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| Holy cow is it hot here! One of the few times during the year that I wish we had air conditioning. We walked the beach trail in the morning and there were already a ton of people at the beach preparing to try and keep cool on another predicted day of record-breaking heat. In the afternoon we decided to go see a movie to escape the heat (Iron Man... loved it) and then in the evening it was still so hot that we actually went to go exercise just because our little work-out room at our condo complex has really cold air conditioning! The temperature is really lovely here most of the time but recently it's been ridiculous. Poor Meow is lying around all wilted looking and I totally feel like I am melting! | | |
| Yay it's finally summer break. Yesterday morning I cut a bunch of fresh
fruit and ate it at a leisurely pace out on the patio... never have
time to do that during a regular school day. Then I went to the new library
with L. Where I enjoyed using the free wifi in a cozy reading nook
with an ocean view as L interviewed someone for his research at one
of the tables out on the balcony. Then we went to the Caribbean burrito place
for lunch. Mmmm... fried plaintains are so yummy. In the afternoon we
were planning to hike the bluffs by the beach but my ankle was acting
up again so we just stayed at home. Until we had to go out and buy a
new home network router because our old one just up and died on us. So
we did that. And then we went to yoga. And then we went to the boba
cafe place for dinner since we have been bad about grocery shopping and
our fridge is completely empty. And then we came home where I proceeded
to ice my ankle while being a total slug in front of the television...
flipping channels and surfing the internet all evening. Thank you for
sharing my "fascinating" first day of summer break with me. I am
seriously loving it so far though.
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| Ahhh... Mundo Tonto by Cava is SUCH a beautiful piece of music. Makes
me want to get up and dance. Or learn to play the harp. Or learn to
sing in Spanish. All of the above actually. Speaking of music, I just
went to hear the elementary Intermediate Strings Class students play in
their end-of-the-year concert. I founded the program as an after-school
Beginning Strings class a few years ago. I'm pretty busy with my
regular job so I've gradually been trying to step away from this
project now that it is well under way. In the middle of this school
year I finally felt that the new instructors were good to completely
take over the program. So I haven't heard the students play since
December. Wow did they do a good job. The students played awesome and I
was thrilled. All year the two instructors, a husband-and-wife team,
have been asking me what they can get me (as a gift) to show their
appreciation for starting the program and for hooking them up with a
great group of kids to work with. And I keep telling them that I am
just thrilled to have some of my time back because if it were not for
their taking the job then there is a strong chance that I'd still be
teaching strings classes after school. Well tonight six of my students
from the original group, the six who will be going on to middle school,
told me that they have already signed up to be in the middle school
orchestra next year. Boy does time fly... it seems like just the other
day when they were little fourth graders in the Beginning Strings
class. Now they're almost seventh graders and three of them are taller
than me! Anyway, music has obviously been a huge part of MY life. Just
knowing that some of these kids love music enough to take it to the
next level? It makes me so happy that words cannot even adequately
describe the feeling. Now tell me, what material gift in the world can
compare to that?
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| My weekend in nine posts:
Saturday 7:00am
Yay. FINALLY. A normal Saturday! So today, for once, I have no work-related things to do or to attend. It’s going to be great. I’m going to finish cleaning out all the junk in the garage and maybe start working on other parts of our home. Our little condo is going to get back to being its tidy self yet. Yes sir. You just wait and see.
Saturday 10:00am
Waiting for L to get up so we can go out and run some errands. And get some breakfast or something. I think I’m gonna make myself some fun compilation cds to listen to in the car for when I’m driving around. When is the last time I’ve had time to make myself a fun compilation cd on a Saturday morning? Ne-VER. Well okay not for a LONG time anyhow. I think I’ll make a girl-power mix of old and new stuff from stuff that’s already in my playlist... some Alanis Morissette, K’s Choice, Kate Bush, Cranberries, Imogen Heap, Save Ferris, Letters To Cleo, Josie and the Pussycats, Cava, Avril Lavigne, Christina Aguilera, Kelly Clarkson... yeah there’s even some Hannah Montana and one Lindsay Lohan song (Ultimate) on the playlist. What can I say… I love pop music!
Saturday 2:00pm
L and I just got back from running some errands. The vacuum cleaner decided to quit on me. I think there was a loose plug connection that finally just got completely disconnected. Blah... I was actually looking forward to vacuuming today too. Oh well. So we dropped the vacuum off at the place that services Miele vacuums. Then we went to Target to get a bunch of other stuff for around the house. Mostly cleaning products. Oh and we also got a George Foreman grill because our old one is really old and annoying. After Target we went to get lunch at the Caribbean burrito place. Black beans, soy chorizo, grilled plantains, avocado, and cheese, all wrapped into a burrito... sounds like a big mess but it’s amazingly delicious! Got stuck in heavy coast-highway traffic on the way home... who’s bright idea was it to have a college graduation ceremony at the race track? But it’s beautiful outside today and L and I were just happy to be out and about together. And hey if you have to be stuck going slow, the coast highway is not such a bad place for that. Especially if you’re not in a hurry to get anywhere. Gee I’m stuck having to stare out my car window at the beautiful ocean on a beautiful day? Can you THINK of anything more terrible? Haha.
Saturday 5:00pm
Yikes we're experiencing a heat wave or something. It feels like it's the middle of an unusually hot SoCal summer. Or it feels like a typical spring morning in Arizona when the warm weather is just starting to get uncomfortable. Yeah, that’s what this weather here reminds me of. Getting into a hot car on an early spring day in Arizona. Well it finally got a little too hot to continue organizing around the condo (no air conditioning!). So I decided to make some phone calls to my brothers to say “Hi” and “What’s up?”. Alex is really good at multi-tasking... when I called, he was placing an order for his family at the McDonald's drive-thru. He was able to place the order, pay for the food, hand over the food to all his passengers, and drive the rest of the way home. All of this WHILE talking to me on the phone at the same time. I'm not saying this talking–on-the-phone-and-driving thing is a good idea. But WOW I can barely even just talk on the phone and do anything else at same time. And did I mention that he had all four of his kids in the vehicle at the time? All between the ages of two and six. Crazy, huh? At least his little ones must have been pretty tired out from being out and about all afternoon. All mellowed out or something like that. At least I couldn’t hear any crying or shrieking or any of the usual kid sounds over the phone. Ed was also driving when I called. Right away he said he’d have to call me back in a sec. He was in the process of parking one of the trucks at work and he said if he didn’t use both hands he was going to crash the truck into the side of the warehouse. Ed’s car broke down recently so he’s been working Saturdays to try and save up for a more reliable vehicle. He car pools on the way in to work and then on the way home he takes the bus. We talked as he was walking to the bus stop and in the middle of our conversation he was all, “Hey that’s my bus that just drove past.” Which means he’d have to wait an extra twenty minutes for the next bus to come around once he got to the bus stop. Which is not too bad of a wait. But still. I can’t help thinking that there are a lot of times when things just don’t quite seem to go his way. And boy are he and Alex different. Alex has tons of friends, a big family of his own, two jobs... Whereas Ed prefers to be a loner, he’s still trying to work things out with his ex and he has one kid that he doesn’t get to see very often, he’s trying to make ends meet by working an extra day during the week... you get the picture. Well at least Ed’s got a good attitude. That’s one thing that he and Alex have in common. That and the fact that they both have the best sister in the world of course!
Saturday 7:00pm
Buffalo burgers and green bean fries for dinner tonight. L’s grilling on the new George Foreman... the best part about the new George Forman is that the grill plates are removable and dishwasher-safe. The old GF grill was such a pain to clean! Yay for easy clean-up. And I forgot how tasty buffalo burgers are. Yummy! Oh and the green beans are so yummy that you just want to eat them up real fast. We just eat 'em with our hands, as if they were the super yummy, but oh so bad for your health, McDonald's french fries. Anyway that’s why they're called green bean fries.
Saturday 8:00pm
Ha we just voted in the California special election. Via absentee
ballot. Which is how we’ve been voting ever since L’s old consulting
days when he was always out of town. Hey why don't they include some
“We voted” stickers when they mail out absentee ballots?
Sunday 1:00pm
What do you do when you’re an old-school traditional-hymn-singing girl and all of a sudden your church goes all contemporary-music on you? Well you join the band of course! It hasn’t even been a year since our church combined their traditional and contemporary services. All the traditional service people were complaining about the organ, the traditional hymns, and the choir director being replaced by the music director/lead singer who plays lead electric guitar and is accompanied by a rhythm guitarist, a bass player, a drummer, back-up vocalists, an occasional violinist, and (about every other week) piano. Oh and they also complain about not knowing how to sing along with any of the contemporary songs. I totally know how they feel. The first time I attended the contemporary service I was like, what the... ? And I miss those traditional hymns too! But in less than a year I have gone from knowing absolutely zero contemporary songs for church to knowing about a hundred. I still think a lot of contemporary church songs out there sound like crap. But so do a lot of songs in general. I know the purpose of the music at church is not just so I can have a good ol’ time singing along now that I know how the contemporary tunes go. But it doesn’t change the fact that for me it sure IS a lot more meaningful now that I CAN sing along. Anyway, I’m happy that I’ve given contemporary church music a chance. I even openly admit now that I can tolerate it. I even LIKE some of it. I don’t know if it will ever grow on some of the other traditional-hymn folks like it has with me though. I guess there’s always the happy middle ground which happens occasionally when we play a rockin’ version of some old traditional hymn. That is MY favorite type of contemporary church music and, I’m guessing... from the number of people who actually sing along, the favorites of a lot of others as well. We always get good feedback, especially from the older generation at our church, when we rock out an old traditional hymn.
Sunday 2:00pm
Love is in the air. What is up with all the weddings this year? My dad just sent me the link to my cousin Brian’s wedding website. In just this year alone I count at least six of our friends or family that will be getting married. Three close friends from L’s cohort at school, one of L’s cousins, my cousin Brian, my good friend Tamara that I’ve known since seventh grade, and my good friend Susan that I’ve known since third grade. Anyone else out there planning on getting married this year that I’ve forgotten to mention? Oh yeah I just remembered... the fourth grade teacher in the room right across from mine, she’s getting married too. Okay that’s eight people, people that I know quite well, that are getting married this year. Even if I’m only invited to half of those, it will still be a record number of weddings I anticipate attending this year!
Sunday 10:00pm
Before this weekend I hadn’t posted to this thing in over a month. Now just SEE what I have time to do when I have a normal ol’ weekend? Nine entries in one weekend documenting all SORTS of exciting stuff (ha). WHEN is the last time I had time to post to this thing multiple times in one WEEK, let alone in one day? I don’t care if it’s boring ol’ stuff. It’s the stuff that normal weekends are made of and I am proud to say that I did not ONE ounce of school-related work this weekend! We just got back from having a nice relaxing dinner with Ted and Natalie and their super cute nine-month-old. Oh and I thought this was kind of interesting… Ted self-diagnosed the small bump in his own arm to be a blood clot. He got an unofficial second opinion from Natalie who also decided that he probably had a blood clot after going over his symptoms and discussing some likely causes. She made him go in to get it officially checked out. Ted told the nurse at the clinic that he was pretty sure he had a blood clot and then while he was waiting for the doctor Ted, from the other side of the curtain, heard the nurse say to the doctor, “he says he has a blood clot but I’m skeptical” upon which a very annoyed Ted comes out from behind the curtain and says to the doctor, “I will bet you fifty dollars right now that I have a blood clot!” The doctor wouldn’t bet but was still really hesitant to send Ted to the ultra-sound person even after checking his arm out. And then during Ted’s ultra-sound they still couldn’t find anything on the first and second tries. Ted tells us that he is completely exasperated at this point and he’s just about to give up when they finally say, “yup, there it is, a blood clot.” Afterward Ted says he just HAD to go and find the doctor and tell him it was a good thing he didn’t take the bet. And that he did indeed have a blood clot in his arm. I know that doctors probably get really annoyed with the many patients who insist they have this or that when they actually don’t. But when your patient has an M.D.? Even if they don’t specialize in that area, I’d think that the doctor would at least be more willing to give a fellow M.D. the benefit of the doubt. And the nurse voicing skepticism while the patient is within hearing distance? That is just uncool. Well I’m off to try and get some sleep even though it is yucky hot and humid right now. I swear this reminds me of humid summer evenings during monsoon season in Arizona when the swamp cooler doesn’t do much good to cool you off. Also uncool… literally.
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| I had such a fun week this week. And the weather was so beautiful. I really don't want to go back to school tomorrow. I'm getting very sad just thinking about it. Borderline depressed, in fact. In the evening I still had ballet class and rehearsal. But on most days I tried to hang out with L and we tried to do at least one fun thing I don't usually get to do when I have to go to school/work every day. Like going to the zoo right when it opens (the baby panda was so cute we had to go back and visit the pandas a couple of times that morning). Like going to get an all-you-can-eat lunch at the Brazilian barbecue place (same crazy amount of food available for less than half of what they charge you at dinner time). Going to get our way-overdue haircuts (from our hair person who works very limited hours since she just had a baby). Going to take a great yoga class that happens to be offered only mid-morning and mid-week. Going to lunch at our favorite Vietnamese sandwich and boba place. Going to the university with L, sitting in on an interesting talk given by a visiting guest lecturer, eating and people-watching in the student dining hall, and getting coffee at the university bookstore. Going out for a pancake breakfast and then taking a long walk along the beach (I'm jealous of the people who can regularly go to the beach on a weekday morning... it's so nice and uncrowded compared to the beach on the evenings and weekends). Going to a local commercial plant nursery. Going on a nice long drive to a native plant nursery. Stopping at a local winery on the drive home (to pick up some of their very yummy raspberry champagne). Hanging out with the cool people in L's grad cohort. Hanging out at home with Meow. Staying up late to watch movies and silly television shows. Taking long naps in the middle of the day. What a wonderful week it was. I'm so sad that it's over... I'm going to go and be blue and sigh really loudly near L so that he will give me some sympathy hugs. Spring break is over and I'm taking it extra hard this year.
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