OakMonster’s Den

We went to see Kung Fu Panda with Erik on Saturday.  (I only have one word for you, “Skadoosh!” I’d see it again a million times!  Do sit through the credit for a little cute snippet at the end.)  Then I left to surprise my friend Amber at her little sister’s graduation party at her mom’s house.Amber’s mom is a genius.   First she got me, who fetched Nora.  Then she got Michael, Amber’s best gay and my prom date.  Nora and I arrived late when both Mike and Amber were already buzzed.  The look on Amber’s face when Nora and I came through the door was priceless.

After most guests have gone, we even got to have a beer with the conquering graduate with a few swear words thrown in for good measures.  We finally welcome no-so-little-anymore Alicia to the adult table.  Haha.

Alicia graduated from that other university across town.  I promised not to stir any rivalry pot when I showed up and someone would start picking on me a bit.  And I would mention the truce and we all had a good laugh at the expense of the lone Trojan in a bruin’s den.

I later showed Alicia what I stowed into the fridge as her graduation present.  It’s a little puke blue and pale yellow tote with pockets.  I’m sure the real intention was for a new college student to carry their stuff to the shared dorm showers.  It just happens to perfectly hold a 6-pack of beer in paper carrier.

I happily fit a 6-pack of Red Trolley in it.

“Now, that’s grown-up beer I bought for you,” I told her.  “You graduated from college and therefore graduating from college beer.  Enough with the Miller and Coors and Corona crap.”

Alicia laughed.  “I still can’t believe you actually bought a UCLA tote.”

“The cost of my Trojan pride had better be the best damn present you’ve gotten today, little one,” I looked up at Alicia.

Yes.  Up.  This “little girl” who used to hang around with us back in high school is damn near 6 foot tall now.  The next thing we’ll know is Amber’s little girl Brittany, who is 9 and bigger than me, will be graduating college in a few blinks of an eye.

I had a fantastic time with Amber, Michael and Nora.  I played some piano and we sang a bit.  We joked around and walked down memory lanes, laughing our butts off.  I am once again reminded of the value of true friendship.  Across states and continents, and across time, when you have it, you have it.

On the contrary, today is what Thai people call a “Just Grandpa-Grandma” weekend.  It was just me and my B.

I made breakfast. He ran the laundry.  I put it away.  He let me hawk the couch.  I let him play his game.  We started on Lego Indiana Jones game, and went to see The Incredible Hulk.  (Very entertaining, by the way. Not as much fun as Iron Man, but I did like it.  Oh, and you don’t have to sit through the credit for this.)

Low key.  Low stress.

…which doesn’t explain why my head hurts and my skin is sensitive.

I think I’m coming in hot with a fever.  And I didn’t even do anything that would warrant it this weekend!

Hopefully it’s going to contain itself overnight.

How was YOUR weekend?

Woke up feeling the blues and didn’t want to put on the happy, personal mask for the day, I stayed home and worked on designing web pages for work.  A combination of homesick, having talked to my dad last night and emailed with my brother this morning, feeling the odd sense of loss, and missing Brandon quite fiercely.  As it was proven, it was really good to be alone today.

Ate leftover pasta for lunch on the couch, watching re-run of Firefly on Sci-Fi channel.

Ran to Fresh & Easy to pick up single serving of rib eye steak, a little baggy of salad, a thing each of chocolate mousse, rattatouille and mashed potatoes, and other groceries.

Made steak and egg dinner with a little salad.  Had a glass of wine.

Watched…and watching all a girl would want to watch when she has the control of the television: Steel Magnolias, Sex and the City re-runs (I mainly watched the Aiden period), and, naturally, Monty Python and the Flying Circus on BBC America while waiting for Dr. Who and Battlestar Galactica.

Can you imagine what it was like for me when I was single and without cable?  LOL.

Sunday. Justin graduated from medical school and Olaina finally became a doctor’s wife.

Monday. Brandon set off to Pennsylvania.  It was his dad’s birthday.

Today.  Brandon’s grandfather passed away.  It is also Brandon’s little niece Cheyenne’s birthday.

Tomorrow. Brandon’s niece Lauren graduates from high school.

The funeral is set for Saturday afternoon.

It’s a heart wrenching week all around for Brandon.  I am all this far away and my heart is heavy for him.  I want to be right over there and just hold the man for a little while, the way he was there to hold me when I came home the day mom died.  This is what it means that you want to be with someone so badly it physically hurts.

I did look into a flight out of here, but Brandon insisted that I stay put.  They can’t possibly add another body into grandma’s house at this point.  And another body is just going to be too many cooks in the kitchen.

Please continue to send more love and good mojo to Brandon and his family.  I really appreciate it.

Brandon’s grandfather passed away this morning.  More information coming.

Please send your good mojo and prayer to my beloved husband and his family out in Pennsylvania.

Sad: Dropped Brandon off at the airport this morning. Poor thing.

Glad: Had lunch with Nora in Irvine since I was already in the area. It’s good to return the favor.

Splurge: While waiting to go have lunch with Nora in Irvine, I ended up at the Container Store. Those of you who have been there know that when you go in for one thing, you come out with much more. I went in for two bottles of Mrs. Myers dish soaps. I came out with kitchen wrapper organizer (badly needed), closet organizers to replace my giant plastic tub that threatens to kill me every time I pull off the top shelf, sturdy clear plastic baskets for the hard to reach part of my top pantry shelves, and a travel clothing organizer to keep Brandon’s shirts from wrinkling for his next trip…which is at the end of the month.

Saving: Bought a pair of low heel brown shoes for $25 down from $60 and therefore save buying one new suit.

Fate: Someone tapped Brandon 0n the shoulder to get into her seat on the plane Cincinnati to Harrisburg. He looked up to see his mom.

Planned: Half of the things I want to get done today is done. The other half starts to look every unappealing.

Productive: Got to organizing the pantry less Brandon’s top shelf full of tools. I seriously cannot see what I’m reaching for out there. There was a moment I was going to stack my stepping stool on a chair, but since there’s no one here to call 911 if I fall, I didn’t. Also put together the first set of closet organizer and put the plastic wraps and parchment papers etc. in place.

Procrastinate: Took a break and channel surfed. Still haven’t put the closet organizer in the closet yet. I guess blogging is considered a part of this category. Now that I’ve been watching the cooking shows, I think I need to eat dinner and get started on the cookies.

Dread: 10 dozen of the Weevil Cookies I have to bake tonight.

Anticipation: That’s $150 for AIDS Walk Long Beach right there, baby!

Active: My roller skates totally rocked. I rolled out down the street with Brandon yesterday to the pharmacy and looped around the apartment parking lot for a bit. At least I seemed to remember how to do this. My body is loving a little exercise too.

Inactive: As predicted, ankle swells up just a wee little bit. Not painful to walk on but I wasn’t going to skate today even though the procrastination totally is cheering me on. Besides, the lot is kind of busy today with the neighbors downstairs moving and the other tenant getting all of his crap out of the garage.

Okay. Okay. I’ll stop stalling now.

*sigh* So much to do on my day off.

We’re once again on death watch as Brandon’s grandfather who has Alzheimer is hospitalized.  We don’t really know how many hours, days, weeks he has because, apparently, the doctor has been giving different information to different family members.

With Grandpa’s death watch, we didn’t get to be with Justin and Olaina on his graduation this morning.  Nor will we be at Brandon’s niece high school graduation on Thursday.

Brandon is going to be out to Pennsylvania tomorrow to be with his mom and grandmother.  If the funeral happens then, it happens then.  If it doesn’t, at least he was there to help around the house, and say his final goodbye.

His grandfather was diagnosed with Alzheimer several years ago.   Brandon said that he and Grandpa had already had their heart-to-heart back then.  He didn’t want Brandon to see him when he lost himself, and they said goodbye then.  However, Grandpa did come to our wedding and he was mostly lucid then.

That was the only time I ever met the man Brandon admires so much.  It was an honor.

With Brandon gone, I’m not going to get any sleep this week.  Heck, I can’t even go to sleep right now.

Neither could he.

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Originally uploaded by Oakmonster(TM).

I took a wine appreciation class at the Wine Country in Signal Hill last night. I was going to drive myself there but Brandon insisted that he drop me off and pick me up after.

And I was glad he did!

16 different wine to taste in the lesson, kids. And I actually held my own quite well for 15 of them.

It ended with a port. Delicious, lovely ruby port. Nectar of the gods.

That was tipped me over.

Just what I needed got get over hump day.

Athena has stirred up a lot of emotions for a lot of folks.

The neighbor downstairs apparently gathered a petition to send to the landlady to get Athena back after hearing that she was released to CSULB campus. She said she has almost 80 people on the petition. (But, shouldn’t the petition came from the people who actually live in the complex?)

Another lady who spotted Athena’s listing on Craiglist warned me about a local guy who’d go around “adopting” cats to torture them. Then she continued to help Athena find a home. If I can go get Athena from the campus, the lady and her friend would keep her overnight and take her to a shelter they volunteer at.

Pat O. at the office believes that if Athena loves us enough, and the campus is about 3 miles away, this weekend we might just see her on our doorstep. If that is the case, we can actually get her to a proper shelter.

I have been doing mad research to see campus policy on stray cats. I found an article a few years back that looks promising.

Trappings of the campus cats are conducted weekly during the spring and summer months, and monthly during the fall and winter months.

Trapped cats are taken to a licensed veterinarian, who provides a general physical examination, performs spaying/neutering and provides all vaccines and deworming.

Cats who are gentle (and were previous house or dorm pets) are kept and adopted out…

This article may be old, but that there makes me feel a LOT better about her situation. I am hoping to confirm this fact with someone at CSULB though.

*

With all of the madness going on, I still have time to enjoy myself a bit.

I baked like a mad pastry chef on Monday night to prepare for yesterday’s potluck. The theme was “Spring Buzz” with tinge of leftover Cinco de Mayo as the featured entree I had catered are fajitas. Nonetheless, I stuck with the theme and made lemon cupcakes with blackberry bumble bees on top. See?

And last night, Brandon took me to sushi and sake. Well, he had teriyaki chicken and green tea. *I* had the sushi and sake.

A big. Honking. Glass. Of REALLY good cold sake. (Mu is the brand. Thanks Brenda for introducing me to that.) That was soooo needed!

Nice and buzzed, we then went to browse video games, then booze at BevMo, and then we topped off the evening with frozen yogurt and 2 more hours of television.

I may not have a community cat to play with, but through Athena, Brandon and I seem to have found each other again.

I LOVE Ren Faire.

Much fun and debauchery on Saturday. I mean, how can you not have debauchery when Greg M. is involved! We drank even before we left the house…you know where this is going, right?

I’ll put up the SLIDE show here later, but in the meantime, check out my Ren Faire flickr set.

I had 2.5 cups of mead. Would’ve been three but I didn’t drink the last one fast enough before we had to exit the Faire. Everyone else in our group other than Brandon surely had a LOT more than me.

Oh and we went to dinner in Seal Beach in our costumes (minus my headpiece because it hurt my head). Brandon protested a bit at first, but Greg and I were very persuasive. LOL.

Sunday, I ditched Nora (sorry girl!) and didn’t go to Patchwork arts fair as planned. I was beat. All the drinking and the axe throwing and arrow shooting and the heat and the sun didn’t allow me to want to do much else.

Other than going to see Iron Man.

I LOVE Iron Man. It was AWESOME! First 2008 movie I love so far. I am looking forward to Indiana Jones, The Dark Knight, and Hellboy this summer. Oh, and the Happening too.

And in sadness.

I still got to play with Athena this morning. Possibly the last. The girls are supposed to take her to the shelter by the time I get home tonight. No taker for our little girl. We really hope someone adopts her.

ETA: It breaks my heart that the girls had to dump Athena at Cal State Long Beach.  Apparently they have an effort to feed the feral  and the stray cats outside of their campus newspapers.  At least she will be fed.  Hopefully someone would try to make contact with our girl and at least she would have a few human playmates.  I hope.  I wish.  I pray.

It was good while it lasted.

I witnessed a first up close and personal cat fight this afternoon, right in front of our door.

A REAL cat fight. Not the human kind.

It was Athena v.s. “Muffins” the Other Stray/Outdoor cat. (The girls downstairs called it a him and named him that.)

I picked Athena up from downstairs instead of having her trail me when I came home. She didn’t protest any and made herself at home the moment she came through the door. She was eating in our doorway as usual, but then I spotted Muffins outside the door.

Athena looked up from her bowl and slowly walked out. They were face to face. Muffins backed up ever so slowly as Athena approached him.

And then…

“Mmrrrawww!!”

“Whoa! WHOA!” I yelled out and opened the screen door. Both of them looked at me, and then Athena ran downstairs. Muffins stayed put on the steps, and looked at me for a second.

“Oh, no. You’re not sitting here.” I shooed him down the stairs.

I didn’t like that. I didn’t like that at all.

Brandon said to leave the door open just in case Athena would come back up. I had a bad feeling about this so I went downstairs to investigate.

Sure enough, Muffins took a post the bottom of our stairs. Athena retreated to her wicker chair. I shooed Muffins off some more but Athena wouldn’t even left the porch. I had to go sit on the planter/wall in the courtyard, where we first made acquaintance for her to come say hi again.

I pet her and picked her up. Muffins was still by the stairs, and I shooed him off. All the while telling my Athena that it’s okay. I brought her back upstairs but she only stayed for just a little while and promptly ran off.

This Muffins cat is wrecking the new found comfort zone for Athena and our brand new relationship. I mean, it took Brandon a week to build the trust with Athena. And this cat waltzed in and changed the game altogether.

I really don’t like this guy.
Brandon and I went down to feed Athena instead. We sat at the planter and she came up to eat. I started to brush her and she didn’t mind that at all.

Oh yes. We just bought a 3-lbs. bag of dry food, a pair of catnip toys, a brush and a flea treatment for the Cat That Is Not Ours. But I digress.

All the while, Muffins was eying the food and stalked toward us. I got up and shooed him away a few times. He ended up in the bush just 10 feet away from me and Athena.

We felt bad not feeding him.

So Brandon, the Cat Whisperer, grabbed a handful of food and stepped to the side, far enough away from me and Athena. He started tossing the nuggets to Muffins. He definitely more feral-ish than Athena. Either that, or he’s some unfriendly outdoor cat.

I got to observed the damn cat. He’s not only looking healthy and fluffy. He has a belly going on, that cat! And he’s here bullying my little girl?

I now have a spray bottle ready for the next time he shows his face around here. Seriously, he’s ruining the dynamics we have with the community cat. We can’t have that.

Suddenly, Athena took off toward the parking lot. Kara, one of the girls downstairs, came home and she went to greet her. This is when we discussed the Community Cat situation as well as our mutual feelings for Muffins. Kara says he likes to stare at her when she sees him. He does that to us too. It is a little creepy.

“That cat looks like he has no soul and he’s ready to steal yours,” she said.

He does look scary. But he’s not scary enough for me. I’m still going to spray his tabby little ass next time I see him. Trying to scare my little Athena away? That kid got something else coming.

Did I mention that Athena is technically not our cat? Hahah. And we are all so protective of her right now.

I mean, look at this little video here and tell me if you can say no to her purring at your door.