brain barf… yum!
This kind of crabs, you sicko.
We headed out early this morning from San Jose to Half Moon Bay with Yoshi’s Dad to get 19 (that’s right nineteen!) crabs for dinner tonight and for New Years Day. Each crab was about 2 lbs, so 40 lbs of crab in the cooler later, we had lunch at Ketch Joanne’s, stopped by Crystal Springs Fish & Poultry to get some fish for sashimi, headed back home, and pretty much stayed there for the rest of the night.
Happy New Years Eve!
How can that be?
I didn’t get up until 10am. We checked out of Hotel Monaco at noon; went to Starbucks and met up with my friend Jim from high school. We went out to lunch at Osha Thai and then made our way back to where we were yesterday and did some damage at The Container Store.
The 3 of us futzed around and shopped until we realized it was almost 6pm. We hit the road and came back to San Jose where we had a nice healthy dinner of Round Table Pizza.
Yikes. My waistband feels tight.
Can I go to sleep yet?
…oops.
After a shower, and breakfast (re-toasted grilled cheese sandwich, cheddar on sourdough; a bite of jeniverse’s sweet bread, a bite of freshly made mochi), we hit the road and headed toward SF from SJ. Though we had a smooth trip on the freeway, when we reached the city, the street traffic was a whole different animal. I think it took us 35 minutes to get into the parking structure and park our damn car. Sheesh. Glad I wasn’t driving, because I probably would have been a little aggro at that point (like some unnamed person), for obvious reasons. I just tried not to stand too close; you know stay out of the Zone of Danger.
We ended up near Union Square for our annual New Year’s pilgrimage to the flagship Old Navy store. I think that since we were here on a weekday (versus a weekend), it wasn’t quite as bad as I’d remembered from previous years. But there were still a lot of people there. This woman almost punched me for a robe we were both looking at. I said, “Lady, go ahead and take the robe.” She scowled at me even though I let her have the robe. Beyatch. I should have ripped it from her craggly fingers, the stupid wench. And I didn’t even want the robe. Anyway. We did major damage there.
After that, we dropped our stuff off in our car and met with teebubble and jeniverse for some refreshments. It was so nice to see them, and I think it’s funny that even though we all live in L.A., less than a couple of miles away from each other, it takes an SF trip to get us all together.
We left them shortly after that, passing the Old Navy baton to them, while we went to check into our hotel. We dropped our stuff off, and jumped in a cab to meet stkyrice & aiyahh for dinner at Espetus. We had such a great time. Then it was dessert at Sauce. Yu-freakin-um! We all piled into the car and headed back to the hotel so that we could exchange presents; which we did! And we talked for hours!
Anyway, it’s time for bed!
More to come about:
-The hotel we stayed at
-The gifts we got
-The gift we gave
-Dinner
-Dessert
-The kid on the escalator at Old Navy
-Proof of why Old Navy should make sure we come every year
After staying up pat 3am last night, I had to get up at “regular time” to do a bunch of work with Bossguy. That was fun.
I had so much to do last night and this morning. That’s what happens not just when it’s the end of the month, end of the year, but also before you have to get ready for being out of town for the next four days.
Anyway, Bossguy and I got a ton of work done and then we both had flights (to different places) out of Burbank at around 4pm. Little did we know that Southwest had other plans for us. As soon as we got in, we found out that both our flights were delayed… mine at least half and hour… his 2+ hours!
We both tried to get on to earlier flights, but they weren’t taking standby for his and the earlier flight for my city (Oakland) was going to leave at around the same time as my original flight… no point in changing. Bossguy and I sat down for a while and then we decided to try again for him. Good thing we did! Some people volunteered to take a later flight and so he was able to get on the earlier flight (which had already been delayed over an hour). As for me, I got on to my flight shortly after he left. I arrived into Oakland just past 6pm.
I was met outside of baggage claim by Yoshi and YoshiMom, YoshiDad, and YoshiAuntie where we were whisked off to Castro Valley for dinner at a Thai restaurant called the Lime Leaf. Yummy! We dropped off YoshiAuntie at her house after dinner (where we got some presents to take home and unwrap), and then we headed over to YoshiCousin’s house where we were met by the clan. Fun!
When we finally got back to YoshiParents’ place, I had to have a piece of persimmon bread and then I opened Christmas presents! Whoo hoo! All I can say is that I am very lucky and that Yoshi’s family is extremely generous.
Anyhooz, it’s definitely time for bed because we have a full day ahead of us tomorrow in the city.
I don’t know if it’s the weather, or that I’m worried about Grandma, or that I’ve been home alone for the last couple of days, or what.
I feel blah.
I did a lot today though, despite the blahs I felt all day:
-Called iRobot and ordered a replacement battery for Rooben, our Roomba.
-Picked up four days worth of mail from my mailbox. Three boxes to sign for, plus our mailbox was completely full of mail/magazines.
-Went to the office.
-Went to the DMV to take care of my Dad’s registration for his car (we didn’t know where the paperwork was for his car and we missed the chance to file for Planned Non-Operation, so I had to pay the registration for a car that hasn’t been driven in 6 months).
-Went to a blogging.la author get together. Bowling at Pickwick Bowl in Burbank. Except I didn’t bowl. Saw Jillian, 5000!, Markland, Cybele + her Man, Mack Reed, and Will Campbell: Answer Man. I haven’t seen any of them in ages. I hope that by showing up to one of these things once in a while, I don’t get kicked off of blogging.la for lack of posts. We did do a White Elephant Gift exchange, though. My submission was an “Old School iPod” (portable CD player), a Pooping Snowman candy dispenser, and a roll of Sudoku toilet paper. I brought home the CD soundtrack of “The Queen” (not Queen) and a 2007 Chippendale’s calendar, with DVD. (Some lucky person is the probable eventual recipient of the calendar.)
-We found out on Christmas day that my Grandma was going to have surgery today at 9am. I didn’t have a chance to go visit after work, but I am thinking healing thoughts for her.
–7.1/7.0 earthquake(s) in the ocean off of southern Taiwan. Haven’t been able to get through to Mom on the phone, but I know that she is not in southern Taiwan.
-The fuyu persimmon tree at my parents’ house gave up a huge crop of persimmons this fall. My brother was busy so he didn’t get a chance to take them off the tree before they started sagging the branches and became overripe. When I went home on Christmas Eve, I brought back a bag for Yoshi’s parents up north. I heard some of them were too mushy, so they made persimmon bread. Which prompted me to look up some persimmon recipes.
-Spent the day at the office, but it was a quiet and productive day. All in all, not so bad!
-Came home after work and got some stuff done around the house. Got hungry and ate leftovers in front of the TV. Got cold, laid down while watching Nova: Monster of the Milky Way (about the supermassive black hole that could be at the center of the Milky Way). Fell asleep. Woke up, chatted online, did some cleaning, dishes, called Yoshi, Bro and Nina.
I’m not Christian, so I only kind of celebrate Christmas.
I love Christmas carols and don’t mind having a tree (gotta find a good plastic one, because I don’t like the idea of getting a real one). I don’t really do gifts, but I did give a few and get a few, too. Oh, and I decided to totally forgo the holiday cards this year… too much to do, too many mixed emotions… thanks to everyone who sent to us, tho!
As for Christmas day, we inadvertently celebrated a Jewish Christmas: Chinese food and a movie. My brother and I met up in the afternoon to go visit my Grandma in the hospital. After that, we went to my Aunt & Uncle’s home to have dinner with them and our cousin, T, who is home from college. Since no other restaurants were open, we ended up having Chinese food at Full House Seafood Restaurant in Arcadia (yummy meal with peking duck, lobster, walnut shrimp, chinese broccoli, and peppered beef steak) and going back to their house to watch The DaVinci Code at home, plus a bunch of the special features.
Regarding gifts, if I was on the ball, I’d have a list of things I got, but since I have more presents that I haven’t opened yet, maybe I’ll do a round-up after the New Year.
For now, I want to thank my cousin Nina for sending me a super-awesome surprise gift: Logitech 2.4 GHz Cordless Presenter. It was on my Amazon Wishlist and it totally surprised me! I know it was a geeky thing to ask for, but I will totally use it for all the presentations I have to do at work and at school.
Thanks, again Nina!
Big ol’ lumps of coal!
Do you want one in your stocking?
(I made this myself!!!)
(My latest topic from Consumating.)
…and they are upstairs making all kinds of merriment.
It’s a good thing I like all our neighbors.
A few hours ago, we were also up there, eating, drinking, and singing badly to Christmas carols, accompanied by D on the guitar and T on a very out-of-tune piano.
I played the part of music stand.
We had to make our escape early to “go to bed.” But I guess that actually means “get on our computers and blog.”
In other words, we are party-poopers. We’ll try to keep it to ourselves.
Only one shopping week left til Christmas! What do you want to see in your stocking?
I’ll take a Segway PT i2. In black, please.
(From Consumating)
It was wonderful, even though it made her cry.
I love her and miss her.
Can’t wait to talk to her soon.
…who is messing with all the calendars around here?!?!
Vote for me at Consumating!
I was awakened around 8 this morning by a phone call from Mom in Taiwan. I think she’s feeling lonely and sad in Taiwan and it makes me sad that she’s feeling that way. She says she can’t come back until she takes care of a few things there… how long that stuff takes is beyond her control. Anyway, I talked with her for a bit and then she began to worry because she could tell I was sick (my voice was all wonky), and then she started to worry about my health. I told her not to worry, but you know how Moms are.
Anyway, after talking to Mom, I decided that I should eat something and take some meds so I would stop coughing so much. I was heating up some food in the microwave and *poof!* I blew another fuse in the kitchen. Did not know that the slow-cooker being on at the same time as our microwave would cause a blow-out. Ooops.
I was futzing around the place we keep the extra fuses and realized that we only had one fuse left. All this noise woke Yoshi up who told me that since I have blown the fuses in the kitchen 3 times, that I need to go to Home Depot BY MYSELF and get replacements. Needless to say, I began whining and pretending that I wasn’t the one who blew the fuses. (“Nice try,” says Yosh.) For the record, I did change out the fuse, all by myself. Unfortunately, I accidentally turned the power off in both the bedrooms, so our computers/server got rebooted and all the clocks were flashing 12:00 after that.
Anyway, after all that, I decided to go back to bed. Which was probably a good idea because I crashed out and slept until 5:30pm (at least 6-7 hours) when some inconsiderate telemarketer(?) called my home number and woke me up. Since we don’t have a phone in the bedroom, I ran out of bed and into the office to get the phone.
“Hello?” I answered groggily.
“Mrs. (Joz’s last name)?” came a wimpy male voice.
“Huh?” I asked.
*click*
I got hung up on.
GRRR! Not only did I get awakened, I got hung up on! Doh!
So I’ve been up since then, waiting for Yoshi to get home. We were supposed to try to make it to our friends’ holiday party, but since I am not 100% and Yoshi called a few minutes ago saying, “I think I have a fever,” the party is probably not a good idea.
So that’s another holiday party I am going to miss out on because I’m sick. Booooooo!
Going to bed/sleep is not that horrible. I am usually complaining that I don’t get enough sleep, but I don’t like HAVING to go to bed when I’m not ready for it.
I’m still sick, but my congestion has moved down from my head to my chest. Hooray. Breathing takes much effort at the moment. But the good news is that I seem to be getting better, albeit slowly. Yoshi says that if I would just stay in bed and sleep, I would recover faster.
So far today, I got up and had brunch at Toast with a bunch of my MBA classmates I hadn’t seen in a while. We got to catch up and hear stories from everyone’s adventures… one of gals had a story involving a hyena ambush while on safari in Africa!!! Then I came home and got back into my jammies and sat in bed playing sudoku and watching a ton of old Ellens on the TiVo. Personally, I think this should count as me resting even though I wasn’t asleep, but Yoshi says I should’ve slept.
I even finally watched the episode of Ellen that we were at the taping for. It was pretty cool to see my cousin Nina chatting away with Ellen on national television. And a little trippy to see my face on TV for a split second or two.
Here’s a screen capture Nina did of the show where you can see Ellen, Nina, and Joz (by Nina’s butt)!
For more screen caps and a video clip of Nina on Ellen, you can see her post ::Our 15 Seconds of Fame…::
Ok, anyway. It’s been more than a week since the episode aired when I finally got a chance to watch it, but that was cool. Yay for my cold! (Just kidding!)
What else did I do today?
The other night (after visiting Grandma at the hospital), I went to the Asian supermarket in Alhambra to restock our fridge. I bought an insane amount of groceries for $85. In that $85 purchase, I also bought a slow-cooker/crock pot for $12. Twelve dollars! I hope it’s not that cheap because it’s going to explode or something. And since I’m sick, I decided to make chicken soup. So today, I was drinking chicken soup from my new slow-cooker.
To top off the evening, I got dressed again and Yoshi took me to see the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles perform their annual holiday concert. This time it was called “Hollywood Holidays” and they were WONDERFUL. I never seem to get into the holiday spirit until this concert happens every year. And I got to see so many of my favorite boys sing tonight, too! These guys know how to put on a great show!
Then, after the concert, Yoshi was nice enough to buy me Pinkberry. Not that I should’ve had it, especially since I’m sick, but whatever. Nothing (ok, not much) makes my day more than a Pinkberry frozen yogurt topped with mango, mochi, and blackberries… yum!
Now I am going to stop messing around online and go to bed for real. Because now I’m REALLY tired. *yawn*
…and being put back in the bed.
And I got drugged, too!
Help……………………
I’m sick. That sore throat I had a few days ago has officially blossomed to full-blown sick.
The worst part about this is that I definitely can’t visit Grandma now. I can’t risk passing anything on to her.
It doesn’t help that I’ve been working 10 hour days at work to get all the holiday crap at work done.
Threre are 3 holiday parties I’m supposed to make an appearance at tomorrow + a retirement party.
Plus there are a pile of several hundred (work) holiday cards that I have to get out tomorrow.
Not to mention the other list which I wasn’t supposed to have to work on, but somehow got stuck doing.
Calling in sick is probably not an option. On the bright side, nobody will want me around the food, so I will probably get away with not having anything to do with food tomorrow.
And another thing… Mom called me at 2pm (my time) from Taiwan. She had been up all night and was really upset over something and needed someone to talk to. I worry about her a lot and it really sucks that she has to be so far away right now (basically) all by herself.
Going to bed now. Can you believe it? It’s not even midnight yet…
Debating on whether or not to do holiday cards this year and what they should look like (do they include mention of my Dad or not?)
The etiquette sites aren’t very helpful.
This is all I got…
The First Christmas After a Death
Christmas cards and bereavement (UK based site)
Unrelated to my question, but caught my attention…
I went to visit Grandma in the hospital right after work today. I got there a few minutes before visiting hours ended, so I couldn’t stay too long.
Grandma was still awake and kept looking at me. I was afraid to get too close to her and breathe on her because I’d come home from Seattle with a sore throat & I didn’t know what germs I might have.
I stayed until a nurse came by to check her temperature (98.2, down from the 105 fever she had when she was admitted to the ER), blood pressure a little low (but for the most part normal). There wasn’t a doctor there for me to ask any questions and then it was time to leave.
I held Grandma’s hand for a while. I felt a little better to have seen her and touched her tonight, but I’m obviously still worried.
Thanks for the good thoughts.
(A special thanks to Nina for the chat while I was driving to the hospital.)
What a trip.
Sucks to have to go back to work tomorrow.
But glad to be back in L.A.
Tomorrow I’m going to try and see Grandma after work.
… with a bit of not-so-good news about my Grandma (Dad’s mom) back in L.A..
My Uncle Peter (Dad’s brother) just called to let me know that my Grandma was taken to the Emergency Room last night because she couldn’t breathe. She’s stabilized enough that she’s out of the ER now, but how long she’ll be in the hospital is still not clear.
I think I’d feel better if I wasn’t in Seattle right now and could go visit, but until I get back, I have to live with updates from my Uncle and my Bro.
So if you have a moment, send some good, healing thoughts for my Grandma. Thanks muchly.
2 hours of sleep looks like… And as of 8:45am, we’ve been stuck on the tarmac for an hour. Something broke on the plane and they need it to take off. They don’t have one here so they are having it couriered from lax. We had to deplane & waiting for the part.
UPDATE: We are now sitting in the terminal again, waiting for the part to arrive. They are giving us an ETA of 11:45 as the new flight time. This was supposed to be an 8am flight. We were supposed to BE in Seattle by 10:45. I’ve been up since 5am and here at the airport since 6am. And Yoshi stayed up all night.
There are gonna be two grumpy people this afternoon.
…this time for Chris & Ponzi’s wedding.
I just found out the dress I was going to wear is sitting inside the pile of clothes to be dry cleaned. Oops. Gotta find something else, I guess.
Still not packed and have a million things to do before we head out to the airport. This time, I’m in charge of making sure we have all our confirmations/info. My head will probably explode if we recreate the experience we had at the airport for our Orlando trip.
Two other notes:
1) Got a call from Mom on Thursday morning. It was good to hear her voice again. I miss her so much.
2) Good thoughts go out to the family and loved ones of James Kim, who used to work with Chris back in the TechTV days. What a tragic loss and my heart goes out to Kati, Penelope, Sabine, and their families.
As you may have figured out from my hint, I was at the taping of the Ellen Degeneres Show on Tuesday, which is going to air TODAY! (It’s the one with Emilio Estevez, Holmes on Homes, and juggler Brad Weston.)
Through the kindness and generosity of my cousin Nina, who was lucky enough to score tickets to the Ellen taping during Ellen’s 12 Days of Giveaways, I was able to spend the day with Nina and attend the show with Nina’s mom and sister. I also got to meet 3-week old Paris for the first time (what a cutie!).
But I know that the day also wouldn’t have been possible without the wonderful Allie, who went out to Burbank at 6am in the dark/cold to stand in line for us because I had to be at the office at 8am and Nina had to make sure Ashley was fed before she could come out and pick up the tickets at 11am. Thanks to Allie, we were numbers 70, 71, 72, and 73! Also thanks to Allie, we met the nicest people in line (hi to the ladies from Colorado and from Orange County!). They also stood up for me when the mean-ass biyotches in line behind us started yelling at me because I hadn’t been in line since 6am like they had been. (My Pimpcoat was just too obvious, I guess.) Thanks to Bossguy for letting me take most of the day off, too.
Nina even got picked to talk to Ellen on-camera, so you’ll have to check her out on the show today! I was sitting 3 seats over from her so unless there’s a shot panning over the audience, you probably won’t see me on-camera. But I was there, got to see the show, spend time with family I never get to see, and had a great time. Nina’s mom even participated in a dance concert and got a “I danced with Ellen” shirt (just like the one I got when I went to the taping almost 2 years ago.)
There were a lot of other people who made the day possible, like Chris for babysitting the 4 girls while US 4 girls four girls were at the show; Nina’s post about the day chronicles these folks, too.
And you must be dying to know what we got?!?!?
Here’s the link for what Ellen gave away on Day 6 (or a PDF for the permalink).
BOULE HATBOX OF CHOCOLATES AND SWEETS
Boule is a luxury gourmet lifestyle store based in Los Angeles, is known and revered for their handcrafted chocolates and other gourmet sweets. “Ellen’s 12 Days of Giveaways†gift is a Boule Hat box filled with handcrafted chocolates, cocoa-dusted chocolate covered almonds, camargue caramels, Karovas (dark chocolate cookies) and pate de fruit (French jelly candies). Ellen herself hand-selected Boule’s chic and scrumptious Hatbox for the Romance themed Giveaway. Boule customized this hatbox and filled it with Ellen’s favorite sweets: 12 piece Box of Chocolates, Fleur de Sel Caramels, Korova Sables, Pate de Fruit and Chocolate Covered Almonds.
CALYX & COROLLA GIFT CARD FOR $300
A whole new way to send a gorgeous bouquet for the holidays: Flowers in a Hatbox by Calyx & Corolla. Each bouquet comes delivered in a gorgeous keepsake silk hatbox perfectly arranged in a contemporary vase from Calyx & Corolla luxury flowers.
A FRESHADAMA PEARL NECKLACE FROM PEARLPARADISE.COM
PearlParadise.com is the only company in the world to offer this new line of freshwater pearls. Each freshwater piece in this category features truly round pearls with brilliant luster and orient, which is a rainbow iridescence and an incredibly rare factor only seen in approximately .01% of freshwater pearls produced today. The pearls are drilled and matched into the most lustrous freshwater necklaces ever produced, and the only strands of their kind in the world – guaranteed.
THANKS AGAIN FOR A WONDERFUL DAY, NINA!
I was at work past 7pm tonight and when I got home all I wanted to do was to eat, finally watch Heroes (OMG!), and (now) sleep.
On a side note, did you know that they are making all the episodes of Heroes available online? You can catch up if you’ve missed one/all!
Sorry no blog time today. I’ll catch up on yesterday tomorrow, maybe.
Despite popular misconception, I don’t have all kinds of “free time” on my hands.
And for once, I’m going to bed before midnight.
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