OakMonster’s Den

De-lurking alert!

So you’ve been lurking around my blog for a while but never show yourself. Today’s the day! Leave your mark by posting a comment, sharing your Friday 13th horror story.

Here’s mine.

We suspected that the apartment maintenance guy stole our cash.

Wednesday night was the last time we both touched our cash depository. There was quite a bit of money left in it.

Thursday evening, Brandon came home to find the security door unlocked. So he checked with management and yes indeed they had sent up the maintenance guy to fix the problem Brandon had requested during the day. The problem was indeed fixed.

This morning, Brandon went to the box to get some cash out, and found only President Jackson sitting there. Apparently, the Benjamins have walked off with someone else between Wednesday night and Friday morning.

Gee. Where could they possibly go?

Apartment management flatly told us to file a police report as they can’t do anything about it. They won’t even hear a word that their staff could be a suspect. Having watched enough CSI, Brandon bagged the box and took them to Long Beach finest to file a report. Surely, if there are only B and I in the house and only two of us have access to the box, there shouldn’t be the 3rd set of prints. The PD told him that they’re not going to dust this for petty theft of a few hundred dollars.

And finally, our renter’s insurance’s dedutible is more than what we’ve lost.

I’m tempted to just dust the box myself. You know, I was getting pretty good at dusting our glass dining table for prints with my mom’s loose powder and dad’s dusting camera brush (very fine brush with a rubber pump thing on the end…so you can gently brush and blow the dust of your lense) when I was 9 or 10. One of my “Fun with Science” book taught me that. And how to make butter with buttermilk and a mason jar. And how to make a solar stove with cardboard and aluminum foil…

So, there you go, mom and dad. Your Christmas gift to us ia actually being enjoyed by someone else.

What’s your Friday 13th horror story?

USC loses both Thunder (LenDale White) and Lighting (Reggie Bush) to the NFL.

It’s going to be a hell of a football year for the Trojans next year.

Also quiet in the apartment hunting. We scouted out the neighborhood we like tonight in Los Alamitos, and it’s all quiet with ample street parking. We like that. Just didn’t see any “For Rent” sign posted out front though. I have a feeling we’re heading toward the next town, Cypress…

Just came back from visiting Brandon’s almost-2-weeks-old niece Morgan Claire Baldwin. She’s all pink, soft, fussy around the ears, and starting to look like her dad, Pierre.

“Oh, and just like you guys, she’s part Blackfoot,” Brandon’s mom said. She’s a quarter Native American. “Check this out.”

Mom lifted the blanket to reveal more of sleeping Morgan.

The soles of her feet are black as if she’s been running on asphalt barefoot.

“Did you know that hospitals don’t do babyfoot printing any more? They scan them!” said Stephanie. “So I bought the ink pad from Staples and did it myself. Morgan didn’t like the process too much though. I think the best one we have, she only has 4 toes on one foot.”

And just to clarify for those who are already confused. Pierre is Morgan’s father, Stephanie’s ex-boyfriend. Lauren and Barrett are Stephanie’s kids with her ex-husband Darrell. Does that make sense? Okay. Cool.

It was a great visit with the family. Pierre came. Then later on Darrell brought back Lauren and Barrett. We alternately had dinner and hung out in the dining room and living room, chowing down on $100 worth of Chinese food we hauled in from Le Yen’s.

Once I got home, I found an email from my friend Nan and her husband Mike. They just had their baby boy, Owen Ichira Ching! Yey for them! I’ve added the Chings’ blog to my roll so you can go over there and see some pictures.

Just a few bundles of joy to brighten up my day. Much needed.

My worst fear was confirmed. Mom’s metastatic lung cancer has reached her brain. 2 lesions and a possible tumor.

It drives me CRAZY how they didn’t put her on chemo or radiation the first time around. Even worse, when they found the one in her liver, they dragged her on without putting her on chemo right away.

From my research, I told my dad to make damn sure they scan her brain. They weren’t going to do it but the US doctor they’re working with made them do so yesterday.

Not to put down the whole doctor profession of Thailand, but WHAT GOOD ARE YOU if I can actually diagnose my mom better by doing research on the internet???

Not sure what else I could do from here but pray.

At a loss.

Of blood. 6 viles today at the USC Health Science campus donation center for City of Hope’s bone marrow match programs.

Of tears. And for word. Do I even need to talk about it?

On my 3rd shot of vodka. 1 more than it is okay for the normal Oak consumption, numbing the pain.

A very big day for me.

First, the Rose Bowl’s here.

And yes, I’m wearing my jersey over my business casual gitup. In an office full of Trojans, did you really think they’d send me home for wearing the jersey??
Secondly, I’m leaving at 2:30 to go get my blood drawn for further testing as a potential bone marrow donor. And then heading home to watch the game.

Yes. At home. Watching the game. Even if I get Rose Bowl tickets falling out of the sky, I’d still have to watch the game at home. Too superstitious to be watching this final game anywhere.

And finally, I’ve got to get everything about our work new site ready as the migration to the new site begins tomorrow.

Yep. Today’s THE day.

Blog, oh blog. Hear my rant. Take my stress and make it better.

• My work’s new page is due to launch over the weekend.
• My work’s big event must be planned out so I can leave to my Thailand trip.
• We must find a place to live by the end of the month.
• We must start packing.
• We must make sure all the credit cards are in order for us to put on our move expense.
• The move plan must be 80% in place before I leave at the end of this month.
• Shane’s website must be built before I leave…at least I must have the general design and layout down.
• I must get the logos for Shane’s gym approved so I can move forward in building his page.
• I must get the structure of website designed, ready for further improvement.
• I must get ready to go home, meaning I need to buy a dress, and sneaking to pharmacy all over the area to buy massive amount of Tylenol Allergy Complete for my dad. (You can only buy 2 boxes at a time now. Damn meth lab people!)

I couldn’t sleep last night because of all of this. Not to mention that I’ve been sick all week and got absolutely nothing done.

This is going to be a fun January.

Would I have liked “Narnia” better if I didn’t know it was supposed to be the story of Jesus? Probably yes.

Now I wish Irena never told me about the Christianity behind the damn thing. This would’ve been such a great, fun, wonderful, family friendly, moral teaching, fantasy adventure. But I was sitting there, waiting for the lion to die for our sins and rise from the dead to save the day from the witch. I could REALLY do without that dying for our sins stuff.

Let the damn kid die for his own goddamn sin. Really. What is the lesson you’re teaching here? You go ahead and be the little prick and betray your family because someone else will take the fall for you so you can go back and live your life guilt-free and happy. Uh - huh. Good lesson, folks.

Oh yes you can forgive the person for his/her wrongdoing because you know in the end, karma gets you back.

Oh yes, 2006 is welcomed by my coughs. A lot of it.

As it turned out, the fever+tiredness+cough brand of cold from 2 weeks ago blossomed into a full blown head and chest cold on Wednesday. My body just gave up the fight altogether it seemed. I started sneezing and my nose got stuffy, and by the evening I was down with a fever.

So I took Thursday off. Plenty of sleep and fluids didn’t do much as I continued to have fever through the night. So Friday I called in sick too. The nose started to clear and the coughs that didn’t quite go away in the first place came back.

Yep. It was looking up to be a wonderful year.

We originally planned to go see Morgan Claire yesterday, but because I’m still sick–and Le Yen’s was closed–we didn’t make it out to Norco again.

Pretty much I haven’t left my apartment since Thursday morning when I dragged myself to the grocery store to get medicine and some food until last night. We went to Paul & Lupe’s house for new year’s eve. Just the core of Brandon’s gang. It was quite fun.

My dad called us on Saturday morning to wish us happy new year as it was already new year their time. Me with my fever and keeping Brandon up half the night, we didn’t wake up until 11.

Everyone’s doing fine. My mom didn’t go up north as planned because she too has a cold. And Bangkok was hit by the “cold front”, dipping into the low 70s, which would put the north in high 60s. And that’s super brrrrr for us Thais. She’s going in for biopsy on Tuesday. The American doctors want to make sure the cancer in her liver is really metastatic before sending in the chemo.

On that same cancer note, while I was sick, I was contacted by the National Marrow Donor Program that I maybe a possible match for a 31-year-old with leukemia. Hopefully, I could be of service.

Brandon was amazed at my enthusiasm to face the giant needle up my spine. Yes. I *am* a pain wuss. I hate pain. But to save someone’s life, since I can’t run out there to fight in a war, donate gazillion dollars or even a pint of my blood–this is the least I could do.

Not to mention that I could use the good karma to help my mom.

So there you go. A week mixed with the bads and the goods that leads up to this marvelous new year day full of warmth (Brandon’s gift to me is keeping the house at 70F), food (a trip out to Pick Up Stix proved to be a perfect solution for our rice craving), and love.

Happy New Year!