OakMonster’s Den

What a whirlwind week I’m having so far!

This weekend was shock full of activities with the bike shopping and the bike riding. Work has been just nuts.  I just now realized that I have to do 3 Christmas duties BEFORE the end of October.  And then all the stuff I postponed because of the conference last month started to pile up.  I was knee deep in stuff to do.  And then there’s this business of Celeste leaving the company.

Did I mention that she’s leaving my office for a greener pasture?  Well, she is.  I am extremely happy for her, but of course I’m sad too.  She has told me not to pull some sentimental stunt like we did for Amy when I made this slide show to Bette Midler’s “One more for the road” and made everyone cry at a goodbye gathering in the office.

Instead, I made her a little slide show to Toy Story’s “You’ve Got a Friend In Me” and sent it out to everyone as an invite to her farewell party outside of the office.  So everyone can cry at his/her own desk.  Haha!

Next week, I’m helping Celeste at our event at Sony Studios, our very last thing to work on together.  Then a few days later we party with her and then she’s gone.  Not far though. Just across the street.  We’re not going to be complete strangers, I know that.

Tonight is Off the Bus party part 2.  Did you know that Cheesecake Factory won’t even take reservation for a large group?

“Are you kidding?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” Cheesecake Factory girl replied.

“I have a party of 14. FOURTEEN!  And you won’t take a reservation?”

“We don’t take a reservation after 5 p.m.  You have to come in and put your name down.”

“And let me guess, you won’t seat us until all 14 get there.”

“Right.”

We’re taking our business to Buca di Beppo instead.  Screw you, Cheesecake Factory and your overpriced food and cheesecake!

Let the power of the internet takes over again.  Anyone is thinking of doing a big group thing at Cheesecake Factory, you’d better change your mind and take it to Buca where they’re REALLY friendly to big groups.  I think I might just have to Yelp this one…

Water on Mars!  WATER ON MARS!

I am such a geek.

Oh, and the alien in my eye also hatched today.  The corner of my eye by my nose is still swollen and red but virtually painless at this point.   Yeah, tear duct infection turned out to be more of the infection of my eyelid by the same alien that used to live in my nose, it seemed.

Let me see how many times I have been on antibiotics this year.  There’s the the original nose alien in January, but I actually didn’t go to the doctor for that.  Then there’s the February flu and sinus infection.  And then another nose alien in April.  I’m starting to wonder if I have a weird bacteria living on my skin or something.

Anyhoo.  I’m off to be a third wheel at Beachwood BBQ with Paul and Lupe unless Aurora shows up with Dresden, that is. 

…badeedodah  Zapped-badeeday.

Zapped.  Zapped.  Zapped.

Completely out of energy, that is.

Brandon and I crashed out last night just before 9 p.m. after a sun-drenched afternoon in Redondo Beach at Justin & Olaina’s.  You know me.  Unless you put a beverage right in my hand, I have a tendency to forget to hydrate.  My ice cold bottle of water never left Olaina’s cooler-backpack.

So sometime before my alarm went off this morning, I woke up radiating heat without actually sweating.  By now I knew what I was getting into.  I downed a glass of water with a couple of Tylenols, threw some cold water on my face and neck, and went back to bed.  No sleep could be had.  At least my head didn’t hurt.  Thank god for that.

However, between then and when the alarm sounded, I found myself shivering…while still feeling like I was radiating heat.  That a glass of room temperature water cooled my core temperature down to a point that I get the shiver couldn’t possibly be a good idea.

I called in sick.

And I slept.  And I woke up to drink another glass of water with a couple more Tylenol.  Shivered some more and I slept.  The rest of the day was mostly nodding off on the couch and drinking water.  The shivering and the radiating went away and I got nauseated instead.  Fun.

I pretty much slept through the day until Brandon woke me up to feed me Tylenol and ask if I had enough energy to go see Dark Knight.

What did you think I say? 

I managed not to throw up or fall asleep at the theater.  But boy was it hard to maintain the energy to sit up like that.

Heath Ledger.  That boy knew how to go out with a bang, rest his soul.  It seriously wasn’t about Batman movie.  It was the Joker movie with Batman in it.  As a matter of fact, I felt like everyone else stole the movie from Batman.  The Joker. Harvey Dent…with whom I am totally in love currently.  Gordon.  Alfred.  And even Replacement Rachael…which is mass improvement from Katie Holmes, by the way.

Suddenly, Christian Bale wasn’t the star of the movie.  Everyone else was.

Oh, and note to the movie maker for the next installment.  Can you PLEASE stop the super low, super rumbly Bat talk?  Either that or start putting subtitle in there.  It was getting worse at the end of the movie.  It has become almost caricature of the drama and the action that we’ve been watching this whole time.  Thanks.

Brandon thinks that all of my stressing out last week had finally being released from me.  It has quietly manifested itself since Monday and I haven’t been able to get rid of it completely.  Well, the overheating was the catalyst no less, but all the sleep I’ve done today was a sign.

I’m ready for tomorrow now.

And I am keeping it that way.

Been laying up on the couch with this headache since Brandon left around 2:30 p.m. to attend to some computer emergency.

Another reason why the place is quiet.

I’m pretty sure the 3 glasses of San Antonio Winery Asti I thoroughly enjoyed last night had something to do with it.  Maybe it compounded by the rum from two nights before.  Who knows.  But this headache is so fucking wicked it’s crazy.

So far, Tylenol is doing nothing. My head hurts too much to fall asleep, so no nap so far.  I’ve been drinking water like a camel and peeing like a pregnant woman and still can’t shake it off.  I even attempted a few sips of Mountain Dew, hoping the caffeine would do the trick, but now I just added jittery to the headache.

I want to work on cleaning my office and all of that.  But I can barely turn my head without giving myself a headache.  Or wanting to throw up.

Staring at this screen actually is hurting my head.

Urgh. I think I’m going back to the couch

Amy and Chris had different reasons for their sleepless nights.  Mine was possibly self inflicted.

For the third night in a row, I woke up in the middle of night from horrible nightmares.

Not sure what it was on Monday night, but I woke up drenched in cold sweat and my heart beating fast, feeling quite horrified from whatever it was I dreamed about.  Obviously I was tired enough to fall right back asleep.

Tuesday night, I dreamed that I was a part of an undercover team, discovering neighborhood teenage gang.  I came around the corner from talking to my police contact to find the back door of my car opened. I walked around and found a few kids ripping the speakers and random bits out of my car.  I yelled at them to stop and they stopped on one side of the car, just to go to the other side and started doing the same thing.

Somewhere in there, I got inside the car as somebody opened the hood.  Flames started to rise from there.  I hurried out of the car, screaming at these kids.  Someone doused me with gasoline.

Brandon actually woke me up because I was crying out.  Obviously, it took me a long time to go back to sleep from that one.

Last night was even more trippy.  I had a nightmare IN my nightmare.  In the dream’s nightmare, I saw faceless people crawling up from the shadows in my bedroom back home and they were coming after me.  I woke up and I was pretty sure the shadow people were still after me.  So I ran out of my bedroom, calling my maid’s name, but she wasn’t downstairs.

So I ran into my parents’ room.  Stood in the bathroom were my mom and dad…sans face.  They were shadow people too.

I woke up whimpering.

You know it’s bad when you’re having a dream about your nightmare.  And I never thought I would actually dread going to bed like this.  Perhaps I need to employ some sleep aid for the night.

I know I wasn’t suppose to touch anything in and around my nose.  But Brandon had a look, and based upon his report, I decided to investigate.

Alas!  The Alien In My Nose “hatched”!

I’m just going to leave it at that.

My nose is still red and painful.  But oddly enough, the pressure has lifted and the pain is gone from my cheekbone and is massively reduced on bridge of my nose.

I am on the 4th hour since I last took some Ibuprofen, yet I’m feeling no serious discomfort.

Hot compress, Ibuprofen, antibiotics and time heal a LOT of things!  I’m ALMOST free again!

Appropriately, Brandon is watching Aliens V.S. Predator 2 right now in the living room.  LOL.

Athena popped in for a bite. She spent a good 15 minutes after that getting some love from me and Brandon and exploring our place.

Keep in mind, this is NOT really our cat. Can you imagine what this blog would turn into when we have our own kittens? LOL.

And for the host…

Nutella + Strawberry = Awesome. Wish I could add red wine to these fantastic flavors, but I didn’t think my other dinner guest would agree.

That other guest is the antibiotics…which I was instructed to take with food.

Yes, my darlings. I am back on yet another 10-day course of antibiotics.

The Alien In My Nostril needs to die, you know.

I went to work in the morning with my swollen red nose–now swollen all to the way to the bridge of my nose and I feel pain all the way down my left cheekbone, the redness however stays just over the infected area–just enough time to get a lot of stuff done and to let my colleagues marvel over the redness, the swelling and how ridiculously painful this thing is.

I drove another hour back to see my doctor at 1 p.m., with the parts of the seal around my windshield flapping in the wind, no less; definitely a bad installation job of my replacement windshield in September.  This was earliest I could get in on a Monday which I happily took.  I didn’t even think I could get in on Monday at all.  Someone’s watching out for me a little bit there, I have to say.

Anyways, she said it doesn’t look like staph infection, thank god. Just a nasty, garden variety skin infection. After having had enough of me going “Ow. OW! Ow. OW!” every time she touched the general area around my left nostril, she sent me home with a bottle of antibiotics.  (Freebies, hooray!)  As for the pain, a hot compress for the outside of the nose and continue with Ibuprofen.

No industrial strength pain meds, you asked? Well, my big mouth had to go and tell her I held up okay with Ibuprofen so far. Yeah. DUH! Pain does make you do funny things, like being honest.

Ibuprofen does work for me, but for just for 3 hours. At 15 minutes past that 3 hour mark, I’d start to feel the nose. At 30 past, the pain returns to 80% and if I haven’t taken the pills 15 minutes ago, it’ll be another 15 minutes of 100% pain before it kicks in again. With constant pain in the nose I cannot just ignore like this, it really amazes me how punctual the drug works.

Speaking of 3 hours, mine is coming up. I’m just going to take a couple of Tylenol PM and forget about it for the day.

Remember that the monstrous, super painful nostril zit/infection thing I had while I was in Hawaii? Well, it managed to manifest once again in the other nostril this time while I was sick.

At least now I know it could be a form of staph infection that could go away on its own if your body is strong enough (which mine isn’t at the moment), or it could get worse and infect your sinus and perhaps even your brain.

Oh yeah. Lovely, isn’t it?

I look like a lopsided Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer. My nose is red on the outside of where the infection is on the inside. Although I doubt Rudy’s nose hurts so bad that he wants to shave it off his face with the nearest utensil. I mean, I cough and it hurts my entire head.

Nothing I can do to it really until I see my doctor, which is probably not going to be tomorrow morning. The online suggestions said to soak that in warm water and apply antibacterial cream which may not help all that much but doesn’t hurt. I have to take another half day on Tuesday probably to get this taken care of.

But that’s all the bad of this weekend, really. Because the rest was just fantastic.

First of the good things this weekend is that I picked up my new glasses, Candies frame with the newest Transition lenses. It costs me pretty pennies, but it’s definitely worth it. Once my nose stops lighting the way for Santa, I will definitely take a picture for you guys.

Brandon is very happy about these and I’m sure my dad would be too. Those guys hate my geeky New Balance glasses which was my mom’s favorite. As a matter of fact, that was the last thing we bought together. She picked out those bad boys before she went in for her first chemo. But I digress, as always.

Originally, after I picked up the glasses, Aurora and I were going to a wine and cheese tasting which Brandon offered to be our driver. A few sips of alcohol at the tasting apparently doesn’t interfere with Aurora’s breast feeding, but Aurora’s allergy to dairy does. (It’s the whole passing on the allergy thing.) Why tastes the wine at the wine & cheese event if you can’t have any cheese! But Mommy needs a few hours off anyway so we took her to have a dairy-free lunch and a for a stroll around the mall instead. Good times were had by all.

This morning, I had a hair appointment with Mary Ann in Sierra Madre. I plunked in a big wad of dough for salon quality shampoo and conditioner since my switch to store brand split my hair like never before. Hence, the appointment to trim those suckers off my head. At this length, said Mary Ann (and Shane, the former beauty supply purveyor, too), my hair can’t afford to be on drugstore stuff any more.

Brandon almost fell off the chair when I told him how much the shampoo and conditioner were. But a) these would last a LONG time, and b) it’s the cost of having the long, beautiful Asian hair you love, honey bunny, in addition to living with this.

After Mary Ann beautified me thoroughly–so much so that I ran late to brunch with my girls. Celeste, Eva, Nhien and Amy were all waiting for me. It was HOT out there in the San Gabriel Valley. The restaurant was under a tent with fans blowing every which direction but still HELL of hot. The soju mojito made the heat a lot easier to deal with though.

And of course, what would the Fab Five gathering be without a little bit of a blog-worthy snippet of conversation.

Amy: Hm. I think I’m going to order the Crab Hash.

Nhien: Well, if I get the Dungeness Crab Chile Rellenos, will you share the hash?

Me: You *always* share the hash, sweetie.

Finally, I just now checked my mail and found that I won a print of this really cool photo over at Raven’s blog! “Seventeen” is her husband Mike’s handy work. Much coolness! Raven was one of the artists showing and vending at the Brewery Art Walk last week. Nora and I bought her magnets and couldn’t get the scent of her Tahitian Vanilla bath salt out of our heads.

Anyhoo. I support artsy folks especially stuff I like. So, here list Raven’s online store and also Brandon’s friend Rachael’s store for her artisan jewelry and handmade soaps.

See? Writing about all of these joyous occasions make me totally forget about that alien living in my nostril. Okay, not totally, but at least for a little while…

Good lord.

How could a cold kicked my ass for THREE days!

I did go to work this morning, having felt peachy when I left the house. But then there was the waves of fever that never quite broke. There was higher and lower fever. No break.

I just sat there, staring at my monitor, not registering anything. I believe I got some stuff done and sent some emails. That much I remember. My head hurt, then went numb. Like my brain was floating inside an oven I called my skull. By the time I felt my face flushing, I knew I had to go.

Thank god, my boss let me go home. Thank god, Brandon was available to pick me up from the transit center.

I had lunch and slept all afternoon. Actually, I have been up for about an hour and pondering going back to bed again.

The fever broke a little bit while I napped, I think. But matter not. My face is feeling a bit warm again.

Crap.

And I have Adobe Acrobat class tomorrow morning.

God help me.

That little scratch in my throat knocks me on my butt for two days with headaches, fever, and cough. Go figure.

A lady approached an Army reservist in his camouflage uniform, patted him on the back and said, “Thank you for defending our country.” He replied, “Yes, ma’am.”

How much better you feel when you give in to what your body is calling for.  In my case, it’s the made from scratch chicken soup.  I dragged myself to the store yesterday and forced myself to stay somewhat awake through the afternoon to babysit a giant vat of soup.  Why putting myself through that when my head felt like it’s filled with push pins?  Because NOTHING else sounded good to eat.  I tried having some leftover, but it just grossed me out.  Needless to say, I have been eating said soup every meal since it was done yesterday afternoon and am still craving the same damn thing.

That strange sting that is both painful and pleasurable at the same time when the orange juice hit your sore throat. And the soothing numbness for your throat that comes with ice cream just before the cold makes you cough and lower your body temperature so you start to shiver all over again.

The fresh-squeezed orange juice from Fresh & Easy.  It actually tastes like someone just squeezed it for you.  No sugary addition.

And finally.  Truly a surprise.  This.

Honorable mention for my first photo contest. I didn’t even mind that they didn’t get my name right.  Heh.