Chopin Grand Polonaise Brillante Op.22
I actually have a post or 2 ready to publish, but I have some strange errors from my iPhone. Will get them done and solved in the next few days.
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I actually have a post or 2 ready to publish, but I have some strange errors from my iPhone. Will get them done and solved in the next few days.
Flew to Seattle to visit Jerylin, starting Tuesday.
Thursday:
- Walked over to the area around Trophy Cupcakes, had lunch at Chutney's.
- Pike's Market :) Lots of raspberries, was tempted to buy crab, bought peaches from California...I FEEL CHEATED!! Ate mini-donuts :)
- Walked around furniture area with Jery. Found interesting sofas, like inflatable air mattress tops on pull-out sofas and coffee tables that popped up to be at the ideal height to put a laptop or drink on it.
- Ate bratwursts from a Bavarian place at Pike's Market. The lady was pretty awesome, telling us about travel in Europe. We also bought a pack of Dutch syrup waffles, Stroopies :) Tried to eat artichokes, as in the large green thing. I found out that it's not for me.
Friday:
- Brunch at Voulas with Jery. Eggs benedict is good.
- Stood in line for the iPhone for three hours. THREE HOURS a week after the phone was released! But it wasn't a bad wait. Talked with the people around me, found access to the Apple Network and chatted online.
- Phone's nice :) 3G is worth it, good apps, pretty easy to use. I'll buy more protective gear later :)
- Visited Jery's work and watched "Dr. Horrible"...Doogie Howser, what have you done?
- Went to Ivar's and enjoyed the setting sun at 9 pm.
- Brett arrived!
Saturday:
- Watched Firefly
- Went to "Bite of Seattle", had alligator skewers, jambalaya, Crayfish stew, stood in line for organic stuffs. It was pretty big!
- Walked over to the Olympic Sculpture Park
- Started walking back home, kinda, and then got lost...which is a typical occurrence in Seattle for me. Walked over 4 miles before Mike picked us up.
- Went out for Mexican food and Coldstone (had a butterfinger waffle cone; next time, we bring lactaid)
Sunday:
- Finished "Firefly" and "Serenity"
- Brunch at Silent-Heart-Nest, which is a bit...odd, but the food is good. I don't recommend the pomegranate juice, as it is REAL pomegranate juice. I diluted it with water and added sugar @_@
- Went to Theo Chocolate factory
- Went to BBQ at Jerylin's lab mates. They had rockband :)
Monday:
- Hemi, in his over-exuberance, ran over my face. That was how I woke up today.
- Missed Will's calls, when his flight was delayed. I'm sorry :(
- Had "vegetable soba", at the Uwajimaya Center
- Pudding tea at the Chinatown area
- Visited Dry Soda and walked around the area, where they sell utility kilts and have underground tours.
It's been two weeks since I've returned back to Los Angeles, and it's felt like a long two weeks.
Summer has hit, in all its mind-numbing glory. To be complete, I think I need to exercise and maintain several aspects of myself...
Mind - which means I need to read, a lot, and talk to people, a fair deal. I have a tendency of forgetting how to talk during the summer. It's not very abnormal to me; it happens on an annual basis.
Body - ...which means I need to buy a bike. I'm too utilitarian to run around in circles, or to nowhere at all. I actually live very close to a good number of places (Target, restaurants, Guitar Center...which means nothing because...)
Finances - As in restraining or abstaining from the usage of...no more impulse buys. I also need to live with the fact that I simply don't have any room in my current apartment for something wonderful like a reading chair or art station.
Discipline - I'm feeling it in my posture and in my drowning fatigue. I'm more tired now than I am when I'm working, though "tired" isn't quite the word. It feels like my mind is sleepy in the summer, fatigued but quick during the year. My back, too, is hurting more and more, probably because I'm slouching in my chair...or just sitting in my chair. I don't really sit well, or for very long. It's a change that I don't like. I understand why folks who work desk jobs feel the itch to run miles and miles.
I've also made a sort of promise to myself that I would only play as much as I work, that it would be a divided into equal parts. It's really easy to play for hours and hours, lose track of time, and lose a day...which is what I've been kinda doing. SHAME ON ME!! But I also quickly fall back on, "It's SUMMER! I'm on VACATION!" But life, it waits for no one.
Some things I've done these last two weeks (more for me, as a record of what I did...):
- Took Grandma grocery shopping at Hong Kong Supermarket, because I needed to make food for Will. I'm recording this because Grandma always claims that she hardly ever has a chance to go grocery shopping. I wonder how much food she wastes; she goes a bit crazy, as if she's stocking up or she'll never have an opportunity like this for months.
- Made curry for Will, too much of it. REMEMBER!! 4 carrots, ONE potato, 1 lb of meat, 1/2 to 1 onion. Will and Mom couldn't finish their share, and I ate curry for three days...bleeeeeeeh.
- Dishes, laundry, garbage, sweeping, scrubbing...today was fairly productive. I cleared off one of my desks (three more to go...), which gives me a sense of accomplishment! I can start drawing now, if I want to, since I have a work station now.
- Settled money matters between the Student Bank and Yearbook, closed books for this fiscal year.
- July 4th Fundraiser was a lot of work and a bit odd. Auntie Dora wanted to have my mother's birthday lunch that day, which did not work out well. The fundraiser itself seemed like more work than it was worth. The booths and participation in them was smaller than I had expected; in my mind, I had thought of a sort of Farmer's-Market-type set up. The students had fun though, I think, so if they want to do this again, we'll go into this in as wise veterans next year. I think what was most surprising was Smart-and-Final during July 4th...MADNESS!! I've also NEVER seen a place sell out of 20 lb bags of ice until now. Both locations that I go to sold out by around 1 pm. Thus, BUY ALL INGREDIENTS BY JULY 3RD!
- Met up with Kristin, Andy and Gary. Andy and I watched "Wall-ee". Andy, Gary and myself, we were going to watch "Wanted", but time ran out. Instead, we indulged in Rockband. Will and I had bought it earlier this past Saturday. It's a lot of fun! Neither of us will sing; it WILL NOT HAPPEN! But I'm doing OK with medium, on the drums (3-5 stars). Not bad for 3 days of playing.
- I moved Bill back from home to home. WOOOOOW...Feliway did NOTHING. He kept whining so much that I just waited (him in the car, me with a book standing behind the car) for him to finish screaming his lungs out, before attempting to move him. That didn't work! Instead, he had the bright idea of soiling himself, which means...yup! A BATH, to top off the already traumatic day. The moment he's done eating his treat, what does he want? To be petted and loved...while he's soaking wet. I turn around and he's already lounging on my bed, atop my pillow. Grand. I did brush off enough fur to form a mini-Bill, so that might have been why he actually enjoyed his post-bath self.
- Andy, Gary and I went to see the Ameriana in Glendale, which is much like Santana Row. It's an interesting place to be, when the weather is mild outside. There was an outdoor band, trolley car, sandbox and play area for children, plenty of shops, and across the street from the Glendale Galleria, just in case you want to walk in air-conditioning instead of staying outdoors, in 90+ degree heat.
- Booked a flight to Seattle. Will's going to China. Then I leave for Vegas. It's going to be an interesting summer.
A bit old. Wrote most of it on the ride back, from Arizona to Burbank.
. . .
Michigan to Pennsylvania isn’t a long drive, at least in terms of distance. What kept us from our destination was yet more road construction. Maybe it was because we had driven so quickly and so far that it merely seemed like the roads were perpetually under construction. It didn’t make us feel better, knowing that we had to pay our way into Pennsylvania (toll road), only to be stuck in traffic for an hour.
Of the states we crossed during our long journey, I would probably visit Ohio again, and maybe Wyoming, perhaps Nevada and Utah. Ohio’s pretty laid back, with good roads, and a nifty song. Who can beat the nifty song? “Cleveland rocks!”
When we finally arrived at Son and Linh’s place, we were pretty darn tired. When Linh said that she was going to live above a violin shop, I didn’t quite know what to make of it. But the store is very interesting. The shop actually handcrafts (and thus takes custom orders for) violin, violas, cellos, guitars, banjos, mandolins…that’s all I managed to gather from looking into it. It is pretty nifty. The apartment itself had…presents for us. The previous tenants didn’t take everything with them in their move, which proved to be both awkward and disgusting. They left things like an air conditioning unit (don’t know whether it works…don’t really wanna try it out), curtains for what seems to have been a little girl’s bedroom (pink curtains), and miscellaneous kitchen stuffs, including a loaf of bread?! Nastiness.
That night, Linh said that we still had more driving to do, that we needed to drive to Washington DC to meet up with her friend. I thought she was crazy! But I understand now. We didn’t actually drive to DC that night.; we unpacked as much as we could, ate ramen, and slept on the floor. Had we gone to DC, we would have had beds waiting for us, food, and good company…well, an extra night of it. ☺
DC, by or on Capital Hill, is a beautiful place to live. Linh’s friend explained to us that houses with a certain emblem are historically kept, to match the original color scheme and exterior, in exchange for a nice tax deduction. Although that may seem limiting, it keeps the neighborhood very uniform, in a good way. It promises that flowers are planted, kept, and blooming, and there were plenty of flowers in bloom. I think that Will would probably like taking a walk, photographing flowers as he went, and if he didn’t mind the humidity.
It is definitely more humid there. It’s not “Asia” humid, but the temperatures weren’t high yet. I kinda wanted to experience rain during my trip, just to feel the water, if it was warm or cold. I’ve written about this before, that the rain in southern China is actually warm and pleasant to walk through. So I’m curious. Unfortunately, my experience with rain there took the form of sudden thunderstorms, like God dumped a bucket of water. It came down fast, hard, and left just as suddenly. This was especially interesting on Pennsylvania’s 4-lane highways (two lanes each way), when a big rig driving the opposite direction along the center divider splashed a tidal wave of water onto us. You just see the water coming at you, and you KNOW you’re not going to get wet, but it still scares the CRAP out of you!
This post isn’t in chronological order, in case you haven’t noticed.
Visited Gabe and Janey in Baltimore, with the help of Son and Linh’s GPS (Baltimore freeways can be confusing) and a few calls to Gabe. We had a very nice dinner and dessert, where we caught up with a lot of news and life. They showed me, in the safety of their car, Baltimore at night. Johns Hopkins is a gorgeous campus, and Peabody is much smaller and in the middle of Baltimore than I had thought. Gabe also lent me a DVD of Battlestar Galactica, so I can begin to be hooked to the series as much as others have. ☺
The next day, Linh’s friend took us to a park in the middle of DC, where we read the words of Theodore Roosevelt engraved into huge solid slabs and hiked. Hiking…certainly isn’t the first thing that comes to mind, as a top activity to do at our nation’s capital, but it was good. The quotes were inspiring, and the foliage reminds me of what settlers probably saw when they traveled around the Potomac.