Listening: Agent Orange's playlist set to random (in other words, I dunno)

I've been unfortunately tired and sick the past couple of days. It kind ticks me off because I never get sick in the summer and so I don't have any coping mechanism. Plus both Molasses and I are out of pain killers and other meds and haven't had the time to get to a store. At least I'm doing better now, but I hate to think what the last few days of fast food and no exercise have done to my diet.

bluh. I hate being sick.

Anyway.

Saturday 7/26

Molasses' parents have been taking a tour of the country to see friends and family scattered throughout. This particular week they were in California and were staying in Hemet with Molasses' maternal grandmother. Hemet, for those not in the know, is roughly a three hour drive from Los Angeles, primarily because there's a lot of traffic on the relevant roads. Fortunately on Saturday they decided to have a little reunion at Ruth & Ray's in Laguna Beach. Ruth being Molasses' great-aunt.

We ended up getting their first eventhough Molasses' mom had wanted us to be there by ten AM and he had bargained it out to eleven. (Laguna Beach, if you're wondering, is roughly an hour down the coast from Long Beach. It isn't easy to access directly, especially in the summer.) Apparently there had been issues with the car the parents were driving and it took a few extra hours to sort it out.

Eventually the seven of us were in the same place and we headed to lunch at a nearby Chinese place. Then Ray took some of us across the street to this fabulous new hotel that had just opened. I don't recall the name of it. It may be owned by one of the major chains but its name didn't tell me which one. But it was super upscale, and right on the edge of some awesome bluffs. Inside was very spacious and the decor had what I think are called art deco accents. Apparently one can expect to drop a cool $5000 a night there. eek.

Later on we hung out at the house and talked about how the neighborhood has changed over the years, how real estate is on a determined march toward the upper classes and how Laguna Beach's original artsy-types are quickly getting priced out of their homes. I think Ruth & Ray's house is smaller than my parents first house which, run down as it is would fetch roughly a quarter of a million in North Orange County. Their house, which mostly overlooks a lot of trees and just a tiny sliver of Pacific, which is tucked up into a steep hillside which one can only access via narrow twisty roads, has been priced at over three quarters of a million. If the trees came down it would be over a million.

I primarily like the neighborhood they live in because of the variety of houses. Some are big and fancy, but just as many you can only see a garage and a doorway from the road. And those houses get all kinds of creative. Some look like hobbit holes, and some look like the outer gate to a hacienda. Some look like they lead to an inn off of some highway in a story by Cervantes and some are just friggin weird. Not to mention a body could get a serious work out just walking in the hills.

Anyway. The family is nice enough. They're just nutty Republicans. As much the Recall has turned my homestate into the butt of every joke in the country (Seriously, if I have to hear about the Governator one more time I think I'm gonna puke), on the whole it's really small potatos. Without going into all of the details about why I believe that to be the case, you shoulda seen how that little living room exploded when I dared suggest that the recall was not democracy. I hadn't even gotten around to suggesting that gays should be allowed to marry, the rich should carry the largest tax burden, the state should provide universal healthcare, John Ashcroft should be run out on a rail, Dick Chaney cannot be left alone with Dubya for more than a minute or that English is a horrible choice for the vernacular.

I even pulled Molasses' mom away from looking at a photo album to come yell at me about what is and is not democracy.

It sounds horrible, but you really have to understand that I was doing everything I could not to laugh at them. Only Molasses was agreeing with me, several of the menfolk were keeping quiet. My statement had been aimed at a cousin, who's name I think is Richard. Richard is a bit of an asshole, but he makes up for that by being boistrous, loud and generally rude. When he wasn't being condescending to his wife and kids he was insulting his mother and flat out called his brother stupid. To his face.

I don't think he'll ever lower himself to see my point of view on the matter, but it was nice to let him know that there was at least one person in the house wouldn't be cowed by his (very loud) assertions.

I've forgotten the name of the other cousin who visited, also with his wife and kids. He was much nicer and reminded me of Ray, who loves nothing more than to spin a good yarn for anyone who'll sit still long enough.

Eventually we headed out after giving directions to Molasses parents on how to get to the West LA do jang in case they wanted to drop by and watch the tournament. We left for the LBC and started planning out the next day when I mentioned I'd be having dinner with my family to celebrate my youngest brother's graduation. Molasses wanted to know if he could bring his parents along. So then we launched into a bunch of phone calls to check with our respective parents to see if that was ok. It worked out and I called Benihana to increase the reservation number.


Sunday 7/27
Alexa is 10 months old!

Molasses an I headed out to West LA. He got in gear and I commenced to pace around the building worried and wondering what's keeping the parental units (and the grandmother unit). Kenny and Jenn were there and agreed that there is really no comfortable place to watch - it's pretty much hot and stuffy everywhere. I had my camera and played with it some to figure out hot to turn off the flash. The flash goes off whenever I'm indoors, but just because the little light in the viewfinder flashes when I click the button that doesn't mean the picture is taken. It still waits another second or two as the flash goes off once, then twice and *that's* when the picture is taken. After lots of flubbed pictures I'm barely starting to get the hang of it.

I figured out - during the tournament - that turning the flash off is easy enough, but it defaults to "on" if I turn off the camera and then turn it back on. Argh. I missed most of Molasses'long form because of that little detail. Later during the sparring I got a few good shots in, but because of the nature of the movement most of the pictures are really blurry. But I got a nice one of Kenny with Molasses. Sometime when I get around to it, I'll post it, it's fairly cool.

Eventually the rents showed up and I think they mostly enjoyed it, though I think they might have felt like they didn't know what they were looking for. Since Molasses was only in the two competitions we were actually done much sooner than I had anticipated. There were several hours between when we were walking out and when we were supposed to be in Benihana. And while the one we were going to was in Anaheim (a bit of a ways away from West LA) there was still a bit of time to kill. That's when the rents started to get antsy about coming down for dinner. I could understand that it would set them on course to get back to Hemet rather late but... I thought that was the understanding. I didn't want to deal with it since it had been Molasses' idea, so they finally came to a compromise that they would find something near to the dojang to eat. Then we would head out to Anaheim and they could meet my family before heading to Hemet.

It was decent plan and it even gave the rents a crash course in Los Angeles GRIDLOCK. Because no trip to LA is complete without it. }:> Though, bizarre as it is, they decided to head down the 5, though we said not to, and they got to Benihana's before us.

Somewhere in the midst of traffic Molasses' brother called and asked him to have their parents call him as soon as they could. I could practically hear Tha Brutha Man stalling while Molasses asked him why, then he caved and said he had asked Rabbit to marry him and she said yes. heh, I could practically hear him grinning. Molasses and I exchanged tight-lipped smiles. All them marriage-crazy people. Just never get it... just never....*shakes head* nutty people

Anyhoo, the evening went pretty well. The assembled parental units got along pretty well and the moms, being teachers, compared notes (Molasses' mom teaches high school math and my mom teaches Kinder through 2nd; they mutually admire the patience that goes with the others' job), the dads smiled at the kids and Molasses' grandmother ooh and awwed over Alexa. Molasses' folks stayed long enough to enjoy the opening parts of the show and to call Tha Brutha Man back and exclaim happily over the news.

Things were actually quieter once they were gone. I guess it shouldn't surprise me but, my family can be really loud. The fact that we were merely returning to a normal level of loud kinda skews my perceptions.

Anyway, that was mostly that for that weekend. I was actually happy to get back to work the next day. Three and a half days of family, extended family and pseuedo-family was almost more than I could take. Not to mention I had a three-day weekend and got very little rest.

Over the next week I took it easy while Molasses pushed himself over at the West LA dojang with 12 hours everyday of hwa rang do training. Every night he would crash at my place late, with a sore back and new bruises. }:<

I wanted to reward him for his hard work so I reserved a sports massage at a salon just up the street from the dojang. It was set for Sunday evening and all I told him was that I was taking him out that night. It was a very pleasant surprise. }:D

In the meantime he brought back needle for acupuncture and offers them to me when I mention something hurts. ich... I don't like needles. It's not that they hurt or anything, I can't really even explain it. (I mean the needles at the doctor's office and the ones for when I'm giving blood *do* hurt a little, that's just not why I prefer to stay away from them.) and now there's the suction cups... *Sigh* Do all significant others of folks learning medicine eventually have to be guinea pigs?

Also on Sunday, before the massages (yes, plural, of *course* I'd get one for myself), there was a party at Doo Joo Nim's house which is this MASSIVE house in Anaheim Hills overlooking a lot of land under development. It's a neat house, very spacious with three levels to it and not afraid to *s p r a w l*, apparently the second floor doesn't have a bathroom. We mostly hung out by the pool. I forgot my swimsuit so I just dangled my legs in the hot tub and then the pool. Boy they were so inviting. I ended up with a nice farmer's tan and even Molasses got a little bit of color. Kenny got a lot of color, so I hear. All red. }:P

It's kinda weird, to me at least, to hang out with types like these. Here we are invited guests at Dr Lee's house, and the first few minutes there's lots of bowing and waiting to be noticed by every higher-ranking practitioner who you encounter. Apparently you only have to salute each person the first time you encounter them and when they say good bye. It's interesting. Just... hmm.. different. };>

Ok.. what else. Worked a bunch of over time over the last week. Had jury duty on Thursday. It was interesting. I was actually called into a court for a case, but I was never called into the jury box. But I had a really good reason for being excused once I heard the details. It was civil case of wrongful death brought against the doctors of an HMO that my family used to be with. I don't know if that would be enough, but when I was 16 I had surgery on my feet and they were the HMO. All told it was a pretty bad experience since it should have been a minor thing. But one of the feet got infected so I had to go back under the knife to get the sutures taken out. So instead of having a sewn up wound on my left foot I had a gaping hole where a lot of cotton and gauze was shoved in. During the first day I was at the hospital I was still recovering the nurses were supposed to be notified of how recently I'd been under anaesthetics since they usually react badly with food. Well either they weren't told or they ignored it and told the orderlies to give me breakfast. I was starving and scarfed down the food. When they brought lunch around I could barely move because my stomach was roiling so. I couldn't summon a nurse, I couldn't call out to anyone in the hallway and I couldn't talk to the orderly who set my lunch down before me. He tool the top off and stepped out. Then I proceeded to hurl all over my lunch and my bed. When he finally came back to remove my lunch he noticed the mess and me crying.

To make matters worse the wound in my foot had been made very carefully so it wasn't bleeding all over the place, but other liquids *were* leaking out. My doctor had left instructions to the nurse on duty to change out the dressing in the early afternoon. She may have forgotten, it's hard to say. When he came in, late at night, and found they hadn't been changed he was livid. He ordered a bowl of warm salt water to take them out himself, because by this time the liquids had more or less glued the dressing into the wound. A fabulous way to get gangrene, by the way. My mom had to hold my hand and kiss my tears while it felt like the doctor was setting my foot on fire.

Oh well, I didn't get to recount my tale of woe. And I got to miss the case. Which I thought was too bad since the bailiff and the judge were nice guys and kinda funny. Not that they were wise-asses, but they liked to crack jokes and make us feel comfortable.

Friday night we hung out in Hollyweird with SarahChylde and her Tomcat (not their real names). I had a bit of a headache for most of the day and it started to get really bad between the two cats and the smoking. I haven't had a bad reaction to smoking in a really long time. So I drank very little and waited for the movie to end - Vampire Hunters, a slightly silly kung fu, horror movie - and then begged off for any more fun for the night. My brain was throbbing by the time I got to bed and I could barely breath.

Got up on Saturday still with a mild headache but determinedly headed off for some more OT in Pasadena. On a whim I made plans to hang out and grab lunch with Thrennis (not his real name). I was pretty tired but pushed on and had a really great time hanging out at WolfeBurger. The hamburger was great, but I don't really think much of the fries. Then he showed me this neat comic book store off of Colorado. I can't remember the name of it, but it was fairly sweet for the variety of *stuff* it had. Hee! i'll have to try and hook up with him again. He's neat and so far I only see him at games, which really is a crying shame.

I had cancelled my game earlier in the week. I mostly didn't feel like running it and with Squire out of town I have no idea *what* to run. It turns out that was a very good thing. By the time I got to Long Beach I had a pounding head ache and was exhausted. Molasses obliged me a nap that ended up lasting five hours while I tossed and turned and managed to get a bit of a fever going.

That night we headed out and went up to Third Planet for their midnight madness sale. Wow. wall to wall smelly fanboys. Not what I needed while still feeling mildly nauseous. Still I spend over $100 on Invisibles and I did note that if I were into Warhammer I would have been in paradise. But I'm not and I wasn't and I was happy to leave.

Today has gone much better. I got up a teensy bit dizzy, but it's been a little better. Molasses has been out gaming and I was working on a large document for the region. I have no idea if they'll end up using it but I think I'll at least get some candy for doing it. I think I'll go for a walk now. I've been feeling a little weak, but I've had virtually no exercise for two days.

Later on then.