OakMonster's Den

Today, the Universe decided that it hates people in my life.

1. Brandon tore his calf muscle

As he changed the oil on his car on Friday, Brandon discovered some coolant leakage. Upon further inspection by the auto shop, there are more than just that. We think the Anniversary accident knocked things loose. So, this morning, instead of waking up to drive me to my stop, the Mister decided to sleep in a little. I left my car 5 blocks down at my bus stop.

As he was walking over to the car, Brandon stepped off the curb and, according to his ER doctor, probably landed wrong on his heel. He heard something popped and he was in excruciating pain and couldn’t put his foot down. Being a Marine, dude sucked it up, hobbled across the 6 lanes to the other side, then his body went into a bit of shock and he sat down and passed out for a second. He then proceeded to hobble some more to the car, got in, calmly called me, and drove himself to the ER about 8 blocks down.

I received the call around 8:30.  By the way, I’m in Downtown LA, 25 miles away, with no easy way to get home at that time.  You see, my special commuter bus runs 3 times into town and twice out in the evening.  If you need to get back any other time, you’ll have to take the Disneyland bus to Norwalk Station and either catch 2 more buses to get to my house or someone else have to come get you from the station.

Thank GOD for my former bus buddy Patty who retired about a month ago.  I called her asked for a ride and she was available.  Now, skip to read #2 and come back to read the rest of this.

Patty dropped me off at the ER and I waited for a good hour before Brandon hobbled out on crutches.  Torn calf muscle, he said, and possible torn tendon but they don’t know that yet.  And now we were off to his physician to get a referral to see a specialist and get an MRI or something else.  His doctor gave him a shot of stuff and sent us home with vicodin.

2. Patty’s car died on the way to rescue me

After she hung up with me, my friend Patty went to finish her errands.  Her car sputtered and died on the way home.  Thank GOD her sister was home, so she drove over to sit with Patty’s car until AAA arrives so Patty could use her car to come get me.

3. A coworker had to go to the hospital

Meanwhile, as I ran from work to come home to take care of Brandon, a coworker apparently got ill enough to need to be rushed to the hospital.

4. Burbank DMV’s computer system went down

My boss took the morning off to go to her DMV appointment.  System was down so no appointment could be kept.  She pretty much wasted her morning.

5. The bus before my usual home bound bus broke down

Ana took the bus into town with me this morning.  She usually takes a different bus or she would drive.  However, she was getting on the earliest bus home.  She waited, and waited, and started to get panicky about the bus home.  As she found out later, when my usual bus showed up, the one she was waiting for has broken down.  So she was on a super crowded bus back, behind her usual schedule.

I’m telling you. Cosmic Fuckery.

I’ve been pushing through work and juggling my social life through February.  It seems I’m making new friends and reconnecting with old ones all the time.  Weekends and evenings were no longer just the quiet moments but full of activities.

There have also been changes at my work.  We have created a new department which roped my marketing team of 2 in with 2 other departments to pursue new directions.  The new Boss Man is first a friend.  Much like my relationship with my boss Nhien, because we are friends first, communications are open in both directions.  It makes for very successful partnership I think, but yet also frustrating.  You see, the new department is like new found toy.  There are constantly “Oooh! I want to do THIS!” and “Yeah, let’s do THAT!” which tend to throw a wrench at both us and another department.

The perfect analogy for my current work situation, which my colleagues agreed on, is that the New Department is like a box of marbles spilled across the floor.  Your day-to-day responsibility is like the door you’re trying to reach.  You want to get to the door but you keep tripping on the marbles and falling down.  You pick up the marble and put it back in the box and keep going toward the door but there will be another marble to trip you up.  You eventually get to the door but you’re now all banged up. AND you’re late.  Eventually, we will all learn to navigate the marbles and manage to pick them all up AND get to the door gracefully.  In the meantime, put on your helmet, kids–it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

Now, the Big Event just wrapped up without much of  hitch on Wednesday.  So a huge weight has been lifted but yet more are on the way.  In all of this, I’m trying to squeeze in an hour here and there to study Italian.  I’ve been neglecting homework because I thought I can totally do this without much help, but every week I fall further and further behind.  I’m realizing the reason why I struggle so much with it is because I’m learning a third language on my second language.

To use Hugh Laurie’s analogy of going to the set of House being the only one who has to add an accent, it’s like going to a battle with a fish when everyone else has a sword.  Almost everyone in class is a native English speaker.  Most also speak Spanish even a little bit.  I’m there with Thai being my native tongue and here I am learning a new language on my second language.  My head is translating it front and back and left and right before I come to some conclusions.  However, the benefit of my Thai tongue is that I can roll the R’s and sound the hard T’s better than anyone.

So here I am, trying to be a better student and put in some homework time.  On top of that, I still have to find time to cook–which, sadly, I’ve been able to do strictly on the weekends, to keep the blogs up to date, and to wrap up my tax paperwork.  Hey, at least the office is in order now.  I just have to comb through the pre-sorted bill and reconcile everything.

Oh, and today I had Italian class in the morning, was supposed to be at a salsa workshop at noon, bake a cake, then off to a baby shower at 4 and a birthday dinner at 7.  Thankfully the last 2 parties are at the same place.

At this level, I thought for sure I would go down with a cold after the Big Event.  I ended up with massive allergies starting at the event.  My stomach has been warring with me pretty much for 2 weeks.  And then my back decided to throw a coup as I was having a nice relaxing dinner with Brandon.

It’s like my brain knows of the maddening schedule I have ahead of me today.  So last night on behalf of the entire body, my back muscles decided to throw a tantrum and seized up.

So, no salsa today.  And up until now, I’ve been laying flat on the couch, nursing the stout left in the bottle from making my chocolate Guinness cake with some Ibuprofen.

I don’t know if having been a better eater helps stemmed the physical meltdown I usually have after a stressful period of time.  You know, my usual 24 hour of low fever and energy zap?  Not happening this time.  So the body just went for the most recent injury, my back, and uses THAT to punish me.

Well, I’m soldiering on anyway.  At least tomorrow all I have to do is type up notes for Thrill the World and go to the meeting at 7 p.m.

But then there’s the farmers market I want to get to, dinner I want to make, and the paperwork…FUCKIN’ PAPERWORK!!!

*sigh*

So, how is your week/weekend?

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.)

It was a LOT easier waking up at 5 a.m. when you go to bed by 9:30 p.m.

I have been doing it for a week now, waking up at 5 a.m., shower, make a mug of tea, sit at my computer and work until 6:15, get dressed, leave at 6:30 to catch my bus.

This morning, instead of sitting until 6:15, I caught the 6:15 bus instead.

Do I even dare say it?

Guys, I might have been converted into an early bird.

I really do enjoy having all this quiet time in the morning.  I mean, having the quiet time at night is nice too.  But to wake up early without it being a torture, one must go to bed earlier.  It does work quite well.

Walking to my car with “the Rising/Morning Star” (Dao Roong ดาวรุ่ง), what Thai people call Venus in the morning, shining bright with just a hint of sunrise behind it, that was ALMOST worth being an early bird for.

Deep down, I still want my warm bed.

And a bacon breakfast.

When our beloved excuse themselves to disappear into their video games, we call that being a [insert game name here] Widow. For example, I was an World of Warcraft Widow, an EverQuest widow, and most recently a Fallen Earth and Fall Out Widow.

Now, the table is being turned around.  I’m making a widower out of Brandon for the next few months.

As in, a Italian Class Widower…

Nora and I are taking Italian lessons together in Irvine on Saturday mornings, starting this weekend on through January.

A USC Football Widower…

If you’ve read my blog long enough, you’d know that Brandon is not allowed to watch any USC game.  Not that he would to begin with, the boy’s no sports fan.  But anytime he actually sat down to watch, even a few minutes, it all went to hell.  It was entirely my fault to have him and his friend sat down to eat dinner and watch the USC-Texas game a few years ago.

A Thrill the World Widower…

It wasn’t supposed to be as big of an event this year with Thrill the World. But then Michael Jackson died.  So now we’re in 120% go for this year’s event.  I’m still leading the PR/Publicity campaign. And now also a dance instructor.  Oh crap, I have to freshen up!

A Big Gala Widower…

Oh yes. The giant work event. A lot of pressure to raise money in this economy. A lot is at stake for the people we serve and for, well, the wellbeing of our non-profit.

And finally, A Thanksgiving Widower…

I’m heading home to Thailand for Thanksgiving for a quick week.

On top of all of this, I have 3 blogs of mine, a Tweet Up social life, and, oh yeah, the monthly cooking challenge.

Thank GOD we are putting long camping trips on hold until spring.  With my Italian classes, we couldn’t go far. And with my crazy schedule, I won’t have time to train. I guess the timing works out.

However, the Mister has scheduled us some together time of date nights, our monthly massages at Massage Evny, and game nights.  Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 just came in the mail.  /rubs hands together…heeheeheehee…

Am I nuts do be doing all this stuff? Perhaps.

But am I having fun with all the madness? Oh fuck yeah.

This will be one of those years I’ll never forget.

My epic battle with time this week?  I guess it’s a draw.

I didn’t start on Monday morning as planned.  Because, as you all have heard, we plan and God laughs.  Or something like that.

Last Sunday night, the night I wanted to go to bed by 10 to wake up at 5:15 and work on my stuff? I ended up going to bed closer to midnight and woke up the usual call time for morning with hair wash of 5:45.

I was up peeling and scraping the piths off of 25 lemons to go into my first ever batch of homemade Limoncello.

You heard me. Home made. Limoncello.  I will write ALL about that over at HmmFoodGood later.  But for this post, let’s just say that peeling and de-pithing took many more hours than I anticipated.

So, Monday was regular day.

Time 1. Oakley 0.

Tuesday morning, I’m on the new early riser schedule.  Was up by 5:15 and at station with a mug of tea at 5:45. I got a whole lot done.  I went to bed at 10 as planned.

Time 1. Oakley 1.

Wednesday morning, still on the wagon.  However, the near end of “Bad Things”, the book I’ve been reading, kept me up way past my bed time.

Time 1. Oakley 2.

Thursday, up a little later but was still up.  A couple of hours into work, an alien tried to dig his way out of my brain through my forehead and made me nauseous while at it.

Migraine in the office. That’s just great.  I couldn’t look at the screen, let alone tolerate the fluorescent goodness.  I took an Aleve around 10 and went to ask a coworker if I could go sit in her boss’ office–the boss is on leave.

My coworker let me inside and closed the blinds for me.  She went to tell my boss who came over straight away to check on me and told me to just take my time.  20 minutes later, feeling a lot less like a vampire, I crawled out to ask another coworker for a can of Monster to get the caffeine into my system.  A couple more coworkers came by to check on me and gave me some neck rubs…and those did help.

Nausea finally subsided around noon. The alien was now, digging more slowly, trying to get out behind my ear instead.  I downed 500 mg of Tylenol and continued to sip Monster to get better, fast.  After all, I had to go down to LA Live to check out a few venues for staff holiday party at 2 p.m.

Miraculously, that last bit of crazy self prescription did the trick.  I toured the facilities pain free and even scored some free brownies from The Farm of Beverly Hills.

That lovely bit of heaven sent me a wee bit over the edge on the jitters.  But hey, my head didn’t hurt any more.

Needless to say, it was an early night for me that night.

Time 2. Oakley 2.

Friday, I tried to get up early but my body screamed in protest. So I slipped back to nearly 6 a.m. scrambling out of bed.  My body continued to protest with some scratchy throat and sniffles.  I’m sure all these smokes in Downtown LA and all over Southern California doesn’t help either.  I fought it with echinacae tea, wild honey, and Airborne. By the time I was home, I was spent.

Time 3. Oakley 2.

I was woken up this morning from a lovely dream about my little country house in an orchard with the fact that I couldn’t breath through one of my nostrils.  Then both.  Getting out of bed was an out of body experience–as in I was out of my body, dragging it.  A cup of echinacea tea later, I had enough energy to make breakfast.

And now, I am stewing in my office intentionally.  I am hoping sweating all of this badness out might help me feel a little better.

Time 4. Oakley 2.

Things that have gone wrong? Not going to bed as early as I should have.  And the fact that I started this new program on the week before my boss goes on vacation when everything needed to be done before she leaves.

Stress + Change of routine + Lack of sleep + not eating much because of stress = System crash.

So here I am, sweating out my sickness in my home office, instead of out in Studio City, rehearsing Thriller with my fellow LA Zombies.  Here I am, missing out on a Beat It flash mob.  Here I am, sniffling, sweaty, and icky.

All because I want to beat time.

Next week awaits a new battle strategy.  But for now, back to the couch and more tea.

I’m bitter. You can ask me why.

A disappointment of a major scale has occurred. It was like passing out before giving birth to a baby, missing out on the glorious moment you’ve been waiting for for months.  It’s really, really hard to get over.

So I’ve been cranky around the office, stressed out around the house, and overall one angry and bitter ray of outward sunshine to everyone.

My attempt to release stress at my yoga class was also squelched.

It seems I have twisted my left hand on Tuesday.  I couldn’t put my weight on it and it was swollen between my middle and pointing fingers.  Since I can’t put weight on the hand, out goes doing many of the poses in yoga class and therefore no yoga–no stress relief I needed.

My routine has been thrown off balance just as I was settling in to a new life rhythm.  Life being off kilter like that triggers my instinct to hide. Laundry piles up. Paperworks clutter my desk. Blogs go unattended.

I hate it when I do that.  I hate it when I clearly am not myself. I hate it when I see it in Brandon’s eyes that he wasn’t happy about it either.

I am determined to snap out of the whole funk. Yes, sir.

I started the other night by writing an entry for Thai-Blogs.com.  It wasn’t much, but I did something. And I am working on this blog today.

I am resolved to not let the [fucking] Spreadsheet defeats my spirit.

The pink bunny ears I’m wearing today will give me super power.

It will.

I know it.

P.S. Oh, and Happy Easter to all.

moar funny pictures

Work is crazy busy, yo.  However, I picked up few things that is worth posting.

**

My mom called me in my dream.  She asked how I was doing.  Funny, I really wished I could talk to her just a few days ago.  Brandon asked if she told me to hurry up and talk because phone calls from heaven are expensive.  LOL.

**

There are a few of the elevators for our floors that act funny quite a bit. A few of us were on the elevator already when it picked up one more person.  Once she got in, the door was about to close but then sprung open and then finally closed.

Girl 1: You know I really hate these elevators sometime.

Girl 2: And this one always makes this clunking noises too. Like a cable is loose or something.

Girl 1: I so don’t want to die in the elevator. Haha.

Lady: You know that there are 6 steel cables holding up this elevator that can handle XX [she gave a number but I don't remember] lbs. per cable.  There’s no chance you will fall to your death in here.

Girl 1+2: [Pause]

Lady: I worked for 15 years in the steel industry. I know my cables.

**

At dinner, Brandon was telling me about a character in his game that had no friends so she found a way to open up a portal to hell, befriended a demon dog, and eventually sold her soul.

B: But man, does she love that dog.

Me: Could she really love if she has no soul?

B: [pause]

Me: I’m sorry. Were you not ready for an existencial question?

**

Tweet of the Day by @adbert: (Thanks @dananner!)

Programming is like sex: One mistake and U have to support it for the rest of your life.

**

On a side note, everyone now recognizes my little town of Los Alamitos. However, how we’ve become a household name across this great nation is very embarrassing.  Here’s the quote from the LA Times:

In Los Alamitos, an upscale, mostly white community known for its good schools and tidy neighborhoods, [Dean] Grose [now ex-Mayor and ex-councilman] apologized to city officials, saying in a written statement that the e-mail was a “mistake” and in “poor taste.” He told the Associated Press he was unaware of the racial stereotype that black people like watermelon, a claim some said was unbelievable.

how could you think that White House with watermelons in the lawn be funny if you didn’t know about black people and watermelon? I mean, I can see Thai people completely miss the cultural reference right there.  But being a middle age white man in America and to not know that?  If you would’ve stopped at “mistake” and “poor taste”, that would be fine.  Going so far as denying that you didn’t know about the stereotype when you sent that? How stupid do you think we are?

**

Ooh! Earthquake!

ETA March 4, 8 a.m.

The Great OC (Non-)Earthquake last night is still a mystery.  OC Tweeps felt it all over the place in the same way we did: the grounds didn’t move but our windows were rattling.  I kept watch from the moment it hit at USGS website for a good half hour but there was nothing but a 1.2 out in Idylwild half an hour later was on the only thing on the map.  According to the OC Register’s article, a seismologist didn’t there was any quake last night that would affect us all the way in the OC.

As OC Tweeps later dissed, “OC Earthquake. Fail!”, more questions were raised.  Could it be a UFO buzzing through the area?  (Et tu, SG-1?)  Or a secret government spy plane?  Or an experimental bomb gone off in some secret bunker somewhere?  First thing that Brandon said was that it felt like an explosion shock wave.

And even if the Marines come out to confirmed that they set off something in Pendleton at that precise moment, how could we in the northernmost tip of OC feel THAT?

The mystery deepens. Any conspiracy theorists stopping by, have at it!

It’s over. My big event is all done.  Hellooooo, normal life! Kind of.

I have next week to get content to our web people and we need to launch that puppy at the end of next month.

But today, I will wrap up other things and will lunch at Drago Centro.

Yep. Treating myself to a Dine LA menu as a celebration of having managed a sold-out event and having been with the Office for 4 years.

I’ve also been blogging a little prolifically at the food blog since I started to remember to pick up my camera when I was done cooking.  It’s really interesting to try to take picture of food and making it look yummy.  Food photography is not as easy as you think!

And tomorrow, Olaina and I are going to burrow ourselves in movie theater seats ALL day.  The joy of the Oscars showcase at AMC!  Darn Ben Button, the only reason why we might not be out of the theatre until 1 a.m.   The last movie, Frost/Nixon, doesn’t go on until 9:45, yo!  Nonetheless, THIS is the movie lover heaven.

My friend Greg and his lovely girlfriend will also join us.  They’re skipping out on The Reader and we’ll skip out on Slumdog Millionaire.  Even Irena and Danny who joined me last year are trying to move their previous engagement so they could go to one in their neck of the wood in MA.

Sunday, I’m planning on hanging out with my baby all day. The man put up with me all week with this work crap…AND saved me when the migraine hit!  Probably going to try hiking somewhere new if the weather permits.

Food. Movie. And Brandon. There you have my Holy Trinity of Love.

It was a rainy Friday but folks in the office were keeping it warm and fuzzy inside with our lovely annual Valentine’s Day potluck.  I mean, look at this spread!

I made the “How deep is your love? 7 layers!” Dip for the office.

I ate more sweets that I’ve eaten any in weeks…in one morning.  The bourbon sauce on the bread pudding was awesome.  But soon after eating that, I started to get a little bit of a headache.  I thought it might be because I didn’t have caffeine today, so I went back to the spread for some chocolate cake.  Chocolate seemed to hold off the headache the rest of the day.  LOL.

As much of the love we had going on in there, workload was overwhelming.  And I didn’t even get close to where I wanted to be.  I originally planned on working a wee little bit late and then grabbing a drink with coworkers, but it turned out everyone had something else going on.  Figure, it was Friday before Valentine’s Day after all.

Might as well, I mean, I didn’t get to leave the office until 7:30 p.m. anyway.

I told Brandon that I would pick up Chinese food from his favorite joint on the way home, and headed out of Downtown.  The minor headache I’ve been nursing all day started to feel a little bit more serious.  I blamed it on the fact that I was hungry.

As the commute home progressed, the magnitude of the headache began to rise.  Brake lights in front of me began to worsen the pain, and any headlight in my rear view mirror seemed super bright I flipped my mirror up the whole way home.  Then music did too so I turned it off.  However my car not having any much of sound proofing, the engine and road noises actually was quite as painful to hear.  By the time I got off the freeway, green light was too much to bear.  I squinted my way to the restaurant.

On my way back, I tasted metal in my mouth.  The pain at this point was like someone stick a hot metal rod behind my right ear, through my right eye ball, and out my forehead at the corner of my right eyebrow.  Every time I passed something brighter than brake lights, the rod twisted in my head, afflicting more pain I had to cry out. At some point, I felt waves of nausea.

An hour after I left Downtown and the saga began, I finally got home. Brandon opened the door and I shoved the bag of food at him and pushed my way into the apartment.

“What’s the matter?!” he asked.

I told him everything that hurt as I made my way to the couch in tears.  Sure it hurt enough to make me cry, but I was so afraid driving in that condition.  Everything I looked at hurt my head. I couldn’t concentrate on the road.  I was scared out of my mind.

Brandon turned off any lights in the room and came over to take my hand.

“Welcome to the land of Migraine,” he said softly and led me to the bedroom with only one candle lit.

He put me in bed, gave me two Tylenols and an ice pack, made me a cup of coffee and had me drank it all, and kissed me where it hurt.  He held me for a while and told me everything would be okay, that I was home safe despite my frightening driving experience.

I am so grateful that he was home and that he knows exactly what to do.  God, I love this man.

I slept for an hour, woke up virtually pain free but just an ache behind my ear, and Brandon by myside.  And I was famish.I stepped outside for dinner I risked my life bringing home.  Haha.

Y’all, that was my first certified migraine.

My mom had it.  My oldest brother had it too.

Actually, he had it so bad when he was still in Virginia, he fainted and ended up in the hospital.  Someone thought he might have had a stroke, it was that bad.  I seemed to remember my mom was about to get on the plane going to back to Thailand from visiting me when we got the news.  She wanted to go see him, but everyone said he should be fine and that she should just head home.  She later told us that she prayed the whole way and made a promise with the Higher Powers that if my brother pulled through, she would give up beef.  It is her pact with Guan Yin, a deity/Buddha of Taoist/Chinese Buddhist belief.  The myth/story is that Guan Yin’s father was reborn as a bull which, with her being Enlightened, she could recognized him as such.  So her believers are either full vegetarian or they don’t eat beef.

Anyway, my brother had his first migraine triggered by stress.  He was fine and she did give up beef for the rest of her life.

Since migraine seems to run in my family, it wasn’t a surprise that I got it too, also triggered by stress.

Thank god we’re about to have any kids. I can’t imagine passing on this affliction to anyone else.  I’m sure mine is probably not as bad as what many others have to suffer through. So please, nobody gives up their beef eating habit for me.

We don’t officially celebrate V-day in this household but we managed to surprise each other here and there.  One year Brandon surprised the hell out of me by showing up with a huge polar bear.  I don’t think there will be any surprises today since I already provided all the excitement last night.

In any case, Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone!