Tag: family

Nuggets

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

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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?

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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!

Long Weekend

This weekend has been one of the longer ones I had in a while.

Don’t get me wrong, I still had just 2 days like everyone else, but it felt like a week.

I guess when you helped others, pampered yourself, and did things you love, it was just as rewarding as a weekend away on a vacation.

It’s hard to belief that I voluntarily rolled out of bed at 6 a.m. on Saturday morning, but I did.  I was up to bake chocolate croissants to take over to my friend Greg’s garage sale fundraiser for his very first AIDS Ride. I met up with James and Dresden around 7:15 and we headed over.

The sale was HUGE! And we had TONS of people showed up.  I’m waiting to hear from Greg as to how much money his group raised that day. We had all sorts of stuff up for sale and whatever leftover would be donated.  Except for this one .  Although a few people made us offers.  😉

Not for sale...

Someone actually picked up this wood cabinet that nobody seemed to want for a good amount of money.  When they were loading up, apparently he told the boys that this was a real 1950s era antique. Just a little touching up and he could sell it for a whole lot more!  We were quite amazed.

After spending the morning helping out and chasing Dresden around, James and I joined his wife, his friend Bob, and Brandon for late breakfast.

Oh and then Dresden did this on the ride over.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFRnuEf1Saw]

Later that afternoon, I had my first facial, crashed out until we walked to our corner restaurant to pick up dinner.

Because my face still felt sensitive on Sunday morning, our plans to go out riding bikes or hiking had to be canceled.  I mean, I wasn’t about to put this brand new skin out in the sun.  So we stayed home and geeked out.  Brandon on his new Star Ocean game and me re-organizing my closet, learning some new songs, and fixing up this blog.  You like?

Two songs have been stuck in my head for days.  I know they’re not the regular earworms because I still have them in my head even after I listened to them.  It’s usually a sign for me to learn the damn thing and give myself a real reason to have the song stuck in my head!

Now that I’ve got rolling on two new songs for my repertoire, I’d better practice.  Besides, my fingers have lost the agility for piano and the calluses to withstand guitar strings.  Thank god my breathing might actually be better now that I’ve been doing yoga.  One out of three ain’t bad!

Let me get a little better on this and I might, MIGHT, just record a bit of it for you guys.  😉

Oh, the two new songs? These are them.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJbz5HaKCJc]

I can’t really do the lovely guitar work he does here. I’m learning the basic chords for now and will be watching some tutorials and practice, practice, practice!  However, I hope my piano rendition might be okay for now.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEKCsSlK3jg]

There’s a bajillion versions of this song out there (including Sad Kermit and K.D. Lang), but since we’re talking Damien Rice here, I’ll just give you guys his version too.

Face Time

I had my first ever facial today.  And it was good.I’m now nice and blotchy and glowing and relaxed.  Aside from the astringent/toner spray at the end there that stung like a mofo–however, my aesthetician fanned my face vigorously to some relief–everything was wonderful.

While she left me for a minute while my face get steamed, it hit me.

I used to follow my mom to her facial appointments.

There was this one salon down the way on Soi Langsuan wayyyy back in the day that she used to go to.  Our driver would take us there.  We’d get our hair washed.  And while mom got her facial, I would either sit in the salon chair and read or draw, or, often, stick my head in the steamer helmet thingy, pretending to be an astronaut.

I remembered coming into the treatment room to see my mom’s face got steamed and then the aesthetician would turn the steam on my face a little bit.  I remembered the extraction tool and that I was told they couldn’t try that on me just yet.  I remembered my mom’s face in a facial mask.

That memory of the salon also brought back another memory of my mom’s beauty routine of the moment: the Swedish massage she’d get at home.

After both of my brothers left to study abroad, I came to sleep in my parents’ room to save on electricity spent on A/C.  I would still get to play/study/do homework in my room with the A/C on for a few hours after school through dinner time and maybe a few hours on the weekend.  When my mom found a masseuse that does house call, my bedroom turned into a massage therapy room for a few hours every weekend.

The scents of massage oil and whatever cellulite cream that was used still linger in my room until this day.And now the scent of whatever my aesthetician used for my treatment reminds me both of my bedroom and the time at the salon with my mom.

Funny how all the little things bring back a lot of memories.

And a little bitter sweet that now I am where she was and am doing things she used to do.

Holy Trinity Weekend

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.

My hero Valentine

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!

Vday potluck 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!

I want to go home

I technically haven’t been “home” since Monday.  Work has been driving me bonkers with how crazy busy it’s been.

I got home on Monday for 5 minutes and Brandon whisked me off to see “Taken”.  Holy crap, Liam Neeson is scary.  He really did carry the movie.  If it was somebody else, that movie would not have been that good.  But I digress.

Tuesday was Spamalot night.  I didn’t get home until 8 p.m.  Brandon was nursing a stress/sinus headache when I got home so we just went to bed.

Wednesday was yoga night.  Brandon finally was available to go to his first class.  He whisked me away from the bus stop to class.  After that, we raced to the UPS distribution center to pick up his new toy, an air rifle.  We picked up dinner, watched “Lost” and went to bed.

Last night I was supposed to be meeting up with Annette and other Twitter people, but the rain caused major snarls all over LA so we called it off.  I got off the bus at 7:00 p.m., not incredibly late.  However I was still dizzy from the bus driver’s rough driving, so it was good to just go home.  Brandon was out playing with his air rifle at the shooting range.

Finally, I was “home”.

I opened a bottle of Cabernet and curled up with my bowl of baked potato soup from Maderas, and caught up on some of the shows I neglected to watch when I was “away” this week.  Brandon came home a while later and we watched “Heroes” and “Life”.  Man, how I’ve missed Charlie Cruz!

If I had it my way, I would probably stay up to watch everything else that’s left on Tivo and had some more wine.  But nope, I was a good girl.

Kind of.  Apparently 2 glasses of wine was a bit too much for last night.  LOL.

I hope I can really be home tonight and make dinner.  Chicken and dumplings start to sound VERY good…