I mean, look at how neglected this blog is!!!

Let’s take a look back this year, see what all I did, and give out some 2010 awards, shall we?

2010 in Pictures:

Drinking Buddy of the Year: Bus Buddy Amanda

We’ve been riding the bus together for a few years and carpooled together numerous times.  But it was this year that Amanda and I started hanging out outside of the bus.  We grabbed a few drinks either in Downtown LA or right here back in Los Alamitos.  We occasionally dragged our husbands with us too, like when we went to the Night Dive at the Aquarium of the Pacific. Next up on our agenda is shopping.  Our wallets should be afraid. Very afraid.

Bar of the Year: Chaya Downtown

I actually have visited less and less Downtown LA hot spots since last year.  Work dynamic continues to shift and happy hour gathering has become more and more difficult to manage.  Yet, I kept finding myself moseying over to Chaya Downtown whenever I have an excuse to do so.

At the beginning, I didn’t really give Chaya much of a chance.  Compared to the cozy vibe at the Library Bar, I felt Chaya was a bit more snooty.  I was proven wrong on that.  Also with Library Bar having become so popular it was too crowded for my liking, Chaya has plenty of space to spread out either right up to the bar or out in their Japanese beer garden.  It’s one of the better places in the financial district for happy hour these days with great menu and strong drink specials.  I mean, that $5 cocktail specials they have would knock a lightweight on her ass, I tell ya!

Chaya bar is not just for drinks, but for lunch too.  Bartender Greg always take a good care of me whether I was just picking up a very reasonably priced to-go bento box or sitting down to pig out alone.  The food was surprising fast out there at the bar versus sitting down at the proper restaurant section.

Newcomer Award: USC Trojan Nation

Fight on!

It only took me 11 years since graduation to get around to buy USC football season ticket.  Bless her heart, at the time of purchase, Gridiron Goddess Amy shouldn’t be spending her money on the ticket, but she did. And we roamed and ruled USC campus as tailgate nomads, lugging our own food and beverages, looking for a place to crash.

During the sesason, I reconnected with old friend Roy aka USC Psycho and crashed at my rarely-seen Trojan brother Joel and his wife Zoe’s tailgate.  I never quite made it to Hawaiian Jen’s group at the engineering quad though, my one regret.  I also made new Trojan tweeps as I tweeted my away games from my couch or at the bar with USC Long Beach Alumni Club.

Yes, the Long Beach Alumni Club is back and very alive!  As destiny would have it, it got resurrected this year.  And naturally, I joined and soon became their director of technology, handling their twitter account and soon to design their website.

More Trojan Nation shenanigan will ensue through the spring, I am sure.  Thank god I’m not a basketball fan too or else my husband will never see me again…

High point of the Year: NaNoWriMo

I have great friends who always supported me through everything I do whether it’s AIDS Walk Long Beach with Team Lesser Weevils or joining GuerilLA in a spectacular improv musical unleashed upon the unsuspecting crowd at Universal City Walk.

This year I took a swing at National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and raised money for the foundation set up in my grandfather’s name in memory of both him and my mom.  Friends were super supportive with donations and encouragement.

I was writing on the bus on the way to work. I was writing it at lunch at work. I was writing some of it at home too.  50,000 words in 30 days proved to be too much for me as my inner editor and procrastinator kept chipping away at my words and my time.  However, I did have half of that for a draft of a memoir about our family’s ties to mom’s two big folders full of fortune teller notes.

Low point of the year (other than a disappointing USC football season): Sickness and death among friends

This year has sucked for so many friends healthwise thus make it a low point of the year.  Friends have been afflicted with fibromyalgia, MS, and cancer. I hate you, diseases, for making my friends’ lives unnecessarily harder. My fist. Your direction. Grrr….

Also,  a former colleague who had been dealing with kidney issues unexpectedly passed away.  He was okay one day and died in his sleep over the weekend. It was quite a jolt.

Holiday of the Year: Halloween for a completely different reason!

The past two years, weeks leading up to Halloween had involved running around with Thrill the World.  This year, I passed on the torch so I get to have my favorite holiday back!  Then again, the costume change this year was the most I’ve ever done.  5 costumes leading up to Halloween, if you can imagine.

1. Halloween Friday: Nerd Herder for work
2. Halloween Friday Party: Slave Leia for a Star Wars party at Amy’s house.
3. Halloween’s Eve: Crazy USC fan gear.  Well, I just topped off with what became my signature Dr. Seuss hat for the game.
4. Halloween afternoon: a Jedi costume was thrown on to visit Gregg at the hospital. I did tell him I was going to bring out Slave Leia but I didn’t think it was appropriate for a hospital.  David said if anyone was to have a heart attack, that would be a good place for it. LOL.
5. Halloween: Resident Evil’s Alice accompanying Brandon’s Tallahassee from Zombieland to our usual trick or treat evening at Paul’s house.

Song of the Year: Teenage Dreams, Glee version

Can’t. Stop. Listening.

Movie of the Year: Toy Story 3.

No, I haven’t seen the Social Network, Inception, The Kids Are Alright, or anything critically acclaimed.  Naturally, Woody and the gang won this round.

Surprise Movie of the Year: Hachi: A Dog’s Tale

It’s a straight-to-video gem.  I’ve grown up knowing the story of the original Hachikp in Japan so I was curious to see this movie Entertainment Weekly and my friend were raving about.  I knew it was going to be a 3 hanky type mush so I expected a little tears in my eyes.  But oh, no. No no no no. THAT was the middle of the movie.  At the end, I was sobbing so hard Brandon asked if I was okay.  I never cried like that for a movie. Ever.

Book of the Year: Delivering Happiness

Amy G. knows me more than I know myself sometimes.  She definitely knows something I don’t when she saved me a pre-release copy of Zappo’s CEO Tony Hsieh’s Delivering Happiness she had received at an event.  It only took me months to get to read it.  And once I did, I was inspired and depressed all at the same time.  You know, excited about the future and the fact that there’s a company out there that has the same perspective about “work should be a happy, inspiring place” as I do. (Damn you, Zappos for being in Las Vegas!)  And of course, it’s a little disheartening to look at my current situation which is not quite what it could be.  Then again, there’s not much fun you can really wring out of the line of work I do. *sigh*

TV Show of the Year: Doctor Who

I might have just become a late fan of the show (helloooo Martha Jones!), but my attachment to David Tennant is pretty strong.  So I was very skeptic of Matt Smith’s taking over.  But the show managed to change my mind and kept me glued.  So, hats off to you, Doctor!

Runner Up: Hawaii Five-O.  Alex O’Loughlin’s taking his shirt off every other week?  If this is not the best show on television I don’t know what is. But to tell you the truth, it’s Scott Caan’s performance that is keeping me hooked.  His big softy, smart alecky Danno is the only real character on the show. Everyone else is kind of two dimensional.

Oh, and you’re welcome for the following clip. (Good luck, Aquaman!)  Alex’ chest deserves his own FB page…oh wait a minute…

Restaurant of the Year: Koi Sushi, Seal Beach

We have always known of Koi Sushi.  As a matter of fact, my memory of it was that Brandon’s parents wanted to take us there once but the line was out the door.  We rediscovered it one day as a part of my quest to find a true Japanese restaurant, not just a place that serves sushi and teriyaki.  Koi was exactly what I was looking for.

They hooked us at our first visit with a huge hunk of braised pork belly “appetizer”.  I mean, we could’ve split that for dinner, it was that big.  And it was delicious.  The teriyaki beef got Brandon addicted.  Tender beef cooked perfectly and the teriyaki sauce that’ not cloying.  What I like most is that they a special menu that changes every week I believe.  Food was fresh and portion is generous.  Service was great.  As long as we get there off peak hours, there wasn’t any line.

When it’s a restaurant that Brandon actually craves, that gets on my favorite restaurant list!

*

Well, that’s my 2010. How did you year go?

That’s as far as I got, which is not too bad considered the constant cage match with my Inner Editor and my serious time management issue. Writing was quite fun but at 1,500 words a day, that has proven to be a little bit too much for me and my crazy fall schedule.

I may not have reached the 50,000 words. Or even my personal goal of 18,000 words. But I do have in my hand $230 donation (with a little bit of interests) to send back to the General Mangkorn Phromyothi Foundation in my mother’s memory, and a beginning of a family memoir.

I may not be able to finish writing in the 30 days given, but I am going to continue writing the story. Someday it will become a full fledged book that becomes an Oscar winning film starring Parminder Nagra as me and Russell Crowe as Brandon.

Okay, maybe an Emmy winning movie on Lifetime starring Olivia Munn and Joe Manganiello. Well, or maybe a Thai telenovella starring Ann Thongprasom and Willy McIntosh…?

/sigh/

Now we wait to see if the exchange rate would go up a little more. We have just gotten to 30 Baht per US dollar. Still nowhere near where the currency used to be but we’ll wait a while and see if that goes up any more by the end of December.

All of you have stuck with me through my first attempt at NaNoWriMo, and I’m very grateful for your support.

Yes, I said first attempt. I will be doing this again, you can bet on it!

Brandon said that maybe next time I should do a lot better if I write a fiction instead. With all the crazy dreams I had, one of them should turn out to be a pretty good novel.

As a matter of fact, there was this dream about a Saint Bernard puppy and a girl left orphaned by a mob hit that killed her parents…

***

Haven’t read about my NaNoWriMo effort? Read this and donate.

Friends in Thailand: To donate, please contact me and I’ll get you the routing number.

Friends in the US and Elsewhere with Facebook: To donate, please go through my FundRazr page here.

Friends in the US and Elsewhere without Facebook: Use this button here:

Seriously.

As I continue to get encouragement emails from the main NaNoWriMo people as well as my regional leader, I keep finding myself doing all the wrong things which they said would happen anyway.

I can’t just keep writing things out; I go back and rework things as I go.  And that’s not really the point of NaNoWriMo.

Being a blogger also doesn’t help as I try to rein things in to keep you folks interested.  It has become a second nature for me to start cringing when what I’m working on started to get lengthy.

And the biggest obstacle of all: time.  I have been doing great typing away on the bus on my way to work.  As a matter of fact, I think I’m going to keep up with this productive habit so my blog would not lapse this much ever again.  Writing at lunch was also good now that I have an office with a door I can close.  When I have a time schedule set up, I’m on it and productive as heck.

In comes the weekend.

I thought I would do all sorts of catching up and making great ways on the weekend and in the evenings.  Oh boy have I been wrong!  By the time I was done with dinner and cleared a show or two out of the DVR, it was time for bed.  The weekend rolled around and because of my social life, I would find myself with a couple hours break…which, selfishly, I would rather watch the Graham Norton Show than work on the computer.

And in a way, I guess there’s a part of me that’s still doing the emotional running away. You can’t possibly imagine all the time I spent on the couch watching TV after mommy died. It was crazy.

The more I write, the more I become aware of how much of my mom’s last few years I had missed.  The guilt of having been away the entire time is nipping at my heels every time I turn on the netbook.  That is probably why I never quite gotten far. Damn guilt.

But I’m aware of it. And I’m trying to work through it. At the end of the month, I will definitely have 17,000 words written. I will make good of that promise. I really want to see what I kind of book I’m going to end up with at the end.

For sure, there are all these holes in the draft I must fill in from all those times I wasn’t there.  Hopefully, doing so will also fill the corresponding holes in my heart.

Thanks again for being here for me!

***

Haven’t read about my NaNoWriMo effort? Read this and donate.

Friends in Thailand: To donate, please contact me and I’ll get you the routing number.

Friends in the US and Elsewhere with Facebook: To donate, please go through my FundRazr page here.

Friends in the US and Elsewhere without Facebook: Use this button here:

First of all, balancing the time between my numerous hobbies and activities, as you all know, during USC football season has proven to be challenging.  Secondly, my inner editor won’t shut the hell up.  I guess that’s a major pitfall of someone who writes short and concise pieces for a living.

And finally, typing through tears is kind of hard.

I know going in that writing a memoir about my mom is going to be difficult.  Band-aids are definitely being ripped open and healed over in almost an instant.  The physical pain in my chest still needs a little getting used to.  Thank god that I have an office now so nobody has to see my occasional bloodshot eyes.  But the warm and fuzzy feeling when I got the words out is quite rewarding.

Then came the news of a dear friend who has recently been diagnosed with lymphoma.  He has just begun his treatment and has a long road ahead of him.

Real life and memories meet on the pages of my Word document, and bring with them feelings I’ve long since put away or learned to live with.

Expecting the best and the worst at the same time was something I perfected when my mom was sick.  While I never gave up on her treatment options, at the same time I resigned to the fact that she might never make it.  I guess so I wouldn’t be disappointed with either outcome.

It seemed I’ve applied that to everything else since then.

So, while I know I might not make it to 50,000, I’m not giving up  NaNoWriMo effort.

I’m also not giving up on the friend.

(And yes, I’m adding this to my word count. So we’re at 5,209 now. It’s a preface material, no?)

***

Haven’t read about my NaNoWriMo effort? Read this and donate.

Friends in Thailand: To donate, please contact me and I’ll get you the routing number.

Friends in the US and Elsewhere with Facebook: To donate, please go through my FundRazr page here.

Friends in the US and Elsewhere without Facebook: Use this button here:

NaNoWriMo is is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved. So, staring November 1 and wrapping up on November 30, participants are aspired to write 50,000 words or about 175 pages novel.  It doesn’t have to be completed. It doesn’t have to be edited.  As they call it, “It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.”

That’s right. 50,000 words in 30 days.  For scale, one page of single spaced Times font size 12 has about 525 words.  That’s about 95 pages of written word I have to crank out.

Hopefully, by November 30, I will have a draft of a memoir on my hands.

“Folder of Fortune” will be a memoir based on a folder full of notes my mother took from her visits to fortune tellers, numerologists, and psychics of Thailand. With mom’s due diligent in checking to see the accuracy of these readings, the folder full of little pieces of paper and torn pages of notebooks hold the key to my family’s past, present, and future.

Now, to keep me motivated, I’m going to raise fund for this pursuit.  $1 for every 100 words.  That’s $500 for 50,000 words!  The more you pledge, the more I will write!

NaNoWriMo is put on by Office of Letters and Light so naturally folks would raise fund for them.  You can too.

However, since this memoir will be in the memory of my mother, I’d like to raise the money for her and my grandfather’s foundation back in Thailand instead.

The General Mangkorn Phromyothi Foundation was founded in my grandfather’s name but with my mom’s love for education in mind.  My grandfather was Thailand’s Minister of Education back in the days so the Ministry of Education asked to use his name for the newly established foundation for their Teacher’s Training Program.  Essentially, the GMP Foundation funds the development of the training program for teachers with a goal to better prepare them to teach children in the rural area of Thailand. The Foundation also provides scholarships for those seeking training in this program.

Friends in Thailand: To donate, please contact me and I’ll get you the routing number.

Friends in the US and Elsewhere with Facebook: To donate, please go through my FundRazr page here.

Friends in the US and Elsewhere without Facebook: Use this button here:

And you will have to trust me with your dollars as the donation is going through PayPal for me to hold onto until I transfer the chunk to Thailand at the end of NaNoWriMo.  And more importantly, US dollars are weak right now (29 Baht/$US) so to maximize your donation, we will have to wait for the rate to go back up…at least 32 baht.  (I’d rather prefer 35 baht, but who knows when we’ll get there at this point!)

So, here’s what I’ll do for you, donors.

1. Every single penny is going to be donated. I’ll pay for all FundRazr and PayPal fees incurred on my end.
2. On December 1, if currency is about/above 32 baht/dollar, I will send the donation home.
3. On December 1, If currency is still below 32 baht/dollar, I will continue to keep watch and give weekly update on “In Memory of Khun Noi” Facebook Page.  The moment we get to 32 baht/dollar, I’ll make the transfer.

I hope you can support me through this journey!

When I tweeted him that I bought him something, he was quite surprised.  Another friend chimed in asking it was because his birthday was in a couple of months.

Nope. I don’t need an occasion to buy a friend something.

This notion of a gifting without an occasion was quite new to @MacabrePhotog.  He sent me a message later saying that he couldn’t remember the last time someone bought him something for no reason.

Welcome to my circle of friends, I told him.

I have made some new friends this past year or so.  And they haven’t yet gotten used to the fact that I’m quite good at random gifting.

Old friends know that I would come back from a farmer’s market with the last of this season’s Asian pears because I know they like them; that I would turn up with extra cream puffs if I ever go down to Beard Papa’s; or that I would make extra meatballs so the new moms could have them later.

Yet another trait I’ve picked up from my mother.

As long as I remember, my mom and her friends have always picked up something for each other when they were out somewhere.  I’m not talking about souvenirs from far away places–but yes, we received those too–but from a trip to the mall or a stroll through a market.

Bags of mandarin oranges were messengered over from Aunty Rae’s office–because she found a great deal from a fruit vendor when she was out to lunch.  Aunty Sida’s driver dropped off barbecued duck for our dinner since she was at the restaurant that’s famous for duck.  Mom just sent some tote bags she picked up from today’s shopping trip out with my brother as he headed to the sports club to hand it to Aunty Jim.

You get the idea.

Mind you, this was even before cell phones.  They did manage to call each other before stuff get sent over.  But a lot of the times, things would just show up.

Even while I was away in the U.S., I could come home in the summer to find a pile of Thai souvenirs my mom had collected for me to take back to give to people for Christmas.  And 1/3 of that pile would be from the aunties who thought of me while they were out shopping.  Not to mention something else they had gotten for me specifically.

Buying a treat for your friends once in a while never hurt anybody…as long as you can afford it, of course.

That was the message I got from my mom and her friends.  My mom never really taught me to do this.  I just learned from watching her and the aunties.

One of the very last things I got to do with her before she had the stroke, and eventually passed away, was to hit the mall with the aunties.  It was in February and the mall was full of Valentine’s Day stuff.  My mom sent me slinking off to another cashier station to buy everyone a red carnation each. (“But mom, there are ROSES!”  “The roses are too pricey. The aunties will yell at you for wasting money if you get those. Get the carnations!”)

Aunty Sida outdid us by later passing around bright red hand towels with “love” printed on them to everyone.  But we didn’t even see her buy anything!  The trick was that she spotted them on the way to the restroom.   She had them held, then texted her driver to buy them up while we were in a different section of the mall!  LOL

Now I found myself wandering through Target, calling my friend Aurora to ask what size shirt do you think our friend Jim wears because I found a $5 Captain America t-shirt he’d love.

I’m a lot more like my mom that I thought.

Oh, and if you’re thinking I would be driving Brandon crazy with my shopping for other people, guess again.  The mister does the same thing. 

But what about the everyday?  Where did that overflowing of generosity and kindness go?

Last week, my bus buddy was sitting with a bunch of other commuters waiting for the bus.  There was no room to sit so I was standing around the corner.  Once these folks got up to get on their bus, I moved in to sit down. There was a purse laying next to my bus buddy and I knew for sure that wasn’t hers.

I asked anyway, “That’s not your purse, is it?”

My bus buddy gasped. “Oh my gosh! I think that lady left her purse!”

A young Asian chick standing right by turned to me, “Oh yeah, she went on to that bus a second ago.”

My bus buddy and the Asian Chick kept looking at the purse and looked around.  None of them wasn’t going to pick it up, it seemed.

So I did.

The Asian chick put her nose to her blackberry and started walking away.  With much interest, my bus buddy watched me moving in to investigate the purse that laid right next to her.

It’s like watching “What would you do?” show on ABC.  This is the show that fake a situation to see how people would react.  At this juncture, it would’ve been a show where nobody was going to do anything.

I went through the purse, found a wallet with all kinds of IDs with no cash or credit card. There was a cellphone holder in the purse and fortunately no actual phone itself.  So at least she has her phone.  I found her insurance cards with her company on it.  While on my bus, I looked up the company and and called.  I told the receptionist I had recovered this lady’s wallet.  She gave me the lady’s cell phone number and took mine.

My bus buddy signaled at me from the back of the bus to see if I actually made a connection with the purse owner, and I nodded.

The following morning, the purse lady called me and we met at Starbucks.

Apparently, she was on the phone talking to someone the entire time and didn’t realize one of her many bags had slipped off her shoulder, and soon after that her batteries went dead.  That also explained why the neither the receptionist or I could get a hold of her that evening.

“Can I hug you?” she asked.  LOL.

Now, of all of this ordeal, here’s what  I don’t understand.

Both my bus buddy and the Asian chick were just staring at the purse.  Neither one was going to pick it up.  I mean, what if I wasn’t there?  They were just going to leave it there?

I mean, the Asian chick definitely was going to leave it there since my bus buddy sits right next to it, I’m pretty sure. She was already started to move away after she told us, people who stood next to the purse, that she had seen the owner left to get on the bus.

Would you want someone to look on by if that was YOUR purse?

This isn’t even Haiti, folks. It’s somebody you stood next to not more than 5 minutes ago.

I’ve seen this similar thing happen before.  Someone dropped something without knowing it. 10 people saw it and nobody was going to tell that person until one brave soul did.  A person came running to the bus yelling for it, 10 people turned to look and heard him but did nothing.  Once in a while, someone helped yell or wave or something but not always the case.  On the crowded bus, nobody was getting up for anybody.

Seriously. Where did the human decency and kindness go these days?  We’ve become such a “Me Me Me” society. I mean, even the giving to the disaster, for some people, it’s  because it’s trendy at the time, not about they actually care.

Thailand had a celebrity-packed fundraiser for Haiti with drew quite and outrage. Um, helloooo there are Thai people who need help just as much and you’re sending your money where?

The giving and the kindness suddenly become a hip thing to do; not THE thing to do.

I’m sure there are still decent human beings out there who would always do the right thing and step up to help.  I know at least 3 guys on my bus who would’ve given up their seats if the bus is full. I know that Brandon and Justin and his friends would step up to help those in need of help.

I mean, yesterday we were walking back to our car at the farmers market. A lady was loading stuff into the truck and there was a huge cart full of stuff on the floor next to her.  Brandon gave me the keys to the car and he himself ran over to the lady to help her put all of that into the truck.  Loads of people walked by doing nothing.

These little moments when a door is held open, a dropped item returned, or a seat given up that restores my faith in humanity.  These moments are what keeping me from becoming a complete misanthrope.  (Right now, I’m just a little bitter, heh.)

How about you? Have you seen any act of kindness recently? Or perhaps you’ve done something good yourself?

When I say our bus is full, it means there maybe just enough seats for the last 3-4 of us to sit down and then that’s it.

This guy here would sit just like this with his lunch on the seat.  He would WATCH us scan for seats and not move a muscle.  Until we go up to him to ask him for the seat, he would keep it right there on the seat.  Just like that.  He wouldn’t even attempt to try to move his lunch to clear up a seat when people get on the bus like most decent people would do.

On those occasions, I would make a point to go straight for that motherfuckin’ seat.  Last time, I didn’t even ask, “Can I sit here?” but “Can you move your lunch?”.

Every morning I see him, I swear to god it’s like this.  Given, some of us with much possessions would put our crap on the seat too. But this is a fucking brown bag, dude. Put it on our fucking lap.

Our bus is a commuter bus with limited run.  Most of us see each other everyday.  Some of us even go out to dinner off the bus…yeah, that’d be me and my little gang.

So we have come to identified who are decent people and who are complete asshats.

For example, a few weeks ago the earlier of the two buses home was broken down.  The first bus home is notorious for being crowded all the time since they cut the second bus out of our route.  By the time our usual last bus picked everyone up, it was reported that people actually had to stand on the way home.  I wasn’t on the bus but my friend Ana was, and she was the last one getting on the standing room only bus.

I knew exactly who on my last bus would give up their seats for Ana and any other women. She confirmed it.  There were more guys who wouldn’t give up their seats that day for anybody.

Fuck, man. I gave up my seat for an old lady on an 1-hour-ride sardine-can MTA bus before when all the dudes just stared ahead. (And then they stared at ME for giving up said seat.)  An hour standing isn’t bad. Find some balls and be a man.

In situations like these is when you find out who the good people are.

Chivalry isn’t dead, yet.  My congratulations and utmost respect to all the parents who raise their sons right.

Like this guy at my Starbucks this morning.

He already went through the door when he saw me approaching many steps away.  He took a step backward, out of the line, to open the door for me.

Now, that was very sweet of him.

So, when he was ready to pay for his coffee, I handed my card to the cashier instead.  For a second, I didn’t think he knew what just happened.  LOL.  When he figured it out, of course, he wouldn’t let me pay for his coffee but I insisted.

“You made my day. I’m making yours,” I said.

Now, you go out and make someone’s day.  Even if it’s just holding the door open.

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.

*

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.

Worldwide, last counted, 23,000 people.

What a moment.  What an adventure!

You can’t see me in this clip though they did close up on me for the “Coming up next” before this section.

Life is slowly getting back to normal.  I have to lead my little Long Beach team to perform on Halloween at Halloween on Pine and that’s it for Thriller for a while.

This one I’m on the right toward the front.