OakMonster’s Den

I. Baked. 10. Dozen. Cookies. In. One. Sitting. Since. Around. 7:30.

Oh, I also made bacon and rice for dinner while whipping up the batter as well. Talk about multitasking!

The last 2 dozen of the almond blueberry are cooling right now. By the time I’m done here, I can wrap that up and go to bed.

Oh hell no. I’m not doing dishes tonight! I did rinse everything out though.

So, the sample batch of Absolutely Weevil cookies (chocolate chips + English toffee) are ready. And I am introducing the more dainty, and at the moment unnamed, almond blueberry cookies as well.

(Hey, why aren’t YOU donating the money to the Lesser Weevils yet? You know you can get those yummy cookies I mentioned for $10 per dozen, right? You have to leave a comment or email me if you want them. Shipping maybe extra.)

Aunty Tim stopped by to pick up both kinds a while a go. She had the first batch of the almond blueberry which were still warm. A few minutes after she left, she called to report that she ate half of the blueberry ones already. LOL.

Today has been a long ass day. Nhien left for Spain, leaving me with loads of things to do on top of my existing to do list. But, you know me. Busy is always good. Because boredom–like scanning documents–sucks. Heh.

Brandon called and reported in. He had a long day too. Not entirely productive. But his new hotel is one of those suite hotels. Much improvement from the one he was at last night where they duct taped the batteries into the remote. He did get to meet new people and networked. So that was cool.

I also called home and I got to say a few words to mom. She doesn’t talk today. Not even a word. Pueng, the maid, put her on the phone with me while she went to get dad. I thought I was just on hold, but I had a feeling that mom may not be in the mood to talk. The background voice of the caregiver telling mom to say chat with me confirmed it. Mom was listening. But she wouldn’t talk.

“Hello beautiful? How are you today? Are you going to tell me how you are? Are you going to chat with me today? What’s for lunch?”

Silence on the other end until I heard dad coming for the phone.

“She didn’t talk, did she?”

“No, sir,” replied the caregiver.

“Noi, I’m going to talk to our daughter now. Okay?”

Dad picked up and after he was out of earshot reported that mom hasn’t talked to anyone in the past few days. Not even with her friends.

This is where I envy Justin a little bit. His mom is sick like mine. But at least he is only 2-3 hour drive away. I can’t even get on a plane in that amount of time.

Anyways. I’m going to put the cookies away and go to bed. Maybe tomorrow is a better day.

A girl can hope. Right?

Heroes finale.
Damn.
DA-YAM!!!!

I may not have called the ending but I have called THAT ACTION quite a long time ago…[spoiler alert…highlight to read more]…since we found out than Nathan can fly and that Peter/Syler could explode. I was thinking, why didn’t he just fly the guy off? They do that in most action movies anyway! That’s all!

Keep it up, Kring!

P.S.  Brandon arrived in DC safe and sound.  Well, aside from the fact that his non-English speaking cabby drove him 8 miles in the wrong direction from his hotel.  Oh, and he said the hotel so far reminded him of the horror that was his NYC trip back in 2001 when the dot com sent him out to the NY branch.  Well, at least the door knob didn’t fall out when he closed the door.  That’s a good thing.

1. Hunks upon hunks of well marinated meat roasted over open fire. Hmm….charred meat.

2. Bouncy house. (No adult takers this time though.)

3. 2 people burst into “Somewhere” from West Side Story in the middle of a conversation.

4. An impromptu sing-along broke out once the guitar is taken out of the case and everyone had sufficient amount of alcohol in their systems. It was no “The Greatest Love of All” from the other night, but hey, we did pretty well for a group that seemed very shy at the beginning!

Once again, massive fun at Amy & Pete’s.

P.S. Brandon is off to DC tomorrow. Here we go again with the first sleepless night!

P.S.S. I am 2700 points shy of scoring a Diamond Record on Karaoke Revolution today! That magical song? Material Girl. Really, a highly recommended song for anyone starting this game out. Super easy to follow. But I will have many days to practice in an empty apartment. Oh, my poor, poor neighbors. LOL.

1. List of food stuff include carne asada, green chilli marinaded chicken, full taco station, spicy chicken soup, 7-layer dip, freshly made guacamole, buckets and buckets of cookies, ice cream, and strawberry strata I made (which folks thought it was a lasagna until Brandon once again mentioned to them it WAS dessert).

2. List of alcoholic beverages include Newcastle, fancy red wine, Lychee sake, and strong margaritas.

3. List of discussions include “Oakley has a tail“, sexy gay geeks, wine tasting gone street i.e. Greg M. described the white wine that it tastes like “it has a baseball bat and it says [motion the beating] ‘I’m a Chardonnay! I’m a fucking Chardonnay!!!’”, a website that helps you use Ecstasy safely, and very strange sexual position terms.

4. 2 burly grown men singing “The Greatest Love of All” on Karaoke Revolution duet mode and had the highest scores of the entire evening.

5. 2 burly grown men mentioned in #4 weren’t drunk.

Oh yeah. Good times at James & Aurora’s as always.

P.S. While out with James, Brandon also bought me Karaoke Revolution and microphone for me. Hence the second mic for the duet. And from now on, I can totally rock my ass off at the house! Yey!

P.S.S. I’m now off to another BBQ. Busy weekend, indeed!

Nhien took me, Celeste and Eva to China Town for some Vietnamese food at lunch. We had to park across the street and jaywalk across 4 lanes of traffic over to the plaza.

On our way back, we were waiting for 2 more cars on the other side to pass when suddenly Nhien took off. She high tailed in front of those 2 cars who barely even slowing down for her.

I yelled to her, “Don’t you know how us Asians drive? Those fools weren’t going to slow down for you!”

Eva added, “Yeah, Nhien. Don’t walk like you drive.”

And also along the line of Oh Snap!

I was making the hazelnut brittles for my hazelnut chocolate cake to take to a BBQ tomorrow.  The caramel, unlike my previous caramel experiment, didn’t burn.  I watched it like a hawk this time.  The moment it started to brown, it’s off the heat and it continues to cook into the perfect caramel to pour over toasted hazelnuts.

Of course, a droplet of caramel hit the counter top.  Not missing a beat, I used my finger to wipe that up.

You thought if the girl burned herself once before she would learn.  Apparently I’m stupid.

…was 2-3 weeks of complete and total stress to break someone down.

Yep. You guessed it. My usual complete system crash is here.

Yesterday was the peak of stress, I can tell you. I arrived at the meeting at 6:15 for the set up call at 6:30, and of course being half awake, I promptly locked my keys in the car at the valet. Thank god for locking myself out before 7 a.m. because tow truck/locksmith from Hollywood got to Downtown LA in 15 minutes. Phew!

Ah, the lovely adrenaline and got me started and kept me going for most of the day!

Then in the afternoon, I trekked across town to Beverly Hills to help another organization at their event. All it took was one classic car to break down on the left lane on 2-lane Wilshire to generate 4 car-length per minute jam that backed up for at least 2 miles. They were supposed to feed us dinner, but I figured if I ate, I’d never make it home awake.

So at 19th hour of being awake, I made it home, through dinner of a bowl of soup and not much else.

This morning, obviously, I woke up feeling as if I singlehandedly pushed that Beverly Hill roadster off to the side of the road or something. Everything ached. The back spasm I thought was because I wore my tall chunky boots all day didn’t quite go away either.

Much fun already.

Oh, and this weekend? Social calendar is packed again. And Brandon is off to DC on Monday.

Joy.

So much to say.  No time to say much.

It seems my life is taking over my hobby.  Funny how that works out.

I got home and the next thing I know, I was watching my 9 p.m TV and the evening is over.

And I didn’t even make it to share stuff with you guys with all of that.

I mean, like today, I got home around 6:30 after putting some gas in my car.  I packed my clothes for tomorrow long day–early monthly meeting into helping with another event in Beverly Hills until night time.  I made dinner and did dishes that were already in the sink.  I did get to sit down for dinner and a bit of unwinding.  Then it was alternating dishes between commercials during HOUSE.

As a matter of fact, I’m going back to House now.

See what I mean about my day being over and I haven’t even blogged a damn thing?

There’s this lady on my bus who appears to just LOVE to hear herself talk.  Well, only when she talks to Bruin Bill.

I sat next to this lady once before.  She only said hi and went back to napping.  No talking.  No nothing.  She seemed nice.  But anytime Bruin Bill is on the bus, she would be cozying up with him and chat her mouth off.

These would be the mornings that I’d crank up my headphone a few notches in attempt to drown out her voice.

I don’t mind so much when people chat on the bus in the morning, but this lady has a voice that is only equal to nail on the chalkboard.

Her voice is nasally and high pitched, not to the degree of Fran Drescher because it flattens out.  How can I explain it, like there is no acoustic to her voice.  No reverberant.  Like a duck.  You know, it doesn’t echo.  And she has this “Eeeeheheheheeee” laugh which could be infectious if it doesn’t sound too much like a piglet being slaughtered.

And this morning, my MP3 player ran out of juice in the middle of my nap.  Even in deep sleep and through ear buds, her fucking laughs managed to wake me up.  Thank god I always carry spare batteries.

Seriously, I try to have a good start in the morning.  Pleasant conversation with my bus buddies or a nice nap without music blaring too loudly into my head.  But the moment I step onto the bus and hear her voice, my mood sours instantly.

It’s hard being an audio kind of person.  Little things bug you.

All I can do aside from buying her gag ball as a hint or throw her off the bus altogether is to keep a stock of fresh batteries in my backpack.

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Originally uploaded by theoakmonster.

This is how yesterday ended at the Faire.

Just kidding.

We had a LOT of fun out there yesterday. Justin and Olaina came with us. We walked through part of the Faire with Amy and Pete and the kids. Irena and Luke joined us a little bit later. And Janetta and Aaron joined us last.

Click on that and go see the pictures on my Flickr for now. Stories to come.

This week that is.

Tuesday was an event in the evening. Much fun there. Yesterday morning we had another event, setting up at 7 a.m. And after work, some of us took Michael out for his farewell drink at the Edison.

Holy hell. I’m fucking tired. LOL.

Drinking last night was a LOT of fun. The place was beautifully done. Dark and loud. Hip but cozy. Friendly people. Great crowd. Food was fantastic. Drinks were cheap. Thank god for Thursday nights!

We all took turn sitting in Michael’s lap, of course. Now that it has become a tradition for a farewell drink.   (Pictures coming soon).  Mike and I also got up on the stage to pose a dance and promptly got off it.  LOL.  A bunch of dorks we are!

Also I made new friends like the guy I ride the bus with, like some other random people. And I lost a bet to the youngest looking 38-year-old I’ve ever met.  Dude is funny, I have to give it to him.
I got home and I called my parents. I’ll elaborate later but pretty much it’s the end of the road for modern medicine for mom. Now that mom pretty much only eats through the feeding tube, she can’t complain about the bad taste of all of the alternative medicine-y stuff.

Did I mention that I’m tired?

Oh, and there is no rest for this warrior. Tonight is date night with my hubby. Spidey, here we come! And tomorrow is Renaissance Faire during the day and I have to bake one batch of cookies in the evening, a long overdue birthday present for my cousin.

Sunday will be mostly peace and quiet. And more baking. Because Cookies for Cash program is back to support the Weevils! That’s right, it’s AIDS Walk Long Beach season, people. Show me the money and I’ll show you the cookies.

Oh god. I can’t wait for Sunday.

Sleep. Glorious sleep awaits.