

“So which is it? Huh? Huh?”

“Both!”

“You’re lying, aren’t you? You fucking liar.”

And then she introduced me to her co-host Kevin.

“This is Oakley. She’s a liar.”

“Oh, hi. You’re a liar?”

“Yes. I am.”

“Really?”

“No.”

“What?”

“Dude, I’m a liar.”

Hence this:

Anyways.

Oh, yes.  Olivia is just like who we see on television, people.  Except even prettier in real life.

She’s hilarious and super friendly.  And she drops f-bombs.  And she talks naughty.

Those haters, listed here in this LA Times story, just keep piling it on.

It’s this whole women hating women thing that women would never get to go anywhere, I think.

Yes, Olivia is beautiful, smart, and hilarious. Yes, she plays to her male audience…you’d be a fool not to when your show’s demographic is the dudes.

Play a ditz? Play a hot chick? Jump into a pie?  What she says is right, in so many words, you’re nobody but who your fans make you.  Much like this blog, if y’all don’t read it, it doesn’t exist. (So…thanks!) You can’t make a living as an entertainer if there’s no audience.

Could she have gone and done something more “dignify”?  Sure. Will her fans follow there?  Probably not.

But having seen her in action on the set, I’ve got to say that she has the brain and sense of humor to back her up.

So, good on you, Olivia.  I wish you well.

Haters will hate.  And everyone has a point of view.  Respect that, and moving on.

As Olivia signed on my copy of Maxim–yes, *MY* copy of Maxim, and I bought the Playboy too–”Let’s braid hair!”

Yes, Olivia.  Let’s join our Asian powers and braid hair.

We have our own brand of awesome.

And everyone else can, well, suck it. 

Raised to be kind

I went online to shop for an item I needed for the kitchen that I couldn’t seem to find in the stores.  [I can't say what the item is until it is given. Read on to find out why.]  My friend @MacabrePhotog was the one who inspired me to get one of these, but he himself does not have one.

When I tweeted him that I bought him something, he was quite surprised.  Another friend chimed in asking it was because his birthday was in a couple of months.

Nope. I don’t need an occasion to buy a friend something.

This notion of a gifting without an occasion was quite new to @MacabrePhotog.  He sent me a message later saying that he couldn’t remember the last time someone bought him something for no reason.

Welcome to my circle of friends, I told him.

I have made some new friends this past year or so.  And they haven’t yet gotten used to the fact that I’m quite good at random gifting.

Old friends know that I would come back from a farmer’s market with the last of this season’s Asian pears because I know they like them; that I would turn up with extra cream puffs if I ever go down to Beard Papa’s; or that I would make extra meatballs so the new moms could have them later.

Yet another trait I’ve picked up from my mother.

As long as I remember, my mom and her friends have always picked up something for each other when they were out somewhere.  I’m not talking about souvenirs from far away places–but yes, we received those too–but from a trip to the mall or a stroll through a market.

Bags of mandarin oranges were messengered over from Aunty Rae’s office–because she found a great deal from a fruit vendor when she was out to lunch.  Aunty Sida’s driver dropped off barbecued duck for our dinner since she was at the restaurant that’s famous for duck.  Mom just sent some tote bags she picked up from today’s shopping trip out with my brother as he headed to the sports club to hand it to Aunty Jim.

You get the idea.

Mind you, this was even before cell phones.  They did manage to call each other before stuff get sent over.  But a lot of the times, things would just show up.

Even while I was away in the U.S., I could come home in the summer to find a pile of Thai souvenirs my mom had collected for me to take back to give to people for Christmas.  And 1/3 of that pile would be from the aunties who thought of me while they were out shopping.  Not to mention something else they had gotten for me specifically.

Buying a treat for your friends once in a while never hurt anybody…as long as you can afford it, of course.

That was the message I got from my mom and her friends.  My mom never really taught me to do this.  I just learned from watching her and the aunties.

One of the very last things I got to do with her before she had the stroke, and eventually passed away, was to hit the mall with the aunties.  It was in February and the mall was full of Valentine’s Day stuff.  My mom sent me slinking off to another cashier station to buy everyone a red carnation each. (”But mom, there are ROSES!”  “The roses are too pricey. The aunties will yell at you for wasting money if you get those. Get the carnations!”)

Aunty Sida outdid us by later passing around bright red hand towels with “love” printed on them to everyone.  But we didn’t even see her buy anything!  The trick was that she spotted them on the way to the restroom.   She had them held, then texted her driver to buy them up while we were in a different section of the mall!  LOL

Now I found myself wandering through Target, calling my friend Aurora to ask what size shirt do you think our friend Jim wears because I found a $5 Captain America t-shirt he’d love.

I’m a lot more like my mom that I thought.

Oh, and if you’re thinking I would be driving Brandon crazy with my shopping for other people, guess again.  The mister does the same thing. 

Wrapped up in the World Cup

Oh yes. The tradition is back.

First of, in this blog, soccer will be called by its proper name of football.  Thank you.

You know, I’m not an all-the-time football fan.  But every time the Olympics and the World Cup come around, I’m all into it all over again.

It’s a family tradition that I just can’t shake.

Having grown up with 2 older brothers, it’s not difficult to get roped into the spirit of all of the teams.  Frankly, I remember watching enough games but I still don’t know who’s who.  All I know is that since Sunday’s color is red in Thai tradition, my oldest brother claimed it Liverpool Day and we, including our cousins, were thereby demanded to wear red.

My dad, mom, and oldest brother were all educated in England. Naturally, as a household–except for mom who didn’t do sports–we always root for the English.  My oldest brother’s team of choice after that is Germany for its well known precision.  My older brother was all about Brazil. And then it’s everyone’s next favorite team, Italy.  And these are the four teams I root for consistently every 4 years.

With all of that football love in my household, however I personally never own a football jersey.  My mom wouldn’t let me have one because “girls don’t wear football jerseys”.  I couldn’t even get the hand-me-down from my brothers!  My brothers would wear matching jerseys when we went out for Sunday supper.  Say, if it was French food we’re going for that evening, the boys would put on France jerseys and Italy for Italian food.  This, obviously, illicit a lot of smiles.  Not to be left out, I would try to dress myself to match the jerseys as well.  I distinctly remember one outfit of white with accents of blue and red for the French jersey.  Hey, I tried!

So, recently, I just bought myself an Italian jersey, albeit cheap and cheesy from Target and my Italian coworker’s snickering at it.  One childhood depravity fulfilled. Woohoo!

This year, I have 2 coworkers who are even more into the World Cup as I am, the Italian and the Armenian.  I’m sure there’s a joke in there somewhere of “An Italian, an Armenian, and a Thai walk into a bar…” And that’s what we’ve been doing 4 out of 5 days last week, running into Casey’s in Downtown LA at lunch to watch the game with a VERY enthusiastic crowd.

They’re my surrogate football brothers. And I love them for it.

Back in 2006, there was just me in the office with the occasional glances from other coworkers.  But it wasn’t like this year.

Looking back further into my June/July 2006 posts to see what all I’ve said about the World Cup then, instead, I found my posts about my mom’s stroke.  It was hard to read.  There I was, mixing the tragedy of mom’s stroke with the World Cup and other daily life nonsense.  I didn’t know then the horrible effect the stroke would have on my mom. She was in such great spirit.  I also didn’t know then that the stroke would be what would eventually take her from us. Otherwise I wouldn’t have made such light of everything.

Funny how in hindsight you find all these odds and ends.

So, today, in celebration of my family and a little piece of memory of my mother, I’m going to go out there and enjoy my World Cup fever as I have been doing all week.  With the distance between myself and my family nowadays, there are a few things that keep us together.  World Cup watching being one of them.

Oh Humanity

When disaster strikes somewhere in the world, if the media and celebrity is on board especially, suddenly you see the surge of donations and fundraisers everywhere.

But what about the everyday?  Where did that overflowing of generosity and kindness go?

Last week, my bus buddy was sitting with a bunch of other commuters waiting for the bus.  There was no room to sit so I was standing around the corner.  Once these folks got up to get on their bus, I moved in to sit down. There was a purse laying next to my bus buddy and I knew for sure that wasn’t hers.

I asked anyway, “That’s not your purse, is it?”

My bus buddy gasped. “Oh my gosh! I think that lady left her purse!”

A young Asian chick standing right by turned to me, “Oh yeah, she went on to that bus a second ago.”

My bus buddy and the Asian Chick kept looking at the purse and looked around.  None of them wasn’t going to pick it up, it seemed.

So I did.

The Asian chick put her nose to her blackberry and started walking away.  With much interest, my bus buddy watched me moving in to investigate the purse that laid right next to her.

It’s like watching “What would you do?” show on ABC.  This is the show that fake a situation to see how people would react.  At this juncture, it would’ve been a show where nobody was going to do anything.

I went through the purse, found a wallet with all kinds of IDs with no cash or credit card. There was a cellphone holder in the purse and fortunately no actual phone itself.  So at least she has her phone.  I found her insurance cards with her company on it.  While on my bus, I looked up the company and and called.  I told the receptionist I had recovered this lady’s wallet.  She gave me the lady’s cell phone number and took mine.

My bus buddy signaled at me from the back of the bus to see if I actually made a connection with the purse owner, and I nodded.

The following morning, the purse lady called me and we met at Starbucks.

Apparently, she was on the phone talking to someone the entire time and didn’t realize one of her many bags had slipped off her shoulder, and soon after that her batteries went dead.  That also explained why the neither the receptionist or I could get a hold of her that evening.

“Can I hug you?” she asked.  LOL.

Now, of all of this ordeal, here’s what  I don’t understand.

Both my bus buddy and the Asian chick were just staring at the purse.  Neither one was going to pick it up.  I mean, what if I wasn’t there?  They were just going to leave it there?

I mean, the Asian chick definitely was going to leave it there since my bus buddy sits right next to it, I’m pretty sure. She was already started to move away after she told us, people who stood next to the purse, that she had seen the owner left to get on the bus.

Would you want someone to look on by if that was YOUR purse?

This isn’t even Haiti, folks. It’s somebody you stood next to not more than 5 minutes ago.

I’ve seen this similar thing happen before.  Someone dropped something without knowing it. 10 people saw it and nobody was going to tell that person until one brave soul did.  A person came running to the bus yelling for it, 10 people turned to look and heard him but did nothing.  Once in a while, someone helped yell or wave or something but not always the case.  On the crowded bus, nobody was getting up for anybody.

Seriously. Where did the human decency and kindness go these days?  We’ve become such a “Me Me Me” society. I mean, even the giving to the disaster, for some people, it’s  because it’s trendy at the time, not about they actually care.

Thailand had a celebrity-packed fundraiser for Haiti with drew quite and outrage. Um, helloooo there are Thai people who need help just as much and you’re sending your money where?

The giving and the kindness suddenly become a hip thing to do; not THE thing to do.

I’m sure there are still decent human beings out there who would always do the right thing and step up to help.  I know at least 3 guys on my bus who would’ve given up their seats if the bus is full. I know that Brandon and Justin and his friends would step up to help those in need of help.

I mean, yesterday we were walking back to our car at the farmers market. A lady was loading stuff into the truck and there was a huge cart full of stuff on the floor next to her.  Brandon gave me the keys to the car and he himself ran over to the lady to help her put all of that into the truck.  Loads of people walked by doing nothing.

These little moments when a door is held open, a dropped item returned, or a seat given up that restores my faith in humanity.  These moments are what keeping me from becoming a complete misanthrope.  (Right now, I’m just a little bitter, heh.)

How about you? Have you seen any act of kindness recently? Or perhaps you’ve done something good yourself?

Universal Alignment

A lot has happened since I got back from Costa Rica.  As I was coming to grip with how to take life a little bit easier, this shit went down in Bangkok.

“How Did Thailand Come to This?” indeed.  (And this report is pretty accurate and surprisingly unbiased.)

My family home is literally in the war zone.  I mean, they had been since the Red Shirts camped out not 200 meters down the street.  Everyone is safe now, but my dad and brother, my uncle and his family, and our family maid were more or less held hostage by all of the activities all around.

My brother did take a heroic run to take an elderly neighbor with a heart condition to the hospital and returned home with food and supplies to stock up.  And he did it again the day after the city was ablaze, to take my dad with a severely painful “stuck shoulder” to the doctor.  Ah, calcific tendonitis, calcification of the tendons in the shoulder! You know just when to reveal yourself!

I didn’t realize I’ve inherited my mom’s ability to worry too much.

Hellooo anxiety!  Thanks for visiting.

I’m sure the level of angst I had since last Tuesday was multiplied by each mile away from Bangkok.  And that inadvertently made me shut down and mentally run away again.

Ask Brandon what I’ve been doing these past few evenings. That’s right. I sat in front of the TV and didn’t move.  The good ol’ self defense mechanism when things got too much for me to handle, I just ran away into TV Land.

As things seem to be returning to normal in my hometown, I came across another fork in the road of life.

But making the decision on which direction to take wasn’t a problem.  It seems things have been decided for me already.

Those who have read “The Alchemist” know this well: “When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream.”

So many things happened to so many aspects of my life these past few weeks.

First, a few weeks ago, Brandon and I were deciding what to do for Memorial Day weekend.  Do we stay? Do we go?

Do you want to go to Monterey to re-do our disastrous first romantic getaway or go to Hearst Castle?  How about Joshua Tree before it gets hot?  We couldn’t decide but we know for sure we didn’t want to be in town.

Then I saw posts from our friends in Portland.  And I was reminded that we told them we’d going to visit them this year. Why not now?

Cheech’s dad is visiting but he’s leaving tomorrow morning, leaving him enough time to clean up and be our host.  Matt and Traci are lined up for dinner on Saturday night, and Rachel for Sunday breakfast.

And then just last week, another universal alignment.

Did you know that I’ve always wanted to do archery?  I don’t recall having shot any arrows when I was in Thailand, but I sure as heck ran to the booth the first time we went to Renaissance Faire. I was in love with the long bow.  But I didn’t quite find time or resources to explore further or take it up.

Then I started to go to shooting range with Brandon and his colleagues.  As much as I like to shoot firearms, I don’t really care for the noise.  I’d prefer something quite as deadly but a lot quieter.  We’re back to the archery conversation. And again, it didn’t go anywhere.

And then, out of the clear blue sky, Brandon’s coworker posted something on Facebook about his daughter doing archery class. He found out a new range has recently opened in Los Alamitos.  He was telling me as we got in the car to go get dinner.  But he suddenly changed his mind about where to eat and we ended up at Pasties…which is down the road from the Archery Outpost.

We popped in and I already felt right at home.  We chatted with the friendly staff, and got the tour of the place and a bit of the history of this family business.

This comes in the heel of my decision to step further back from my involvement with Thrill the World Los Angeles.

The universe couldn’t have been clearer about its plan for me.

Life Detox

6 days in Costa Rica and I came back with a new look at life.

I went 6 days without the internet (except for a 30 minutes I hopped on to check in with the hubby when I arrived and before I left), work, or television.

I went 6 days without much of anything but gallo pinto, rum,  and time.

Yep.  Nora and I didn’t do much of anything during our trip but relax and go with the flow.

We landed in San Jose at 9 a.m. on Thursday and we were at Calilu restaurant to wait for our shuttle by 10 a.m. The shuttle to take us to Playa Conchal was to pick us up at 3 p.m.  We sat and ate, made a new friend with a Canadian girl, learned to play Gin Rummy, and watched the rain fall.

Our driver was awesome and we learned the meaning of “Pura Vida”–pure life–or pretty much the answer for anything in Costa Rica: excellent, fantastic, I’m well, etc.  Our Canadian friend ended up saying good bye to us as “Puta Vida” and “Puerto Vida” after another 5 hours in the van.  LOL.

Having gotten into our room at the all-inclusive Paradisus Playa Conchal at 8 p.m. that night, we called for room service and cracked open in-room Imperial beers and called it a night.

The next few days was pretty much this: wake up at 8, done with breakfast by 9, and sit out by the pool or swim up to the bar for the rest of the morning.

We explored the hotel’s golf course on Friday, looking for the howling monkeys, bought our postcards, hit the beach, and had a wine tasting class, tasting house wines…meh.  Dinner with the Bride and Groom and friends, gambled a bit at the tiny little “casino”, and more drinking with the Groom and his friends.

On Saturday, we were in the swim up bar with the boys until all of us had to get get ready for the wedding.  The beautiful sunset ceremony on the beach north of the hotel was awesome and we didn’t get rained on, which was a HUGE blessing.  A casual reception followed.  Afterward the boys went back to continue drinking in their room and the girls ended up at the pool.  I didn’t go with either party but the late night downpour sent all the girls running in the middle of the night from what I heard. LOL.

Sunday morning came, we squeezed in our morning routine before packing up and checked out at noon.  At 2 p.m. we were once again on the shuttle, heading back to San Jose.  At 7: 30 p.m. we got out of the van in Escazu, just west of San Jose.  My friend Richard picked us up and took us back to his farm in Alajuela, just north of San Jose.

Richard was a chaperone (”Leader”) of his Costa Rican delegation of 4 11-year-old kids to the international camp in Australia I also went to back in 1989.  We have managed to keep in touch these 20 years and here we were, sleeping in his living room in Costa Rica.  Who woulda thunk!

Richard took us through the windy roads of Alajuela and up to Poas volcano.  We hiked up to see the crater but got the San Francisco treatment: nothing but fog.  He then treated us to Costa Rican lunch and ice cream at Pops, the Costa Rican version of Baskin Robbins essentially, and a quick tour through Alajuela town center.  Now, THAT is a contrast from our 3 nights at a touristy, vanilla all-inclusive.  We got to really see the country and the people!  Nora and I whipped up dinner at the end of the afternoon of watching thunderstorm rolled in over the farm, and capped off the day with Richard’s favoriate movie “Across the Universe”.  All three of us are Beatles fans so that was quite awesome.

Our last day in town, Richard dropped us off in Downtown San Jose to explore.  We dragged our feet through the Precolumbian Gold Museum, lingered over our lunch at the Gran Costa Rica Hotel, and explored the mini souvenir mall.  We took the cab back to Richard’s office and he drove us half way to the airport, fetched us a cab, and we said our goodbyes.  A few more hours of waiting at the airport and Nora and I were on our way home.

We didn’t do a lot. We didn’t have excursions planned. We didn’t zipline.

But we did enjoy our downtime.

With all I had on my hand was time,I’ve learned to relax for the first time in a long time.  I’ve learned to let things go and enjoy the moment. I’ve learned that I can still walk away from work a little and that I can’t let it consume me like I have been.

My shoulders haven’t been up to my ears since I got back as my normal life’s stuff starts circling me.

I’m slowly getting back on the internet life, catching up with duties left behind, and clearing out the DVR.

But the zen of Costa Rica is still with me.

And I’m going to keep up with it the best I can.

Here are the pics. Enjoy!

All my bags are packed

Costa Rica, here I am!

Yep. My BFF Nora and I are heading down to the beautiful northwestern beaches of Guanacaste region of Costa Rica for my friends’ wedding.  The traveling Couch Monkey will finally get to be among his capuchin buddies!

I just realized that this is my first trip abroad in 17 years.

Well, you know, having come over to the U.S. being my last “foreign” trip.  Since then, I have only gone home and nowhere else outside the U.S.

Okay. I did set foot in Canada for like 15 minutes in college when we got turned around the Vancouver border. But that doesn’t count.  (Long story short: Ex-boyfriend decided last minute to pipe up about my student visa status as we were presenting our California driver’s licenses for him to check. Good job, man.)

My history of travel includes Hong Kong (8 or 9 years old), Australia (12), New Zealand and Singapore (13), the U.K. (14), and the U.S. (15).

So yes. This is a HUGE deal for me.

And so far, it feels just like home. Except in Spanish.

Will have pics and vids when we get back. At $10 a day for wifi, it just ain’t worth it.