OakMonster's Den

Holy CRAP! It’s all ready been a week?!

My god. Am I a bad blogger!

But I promise to have something much more entertaining than my weekly food journal in a day or two.

For now, on to Meatless Tuesday.

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Breakfast:

• Open faced “grilled cheese” sandwich: one slice of 7-grain bread, buttered, topped with slices of one whole vine-ripen tomato, sprinkled with Nature’s Seasons seasoning blend, and a few slices of snack-sized cheddar cheese, toasted in the toaster oven until the cheese is melted.
• A mug of full-leaf oolong tea.
• Mid-morning snack: 2 whole grain crackers (they’re like 2.5 inch across!) from Fresh & Easy with generous schmear of whipped cream cheese, my mid-morning snack of choice these days.

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Lunch:

• A bowl of vegetable chili based on the recipe in Food & Wine magazine (which I will blog about later).  In that: heirloom carrots, daikon, red bell peppers, kidney beans, hominy, onion, garlic, chili powder, cumin, and generous shakes of Chipotle Tobasco.  And a piece of 7-grain toast.
• Late dessert/afternoon snack: a Godiva dark chocolate truffle.

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Dinner:

• Because it was a buy one get another one for $2, I got 2 rustica pizzas from Z Pizza: Moroccan (egg plants, pine nuts, feta, basil pesto, caramelized onion) and Mediterranean (artichoke hearts, feta, roasted red peppers, greek olives, pili pili oil).  I ate a few squares out of each.
• A glass of organic peach oolong iced tea.

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Satisfaction level: Meat? What meat?  Nope.  Didn’t miss it one bit.  And I was full all day.

Thoughts: It’s getting easier and easier each week, I have to tell you.  I even didn’t miss the meat too much today.  But I did have an egg for breakfast.  I did crave some proteins for dinner but I didn’t go for my usual burger or ribs, but salmon.  A little weird, I know.  I’m sure I’m going to want me a juicy burger in a few days.

I’m also more conscious now of what I’d eat on a Meatless Tuesday and Brandon has been helpful in keeping me in check on that too.  He’d try to help me think of places I could get something meatless to eat at.

Now, I’ve been thinking about it today that since I’m doing this a Buddhist reason, perhaps I should also not do alcohol on Tuesdays as well to make the whole religious day out of it.  After all, abstaining from alcohol is one of the Five Precepts a good Buddhist should follow.

By not eating meat/eggs on Tuesday, and having not kill anybody, abstaining from taking life is checked off the list.  Abstaining from alcohol? One day a week, I can do that.  Abstaining from sexual misconduct is everyday…although I wonder if lusting after  Taylor Lautner and/or Sam Worthington or dreaming about Jason Mraz counts.  Abstaining from taking what is not given, no klepto here so check.  And finally, abstaining from false speech aka lying. Well, that might be a little hard to swing in a corporate world, but we’ll do our best, won’t we?

Alright. It’s decided. Tuesdays will be meatless AND dry.

Oh boy.

Breakfast

• Half of a giant blueberry peach scone I got from the farmer’s market over the weekend. I ate the other half on Monday.
• A mug of lemongrass-pandan tea.

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Lunch

• An avocado tomato sandwich: 2 slices of 7 grain bread lightly toasted, mayo (yeah..I didn’t think about the egg content…), seasoning salt, a few shakes of Tapatio, strawberry tomatoes, and half of an avocado.
• The other half of the avocado with seasoning salt.
• Split a giant Asian pear with coworkers.

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Snack

• Beard Papa’s Cream Puff, courtesy of best boss/friend in the world.

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Late Dinner

• Room service at the Marriott Downtown LA: Chicken rigatoni, hold the chicken, with extra mushrooms, spinach, tomatoes, and ricotta insalata.
• A chocolate chip cookie.

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Satisfaction level: Very high.  I have to say I didn’t really miss meat at all.  But then again, I was preparing for a work event we were putting on Wednesday morning, so a) I wasn’t really that hungry, and b) I didn’t really care if I was hungry–I didn’t have time to.

Thoughts: I was really surprised that I didn’t miss the meat.  I mean, not even when I got to the hotel absolutely starved.  I didn’t even think to break the deal and get a burger.  As a matter of fact, I was looking forward to having some vegetarian pasta for dinner all day.

I think this whole eating meatless is growing on me.  Being conscious of what I eat does change a lot of things.  I’m sure I annoy people to no end with my new found path.  But hey, I still succumb to factory-grown bacon and I still cook the commercially-farmed chicken because I can’t find any ethical one close by.  A little bit is better than nothing at all.

Asian pears (thank GOD they are still in season because winter fruits are sooo boring!) from farmer’s market over Trader Joe’s blueberries from Chile.  But…well…what the hell, I had a couple of the blueberries anyway.  (Nhien brought it.)

Breakfast

• Ritz crackers with cream cheese
• A mug of Ecchaenacea Defense tea with honey

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Lunch

• A few bites of brown rice and garlic tofu with vegetables from Pick Up Stix before the fire alarm went off in the building.  I came back and just ate the tofu about half an hour later.  Mother fuckers on the 33rd floor really need to get fined for all their burnt popcorn, I swear to god.
• One of my home made dark chocolate covered–are you ready?–Not Quite Nigella’s recipe of salted maple honey bacon caramel.  A failed experiment, the caramel did not set but I found another delivery vessel that works perfectly.  Hehee.

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Dinner

• Garlic mashed potatoes with cheese and green onion, mac and cheese, sauteed vegetables and a little bit of a salad.  All the sides I ordered for our barbecue family pack from Maderas Steak & Ribs.  Everyone else was having baby back ribs and chicken.
• Lots. Of. Wine. 3 kinds to be exact.  Amount consumed among 3 ladies and one taster comes down to one full bottle and half each of the other two.  It was a Fresh & Easy twitter tasting party.

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Satisfaction level: Pretty high.  Breakfast and lunch were both interrupted so I got hungry here and there.  And PISSED off.  But oddly enough, I didn’t crave meat like I did last week.  However, dinner was very, VERY satisfying.

Thoughts: This week seems effortless.  And less junky.  LOL.  And I’m very happy about that.

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MORE on the fantastic all-girls wine tasting night here which was an awesome cap to each of our Day from Hell episodes.

Well crap. I’ve been so busy that this blog is slowly becoming all about my Meatless Tuesday.  Sorry guys!

Just to catch you up, last Wednesday was our 8th wedding anniversary.  On our way to our tradition dinner at Benihana through the infamous SoCal rainstorm, we were rear-ended.

As we crested over the 405 close to Fairview exit, we got out of the carpool lane to get to the 73.  Suddenly in front of us, a black sedan was sideway on the #1 lane.  Its visibly damaged trunk was partly in the carpool lane and the hood in #2 lane.  Unable to swerve around, Brandon slammed the brakes.  We stopped many cars length from the black sedan.  Far enough distance to be safe but yet close enough to see the people in the car trying to get out of their vehicle.

See?  Driving at speed limit, leaving plenty of room in front of you in a torrential rain actually works. Unfortunately, the guy behind us didn’t follow the same rule.

All we could see out the rear view mirror was a smaller car than our Santa Fe disappearing behind us.  And *CRUNCH*.  We bounced around in our seats.  Not too badly, but enough to know we would be in pain the next day.

Some folks had questioned me why we moved from the crash site.  Well, among the many unwise reasons to get out of our vehicle or stay stalled in this lane–oh, I don’t know.  It’s dark.  It’s rainy. We are in the fast lanes with fast cars whizzed recklessly by each side of us? Um. No. We were not sitting out here to cause MORE accidents.

So we started to pull over to the shoulder.  The car that hit us started to follow.  Oh, goodie.  However, by the time we got to the shoulder, there was nobody behind us.

That motherfucker was GONE.

We called 911 and waited for the CHP to show up.  We couldn’t see what became of that black sedan either.

The tow truck showed up first and he told us that he was here for the black sedan that was reported by several people to be blocking the #1 lane.  But there was nobody out there except us, he said.

Soon after that, CHP pulled up and got us off the freeway to file report and talk about the incident.

In short, somebody hit the black sedan and left the scene.  The black sedan, having caused our accident, left the scene.  The guy who crashed into us also left the scene.  If it wasn’t for decent people calling that black sedan in to 911, it would’ve sounded like we made the whole thing up.   I am forever grateful to those good Samaritans who called that in, by the way.

Back to us, with fading adrenaline rush, Brandon and I continued onto Benihana to make the best out of the rest of the evening.  We popped some ibuprofen and went in to enjoy our dinner.  Our necks were tensed but we didn’t quite feel the impact yet.  I tried to dull it with a sample flight of sake…which didn’t really work.

The kicker of it all is that we had just finished fixing up the Santa Fe from Brandon’s day-before-Thanksgiving rear-ending.  (That one was paid for fully by the lady who hit him.)

AND we now found out our insurance apparently only cover physical injury from a hit-and-run/uninsured motorists but NOT the damage to the car.

Then again, this is now a week after the incident, my lower back still is  VERY tensed.  Brandon has been doing well so far but, true to what our doctor told us, sometime the muscles don’t react to the impact until many days later, now the Mister also has the problem.

Now, to top off the cake that was yesterday in the Kingdom of Crazy (aka the office), my back was so tensed I had to go get a massage.  The journey home on the bus took FOREVER as the jackasses, trying to creep up to the congested freeway entrances, blocked intersections all over Downtown LA.  Seriously, if you set LAPD out to ticket all of those bastards blocking traffic, endangering pedestrians as well as impeding traffic, City of LA would totally pull out of the financial shithole they’re in.  But I digress.

The massage part of Meatless Tuesday was nice, but not so much the rest of the day.

It all started at breakfast…

Breakfast

• Half of the Honey Nut Cheerios I originally intended to eat.  I tripped and spilled most of the bowl full of cereal and milk onto my cubicle floor.  *sigh*
• Snack: a slice of lemon poppy seed cake someone brought in.

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Lunch

• Veggie burger at Rowdy Red with only half of the buns.  A bit of the sweet potato fries with ranch dressing. It was really tasty and I personally liked it.  However my guts didn’t want any of that.

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Dinner

• 2 slices of Pizza Hut Veggie Lover pizza.
• A general scoop of Ben & Jerry’s Neopolitan Dynamite.

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Satisfaction Level: I WANT A FUCKING MEATY CHEESEBURGER NOW level.  I was hungry all day.  And cranky because of that.  Well, the botched attempt at breakfast got me nice and hungry through lunch.  I have to give the veggie burger credit for being thoroughly satisfying.  But then it acted up, leaving me miserable and quite literally drained for the rest of the afternoon.  I was so busy I didn’t get to snack before the evening massage either.

Thoughts: Yesterday just sucked in general. *sigh*

Breakfast

• A small bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios and milk.
• Mid morning snack – a few bites out of the 2-lb. tub of Fresh & Easy low fat strawberry yogurt.

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Lunch

• Homemade mac and cheese, half of Barefoot Contessa’s recipe.  Essentially shells, gruyere, and cheddar with a pinch of nutmeg. I also infused the milk with thyme and garlic.

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Dinner

• Brandon made us Top Ramen…
• Dessert: Ben & Jerry’s Neapolitan Dynamite. Lots of it.

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Satisfaction Level: Satisfied.  Didn’t miss meat once!

Guilt Level: Very high for the lack of veggies when they could totally be had.  Oh, and the ice cream gorge.

Thoughts

I took a mental day off on Tuesday (keyword there is MENTAL) and had an ortho appointment in the morning.  I pretty much stayed in all day except for when I ran the books out to mail for Operations Paperback. I mean, I could have gone to the store and get some fresh ingredients to make ratatouille as inspired by the previous night’s Heroes episode.  But I didn’t.

And of course, the blues got me diving into the arms of Ben & Jerry.  I usually enjoyed a couple of bites for dessert anyway.  However, I went to town with that.  Then again, I did avoid the wine which was my original idea for dessert.  One shouldn’t consume a depressant when depressed, a lesson I learned the hard way after my mom died.

That brought us to the blues.

A friend has been waiting for her grandmother to pass away for a few weeks.  This weekend was it.  Having had talked about the experience with the friend all week, it was like reliving the days with my mom again.

Obviously, once I got to work and found out the friend’s grandmother had passed away, feelings beyond my control were set in motion.  I was sad for my friend’s loss.  I was sad for my own loss.  Which brought me to miss my family, my friends, and overall being home.  I was sad for things I don’t have in my life, an interesting form of envy.  You get the picture.

I hid behind my pile of work all day as an excuse to not be social.  Thank god for that because I would’ve started crying.

The next morning, I cried in the shower. For not much of a reason but all of the above.  I knew I couldn’t go to work like that.

Grief is a VERY odd thing.  I mean, soon after my mom’s death?  I get it.  The random sadness and the crying.  2 years after and I’m still affected by some stranger’s death?  That I don’t understand.

Then again, I *am* doing this veggie Tuesday thing in honor of my mom.  So, I guess in someway it’s all related.

One of my goals this year is to bring back my Vegetarian Tuesdays ritual.  This time, I hold on to the dairy but ditch the eggs, but not in the strictest of sense.  I mean, I’m not looking at the back of the box for baked goods with eggs in them.  Just not visible eggs, I guess that’s what you’d call it.  No egg salad or omelet, but okay with cake.  Sort of thing.

I figured, I’d try to document my success and failure this year. It’ll go something like this.

Breakfast

• A slice of Fresh & Easy’s Il Fornaio panettone.
• A FREE grande decaf soy toffee nut latte which I sipped through the day.  So it’s a breakfast AND a snack.  AND because I had a coupon for a freebie, that stays within my once-a-week Starbucks goal as well.

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Lunch

• Fresh & Easy’s jasmine rice in a tub. (Best thing ever!)
• Wildwood Organics teriyaki sproutofu…which wasn’t all that teriyaki-y.
• A side of Fresh & Easy Thai peanut sauce for dipping…which improved the overall result tremendously.
• 2 small organic vine ripen tomatoes from local farmer’s market.
• Most of an Asian pear. (Coworkers helped me eat some.)  And one bite of cake but all of the frosting on my half of a not-very-good Starbucks red velvet cupcake my coworker shared with me.

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Dinner

• Red Robin: The queso with half of the chips and some of Brandon’s garlic fries.  I didn’t even put a dent into the bowl of queso. So much cheese!
• Red Robin: A cup of French onion soup.
• Red Robin: An electric lemonade…or something like that.
• Baskin Robbins: A scoop of strawberry cheesecake ice cream.

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Satisfaction Level: Full but a little guilty

I’m pretty satisfied with all the meals today, actually.  Not horribly proud of my dinner choice but since I had a burger yesterday and about to eat the other half for lunch tomorrow, I wasn’t going to throw a veggie burger in the mix as well.

Other Thoughts

I did come home to check the box for the panettone for the egg content out of curiousity.  And there it was.  That was when I started to ponder how strict I am going with the whole no-egg thing.  Same with the cake I had.  There were eggs in that.  My instinct says that if I was going to do the whole no egg thing, I should definitely be mindful of that and start checking the ingredients.  On the other hand, I don’t want to be so strict I don’t enjoy the foods.

I guess I came to term in the middle.  Avoid eggs if I can.  But if it’s too much to ask, don’t worry about it.

Day 1 hasn’t traumatize me just yet.  I can get through the year and beyond, I’m sure!

I told you about my multi-talented friend Note, the co-owner of Kinnaree Gourmet Thai and tarot card reader extraordinaire.  The latter, at least our group of friends think she is anyway.

I promised Note that I would blog about my month-to-month prediction, so that as time ticks on, we can come back to see how accurate she really is.

Before we get to that, what she said about my overall future gets me giggling.

She said that although I am a team player, I work better alone. Same thing with my social life, great with friends and going out but rather be at home.  She said that I will do well in an international environment. And that if I was to change job, I will find success in working on my own with international connections.

Gee. Doesn’t that sound like I should persue blogging and writing full time? LOL.

She also pointed out that my generosity and willingness to help people will get me in trouble.  Yeah, well, that was proven last year when I loaned money to childhood friend who actually was scamming off everyone she knew. Her poor mom was following her trail paying off the debt, including mine. But I digress.

Also I have to watch my dedication to work. Note pointed out that my doing well at work often means I’m so consumed by it and neglecting the household. Again, that’s true. I lost myself in whatever it is I’m involved in and forget to take care of my personal life.  Brandon knows this well from 2 years of Thrill the World back to back with my Big Gala.

Now, the 12-month prediction.

December: There will be secrets involved either at work or at home. Somebody has a secret and that will complicate things.

January: Watch out for some work harmony issue. That schpiel about me being too generous has something to do with that.

February: Great partnership at work and at home.

March: Other people will have bad news that I would take it upon myself to worry about.  It’s not my bad news but I’ll be bothered by it quite the same way.

April: The lady doth daydream too much. LOL. Something about me not being able to concentrate on the present, instead dreaming about things that could be.

May-June: There will be some obstables I must get over in these two months. Everything will be a struggle but I will win in the end.

July: Disappointment, she said.  That was the only word she gave me for July.

August: Temper rises and there will be some “third hand” interferences in my life. Like someone will try to mess things up for me.

September: I will “lead the army to victory” at work.

October-November: Again, obstacles. This time I will get tangled up in things. I will feel stuck. (Gee…during that time of year, could Thrill the World be something I get tied up on??)

There. You now also have the map to my future year. Stick around to see what may come true!

As for now, Note didn’t mention in her cards but I’m enjoying the time at home.  I had lunch with my family and the Aunties today.  We stuffed ourselves silly with a seafood feast, had great conversations, and remembered mom while at it.  Her friends miss her dearly and I once again serve as the proxy for my mom in hanging out with her friends.

Tuesday is Lalai Sap with the Aunties, movie in the afternoon with a friend, and dinner with Gnarly Kitty.  Wednesday is a day-trip to Aunty Or’s house in Khao Yai now that it’s finished and completed with the backyard orchard, corn field and mini rice paddy.  Thursday looks like a lunch  and shopping date with sister in law and dad. Friday is exclusively all Gang of 4 and a night out with Tong per our tradition. Saturday, last lunch with the family and off to California I go.

International lone wolf, I am!

Sawaddee from the Big Mango, y’all!  A nice, crisp, 75F “winter” Bangkok, no less.  I am enjoying the cool morning here.

I arrived at dawn yesterday and what a day it was!  My brother and sister-in-law picked me up in his brand new BMW X5.  We had breakfast and I was left to myself all morning.  I unpacked, played some piano, and took a crack at the Nikki Heat novel before succumbing to sleep after lunch.

My friend Note called to wake me up and off I went to her condo for a 4:30 p.m. pool party that didn’t happen. LOL.  Another friend showed up and we just hung out waiting for other people.

Meanwhile, in addition to her Kinnaree restaurant, Note has developed a new talent for tarot card reading.  I experienced her talent first hand last night which I will post later. Yes, it deserves its own entry!  Let’s just say that my general card is a Star. So is Lily’s.  It’ll be a good year next year.

The gang later assembled at Kinnaree Gourmet Thai on the back patio, away from general population.  3 other friends showed up for dinner. A few of us partook in a bottle of prosecco.  One of the friends brought home made cupcake and Note was off to assemble an “Earthquake” platter.

Those who are familiar with Swenson’s Ice Cream chain would know that an Earthquake is a big bowl of several scoops of ice cream.  At the request of our gang, Note emerged with a platter of almost every variety of ice cream she had at the restaurant.

I had a plate of half eaten cupcake in my hand as I reached over to get a scoop from the platter.  And SPLAT! The cake landed onto the ice cream.

“Oh my god! 2012 on a plate, you guys! Cupcake meteor!”

We laughed our heads off then.  And of course, I would repeat the same thing a little while later.  After I stopped laughing, I downed the damn cupcake to prevent future disaster.

We then took the party back to Note’s condo where we hung around as two more people get their fortune told, provided commentaries and real estate advise as we went.  All with the background of this cheesy modeling show Thailand has on, sponsored by a “talent” school, teaching modeling, stage presence, acting, and singing type deal. The models were quite horrible less this one girl who can actually act.  There was one hot boy on there that overacts worse than Henry Rollins on Sons of Anarchy.  I thought he was hot until I saw him work the runway. Smarmy and over abundance of narcissism killed it for me. But I totally digress there.

The next thing we knew, the girls’ phones started ringing. It was close to midnight and their moms were wondering where they were at. We knew we all had to go home.

My dad and brother just got back from a business trip this morning. I got to eat breakfast with them, now both are back in bed sleeping off their tiring trip.  I am going off to hang out with Lily and Joy and her kids at Royal Bangkok Sports Club for a swim and lunch.

The plan so far:

Today: Sports Club. Dinner with my bro and his girlfriend. Possible trip to Night Bazaar with my sister-in-law and the girlfriend.

Monday: Lunch with the family and Aunties.

Tuesday: Shopping at Lalai Sap Alley with Lily and the Aunties. Catching a Thai new rom-com hit, almost out of the run, with 2 MD friends later that evening.

Wednesday: The Aunties are taking me to Khao Yai. Aunty Or finally finished her home and they want me to see it.

Friday: Shopping with my gang. Dinner with family.

It’s going to be a busy but relaxing week!

Pim of Chez Pim texted me on a lazy Saturday mid-morning to ask if I wanted to meet up at Yai in Hollywood for lunch with her and some friends.

Holy crap!

Brandon and I have just rolled out of bed at 11 a.m. and we were to be in Hollywood by noon!?!  Pim assured us we’d make it a Thai time noon, so don’t worry if we were late.  And surprisingly, we arrived first. LOL.

I Yelped Yai (or P’Yai for us Thais) as “THE mothership for Southern California Thais”.  Because it is.  I remembered when my mom and I came to the U.S. in 1993 for my 2-month English immersion class at Whittier College, my “aunt” Tim brought us here for lunch. And later on, my mom’s best friend Aunty Or, who was kicking it in Pasadena while her son attended Art Center College of Design, would also bring us back to P’Yai for meals.

Naturally, while Pim was visiting Los Angeles from the Bay area, she would call up her friends to meet her there to eat like how we eat at home.

And eat we did.  With plenty to take home too.

Our party of five was seated at the table for a party of eight, and we used up all available surfaces for all the foods we ordered.

I joked to the waitresses that we ordered as if we have never eaten food before in our lives!  Then again, Pim claimed there is no Thai food like this up in the Bay area.  And while there are good places in the O.C. for me, there is no place like P’Yai.  Of course, we’d go a wee bit bonkers.

This was also the first time I have met Pim in real life after over a year of reading her blog and corresponding via email.  And of course, it was also the first time I met her Thai friend and her friend’s hubby.

Brandon said if he didn’t know better, he would’ve thought the three of us were friends from years past.  We talked like we knew each other all our lives.  And we ate like that too–as in, no nibbling just to be polite in front of people you just met.

We went to town at Yai. AND lost our heads at Bhan Kanom Thai, the dessert shop half a mile down the street.  Brandon and Pim’s friend’s husband just stood back while three of us screamed through the place, shoveling all sorts of goodies into our arms.

I haven’t had that much fun eating and chatting in a long time.  It was a lot like going home.

That’ll hold me over until November.

Within one week I have been to a cooking demo and wine tasting with a gaggle of girls, to hanging out with furry police dogs, to sitting in a funeral service.

Thursday got me into a fun evening sponsored by Fresh&Easy.  Always love it when you put girls together in a room and let the wine flow.

Sunday got me into the Orange County Police Canine Association show at the Orange County Fair.

If you remember, I go to one of these every year in the fall to support our friend Steve and his canine Lycos.  This year, they’ve been invited to do the show at the Fair and it was a lot of fun.  Although, I have to say, in the past fall shows at other stadiums, we’ve been spoiled with a 2-hour extravaganza with helicopters flying in, and sometimes landing on the field, and a firework show afterward.  There were two shows at the Fair and only about an hour each.  A flyover by one helicopter, one flash bang granade, and no fireworks.  Still it was superfun.

Brandon talked to someone and got me ring side to take pictures.  I had such a good time capturing the event and here are the pictures to show it.

Photography is a lot like cooking.  The love you put into it makes a difference. 

Monday got me into a funeral service.

A colleague’s husband, after a long struggle with illnesses, passed away, and just about everyone in the office and former employees came to his service in Alta Dena.  This makes my second American funeral.  And it was a completely different flavor.

My first American funeral was Brandon’s friend Fabian.  It was in a massive funeral hall, felt almost like a church, and it was Catholic.  The service on Monday was a lot smaller and it was Christian service.  At risk to sound completely ignorant (which I still am here and there with American culture), it was like a gospel church.  A lot of hallelujahs and amens, and singing.  A lot of jokes and good moments for the man as he wanted his life celebrated instead of mourned.  Even his portrait the displayed was one of those that instantly bring a smile to your face.

And then it got the sermon.  I love the part when he asked if we know where we are going, that all the material stuff we can’t take with us when we’re dead, that our loved ones who passed on are in a better place, in this case, back home with God.

The part that got me fighting very hard to not roll my eyes or walk out was that whole “accept Jesus into your heart and you’ll be saved; otherwise you’ll be in hell”.

Okay, I’m not the super religious Buddhist.  But I would like to think myself a Buddhist-based spiritualist.  I believe that there’s a god/spiritual leader for everyone.  Mine is not the same and yours and that’s totally okay.  I really don’t like it when people push their believes on others.   And it pisses me off something fierce when you’d go somewhere clearly in mixed company and get preached at.

I can take it fine about the bible says marriage is between a man and a woman when attending a Christian wedding. I can take it just fine about accepting Christ when I go to mass with Nora.  Nobody ever threatens me with hell if I don’t accept Jesus at a Catholic church…yet.

But here in a funeral service for friends of the religious person, hurting for our friends and now getting beaten over the head that we’d go to hell if we don’t accept Jesus. I just didn’t think it was appropriate that day since those who already believe should know.  And the rest of us didn’t want to get preached while attending a FUNERAL, for crying out loud.

But whatever.

The funeral also got me thinking about my own.  Say, if my bus flies off the freeway tomorrow, how would that work for me with families and friends on (at least) two continents!

I definitely want all of my organs donated: whatever they can use, they can take.   Then I want to be cremated.  And I definitely do NOT want the traditional 7-day of wake/praying.  Just give me one day of Buddhist service and go ahead and float me.  More than likely, I’ll die here so that’s a lot easier to deal with than having my body transported home just to be cremated again.

I want my friends to party at my funeral.  Think wedding but it’s a party for a dead woman with an international buffet, an open bar, and a dance floor.  You can only wear black if it looks hot on you.  Two parties, one in the US and one in Thailand.  Ooh. Fun!

And all the talk about death, in there somewhere, I received an invitation to a destination wedding in Costa Rica in 2010.

I am currently plotting that trip with my best friend Nora as the Mister had enough of non-English speaking Third world country for a while.  I am also going to reconnect personally after 20 years with a Costa Rican friend and trying to have other friends from that camp to meet up there.

In a span of less than 7 days, I got to make new friends and marvel over food and wine, hung out with police dogs, ponder my spirituality and death, and plan for my future adventure with an old friend.

When the universe wants to you do something, it’ll conspire to get you to do it.

Apparently, I am to think on my death and to start living my life.