OakMonster’s Den

One of the first things I read this morning that moved me to tears and filled me with the warm and fuzzy feeling and with pride.

FLOORED - Los Angeles Times

An Anonymous donor donated $5 million to USC Galen Center. Instead of putting his own name or his late son’s, he has the name “James Sterkel” imprinted on the court. It has come to a complete surprise to the family of Jim.

Anonymous and Jim had been friends since their freshman year at USC in 1955 until he died of cancer in 1997. Jim played on USC basketball team. He wasn’t the star. He wasn’t the legend. But why is his name on the court?

To which Anonymous says, “If you have a friend for 50 years, isn’t that big enough?”

I have never been so proud to be a Trojan. After all, “Faithful” is one of the 5 qualities of an ideal Trojan. And Anonymous proves it.

Remember I mentioned that I drafted up a nice little insightful blog entry a long while ago?

Well, here it is, starting with a few entries I’ve written on th bus and I add some more. YOU are encourage to add even more to this in the comment section.

I BELIEVE…

…in firm handshakes and hugs with right amount of “squish”.

…that I can change the world by just holding the door open for someone.

…that $1 donation matters.

…that happiness is not defined by money. Although it does help.

…that doing something rewarding is better than profitable.

…that everyone should have a security blanket or stuffed animal, no matter how old you are.

…in smiling and making eye contact with people. Hey, it makes MY day.

…you should be proud of who you are.

…in the healing power of chocolate and homemade chicken soup.

…in carbs. And butter. And sugar. And bacon. Everything in moderation is a good thing.

…our days are numbered, so live a little. When it’s time to go, we should be able to say, “Wow, I’ve had a great life” not “man, I should’ve had more ice cream.”

…in music.

…that having a few true friends is better than a rolodex full of people who don’t give a shit.

…generosity is the best policy.

Once again, following the lead of Rude Cactus, may I please present Public Enemy #2?

Bill Maher dressed up as Steve Irwin with sting ray’s sting in his chest.

Public Enemy #1 would be Rush “Fucktard” Limbaugh.

Now, Public Enemy #3 came in from Thailand via Little Miss KorBua.

Model Nights are stupid.

Bangkok hot spots started a trend of Model Night when “models” show up for free booze while other patrons pay usual fare just to be in the same room. Yep. Using the Honeys to attract the Bar Flies. And the “models” are not necessarily anyone big. Like Daniel of Metroblogger called them, the Z-Listers. Unfortunately, if you’re not a model on Model Night, things would be a lot less pleasant for you.

Retarded? Indeed. I’m all about equal opportunity partying!

And finally, not a public enemy but my own worst.

My stomach.

I’m homebound today. Heading out to the doctor in a few minutes.

*UPDATE*
The good doctor took a vial of blood to test for ulcer bacteria. She thinks that might just be it. In the meantime, I am to take Prilosec twice a day and eat bland food until further notice. I pray we have it all resolved before my birthday. I’d REALLY REALLY want to drink! LOL.

And speaking of drinking, now that I have to get off of alcohol for a few days, I hope I could build up the alcohol tolerance back up in 2 weeks as well.

Gosh…old age!

Brandon went to see a podiatist this morning about the pain in his foot. He came home with a diagnose for something-aritis and bone spur. And the way he walks didn’t help. Apparently the muscles and/or tendons in his foot is swollen so they taped it up, gave him a temporary shoe insert to help correct the way he puts pressure on his foot, and sent him home with the prescription for Celebrex to help with the pain and swelling. He is due to go back next week.

I know, I know. Celebrex. The heart attack causing drug. That’s really not our problem today.

Brandon has high tolerance for pain and low tolerance for pain killer. As in, he went 3 days with a broken and dislocated wrist on just Tylenols and didn’t even complain once, but give him one Vicodin for his migraine and sayonara, see you tomorrow, sleeping beauty.

Brandon took Celebrex around 8 a.m. Around 2 p.m. he called me.

B: What’s up, babe!!

Me: Wow. Someone’s unsually cheery.

B: I’m going home. Actually, more like I’m getting sent home.

Me: You okay?

B: Yeah. But I’m loopy.

Me: What?

B: Celebrex makes me all dopey and stuff. Even Erik wouldn’t let me drive to lunch. So, I’m going home now. Bye!

Oh yeah. He sounded like he was on cloud 9. That’s not normal for him. LOL. So, he went home and straight to bed to sleep off the effect. He’s okay now, feeling less loopy. He’ll be taking the medicine at night for the week.

And then there’s me. And my silly stomach. It’s been hurting since last night. Perhaps I over-ate. Then again, I had to make good of my $30 birthday gift certficate to McCormick & Schmick’s. I had scallops and tiger shrimps in lemon garlic sauce with asparagus, potato cake type thing and red cabbage kraut. It was REALLY REALLY good. But I still like this dish with their port wine sauce better. That sauce with the scallops was divine. Anyhoo. So I downed my lunch, a lot more that what I usually had to eat for that meal. By dinner time, I didn’t really want to eat, but I did get drawn into leftover spaghetti like moth to flames.

And burnt, I did get.

I had a horrible time trying to go sleep last night. I felt uncomfortably full way after dinner. This morning, I even waited out until I was feeling hungry to eat breakfast.

The moment the food hit my stomach, I started to feel the pain. It’s not like Oh my god I’m going to die kind of pain, but enough to distract and annoy you. The pain lingered until lunchtime. Figured, I was cured, I had my lunch. And here there we went again.

Okay, so if eating is an issue, I’ll make it easier on my stomach. For dinner, I made egg flower soup. Nice. Light. Protein packed. Easy to digest. I had a small bowl, mainly just to get food into my system. It stayed there and I wasn’t hurting. Ohh….until maybe half an hour ago?

I think it’s my turn to go to the doctor…

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Originally uploaded by theoakmonster.

My office rocks.

We had a BLAST at work. Productivity was a little low, but we still got our stuff done. Then again, our department is well known to work hard and play hard.

Celeste surprised us all and showed up with the hippy/disco diva gitup. Eva turned out to make a very cute and, from comments I’ve heard of her picture so far, sexy kitten. Sequoia kept her promise and came in as little China Doll. Many others in the office donn orange and black.

The kitchen table was packed with goodies! Candies from the CEO. Pumpkin bread from the CFO. Celeste made some cool cupcakes. I brought in apple slices and caramel dip. Another tenant in the building made pumpkin-chocolate tart.

A sugar high that could be easily sustained through out the day? Priceless!

This is possibly the most fun I had at work on Halloween outside of working at USC in college!

On the flipside, it was possibly the oddest Halloween I had so far. Odd as in I had so much fun at work and I came home to a quiet evening, typical of our everyday routine but dismal compared to Halloween in the past years.

Lauren, our niece, came up with tickets to see the special midnight show of the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Queen Mary. I would’ve been my first time at the show, and the first time seeing the movie through and through.

The plan: Brandon would leave work in Santa Ana and head out to Norco to pick up Lauren and her boyfriend Connor. We’d have dinner and hang out until 10:30 when we would head to the QM. After the show, we would either return to our place and Lauren’s dad would take them back to Norco after his shift (he’s a cop) or we’d take them back out to the Valley of the Dirt People.

What actually happened: Norco is roughly 30 miles from Santa. 2.5 hours and 15 miles later, Brandon called Lauren, apologized that he had to cancel, turned around and came home. There was no way he would be able to get out there to get them in this traffic! Apparently an accident that caused 4 out of 5 lanes of freeway to be closed just wasn’t good enough for the online “up to the minute” traffic report when he left work.

We didn’t leave the house again all night. Just us, watching NCIS and House, like we usually do on a Tuesday night.

As for me, Downtown LA traffic was a nightmare, so to speak. Lakers game plus everyone’s running home to their kids for Halloween. I got home almost an hour behind schedule.

By 7 p.m., I’m sure the trick-or-treaters were done. We didn’t have anyone barging up the stairs for candies or anything. Besides, we’re in an apartment neighborhood. I’m sure not many kids would trick or treat apartments.

The night maybe quiet, but the day was fun. You just can’t have it all sometimes, but I’ll take what I can get.

On to next year!