I have been in a contemplative mood lately.  Maybe it's because Jack is now working and I have a lot of time to myself.  I have recently come down with a sore throat and a stuffy head.  I don't know where or how I got sick but I hope it doesn't turn into something worse...

The fact that we are still setting things up in our new place is completely due to laziness... at least on my part.  I'm kind of OCD when it comes to certain things and the fact that I don't have a creative bone in my body is leading to some anxiety on how I want to decorate the new place.  I felt the same kind of anxiety planning our wedding... thinking too hard about what elements will go together and such.  In any case, I am warming up to our condo nicely.  I really hated it at first because our old apartment in Torrance had two floors and now I have to get used to people stomping around at all times of the day above us.  It doesn't help when the people living above you have wood/tile floors, an infant that cries a lot and thin ceiling walls.  But the other day, a nice lady from across the way knocked on our door and welcomed us to the community (how sweet is that?), so not all is bad.  We had a run-in with an extremely rude lady in the neighboring community our very first day up here so I guess it all balances out now.

One thing I really like about where we live is the location.  Supermarkets, restaurants, eateries, malls, shopping plazas and the coveted Costco are all within a 5-minute drive.  You drive one direction and there are a ton of Korean places.  You drive another direction there are a ton of Chinese places (so I can get my daily boba fix, haha).  We're about a stone's throw away from Valley Fair/Santana Row and there is a dog park nearby for Yuki.  It seems that there is a lot more to do in this part of town than the peninsula.

Looking back on the last 6-7 years, it has been one big adventure for us both.  It has been hard at times and I have surely missed people along the way (still do), but it's nice to reflect back on it all and see how far Jack and I have come in our journey together.  I see this as yet another exciting opportunity to grow and experience something new and I'm really looking forward to it.  I typically approach change with a little bit of trepidation, but as long as we're together I think I'll be able to manage just fine.

On June 21st, Jack's family friend, Bonnie, got married in Newport Beach.  The ceremony took place at St. Mark's Presbyterian Church and the reception was held at The Island Hotel.  I absolutely loved her black/white/yellow color scheme.  Our beloved wedding coordinator extraordinaire, the talented Ms. Carrie Goff, also helped plan Bonnie's wedding, so it was a real treat for us to see her again!


Mr. and Mrs. Chiu


Us at cocktail hour


Reception tent... lighting coming through the tent was very bad for amateur shots


Menu


Tall centerpiece


Short centerpiece


Adorable cake table


They incorporated Chinese lion dancing into their reception.  So fun!


They seemed so lifelike!


Feeding the lion red envelopes


With the blushing bride


With our super sweet coordinator, Carrie Goff

This past weekend, Jack and I flew back down to OC to take part in David and Erika's wedding festivities part deux.  While Jack was out paintballing with the boys, the girls celebrated Erika's soon-to-be Mrs. status at her bridal shower at The Bungalow Club.  Then it was off to the after party at Le Cercle where things got er... crazy, haha.  I'll spare you the scandalous pics and post the innocent, only half-drunk ones, heh heh.  It was my very first K-club experience and all in all?  Not bad.  Booking is totally not as bad as what I had envisioned in my head.  I would probably go again, but I am way too damn old.  And married, ha.   


All the ladies


Bella and Shaqs


Erika is glowing!  But it could have been the pomegranate martinis too.  They were ridiculously strong.


I really love this girl.  Smooches all around. 


Erika posing with her RD bouquet.  Stella needs to go into the RD bouquet making business, ferreal.


Outside Le Cercle waiting for the other lovely ladies to arrive


The beginning of the end...


Lisa and Jenny


The bridal party minus moi


Janejamin sandwich


Hugs for my Shaqadelic

I have no interesting pictures to share this time, just some sentiments about how exhausted I have been the last couple of weeks.  Jack and I have been packing (ok I won't lie... I haven't helped pack much but I'm still working and he's not!) and preparing for our move up to NorCal next week.  I told my bosses months ago that I was going to be leaving in June, but they procrastinated and didn't start interviewing until Mid-May.  The lady they hired was extremely nice and super sweet, but unfortunately could not keep up with the workload and they let her go last week.  We scrambled to find someone to take her place and hired the first person we interviewed thereafter.  Because of the setback of having to hire someone new, I was forced to stay past my last day of work which was supposed to be Friday the 13th, which in turn has compromised our already hectic moving schedule.  I was hoping the second hire would be a vast improvement from the first but I am finding myself just as frustrated as I was the first time around.  What I have learned in training these two people is that just because someone has decades of experience doesn't necessarily mean that person will do a better job.  Sometimes it's better to hire someone who is younger and more adept with computers and various programs than someone who was trained the "old school" way.  For someone like me who only has a few notches in her belt, this is the only advantage I have over someone with years of experience, but unfortunately that doesn't reflect itself on a resume and it usually won't get me in the door.  I was able to learn so much faster and I know my replacement won't be able to do things as quickly as I have, yet she is getting paid so much more because of her so-called experience.  I am at my wits end in training and I don't think it has anything to do with patience.  I shouldn't have to train someone how to do basic things like open up a browser or type in a web address or even how to use simple shortcuts.  I am beyond frustrated and my boss is begging me to stay longer when I have already compromised our schedule enough.  I have taken my frustrations out on the people closest to me; apparently venting to them hasn't been enough so now Xanga has become a victim of my ranting as well.  My spirits were so down by the time lunch time came around.  Good thing I met up with two very good friends for lunch.  They were able to turn my frown upside down... if only for just an hour and a half.

Aside from the hecticness (is that even a word?) of my life at the moment, I had a wonderful weekend.  David and Erika, being two of the sweetest friends in the world, planned a going away party for us on Saturday and invited all of our friends, who are just as sweet.    We all had a drunken jolly good time in K-Town (at least from what I remember anyway) and then had a nice Father's Day lunch with both of our dads on Sunday (hangover and all).  This weekend is just a reminder of how bittersweet it will be to relocate.  On the one hand, it is a great opportunity for Jack (hopefully there will be great opportunitites for me up there too), but on the other hand we are leaving all the people who bring a lot of joy and meaning into our lives.  But hey, I'll take Stanford over Michigan any day.  Hopefully we will have a lot more visitors this time.  No formal invitations necessary... everyone is welcome! 

Seventeen years ago on March 3, 1991, a day before my dad's birthday, Dixie (our first family dog) delivered a litter of five pups.  There were three boys and two girls.  Two were all black, two were a mix of black and brown and the last little runty one stood out the most from the rest of the litter because she was the smallest one and was a caramel tan color.  The cutest part about her was the white spots strategically placed on all four of her paws and at the tip of her tail.  What an adorable touch God decided to put on her tiny extremities!  From day one, she endeared us all.  Her big, sorrowful looking eyes (think Puss in Boots from Shrek), led us to unanimously agree on one name:  Droopy.

There was no doubt that she was the most spoiled one of the bunch.  One by one we gave them away, but her we decided to keep along with her sister (who has already passed).  Droopy has brought so much joy to our family that writing this "eulogy" is very difficult for me to do.

In her younger days, Droopy was spry and full of energy.  She would run around with her mom and her sister and chase tennis balls in the backyard.  When it was time to eat we would yell, "Yummy!" and she, like her mom, would immediately come out and look at you with those big eyes in hopes of getting a meal in return.  If you smothered her too much or moved her out of a comfortable position she would start whining at you.  It became her trademark whine, hahaha.  My parents coddled her to no end.  After establishing strict rules about not having pets inside the house at night, they finally caved and "accidentally" allowed Droopy to sleep with them one night.  She has been sleeping with them ever since... for the last 17 years.

When I left for Michigan in 2005, Droopy was still fairly healthy.  She could still run and she didn't have arthritis.  Now she is suffering from dementia and gets disoriented very easily.  Sometimes she gets stuck in between furniture or small crevices around the house because she no longer has any sense of her whereabouts.  When this happens, she cries incessantly from the helplessness until my parents are able to rescue her.  My parents have since resorted to creating barricades around the house to keep her from getting stuck.  From time to time she experiences seizures where she will spontaneously defecate and cry continuously thereafter.  It has gotten to the point now where my parents have to cater to her needs 24/7, compromising their work schedules and even waking up in the wee hours of the morning to help her go to the bathroom because she can no longer stand on her own to do so.  I have never seen this first hand because I no longer live at home, but just hearing about all this from my parents really saddens me.  As much we would love to keep her with us forever, it would only be selfish for us to allow her suffering to continue.

Today at around 12:00 p.m., we said our last good-byes to our beloved Droopy.  I can't help but feel extremely sad that we have lost yet another member of our family, but I am comforted by the thought that she no longer has to live in agony.

Answer: Finding out David Cook won American Idol LIVE from the Nokia Theater!!

You can imagine how I squealed with glee when I received an e-mail last week notifying me that I was qualified to receive vouchers for Tuesday's and Wednesday's season finale.  Thinking back to when I first put my e-mail on the waitlist after watching our first taping earlier this year, I didn't think my name would come up before the season finished.  As luck would have it, my e-mail was drawn for the best tickets of the season!  I snatched those babies up quick and decided to go to Wednesday's finale because asking for two days off from work would kinda be pushing it.  Too bad I used the "once in a lifetime" excuse the first time around... it didn't go over as well this time, but what can I say?  It IS a once in a liftetime experience!

The only other person who I think might be nuttier than me about this show is my brother's girlfriend, Sarah.  She has been recounting her stories to me the last couple of weeks about how she has been trying really hard to get AI finale tickets through her co-worker but said the chances were pretty slim.  Since I knew how badly she wanted to go and we had a voucher for four, I decided to ask her and my brother to join us today.  Having another fanatical Idol fan with me in tow definitely made the entire day that much more fun. 

We arrived at check-in at around 9:00 a.m. and a significant line had already formed.  I was hoping we would get there early enough to be the first 200 in line because they get special passes to the red carpet post-show, but we were already in the 400s once we took our place in line. 


Long ass line






What's Cookin?!  Sarah made that sign, wuahahaha

At around 11:00 a.m., they began handing out tickets for assigned seating inside the theater.  I don't think it was in any particular order because we weren't that close to the front and we scored Orchestra seats!  More squealing ensued after that.



Once we had our tickets in hand, we were instructed to disperse and come back to the theater when the doors opened at 3:30 p.m.  We grabbed a quick bite to eat with my brother's friend who happened to work a block away from the theater and came back in time to take part in the red carpet madness.  It was kinda disappointing not to see any "real" celebrities coming out of the limos... just a bunch of former Idol contestants.  I found it amusing that people were asking, "Who is he/she again?" every time a former Idol contestant would come up to the railing.  The TMZ.com papparazo guy standing next to me didn't know who Paris Bennet was, hahaha.  Does anyone remember her?


Red carpet area






Justin Guarini and Rosanna Tavarez arriving for Idol Tonight on the TV Guide channel


Kimberly Caldwell also arriving for Idol Tonight


Bo Bice

Melinda Doolittle





Gina Glocksen







Haley Scarnato






Constantine Maroulis


Chris Sligh


Some of the dancers from "So You Think You Can Dance?"  Can you see Lacey, Hok and Dmitry?


Me, Sarah, and the nasty, smelly ass armpit we had to endure the entire time.  I was seriously about to pass out from the smell.


Sarah and Paris Bennett


Me and Jasmine Trias.  I ran into her again after the show and got her reacquainted with my brother.  Karl and Jasmine did a show together in Canada a couple of years ago.


Right before going into the theater... no cameras allowed. 

The show itself was so much fun!  It was unreal witnessing the winner being announced live.  I got a little teary-eyed when I saw David Cook break down in tears.  I felt so nervous for both of them!  It was shocking to hear Ryan call out "Cook" because to me he always seemed like the slight underdog to Archuleta.  When considering the demographics of the show's audience, I really thought Archuleta would win by a landslide, but it was no where even close to the Ruben Studdard/Clay Aiken finale voting.  Like Simon expressed, it was the first time I liked both finalists equally as much.  But even though David Archuleta outperformed Cook last night, I'm so glad David Cook won because he was clearly the more versatile artist (I'm eating my words from several posts ago).  I can imagine David Cook achieving success outside of American Idol.  David Archuleta?  He may just be a passing teeny bopper sensation, but I hope that isn't the case.




Post-show


Standing in front of the red carpet post-show





In spite of the achy feet, sunburn, and sweaty armpits from big fat papparazi, it was all worth it!!


They were passing out free Cook/Archuleta shirts outside and Jack snatched one for me... good thing he picked the right one!