OakMonster’s Den

Tonight’s the night! Off I go, flying straight through to Bangkok. 12-nish hour flight that seems to be minimizing the jetlag going that way. I leave around 11 p.m. getting there 7 a.m. Thursday morning. If I sleep through, I’d be good to go. Gotta love it!

I hope to be able to blog here and there during the trip. Well, if my brother would let me use his laptop at home. Heehee. (Are you reading this, bro??)

See you from the other side of the world!

The apartment we looked at the other day?

Ours.

We move in the 15th, paying half month rent and half security deposit.

The Pirate’s Dinner Adventure show?

Fun.

Although our red pirate Jack didn’t win a goddamn thing. I participated in one of the pirate challenge–we were assisting our pirate–but one broad on our team didn’t know how to raise a flag so Jack lost. That mangy wench! Anyhoo. It was a lot of fun.

The suitcase going home?

Packed.

Feeling a bit like a drug dealer as the content of bag is composed of mostly vitamins and Tylenol Allergy Complete.

Laundry?

Done.

But I lost my 2 pairs of slacks. Poof! Gone! So far, nothing else seems to be missing. Yet. Might as well. I hope to buy some from Thailand if I could find some that have room for my Asian J-Lo ass.

Stressed?

Still.

At least I know we have a place to move to so one less things to worry about while I’m at home.

Happy New Year!

It’s been an exhausting day. We started out the morning slow with the usual routine of Brandon playing games and me watching Food Network In the Kitchen.

Brandon’s friend Eric came over and we went out for Thai food at Kapao Thai. An exact repeat of last week. Gosh, I love their food. We’re changing our Thai food joint after finding out through Brandon’s friends of the family that the original owner of The Treasure Pot, where we’ve been going to for 4 years, opened a new restaurant.

Yeah. We ate at Treasure Pot for 4 years. All these times we thought they were just switching staff. LOL.

Later on, with Eric in tow all day, we went to see the apartment that Brandon went into on Friday. I was relieved to find that the piano should fit through the door just fine.

From what Brandon told me on Friday, as excited as I was about the place, I had my doubt. B didn’t think the piano would fit through the front door. We could store the piano in the garage and I wasn’t sure I want to be crooning to one of our cars.

No, not not sure. Abso-fricking-lutely NO WAY IN HELL!

But afte seeing the place, I didn’t think it’d be a problem. Plus, the place has gas stovetop! Well, it may be an ancient range, but gas, baby! Cooking with gas is so much better!

2 things about this place we have to lose to get into this apartment are our grill (dammit!) and my plants. There’s no balcony. But I could possibly keep my orchids in the southern light if I put a shelf there by the living room window. I hope I hope I hope!!

So yeah. We are pinning on this apartment at the moment. If this falls through, Brandon would have to do a more serious search for another place while I’m gone next week.

After this, the boys accompanied me to do some shopping for the trip. Suddenly, I came home to find my empty suitcase so full I wasn’t sure I could just take one for my 10-day trip! LOL. I had to sacrifice one of the 2 family size bags of Cheetoz I was bringing home to my brother. Oh well, the guy’s getting almost everything he asked for already. (Sorry, bro!)

After Eric left and Brandon got the spaghetti sauce simmering, I made the first move to pack the house. I packed most the handblown glass globe/paperweights Brandon has collected since his teens.

One box down! The entire apartment to go!

And our final task of the evening, we conquered the glorious Mount Laundry Pile. While we waited for the timer to go off, we had dinner and watched our taped Stargate shows. And listened to the thumping music, muffled loud talks, woohoos, and yeahs, and more door slams that we could keep track of.

Fucking party next door. We called security to get them over at 10:30. It seemed they were defiant of the first warning, turning the music down for a time just to blast it again a few minutes after. So, again at 11:00 when the music was finally turned off.

It’s 11:44 and the door is still being slammed every 5-10 minutes.

I CAN’T FUCKING WAIT TO GET OUT OF THIS DORM 2.0 APARTMENT!!!!

Celeste and I are working on a directory of our investors. She compiles the thing. I format it. We hit a little snag when one of the investors, Jack, has 2 email addresses that are essentially the same. With just that one extra line, I couldn’t fit 4 profiles in a row.

Celeste: Well, I called Jack and he said to use the first email address.

Me: Okee dokey. *deletes the other email address* Ahh…see that looks better now. Yey!

Celeste: See? I was that one line that jacking us up.

Me: *snort* *giggle*

Celeste: What? … Oh.

Yesterday, we celebrated the first meeting of 2006 for my office’s Alcoholic Unanimous group. Pretty much me and a few other coworkers conjured up a core group to drag everyone with us for a monthly happy hour outting.

Today, we celebrated the first meeting of 2006 for our girl’s night out dinner. That’s me and 5 other girls who have all become friends through our husbands/boyfriend.

Today, also, I just finished an apartment application for a place in Los Alamitos. Also, signed the 30-day notice to our current landlord. There’s a good chance we’d have to eat next month’s rent just to make sure we get this apartment. We love the area. Brandon likes the place. The only obstacle is mounting up to be that there may not be a way to get the piano into the apartment through the stairs. But the window looks quite big and is over the garage. Hmm….

Okay. That’s it. I’m the biggest stress case. Leaving here in 5 days.

Yep. Alex is at it again at USC. Any current Asian/Asian-American Trojans lurking around out there, PLEASE check out this workshop. As we’ve all read (in my April 2005 archive), it did make a huge impact in my life.

Here’s a recap of our “class”.

MY OWN STORY
autobiographical writing/storytelling/performing workshop for Asian Pacific American women & men facilitated by Alex Luu

Location: TSC 201
Starts/Ends: February 2 - April 6 (every Thursday)
Time: 6-8:30pm
FREE

-Tired of being misrepresented, stereotyped, and silenced?
-Fed up with the negative images/portrayals of Asian Pacific Americans in the media?
-Do you have a desire to tell YOUR own story?

Come join MY OWN STORY (MOS), a unique and powerful autobiographical writing/storytelling/performing workshop for Asian Pacific American students at USC.
This free 8-week intensive workshop allows participants to come into a safe space and UNEARTH, DISCOVER, and CLAIM their personal stories. Fun, challenging, and creative, MY OWN STORY gives participants an empowering opportunity to dig deep beyond the surface and create/express stories based on autobiographical content. If you’ve ever had the desire to tell your OWN story on your OWN terms in a safe and fun environment, this is the workshop for you!
No writing/performing experience necessary, just a desire to explore and express your story!

*Alex Luu is a performance artist and teacher who has been performing his one-man show “Three Lives” to critical acclaim around the country. Alex has been facilitating/directing MOS workshops since 1998; this is his 3rd year teaching MOS at USC.

I’m wound up tighter than the San Andreas fault.

1. Have a project I must get done before I go home (11 days!). But folks on top of the food chains seem to have a different idea. So, out the window with my supposed priority number one. Oh yeah, then there’s the big melt down of the chain of command today that frustrated almost everyone involved. Just been a long and crazy day.

2. Must also finish most of Shane’s webpage before I leave at the least. He already paid for it.

3. Still no prospect for an apartment to move to. The moving boxes are here though. I will have to find time to pack some boxes this weekend.

4. Oh yeah. Leaving in 11 days. Brandon alone for week. Now, I’m actually fearful.

Oy Dios Mio!!

My company has a meeting for our board members monthly in the very early morning. We serve up continental breakfast. After the meeting, we usually packed up any leftover pastries and fruit back to feed the people in the office.

This morning, though, Tiffany, the Big Boss’ assistant, was determined to do a real good deed and give the lefovers to the bums instead. The place we hold them is only a block from our office. So here we were, marching down the block with all of our stuff from the meeting in carts and Tiffany leading the way with her boxes of goodies.

We started scanning the library park where the homeless usually hang out.

“Hey, right there. There’s a bum,” I pointed out.

“That’s not a bum. He has a suitcase with him,” said Celeste.

“He could be one of those newly homeless. They have suitcases. I’ve seen them.”

“But that guy has three, Oakley. That’s not a bum,” chimed in Tiffany. “But there’ll be one up ahead. It’s farmer’s market day. There’s always a bum here somewhere.”

We were now up at the street corner of the farmer’s market. Still no bum. We looked across the street. No bum there either.

“Goddammit! Where the hell are all the bums today? The day I decided to do good deeds and there are no frickin’ bums!”, Tiffany damn near screamed out of frustration.

“Oh, Tiffany. You can’t plan to do a good deed. It doesn’t work like that,” said my Boss. Also a Buddhist. “It just has to happen on its own.”

Without even thinking it, the following sentence fell out of my mouth.

“Ah, well, Tiff. Let’s face it. You’re just bum out of luck.”

[insert hysterical laughter here]

And so those leftovers instead traveled with us to the lunch room and fed a pack of hungry scavengers…er…coworkers.

And later on that afternoon when Celeste, the Boss, and I came back down to shop the market, there was a bum at the corner light. Go figure.

*UPDATE* I walked past the library park again this morning. Guess who’s sitting there on the same bench with 3 suitcases? Uh-huh. That’s right.

A few laugh out loud conversations we had this weekend that had me screaming, “I’ve GOT to blog this one!”

First, Saturday night. We went to dinner with Brandon’s best friend Justin and his wife Olaina at a sushi joint in San Diego. Both B and I are on County holiday schedule (and yes I’m enjoying my day off) so we were talking about the joy of having all these holidays off.

Brandon started his rant, “At some point, the County was talking about taking some of these holidays away. Man, you should’ve seen the reactions from some of the county employees. It was like asking to cut off their big toes. Blah blah blah blah…”

I didn’t remember what Brandon said after “their big toes” because I was busy trying not to spray half-chewed sushi across the table from laughing. I looked at Olaina and she was doing the same thing.

You see, when Justin was in the Marine Corps, there was a training accident which left Justin with no toes on one of his foot.

Olaina and I, our hands on our mouths, laughing hard and trying not to choke on our mouthful of food, kept looking back and fourth at Brandon and Justin who seemed to be 100% engaged in Brandon’s little rant. A few seconds later, Justin couldn’t hold his giggles either.

. . .

Last night, Brandon was still reading his book as I was getting comfy to go to sleep.

Me: So, tomorrow morning, if I wake up first, I’ll wake you up? *wink*wink*

B: Yeah. You can start my day off right. *wink*wink*

Me: Okay. And of course, if you wake up first, just leave me the hell alone okay?

(a pause)

B: *giggles* You’re such a bitch sometimes.