packed full

This past weekend was insanely busy.

Friday night: Girls’ night at Becky’s. We ate a lot of great food (the cheeses were so very tasty) and generally hung out and made big dorks of ourselves. 🙂 It was hysterically fun. Nominally, it was supposed to be makeup night, but we never got around to that. Whatever happens at girls’ night stays in girls’ night, so I can’t say anything. Please kill me for writing that phrase. Heh.

Saturday: I drove into the city for my friend’s bridal shower. She’s getting married one week before me in Vegas then going on her honeymoon right away, so neither of us will get to attend the other’s wedding, so I really wanted to make it out to see her. I was only able to attend the brunch/bridal shower event of three (dinner and dancing was also on the agenda for the day), but it was so nice. A bunch of people came in from out of town, including her bridesmaids and sister. It brought together her various friends from different circles, yet the group was small and intimate enough that we all felt like we were finally putting faces to the names we had heard all along. We played a bunch of silly pre-wedding games and had fantastic tea at Lovejoy’s Teahouse. We wrote advice on little cards and made a scrapbook with polaroids we took with her. I also got to see a few people I had lost touch with from my old job, so that was nice too. Bonus! 🙂

We also did some grocery shopping at the Korean market, where I was able to get the info about their catering, since my mom wants to have some Korean appetizers at the reception as well. Mission accomplished.

Sunday: Seppo and I drove out to go to Nordstrom’s Rack and Men’s Wearhouse. I bought some cheap-o white shoes (I am thinking about using the shoes borrowed from Uyen anyway, since hers are so much cuter) then caught up with Seppo who was getting measured for a tux. After that, we were supposed to meet up with Becky and Uyen who were also at the same mall shopping, but our car’s battery had died. Luckily, we had jumpers with us and Uyen drove over Becky’s car and gave us a jump, while Becky ever-so-patiently waited for us where she was saving us a place at the eatery we were going to meet at, since Seppo and I had interrupted both their meals. Thanks guys!

"dna" report

My Personal DNA Report

variety

For some reason, Seppo and I were discussing alternate careers in the car. I remembered that when I was younger, I was very interested in becoming a family therapist/counselor. I’m actually interested enough to give it serious second thought.

—

I’ve started posting on an Asian American hiphop message board. Hee hee. They thought I was a dude for a while. Oops.

—

American Idol, Guy’s night assessment and boot predictions.

The Great:

• Chris Daughtry. Sang Bon Jovi’s “Dead or Alive”. What can I do when someone sings Bon Jovi and sings it well?
• Ace Young. Sang George Michael’s “Father Figure”. So many middle-aged housewives are having inappropriate fantasies about him now.
• Elliot Yamin. Sang Stevie Wonder’s “If You Really Love Me”. I can’t help thinking “meth mouth” everytime I see him, but he is undeniably great.

The Fun & Good:

• Will Makar. Sang Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back”. I love the song and he made one of the best song choices aside from the people above, hitting the correct demographic for him: fun, young, and a little sentimental. He’s not as good of a singer as the people above.
• Gedeon McKinney. Sang “Shout!”, but I don’t know who sang it first/best/most famously. I love the song and it was fun, but he weirds me out when he talks and stares.

The Less Fun But Still Good:

• Kevin Covais. Sang Brian McKinght’s “One Last Cry”. The performance was awkward looking, but his singing was pretty good.
• Taylor Hicks. Sang Elton John’s “Levon”. I expected more from him. He wasn’t as great as before, but still very very good.
• Patrick Hill. Sang Melissa Ethridge’s “Come To My Window”. He’s clearly a great singer but something about the performance sucked and bored me silly.

The Horrible/Uncomfortable (even if good):

• David Radford. Sang what my guess is Michael Buble’s version of Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”. His “crooning” is so fake that I just can’t watch him. And I felt bad for all the legitimate criticism he got, so I want him to just go.
• Bobby Bennett. Sang Barry Manilow’s “Copacabana”. He was better doing Louis Armstrong with his gravelly voice; this was just schmaltzy lounge-y crapola on a stick.
• Jose Penala. Sang Earth, Wind, and Fire’s “Reasons”. All the singing was done in falsetto, which I just hate, so I can’t be objective. Seppo says he was flat throughout.
• Bucky Covington. Sang Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Simple Man”. I couldn’t understand anything he sang in his mush-mouth and overly-forced growls. He might have a good tone underneath, but I didn’t see it.

My guess is that Bobby and either David, Patrick, or Gedeon get it. I think Bobby & David should go, but Bobby & Gedeon will go because of lack of screen time.

Arrival!

My sister and her kids are arriving in the US (ATL, to be exact) next Monday. Woo!

definition

ei-nyung —

[noun]:

A person of questionable sanity who starts their own cult

‘How will you be defined in the dictionary?’ at QuizGalaxy.com

and

eingy —

[adjective]:

Smelling like turnips at all times

‘How will you be defined in the dictionary?’ at QuizGalaxy.com

*snort*

social

My beloved friend from Boston came in town for a visit this weekend, as she was attending a wedding on Saturday. On Sunday, we got to spend a lovely day reminiscing and speaking lightly and deeply about life, love, and the pursuit of happiness. It was great! 🙂

The thing I want to write about is tangentially related to her visit. On Sunday night, we went to dinner at Palomino with a bunch of her other Bay Area friends. Reservations and seating were a fiasco not of our making, but that’s not really the thing I’m trying to get at. At some point in the evening, while we were all sitting around the table, eating and conversing, I realized that I was unpurposely and unconsciously acting like a person who had had a few drinks. My face was flushed, I was speaking a little more loudly than usual, I was giggling and giggly at the smallest things, and in general, I was just amped up. It really weirded me out, not because this behavior was unusual, but because I had finally made a conscious connection between my disconnected symptoms and those of a slightly buzzed person. Hmm.

The other thing that happened is that since a bunch of us who had known each other since freshman year of college were there, as well as a bunch of transplants to the East Coast, we naturally got to talking about the differences in our behavior and attitudes as a result of our living environment. In particular, one of the people there had lived in Philly for a year, so she was speaking about how rough things felt there. And so my friend launched into a story about how I accidentally cussed out a British tourist when I was in college because I accidentally thought he was accosting us, not asking us for directions.

The thing I hate about that story is that it makes me sound 1) violent, 2) out of control, 3) hostile, 4) paranoid, or 5) all of the above. The problem is that given the context of living in Philly, behaving the way I had would have been accepted as perfectly normal by most Philadelphians I know. I learned to adjust when I moved to Boston, but it took time. And I learned to adjust when I moved out here, and it’s still taking time. But again, the thing I hate is that people listen to that story without having context of what a day-to-day environment in Philly was like growing up. It’s not that I had a chip on my shoulder; it’s that that’s the normal way to behave where I was. And since I moved, I have been adapting to the new waters. That’s what normal human beings do. To act as a Californian (very friendly and open) in Philly would piss off all the people I met and make them feel threatened because they won’t understand what is going on. You do as the Romans do.

Anyway, after we finished eating dinner, we had decided that my out-of-town friend and another friend (whom she was staking with overnight) would get dropped off by me, so we all walked over to our car. Given the stories that had been told, and given that we were all in a great mood from a fun evening of hanging out, when we encountered three people taking up the entire pavement, we were all smiles and soft voices and rueful apology and “Excuse me”s as we tried to pass them. Only they didn’t move at all, even with repeated excuse mes. So as we passed, I think I gave a very quite disgruntled “hmmph” but given the good mood I was in, I don’t even really think I did (but I have reflected on the incident a few times now, and really think there is a possibility that I might have), especially because I was trying to show my friends that I wasn’t like that story that was told about me. Then one of the guys turned around after we passed and loudly and rudely said, “You could have at least said excuse me!” I turned around, shocked and annoyed, and said, “We f*#$ing said excuse me like ten times!” and walked away. I was so annoyed. And my friend joked to me, “So is this what you meant by becoming soft in CA?” I know she was totally joking, and I saw the irony of the situation, but those people really pissed me off, that we were so nice, so polite, so sheepish about passing them, after having had a great time, and they’d be so rude. I don’t know. Was my behavior out of line? :-/

Because I do

Our officiant sent us her first draft of our wedding ceremony. It was simple and beautiful. Aside from a few small changes, I really like it.

On a completely unrelated note, I am calling Taylor Hicks, Paris Bennett, and Ace Young as making top 5 on this season of AI. The links will make it clear why.

Lost

I get nervous when I go somewhere for the very first time. So generally, I prepare and prepare and read maps and memorize major markers until I am comfortable. I had gotten lazy with this lately, and today, during lunch, I paid the price.

I was meeting a friend for lunch. At some point, I became convinced that I was going in the wrong direction, so I tried to cut across to a bigger expressway that I felt more comfortable with. I was at an intersection and knew that Street A definitely intersected the bigger expressway I was looking for. Little did I know that Street B also intersected it, and at a MUCH closer point. Sigh.

This is my sad, convoluted path. I was so embarrassed for getting so turned around that I kept shooting past the streets I needed to turn on, making the problem worse and worse. And because I was on slow streets, I ended up being 40 minutes late. I felt so awful. It’s a testament of our friendship that my friend didn’t kick my ass in the parking lot. 🙂

Cha-ching

A mere week after filing my taxes, I see in my bank account a deposit for my state income tax returns. Schweet! I love filing early when there isn’t a huge backlog of returns for the IRS to wade through.

Merritt Bakery is open!

Joe told me that Steve told him that Merritt Bakery was open last Saturday, a mere two days after the fire closed it down. And today, I read an article that confirmed it! Yay!

Mmmmm… waffles…