Category: General Musing

I popped in my Christmas Day CD from my beloved Victoria’s Secrets Christmas compilation as I drove out on my Santa Round, taking presents to friends and families.

“Sleigh bells ring, are you listening. In the lane, snow is glistening. A beautiful sight, we’re happy tonight. Walking in a winter wonderland,” crooned Tony Bennett.

I started to giggle.

Here I was, in my short sleeved shirt with the windows rolled down, driving down the sunny street where today’s forecast looks like this:

I usually protest temperature dropping under the 70s, but welcome the cold during Christmas. I have spent a few snowy Christmases in the harbor of Washington state and one more in the mountains of New Mexico. So I somewhat like the idea of Christmas winter snow. It adds to the festivities of the season.

Being in California, I understand the lack of snow, but usually the heater has to be turned on or the fireplace has to be roaring. It doesn’t really feel like Christmas until the $2 Santa hat can actually keep you warm.

Today, I can barely wear the hat on my round. Too damn hot. Brandon is close on running the A/C but fortunately the sun set and the temperature outside starts to drop a bit.

Anyway. Wishing you a very merry Christmas wherever you are and whatever the temperature may be! 🙂

I love the smell of bacon in the morning.

But when it starts to linger through the afternoon, one must brave the cold breezes through the house just to get the smell out a little bit more. Our kitchen vent is not powerful enough to do anything, really.

Since I was going to make my breakfast skillet this morning and the house was going to smell like bacon anyway, I figured I’d just go ahead and make a batch of Jessica Gorman’s Olive Oil and Bacon Truffles.

And before you say “Ewwwwwwwww…”, that recipe is for doggies. That’s right. I did baked dog treats for a few friends for Christmas. Remember, we don’t have kids over here so we spoil our friends’ “kids”. 🙂

So anyways. The smell of bacon was nice when we had our breakfast.  But by noon, it was just getting old.

We left the windows and doors open all day to catch the cross breeze but there just wasn’t a lot of breeze to cross. We also lit some candles to aid the effort.

And now, our place smells like cucumber melon with a hint of bacon grease.

Lovely indeed.

I played the piano and sang. A few friends joined me. Even some guy I don’t know joined me!

Folks, this is what happens at a holiday party for our investors with a grand piano in the entrance foyer, separated from the rest of the party where in you can barely hear yourself talk.

So us in the foyer had a blast doing half-ass sing-alongs from The Sound of Music, some other Christmas carols we had no idea what the words are. Well, I play by ears and mostly to the key of C. And I have not practiced my Christmas songbooks this year yet. (I’m late! I know!). So I churned out whatever I remembered. And people tried to sing along to whatever they knew.

Hail to the Chief (when the CEO walked in but he didn’t get that joke). God save the Queen (some Brits in the house requested that). USC Fight Song, of course. Desperado (one of my repertoires). Moon River. La Vie En Rose. Piano Man. Jingle Bell. Santa Baby. Sound of Music. Do a Deer…a female deer. Yo-ho, yo-ho, a pirate’s life for me. Etc.

The best moment? You see, I have a softer, lyrical adaptation of Meatloaf’s “I’d do anything for love (but I won’t do that)” to play as one of my “muzak” when folks walk into meetings. That and Metallica’s “Nothing else matters”, for untrained ears were pretty good piano music. Anyways, at the end of the party, as everyone had enough alcohol in the system, including yours truly, and not many people left hanging around, I bust out the full rock version. I was totally rocking out at the baby grand all by myself when one of the investors walked up to me.

“That’s a great song,” he said.

“Meatloaf,” I uttered.

“I know,” he replied. And then he started to sing along to the chorus. I chimed in with the girl’s part toward the ending. And he finished the song.

He applauded. I got up to shake his hand. He gave me a hug and left. I don’t even know who that guy was.

Good times for all!

The problem with being the baby girl of the family, let alone a baby girl of an Asian family, is that undeniable instinct to please.

It’s the Golden Child Complex, I hereby dub it so. You start with your parents. By keeping them happy, you get the attention you need. And of course, with the attention you need, you can get away with or get just about anything you want. A baby girl already has +10 advantage to the ability to get what she wants from her dad, but still, there is always that need to be good, to do well, to make people happy. Eventually, that need to please bleeds into your daily life. You keep your friends happy. You keep your teachers happy. You keep your coworkers happy. You keep your bosses happy.

Sure, this complex probably doesn’t apply to every baby boy/girl. But everyone seems to have one in the family, that Golden Child.

I have the Golden Child Complex. At the office, I’m a hard worker, a team player, an entertainer. I work fast and I do good work. I take on projects sometimes not even really mine just to get things done right. (Well, it also doesn’t help my complex that I am a control freak.)

What happens when the Golden Child makes a major mistake that displease her Uber Boss?

I made an error at work. A pretty big one. The final result is still passable; it’s just not ideal. It’s not the perfect picture I had in my head, and definitely not the perfect picture the Uber Boss had. He didn’t come to me outright to talk about my error, but he talked to my Lady Boss behind closed door. One doesn’t need a spy listening device to figure out what was going on in there.

I was crushed, highly disappointed at myself for making such a rookie mistake. I mean, it was a simple one. If I wasn’t in such a rush to get this done, to have the project arrived on time, I probably wouldn’t have made the mistake. But I did. And here we are at the point of no return with dissatisfied customers on my boat. They don’t say anything, but the guilt of knowing they’re not happy is eating me alive.

The Golden Child couldn’t possibly make a mistake like that. Hell, the Golden Child NEVER makes a mistake. Everything has to be perfect. I couldn’t have just fucked up, could I?

Oh yes, you could. And you just did. And here you are.

I spent the last two days quietly brooding over this mistake. I mean, I have never made a mistake this big in my career anywhere. Usually, if there’s a fuck-up, it wasn’t my fault. I can’t help the printers making the mistakes because their plate didn’t match our proof. I can’t help the late delivery from a greeting card vendor when they were slow to correct their mistakes.

But this one? It’s all me. I made the boo-boo. I did it. Me.

I suck.

In the middle of this self pity party, the Universe sent me a few signs, I believe.

We watched “Rescue Dawn” last night and I watched the featurettes afterward. They discussed the optimism of the lead character Dieter in real life (played by Christian Bale). His plane shot down in Laos during Vietnam war, Dieter was tortured and kept at a prison camp. Not once did he give up. He takes no for an answer and is always positive about the outcome. Always smiling. I’m getting out of here. We’re going to make it. This is not an obstacle, just a slight delay. And the dude survived the camp, escaped it and got out of the jungle with that positive attitude.

Then I flipped to CNN salute to heroes or something like that, just in time to catch Glenn Close introduced Christopher Reeves as the Heroes’ Hero. They showed snippets of the documentary about his recovery, which I watched when it originally aired years ago. The part of him taking his steps in the water on his own, THAT was just what I needed in my pit of self pity (and mild hatred).

Superman fell off a horse and is paralyzed from it, but that doesn’t even stop the guy. Dieter walked out of the jungle alive despite the odds against him.

And here I am, hating myself and dreading going back to work because I made one mistake.

That’s just unacceptable.

After all, I am the Golden Child, right? I can’t just let this little speck of tarnish stop my shine. Just buff if off and get on with it. Shine brighter. Do better. Make up for the delay.

As the great Tim Gunn says, make it work.

I’ll make it work.

It’s amazing how LA traffic works.

I had to be in Burbank at 8:30 a.m. this morning for a proofreading training.  (Good class, by the way.  Learned a LOT.)   According to Google Maps, that would be 33.1 miles,  and 38 minutes or up to 1 hour 30 minutes in traffic.

Just to be on the safe side, I decided to give myself 2 hours to get there, leaving the area around 6:30ish.

605 to the 5 North and onward.  Traffic was flowing.  It was no autobahn but it wasn’t bumper to bumper.

It was about 7:15 a..m. when I got to the 101 junction.  A few more slow downs here and there and suddenly the road opened up.  As in, I was going 80 mph kind of open.  Another  5 minutes and I was in Burbank.  I drove around to find gas and parked my butt at a Starbucks to kill time.

Holy shit.  I got from the O.C. to the Valley in less than an hour!  Since I misplaced my car stereo face plate, it FELT like it was a long drive without any music to get you through.  But damn!  I am sure if I left at 7 a.m., this journey would have a much different turn out.

On the way home, the same thing.  I ran out of the conference room as fast as I could.  Conveniently I parked by the stairs on the first floor, just the opposite end of the building from the ONLY exit in the place.  I got out in 5 minutes and I was flying down the 5.

A roadside sign blinked, “To 605 – 20 minutes.”

At 4:15 p.m. on a pre-storm evening?  Yeah, right!

And guess what?  20 minutes later, I WAS on the 605.  By 5 p.m. I exit my on ramp heading home.

Mind you, around 4:30, Nhien called me.  She was STILL in the parking lot at the hotel, trying to get out while I was already half way home.

Again, I’m sure if I left at 5 p.m. I would’ve still be on the freeway at 7 p.m.

LA traffic.  You just never know!

The one thing I do know is that tomorrow night’s traffic can be as bad as it wants to be.  Why?  Because we are having a bus party on our bus, that’s why!

After hearing stories of people reminiscing their other commuter buses or train where they’d have pizza or birthday cake on the bus, I took the initiative to rally my buddies on the last bus out of town for a holiday party.  Someone’s bringing apple cider.  I’m bringing cheese and crackers.  Someone else’s bringing cookies.  And lord knows who else are bringing what.  (No booze on the bus though.  This ain’t the bar car!)  It should be fun.

So, Enrique Iglesias, bring on the LA Live traffic, bro.  Bring. It. On.