renegadeRICEcracker

difficulties with fruit

i bought avocados yesterday, and mangos, and asian pears, partially in response to chicago requests. the idea is that california avocados should be better in california, and fruit is always better in asian markets anyway -- i don't really understand why, since white people appear to like some of the same fruit. but if you go to a ralphs or a vons or pavilions, they have sorry looking mangoes for a buck each. you go to 99 ranch market, you get a box of 12 beautiful and large mangos for $5.99. this is cheaper even than the costco mangos i saw yesterday, which also did not look that good.

anyway. i bought avocados and mangos and pears. here, costco always has the biggest and best avocados. the problem is that they were ripe already -- pretty much at a perfect state of softness already -- but i don't go to chicago until tomorrow, and i'm worried about their ripening further, since avocados can go kind of fast. also, the mangos are verging on being at the perfect ripeness. not sure what to do. so i put the avocados in the fridage, and left the mangos out to ripen one more day -- will put them in the fridge tonight. i know that none of this is terribly interesting, but i will be really irritated if i lug all this fruit to chicago and then it turns out to be crappy when i get there, especially since i talk it up so much.

my other concern is that TSA will seize my fruit for no reason. people seem to have this fear of taking lots of fruit on planes, so i went and looked through the TSA website, and airline website, and various sites google pulled up for me. then i called southwest and the woman said she didn't see any regulations on fruit out of california. but i fear that some stupid punk will take my fruit because they don't know any better -- it seems like a lot of time the security people don't really know the rules and just sort of do what they want. they seized all of my friend's 3 oz bottles of toiletry products because they weren't labeled. he was like, uh, it said to have them in small bottles, it doesn't say they have to be labeled. but then the guy was like, sorry, has to be labeled. so my friend said, "look at this hair. at the very least, you have to leave me my gel." so the guy gave him the gel. and my friend was, like, what an idiot! maybe that was the bomb stuff!

anyway. i hope to show up in chicago with tasty and unblemished fruit tomorrow. i probably will. and either way, this should not have caused as much thought as it already has.

have a good day!

ooouuuucccchhhh...

i am sore. and i continue to grow more sore as the day goes on.

yesterday, for the first time EVER, i joined a gym. my coworker and i decided it would be a good idea to try classes together, so we joined the y down the street from work to check out a boxing class. this was a momentous occasion -- the first time i have ever had a gym membership that did not come free with school enrollment. it was cute, we signed up under a family plan, so it's cheaper per month.

the boxing teacher did not show, so went to a "cardio core" class, which "utilizes the reebok core board for stability, balance, flexibility and cardiovascular strength." it's basically this oval board on a platform that can tilt to any side. there was loud music playing, and a very enthusiastic instructor named christopher. i had never before taken a group exercise class, and i thought it was pretty fun. we did, however, discover that i: 1) have no rhythm, and 2) have no balance. also, 3) i especially have no rhythm when unable to keep my balance. he'd be like, "one-two, now to the left- and left- and left- and hooooold..." and we'd be expected to balance on this thing on one foot while holding weights and the other foot high in the air for, i don't know, a very long time. then i would fall and he would glance toward the back at me and be like, "what was that?!?!?!"

my friend didn't like it as much because she likes a more hard-core cardio workout. i, on the other hand, liked it because whenever i started to get too winded, we'd slow down. rock. it's kind of funny, because i am pretty much only sore in my thighs and butt, and she is only sore in her arms. anyway.

tomorrow i am going to try a "tone and sculpt" class. this worries me a little, because if i continue to get more and more sore, tomorrow could be very, very painful. but i am going to try to go to a couple classes a week. i think the classes are a good thing -- 1) i don't know what i'm doing and if left to my own devices i would work out in a haphazard manner and end up with bad proportions, i'm sure, and 2) i don't have the discipline to make myself do cardio-intensive activities. they hurt and i don't like them. but something like this involves intervals and someone watching you and yelling at you. and that, that feels more familiar to me. feels like love. :)

okay, back to work. bye!

happy busy-ness

i've been having a good week. i got an unconscionably small about of sleep last weekend, but i had fun doing it. my nephew had his second birthday party last saturday, for which my dad and ayee came into town, and then on sunday my dad and ayee, and ayumi and brian, and another friend came over. between us we made two trips to best buy (we didn't end up getting a sound system because for some reason the best buy in west hollywood does not appear to be stocked with electronics -- brian said we'd maybe have had better luck if we were looking for an abacus and sticks to rub together), assembled my bookcase, assembled the kickass bbq my dad bought me, unpacked the loads of dishes and china my dad bought me, made dumplings, and had homemade pho while listening to my dad tell stories and dirty jokes. it was a really, really nice evening. and there is nothing quite so charming as watching the shocked look and surprised laughter of someone who has never before heard the nuns on bicycles joke. hahahahaha.

last night i had a friend over and made my favorite chinese vegetable (kongxincai -- literally, empty-heart vegetable, which i've probably already written about on here), and a tomato/egg/beef dish my mom used to make. we also ate leftover taro i made last week (i love taro). i am still very excited about cooking -- last week i made a ginger/scallion/soy sauce catfish, which turned out fairly well, but was a slightly traumatizing experience. for the occasion, i bought a live catfish from a chinese grocery in monterey park. the dude scooped it out, and then clubbed it with a big, white thing. then he ripped the jaw or guts or something out of the head and put it in a bag. it was dead. it did not, however stop moving. it was flopping around on the scale... and then in the cart... and then on the checkout counter, and then in the bag as my friend carried it back to the car (there is no way i was going to carry the zombie catfish). it was a good 20 minutes after it was killed that it last flopped in my back seat. oy.

anyway. oh right -- so last night, after dinner, we also took down the big box the bbq came in, as well as the boxes of recyclables (mostly beer bottles) that have been stacking up. this made me feel much better because after i'd done that online research about spiders, i've become irrationally afraid of having cardboard boxes in my home, since that apparently is what they like. you know, the other day i saw a baby spider climbing up the wall, and it crossed my mind that maybe that bigass spider laid an egg sac and they were going to swarm my place soon. that night, i had a fucking spider nightmare. i was cooking, but these ugly spiders kept coming up the walls and on the counters. it was horrible. there is something wrong with me.

yeah. i should get to work because i'm going to go to monterey park again for lunch -- i'm bailing on a summer associate lunch to buy some stuff for my mom and mangos to take to chicago. yay chicago!

okay. bye!

OH MY GOD I AM AN IDIOT

not my best day. let me preface by explaining that i am really fucking exhausted. so... i'm not really processing information or anything like that.

anyway.

on one of my friend's sites i saw someone who vouched that she got a $500 target card through some promotional site. i was like, hmm, i'll check it out. so i click through pages and pages of offers that i could click 'no' to. kind of annoying, but fine. then i get to a page where it says i'm almost done but have to sign up for two offers. by this time i'm 15 minutes in, so i'm like, fine. i sign up for a stamps.com offer, and then for an offer to have fresh-roasted coffee sent to my house (i took a little time deciding between the coffee and a wine offer, but the coffee was cheaper. not that i drink four bags of coffee a month. but i could. maybe.).

so i fill out these two offers. it takes me some time. i'm a little irritable. but i'm like, fine, by this point i deserve the $500. THEN i get to ANOTHER page that says, sign up for two of these silver offers! what?!?!?! rather than fill out another two, i click the 'next' button, and see that then i'm supposed to sign up for two gold offers! and then to platinum offers!

WHO THE FUCK VOUCHES THAT THEY GOT AN EASY GIFT CARD WHEN THEY HAD TO SIGN UP FOR 8 PROMOTIONAL OFFERS THAT ALL REQUIRE A CREDIT CARD?!?!?!?! WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!?!?!

i closed out. i am not signing up for any more. i wasted 45 minutes of my life. i am stupid. and tired. and have work to do.

and now i'm very, very annoyed. ARGH!

i know, i know, i should have expected something like this. i said i was tired, remember?

OUCH!!!

so ayumi and brian came over last night. we went to the mall to look at surround sound systems, i made dinner (mustard green/pork noodles, and dandelion greens with veggie ham -- i'd never made dandelion greens: 1) pretty tasty, 2) i like the farmers market, but am not a fan of finding more than one kind of live bug in my vegetables when i am washing them. not even a fan of finding just one, really), and then we played wii. super fun. i got drunk.

at some point, though, i was telling them how one of my friends came over and i made her try the wii. she hates video games, generally, but LOVED the wii because she loves sports. i was laughing and telling them how my friend was hilarious because she was fully running around as she played tennis, side to side, running up to the screen, backing up. i was demonstrating how she was running all around... and i was doing so while drunk... in socks... on my hardwood floor. i just remember laughing, and then thinking, "oh hey, i'm airborne..." and then slamming into the floor on my hip. hahahaha... ouch. i now have kind of a gnarly bruise on my hip.

oops. brian said that from now on i'll have to make fun of her while standing stationary. true.

isn't she gorgeous?

these are from carlsbad last weekend.

my widget

courtesy of dryope.

but i don't mean to give the wrong impression

i had a truly fantastic weekend, and have been in a very good mood minus some work stress.

something i wrote last night

four seasons hotel, aviara, california, 9:50 pm, 5/5/2007.

my mom and i drove down to carlsbad today so that we could go see the flower fields, which weren't yet open when my mom, sister and i came down here last month. so we headed down this morning, visited the flowers, and had dinner at vivace, the fantastic italian restaurant at the four seasons hotel here. and so now i'm sitting here at a little table in our hotel room trying to motivate myself to work while my mom practices her chi-gong. she's sitting in bed listening to her chi-gong cd on the discman she bought for me when i was living in china (i had broken the one she'd lent me). she keeps nodding off, and then starting up again. she said the morphine makes her (well, disoriented, and it makes her vision fuzzy, but also it makes her) sleepy, so that she's always wanting to close her eyes. also, gradually during chemo and then very rapidly with the morphine her memory has been getting less sharp, and she now sometimes gets confused pretty easily. but she needs it, because there is pain even with it, and without it is unbearable.

she is fighting to stay optimistic, and i'm doing what i can also, because i don't want to send any negative energy her way (and also out of denial, i'm sure -- you've got to hold on to those threads of hope that we will be that miracle, anecdotal story of survival), but it's getting harder. she was down yesterday because her doctor was talking to her about hospice and planning. so i start having these intermittent thoughts that i am actually going to lose her, and i get this panicky feeling and want to cry. and i'm sitting here and watching her while she keeps nodding off and i keep thinking, how could i be about to lose her? because she's so here, and alive, and i can touch her and hear her and talk to her and make jokes with her and reminisce with her... and how could that be about to change? and then i get flooded with emotion thinking how much i love her and how much i really have to value every damn minute i have with her because i cannot believe i could be about to lose her. and it amazes me how i have spent the last fourteen months living this and grappling with this and yet these thoughts still have a fresh, sharp pain to them as if they are brand new. and oh, god, i don't know what to do. i love my mom. i love her so much.

i was telling my friend the other day (have i written this before? i don't remember) that i feel like i am on a life raft out at sea. the water is reality, and the life raft is denial and everything else that helps me function and pretend/act/feel that my life is normal. the waves are choppy, so every now and then a wave splashes over me, and i choke and splutter and cling to my raft, and wait for the water to run off of me. but for the most part i am afloat, and this is how i've been for the last year or so. the thing is, though, that there is a leak in the raft. and it's losing air, and sooner or later it's going to sink and then it will just be me, alone, trying to keep my head above water. and it's going to happen, the raft is going to sink, and there is nothing i can do about it, except watch.

oh no, i'm from the inland north

i showed the quiz to my coworker, and realized that i accidentally answered one of the questions incorrectly. so i changed it, and it shifted me to the inland north, which is actually where i am from. so interesting!

my friend couldn't figure out how he wanted to answer the "horrible" one, and he got very upset when it pegged him inland north, so he insisted on going back and retaking it, answering the way he meant for that one, and it shifted him to the northeast, which is where he is from. interesting.

okay bye.

yay rice noodles! again!

i had dinner with two ex-coworkers tonight. one, i hadn't seen in over a year. but i LOVE her, she is so fantastic. we had an awesome time. i had said i wanted to cook, and then got busy at work, so then i thought i shouldn't cook, so we decided to go out to eat, but then i really wanted to cook, so yeah, i ended up cooking. i made the new rice noodles again -- i LOVE them! and more baby bok choy. and i had made cabbage yesterday, as well as vegetable rice, so i heated up some of that, and we ate the leftover broiled chicken. mmm... i guess it sounds a little arrogant to say it was so good, but i love food, and it was so good, and i am so full now. :)

now i have to work.

i LOVE how much i get to cook. i haven't gone out for dinner once this week! i have cooked for people every single day. fun fun!

OH WOW

a little while ago, i read about fruit cart fruit salad on captain bunny. there is a fruit cart outside my work, but until //k's entry i always just thought it was fresh fruit. i finally made it down there today for fruit salad. i got mango, pineapple and strawberry with the salt, chili powder and lime juice. OH MY GOD SOOOO GOOD!

thanks, //k!!!

chicago!!!

i've been wanting to take a weekend trip forever. chicago, new york, dc... and i think my time is running out to visit babs in florida. i love weekend trips! i just haven't been able to take (m)any in the last year or so because so much of my time (rightfully) goes to spending time with my mom. and, i was feeling kind of sad because, what with how things have been going, i was feeling even more like i needed to spend big chunks of every weekend with my mom, so i really didn't foresee any kind of friend weekend trip anywhere near at all in my future. (don't get me wrong, i love to spend time with my mom, it's just a balancing act between spending time with her and spending time in my life.)

but, my mom has signed up for another chi-gong retreat that spans memorial day weekend, so she's going to be out of town! happy, having fun, and out of town. which totally frees me up! so i just bought a ticket to chicago. i am SO EXCITED! i'll be there friday afternoon to monday evening, which just seems like SO much time to sit around and hang out with people i love but don't get to see nearly enough. yay! i am excited. and i will get to have lots of really fattening midwestern food. yay chicago!