That's it?

a whole year's worth of planning and the day is arriving already. A whole year's worth of bitching, fighting, pseudo break ups, time, stress and this is it? If I could only put more effort into other things in my life.

I'm actually quite happy this day is approaching is will be over with soon. I'm tired of being consumed by wedding stuff. It got boring after a few months. The problems arising from a stupid events coordinator at Shangri-la was becoming a regular expected routine. Aside from my personal coordinator, everyone there seems so incompetent in keeping accurate details of their clients accounts. Either that, or I'm the stupid one, naive of their game and simply unaccustomed to the shadiness of the Philippines.

I''m ready to have normal conversations with people again, though I'm expecting a few weeks post wedding I'll still have to answer wedding stuff. I just wish people had some more originality to their questions.
But for now.. a status update.
Contrary to what everyone thinks, and I do appreciate the gentle kindness in their tone and the look of warmth as they ask me, but I am not..

No, I"m not nervous. Nervous about what? tripping down the aisle? Marrying the wrong person? j/k.
No, I"m not stress. If I am, it's no more stress than anyone would express under the same conditions when people make last minute changes on you. It is more annoying or upsetting than stressful.
I'm busy, because my stupid boyfriend (just got demoted) left in a rush and forgot a shit load of stuff and errands for me to finish for him. Though I'm sure he finished his fantasy football with flying colours and is all well prepared for his fantasy basketball.
Yes, I'm excited, I'm going away for a two week vacation.
Yes, the wedding is all planned, whatever remains unplanned will just be. The day will come and go as is. There's just small projects that take time, keeping me busy, but that's about it.

I'm not sure if other modern brides feel the same, but I've been living with my husband to be for the past year. There really isn't much of a difference once I am a married woman. I still am the one cleaning the house, he still will be going out, and no i'm not changing my name. He'll have to really bring home the bacon for that one. Seriously, people will think I'm mexican if I changed my last name.

ugh... i'm ready to leave work. I've been on vacation mode for a while already.

1.5 more weeks

I can't work anymore.
My mind is elsewhere, things to do, list of items to pack, last minute gifts to buy, my nails done, eyebrows threaded, clean the house... what else???

I'm already on vacation mode.

3 more weekends

That's all I have left. Three weekends to go to

• Christmas parties
• shop for gifts
• create my table centerpieces
• buy and distribute alcohol (by the way, if any friends are reading this, if you have extra space for a bottle of your favourite liquor to bring over to the Philippines, let us know)
• create the slide show
• practice slow dancing like we did in high school, because we didn't get a chance to take dance classes and any kind of slow dancing we've done so far would just not be appropriate in a wedding.
  
• budget ourselves for the trip
• pick up miscellaneous items, like make up, shoe pads etc.
  

well, now that I laid it all out, it doesn't seem so bad. Just a lot of work. So for the remainder of this month I'm going to be a hermit to get things wrapped up.

CB and I are both getting excited about this trip. I think both of us are more excited about being over seas with a big group of friends than we are about the wedding. The wedding is kind of getting in the way of our diving plans. I have to miss two days of diving for the rehearsal and the ceremony itself.

I can't wait to eat during the reception too. Everyone says food at Shangri-la is very good. I've been advised that the couple doesn't eat much during the reception because of all the things going on. Apparently, they don't know me well. I'm debating if I should order an extra cake just for myself, but they already have a buffet table in addition to the wedding cake.

Thirty days remaining.
A years worth of planning and arguing all for one day.

Grow up asshole

Last weekend CB and I went to a Halloween party at our friends' loft in the city. We had a great time, everyone was in costume, drinks kept flowing and there was good food cooking in the kitchen and our friends DJed upstairs. All was perfect till the next day. CB realized he left his jacket and his favorite shades in the pocket at the loft. No problem, send off an email to ask the host if he's seen it. Our friend didn't find it and even sent out an email to the list of guests to ask if anyone picked it up by accident. It's been a few days and no response.

Is is possible that who ever has it is still hung over and not aware? I highly doubt it.

CB's been so upset these days, those are his favorite glasses, and he just got them too. I like them a lot myself.

so here goes...

You asshole, you have it and you know it.

What's fucked up is that we're all friend here. Or at least friends' of friends. We're all mature working adults and you're stealing someone else's jacket and shades?? You went to a friends' party and steal from their house? What, you can't afford to buy your own shades that you have to steal a friends? What else did you take from the house? How cheap can you be? How low, selfish, pathetic can you get?

What a jack ass. I'm posting a picture of the shades, maybe someone will notice a "friend" sporting new glasses this week.

I don't understand....

so, Paypal defaults to your last name if you try to add another credit card. I understand that for security reasons. I just had some other questions on what I should do since I made another booboo with cousin Meow Mee's payment. I call Paypal and the person with the accent, it's always someone with an accent, asks for my phone number and name. ###-###-#### Head dump. oh, I mean, cousin Violet. "and who am I speaking with?"
"this is Head dump" I already said I was HD, so I figured I'll just stick to it.
"for security reasons I can only speak with cousin Violet"
rolling eyes
"fine, this is cousin Violet"
"you're cousin Violet?"
"Yes"
"I thought you just said..."
"well, how woud you know anyways? you can't see me. I just have a few question.."
"Mam, why would you have an account open in someone else's name?"
"It wasn't my intention. Could you tell me how can I cancel a payment that I made through a wrong funding account?"
"Is this account yours? blah blah blah...."
"Can I speak with your supervisor? just transfer me"
pause....
supervisor
"How can I help you?"
"I just want to know how I can cancel a payment I made...."
"and is this your account?"
"yes it is my account"
"due to Paypal security we expect that when you sign up.......(lecture lecture)"
oh, she wanted to hear my story? I gave it to her starting from the moment I called cousin Meow Mee for her billing address and CC number at 11:30pm and how it ended up with me getting tired by 11:50pm and never used PayPal before and made some mistakes... oh yah, bitch wanted to know why... I gave her my PMS version of why. I am PMS ing =)

she quickly answered my question.

how does one justify the security to speaking to the account owner? how do you know who you're speaking to? stupid people. It's not like I was asking personal account questions. I could care less if they have time to waste, but don't waste mine.

PISS ME OFF

So, last night i'm making some payments via paypal for my cousin's Boracay trip. 3 separate payments. I've never used paypal before, but I figured it can't be hard.
so, I'm chatting on the phone with my cousin who's spilling last year's gossip in lightening speed. I'm half laughing half typing and some how managed to pay off one balance with one card that belonged to cousin Violet. I go on to make another payment and now Paypal wants me to sign up. how annoying, another account to deal with. so I sign up, still talking, somewhat tired by 11:50pm and I'm about to make Miss Violet's next payment but now Paypal wants an account verification? Mean while, my paypal account is named miss violet with my email address because it's her credit card that I first entered and my last name is suddenly Miss Violet's! Fine, I gave Paypal my account number. All is good, I make another payment. Miss Violet's payments are done.

Next is to pay cousin Meow Mee's trip. simple, just add her CC in the account, pay, and all is good.
Of course not. stupid me.. Paypal won't give the option to change the last name. I can understand that for security reasons. But there must be a way for me to add another CC with a last name.. what if businesses allow different cards? right? right?????

doesn't matter, so tired and I didn't want to figure it out.

Today I decided to set up another account for Meow mee. Then send the payment through "her account" but stupid cat gave me the wrong billing address for her CC. 3 payments and it is taking me over 4 hours time to do. friggin annoying!

I'm not stressed

I hear wedding planning is stressful. But CB and I aren't stressed. It's time consuming and we get into a shit load of fights that made me want to leave him over and over again. But by the end of the day it's back to our usual routine and all is well.
This whole process really helped us get to know each other. We learn how each manage projects, what our own idea of what team work is. We learn what efficiency means to each other and our flaws in organizational skills. We learned how to fight meaner, louder, harder and how to quickly push each other's buttons. That's not a good thing, but we learned it.

With a little over two months left I'm starting to feel excited about the whole trip. It's not the wedding that excites me, but the idea that my family.. all 6 of us will be together again. It's been over 7 years since we've had a family photo with all 6 of us. The philippines is going to be a really fun trip, with so many of my friends and family there this wedding is more exciting than stressful.

We have a wonderful coordinator, her name is Edith Laurino. She seriously saved our whole planning. So, when I say I'm not stressed, that's because Edith is taking on the bulk of things. For a period she was more concerned about the wedding than us. We had to step it up because I think she was getting annoyed by the lack of response from us.

We nearing the last stage of our planning now. Nearly everyone has booked their flights and hotels for Cebu and Boracay. Any stragglers that want to join us later can join with ease. The Air and Hotel was probably the most difficult to organize but with that completed everything else is a piece of cake. Cake.... I'm going to eat a whole layer of my wedding cake.

Eels and Mantas and Sharks oh my

CB surprised me with a birthday trip to Maui this past weekend. He rented a condo which made the whole trip feel like home away from home. The condo is on the first floor, with a patio that faces the ocean. I'd walk out to the beach every morning with my cup of coffee and imagine this is the way I always wake up. The beach is always quiet and I'm usually the only one there. It's like my own private beach.

We only had 4 days there but we sure did alot and ate alot. We walked around Lahaina and had burgers and fries at some restaurant that Norvin likes. It's been a while since I had junk food, being on a wedding diet and all. That dinner marked the start of a series of fatty meals. We finished dinner with a nice walk and macadamia coffee pie ice cream. After that the plan was to go home, chill at our patio and enjoy the sound of the waves. We both ended up falling asleep on the lounge chairs.

The next morning we got up early for our boat dive at Molokini. I was excited and nervous. It's my first dive since being certified. No instructor, just my buddy, CB. Our first dive was 60 Ft, I started to get really nervous when we had to descend. I haven't yet made a successful descent without crashing into the ocean floor. I do not want to crash 60Ft to the coral beneath!

Somehow I managed and the dive was amazing. We saw Eels, one Manta Ray and several sharks. Those were three creatures I've been wanting to see! It made the whole vacation perfect.
Thanks CB

My dress is coming!!

ok, now i'm getting excited. I did the one thing that all the bridal stores, magazines, online consultants and other brides told me NOT to do. I purchased a gown online. It was nearly half the price of what the stores were selling it for and the ebay store seemed pretty reputable. It was also comforting that every time I called I was able to reach a live person, Julie, and she typically replies to my emails within a day or two. The store also sells other bridal items. Julie told me the dress should arrive at their store the last week of September, they'll inspect it then ship it out. Sure enough, the dress arrived on time.

Last week I received the UPS tracking number and it in Illinois today. I check it everyday watching it traverse from New York towards me. I'll be in total bliss when it arrives in perfect condition and with some luck.. fits perfectly requiring minimal alterltions.

3 more months

3 more months and 6 days before the big day. CB still hasn't purchased his plane ticket yet. I might just have to get married without him. One leg of his flight is not yet confirmed, so he can't purchase his ticket.

Everything else surrounding the wedding seems to be going smoothly. Or, we simply aren't that into it. CB just got his new Halo game. That, in addition to football occupies most of his time. I'm shopping for my out-gown and the perfect pair of shoes. I'm now given a reason to shop and that is not a good thing. Girls should not be given reasons to shop, it becomes an obsession.

Next weekend we'll be certified for SCUBA. It'll be our first time in open water. The purpose of this certification is so we can enjoy diving when in CEBU and Boracay. The number of people headed to CEBU so far is 35. That doesn't include the folks coming from Taiwan. It's going to be crazy fun. But for now, we're just enjoying our weekends with nothing to do. Actually, we're sitting at home shoppig online. CB just bought two regulators for diving, one for each of us. =)

Wedding Diet

Ok, goal is to lose 8 pounds.
What am I doing to reach that goal? Pretty much starving myself and working out. I'm giving up running distances for the next few months. It's going to be 3-5mi runs with Pilates or Yoga.
I'm cutting back on sweets. Best to just cut it out, but I'm not that diciplined. I just ate half a moon cake and a slice of Home made Lemon Merengue Pie today. Patients brought them in, so I couldn't resist. Plus, it's rude if I don't eat it right?

Wedding planning is picking up again. Now it's all about booking rooms and flights for guests. We finally narrowed hotels to two vs the 6 that CB planned at first.

What else is happening.... started my SCUBA class. We'll be doing our first confined dive next week. I can't wait. It's been a very long time since I've picked up something new.

Going camping at Cathedral Lakes this weekend. It'll be the first time CB and I trail camp. It's not a difficult hike but it'll be really cold at night. I'll try to post some pictures.

I have a sleep Disorder?

So, this was supposed to be a funny story, but as I read more of my disorder online, it doesn't seem so funny anymore and it's probably dangerous in many ways.

Last night I dreamed that CB was being stupid and teasing me in the exact way that pisses me off. I told him to stop, and he didn't, then I got pissed and threw a few punches at him. Little did I know these punches really took place. Hey, the bed is big enough for a punch kay? I would have never guessed that the three punches landed on his ribs. Sadly, the only reason I knew I punched him was because I woke up from a sore fist. Poor me, I had hurt myself while punching CB in his sleep. He woke up and started bitching at me. I felt realy bad but being only semi-awake, hand hurting and pissed at what he did in my dream I told him it was his fault for being such a JERK (in my dream).

Last week I did the same thing. Smacked him once 'cuz he was teasing me in my dream. Actually, I must confess. I was so pissed that I woke up from being so angry and found my arm right above his body ready to pound at him. Instead of pulling away, I just let it fall....on top of him. oops.... He didn't make a sound. Interesting, maybe people don't feel pain when they're sleeping? 3 seconds later "OUCH" Or maybe they just have a delayed reaction.

This disorder is called RBD, REM sleep Behavior Disorder. To spell it all out.. Rapid Eye Movement Sleep Behavior Disorder.
This disorder can be dangerous. Like the time my sister dreamed that she was kicking a dead body then woke up realizing she was kicking me! Fortunately I wasn't injured.
Another time I woke up finding my arm over my cousin Cathy's face! In my dream I was hammering something then my mom stopped me in my dream and that's when I woke up.
I could have really injured Cathy if I had come down with that kind of force!

In some instances people with RBD tie themselves up in desperation to not hurt anyone.

"Sleepers with RBD sometimes injure their bed partners. Some people have been known to leave the bed, run into a wall, run through a window, or run down the stairs. But RBD activity is usually confined to the bed and the surrounding area. "

It's a disorder, not an excuse to beat up my bed partner. Perhaps CB should stop teasing me 'cuz I'm obviously getting upsetting dreams about it.

I'm busy

On Mondays I stick around the office during lunch time. I run a few errands online, do some light reading, blog. It's my own time. Sometimes co-workers come and chat and that's fine, as long as it's not about work. But what picks my ass is when I'm glued to some webpage, obviously reading something that I find interesting and someone starts to have a full on conversation with me! Do I ignore them? Of course not, I smile, nod and provide a short acknowledged response and quickly continue my reading. Most don't seem to read the body language well. I don't see why it's hard to tell that when I barely looked at you to smile and I'm still looking at the screen, I don't want to be talked to. With CB I'm much more rude. I simply ignore his comment and respond by leaning towards my screen and begin reading out loud. On a pissy day I'll begin to read out loud before he completes his sentence. That's pretty obvious right? Now how do I translate that to other people? I should bring earphones and pretend I can't hear them.

Make me Beautiful

This weekend I went on a make-up binge.
Friday night I met up with a friend of mine, M, who works at Sephora. It never fails that she brings out some goodies whenever we meet. This time she brought two extra bags for my other friend and cousin Tiffany (it was Tiffany's birthday). That's rather sweet M, considering she's never met Tif before. After some drinks I made it home at 1:30am. Tired as hell, but I still wanted to check out my new colors. The following night I spent over two hours with D playing with our new make-up. It was fun, it felt just like highschool again. The next day we visited an event by Taylor Pham, she's a new make-up artist with her own line of colours for Asian skin. I was excited to meet someone who could do Chinese eyes. So far the only make-up artists that have been able to do Chinese eyes, or specifically my eyes are bridal make-up artists. Everyone else you find at the cosmetic counter don't realize that the fold in my eyes makes the color disappear! They always tell me to open my eyes after puting on mascara, I'd warn them that the lashes will hit my lid and smudge. So certain of their own confidence they'd politely command me to open my eyes. Fine, bitch. I open, look up and SMUDGE. that's right.. clean it off girl.. and do it ALL over again. I've long given up asking for make-up advice from those girls.

I walked out of Taylor's event with another bag of goodies. Eye shadows, lipstick, fake lashes....
Excited about these new colours I even woke up early to apply some day make-up :)

I don't put on a lot, but just knowing I spent some time taking care of my appearance in the morning makes me feel good about myself.

Invitations

Has any couple ever fought so much that they don't even want to marry each other anymore.
I sit across that guy that I'm supposed to marry and I swear if he fell off the planet right now I wouldn't shed a tear. With all the stupid things buzzing around us, we forgot to formalize the invitations. Sorry folks, instead mister and miss, you are now just ___(your name) . Only the married folks are Mr. & Mrs. Is that so bad? I mean, I read so much about formality etc.. as if people will frown at me for sending out invites w/o addressing them properly! whatever.... they're printed, and they're going out as is.
e

Joyful Letter

My ex-wedding coordinator was from a company named Joyful weddings in Cebu. They're a pretty big company with several coordinators. The owner is Esmie, but they handed me a lady named Hannah or stupid would be better..



We signed up in February with Hannah, and by June, I just couldn't stand Stupid anymore. Either she didn't like working with me, or she was really stupid. After waiting 3 weeks for a response from my last email, I got sick of waiting and decided to bitch out to the boss....



Dear Ms Esmie,

It has been 5 months since we signed our contract with your company to be our wedding planner. CB and I were excited to start planning our wedding. We had a few things we were able to do on our own, but many others that required a planners knowledge and expertise.
My expectations of having a full wedding planner is that the planner will indeed, plan the wedding. We feel that we've been the ones planning the wedding, and come to think that we paid you. We should be the one who should be getting paid if this is what wedding planning is in Cebu.

So, my question for you is what have you planned for us since February?
Have you completed any of our wedding tasks? When I say complete, I would like specific examples of how you discussed with me on choosing a vendor, suggestions you have on vendors, creating a contract and signing it etc..
Some other things that I find disturbing is that you’re planning my wedding, but you know nothing about me and you never asked. I actually had to tell you the information fearing that you’ll screw up the wedding because you don’t know anything about us.
Do you know the size of my wedding party?
Do you know what kind of wedding I want? Simple? Extravagant? Elegant? Romantic? Intimate?
what's my wedding budget? Aren’t you supposed to work this out with us in the beginning as you mentioned in your contract?
Do you know if we have all the documents required for a Catholic wedding?
What is my color motif? Did you ask or did I had to tell you?
Have I purchased my gown yet? I know we mentioned that we would take care of this, but as my planner, aren't you concerned whether your bride has started planning this yet?
Have we started looking into invitations?
Have you ever initiated to make an appointment to chat online?
Of all the things we said we were going to do, what have we done?
Have you reviewed our contracts with vendors? Did you notice that we managed to negotiate the price of our reception to 2007 prices, when YOU told us that it CAN NOT be done? how is it we managed to do something from 1000miles away, something you should be able to do as a professional and experienced planner? You are supposed to negotiate as agreed in our contract and you failed poorly. who's side are you on?
I ask questions about vendors and it takes you 2-3 weeks to return my emails. Don't you know who your vendors are? don't you know their packages?
I often need to send repeated emails to get a response from you (2-3 weeks later)
And when you do reply, your answers are incomplete. Sometimes, you don’t even answer some of my emails, for example when you sent me several pictures of floral arrangements I asked you which florist created which flower arrangement. How am I supposed to know who’s good, which florist I want when I don’t know who created what?
I asked if the vendors have websites, and you didn’t reply to that email either.
I feel like I've hired a bad secretary instead of a planner.

You are professionals and you deal with vendors all the time, I would expect a professional to know the answer immediately from experience and the resources you have. Even if you don't, it shouldn't take almost a month to reply. If you're busy, at least let me know.

When you quoted me prices for flowers and make-up. How can you provide a quote when you don't know what I want and how big the wedding party is?
I increased the flower budget by 20,000 and asked for some decorations and you tell me the decorations will be additional to my budget. That does not make sense. I just gave you a higher budget to work with.
I asked if we are on schedule. You said we are and I should relax. We still have 6 months. But you guys work so slow that just to choose and plan flowers takes over a month! Trying to find laces for my dress was never complete I had to give up on the idea. We had to take over the Reception negotiation because you were unable to negotiate.
What makes you think we still have plenty of time when you don't even know what we want in our wedding?
Do you know if we want entertainment in our wedding? and what kind? how many? do you know where to find them? will it fit our budget?
Can my wedding favors be made within a month? or should we start looking into it now? Or was it your plan to tell me that it CAN NOT be done and I should settle for something less, just to make your life easier?

Your service has been awful and has created more stress.
We would like our deposit back, but most likely you will not agree to that.
We are terminating our contract. I would suggest you wave the additional fees of termination, as you should equally feel you have done a poor job.
.

Sincerely,
CB and Headdump

I got the check!

So in continuation of messing around with Ms. "I want to buy your gown" I agreed to the buyer that I would refund the excess money that she sent to me in Cashiers check. I didn't think she would send me anything but..today, I received her Cahsiers check written in $5000 delivered by FEDEX. $500 is the maximum limit before a check is witheld by a bank for clearance. Now, I have this fradulent check in hand. A FEDEX account to send the money back to her and a name and address to deliver the check to. I'm so tempted to send over a 200 pound box of crap, may be some garbage, anything just to piss them off. Unfortunately, they have my work address and phone number and I'm not up for putting my life at risk. You never know what these people are capable of.

I just told them the bank is witholding the check and I'll get back to them.

craigslist Cont.

It's shit like this I'm talking about.. ..I JUST recieved this email. (READ previous post first)

Hello,
i am not in a good state of mind to tell you this but i think you will have plight for me and understand me. I got a bad news yesterday while i was about giving your info to my finance house, i was informed that, my dad had a serious accident and he is in COMA now. The shock of this news affected me badly that, while i was giving your info to my finance house, instead of $300 to be written on your check, $3,000 was written on it and it has been sent to your address already.
I hope i can trust you with my money and i hope you re trustworthy too and i will appreciate it if you can send back the remaining fund to me via western union money transfer and i promise that, i will also compensate you. Please do get back to me and let me know if you will be able to handle this. Thanks and i will be waiting to hear from you soonest .

craigslist

There's something fishy about people surfing through craigslist.
A few months back I posted our room for rent and we got over 10 emails from people claiming they are female, ages 25-28, providing information on height, hair color, new job title in the area and an immediate request to remove our ad and accept their cashier/money order check. Then the conversation goes no where. They just continue emailing about how they're going to send the money over and please reserve the room.

Then I posted my sisters old wedding dress for sale and the same thing happens. Lady wants my contact and I give it. She asks it again, says she'll pay more than what I ask for and goes on and on about how she's going to handle the transaction blah blah blah.. I sent 3 email out and gave up after. What's going on? Are these people expecting me to volunteer my bank account number because I'm so excited they're willing to pay immediately and MORE than what I asked for? Are there really people that stupid out there to have given their account information to have kept such scams alive?

Or did I just get suckered into having useless emailings with people.

My run around the neighbourhood

Yesterday was a disappointment.
I woke at 8am and began my mental preparation for my 20mile run. I wasn’t looking forward to it considering the furthest I’ve ran in the past month has only been 10 miles. A month before that was 15 miles. But I have some catching to do, so I was determined to pull this weekend warrior routine and just get this run over with. I had my normal breakfast of peanut butter and jam toast with a cup of coffee. An hour passed but I still felt tired from the day before, so I read the remaining pages of the Ultramarathon Man by Dean Karnazes. A solid theme remained throughout the book, run with your heart. Which is true, I love running because it’s my source of outlet. All the negativity that bothers me just seems to disappear after a run. But during my run, any negative thought slows me down (unless they're angry thoughts). The "I can't, I'm tired etc.. " is negative. The "I'm going to kick my bosses butt" is angry thought.

At 11am I started to get changed. I will do some stretches and loosen up my left calf and hip that seems tight. I won’t run at noon time when the sun is at its’ worst. I’ll aim for 1pm and I’ll start hydrating myself now. The weather is not too hot and it should be cooler where I’ll be at. I started to clean my camel pack but realized it’s dirty and I need to change the tube. There’s some nasty green slime in there.

At 1pm I took off towards Lake Merced. Plan is, park at the lake, run down Ocean beach and back, that’s 12 miles then do one and 3/4 laps around the lake to total roughly 20 miles. I made a pit stop on Peninsula Ave to pick up a few bottles of water. Since I can’t use my 1.5 L camel pack I’ll have to hand carry a 750ml and do a refill at the car.
The wind was growing stronger and it seemed to have blown my motivation away. I made a U-turn and drove back to El Camino and headed towards Foster City. I’ll just run around that city. I’ve always wanted to find the path that loops around the whole city. I have no idea how far that run would be, but I knew it wasn’t going to reach 20 miles. In fact, I should just park at home and run there. Such a lazy ass.

1:45pm I’m parked half a mile from the Hillsdale overpass and I begin my run Northbound. ‘Shit, I need to pee. What should I do? Gosh, I’m full of excuses. The urge will pass. Maybe the bladder will reabsorb urine. Does the bladder do that?’ I started to back track in to physiology.. what cells line the bladder and if absorption is possible. It didn’t matter though, the liquid was swooshing around my bladder creating a constant stimuli to do what’s natural. I didn’t have luxury to count on the probability of a re-absorption theory. To my right the path is lined with city hedges about 3 feet tall, its’ separated by a narrow dirt path then lined by beautiful hedges taken care of by the home owners of Foster City. I could jump in there and if I squat low enough, and remove my bright blue cap this may work. No, I’m not desperate enough. Who lives in Foster City? I can count 5 friends and I know where they live. How awkward to call your friends so you can sit on their toilet with your sweaty butt. I wouldn’t do that, besides, if I had to make a detour I may as well hit a public store. The urge is growing and it’s damping my run. I have to soften my stride to lessen the jarring. I’m reaching the 92 overpass and I see two thick pillars supporting the bridge. Oh gosh headdump, BE A MAN!! There’s a lady in her 40’s wearing bright yellow walking about 200 ft behind me, but who’s in front of me and how far? I dashed up to the pillar, turned off my iPOD and I made it out well in advance of Ms. 40’s approach but barely clearing the scene of two cyclists from the opposite direction. Aye Headdump, the things you do.
My run following my brave attempt was great. Despite the wind I made it to my favorite restaurant, Joy, with still half a bottle of water left. So I took a few big gulps thinking I have plenty to spare, just to see that those gulps left me with less than ¼ of liquid! Damn HD, why do you do shit like that? I don’t know how much longer I have to run. The remainder of this route has absolutely no shading. Actually the whole trail doesn’t have shading. I was starting to heat up. It’s probably another ½ hour run? Can’t tell, I’ve always driven around here. Well, water is easier to deal with than needing a washroom. If it gets really bad I can knock on someone’s door for tap water. It can never be as bad as the time I ran in 90deg weather with no water. The stupid things I do. My stomach started to cramp and I had to walk. Salt was flaking off my face and arms. I felt so sick I had to wave some cyclists down. But no one stopped because they were all going so fast.. I obviously made it no problem, but that was a big lesson for me.

I reached my car with no water left. None in my bottle, none in my bladder. The whole run felt like some ordeal but I had a feeling I didn’t run as far as I thought. I may be thirsty but my muscles could take me much further. Only an hour and half passed. That’s about roughly 9 miles? That’s less than half of what I was supposed to do!! What a disappointment. I have 6 weeks before the SF marathon. I’ll let you guys know how that goes.

aerial view of Foster City

Kids

I’m surfing through facebook adding friends that I haven’t met since high school. These are people I haven’t seen for over 10 years. Their pictures come up and most of them proudly display photos of their wedding or kids.

I don’t know why it should still surprise me. The fact that most people are getting married or having kids has hit me and passed already. But still, just this Saturday while spending an afternoon at a friends’ housewarming the place swarmed with infants and toddlers and I had mistakenly thought the kids belonged to the hosts aunts and uncles or something. They were all children of friends.

Then on Sunday we went to a baptism followed by a reception. More kids! Loud screaming kids. Some starting to walk, some running. Some run and scream, it's a team of mobile surround sound stereo system featuring: scream as loud as you can.

I smile and laugh.. oh how cute. How else are you supposed to respond?

Last night I passed out at 9:30pm and got up today at 7am. That's a good 9.5 hours of sleep. I'm still tired. I can't imagine how mothers deal with kids. If I have kids, I'm going to build a sound proof nursery room. screw the investment on Winnie the Pooh decor and get some good solid sound proofing walls.

bad english

This is what happens when you send out emails late at night, very tired.

Dear Hannah,

CB and I have a few things we hope you could start looking into.
In addition to the flowers. I'm thinking of going with Pink Flora. Could you ask Tita Pinky if we has any ideas for flowers to match blue and espresso colour motif? Please take pictures and email them to me. I'm looking at setting the flower budget at under 50K. Currently I have no preferences for flowers. But I would still like to see them first.

We also need a Mandarin speaking translator. Could you please help us find one?
We'll also be need some form of transportation for our guests.
Do you know who the cake maker is for Shangri-la? Is there cake good?

finally, do you have any pictures of Wenwen Zaspa's work? If you don't have any, I'm sure s/he has somek, please ask him for some so I can take a look.

thanks much

Headdump

more lost items

I don’t understand how things disappear. I can’t find my camera. Where’s my camera?
The last time I used it was in Vancouver and I can’t remember where it went after that. Did I bring it back? WHERE AREYOU??

In desparate search for this camera I spent the whole day cleaning the house. It was more organizing things than cleaning. Cleaning would require pulling out our wonderful Rainbow vaccuum, putting on those yellow gloves with a sponge and cleaning spray in each hand.
I didn't clean. I threw papers away, re-folded my clothes, put away my winter sweaters and pulled out my T-shirt. Went through all my luggages hoping I may have left the camera in there and somewhat organized our little bookshelf. Camera is still not found. I'm feeling so unlucky lately.

Water Taste Test

I had to do this test. I've always liked the tap water in Vancouver. It tasted sweet to me. After walking home from school I'd head straight to the sink, turn on the faucet and drink right out of the tap. This was my smart way of not having to grab a cup and wash it after use.

Since moving here I've been drinking bottled water or filtered water. Sometimes it's $0.39/gallon, sometimes it's $5/bottle.



Water: it's Free or it can be $5.99/750mL

I wasn't tempted enough to try the $5.99 water from Mount Expensive but I chose the ones below.

The test: Not your scientific double blind study of course. The best I could do was use my talent of being forgetful. Labeled the bottles 1-5, labeled cups, pour and put the bottles away from sight. Norvin was the true taste tester.

Volvic- my favourite. It's hard to describe the flavour of water, as they're not supposed to have flavour. This one tasted clean.

Crystal Geiser- This one was clean tasting too but not as smooth, if that makes any sense.

Smart Water-I like this one too, couldn't tell much difference between Smart Water and Volvic

Arrowhead- this one's ok, it actually has a flavour to it.

Evian- This was nasty, maybe it's the bottle but without the taste test I never realized Evian tasted this bad.

Filtered tap water- This was CB's favourite. :)

goodbye to a few more items

My car got broken into a few weeks ago. Those guys jimmied my drivers and back passenger window. I was able to see the scratch marks. I don’t know why they picked my beat up car. I guess it is the easiest car to break into, compared to the Porsche in front of me, the BMW to my left and Jaguar to my right. That just pissed me off (again). Standing outside my driver’s door looking at the mess they made inside my car staring in disbelief, wondering how could this happen to me again. Why my car? Farewell to my Maui Jims, you served me well for 5+ years. I’m not too pissed because I used you so much and scratched the hell out of you that I don’t mind getting a new one. But with the morning sun blazing into my eyes, I still miss you when I’m on the road.
So long Oakley’s, you fitted so well around my ears and nose and helped me through one marathon and a few half marathons and 10K’s, but your lenses were quite the disappointment since I first tried you on that I spent my first running hour with you in complete regret of purchasing you on FINAL SALE, NO RETURNS. With you gone, I now use that as an excuse to run indoors. Lastly, my glasses, you were such a hit when I first got you. Everyone loved the frames and you made me look smart. But now with you gone, I can’t see at night, I can’t see the signs in the grocery aisle, I can’t see period.

The wires to my car alarm were all snipped. AAA did not hesitate to replace the alarm and fix up the windows. I kindly asked if they could just give me the money to compensate for the items they don’t cover. What good does an alarm do anyways? Has an alarm ever helped anyone? Of course, AAA preferred to fix my alarm instead. Stupid people.

Homebody

I have this complete lack of interest to go out. My ideal Friday night is the chance to cook something decent without the rush to clean and wash up so I can hit the sac by 10:30pm. Saturday mornings I want to sleep in and watch TV in bed. Then go for a run in the afternoon and then passout till dinner time. Cook, Eat, read or watch TV then sleep in Sunday. Not very exciting. But if feels so good.

Family Politics

CB and I sent out our save the date postcards a few weeks back. I figured a few people might miss the postcard and mistake it as advertisement, which is essentially what we're doing. We're advertising our date! Even the mail man knows and the people at the post office knows.

I have to admit, I was a little lazy when it came to calling up my aunt and uncle to get their address. Since they live close by, I figured it would be nice to take them out for dinner and introduce them to CB. (correction.. introduce CB TO them) My laziness continued and I received that scolding phone call sooner than expected. "Headdump! why didn't you send a postcard to aunty? Everyone was on Skype yesterday and all the other aunties got it but her!" "That is very disrespectful, I say Headdump is a goodgirl, I don't know why she forget, why did you forget? and why did you make it into a postcard? some aunties thought it was advertisement, and there's no Chinese on there! They don't understand it, it looks like a Christmas card"

sheesh, I was just trying to find an affordable way to make an announcement, something more than an email.

moving along

bad week.

I couldn't wait for Chinese New Year to come. This year is supposed to be great for DRAGONS. This year is good for anything that requires dealing with people.. such as relationships, business ... um, pretty much everything isn't it? When do you not deal with people? That's the problem with fortunes, they can be so vague and stupid. But I still believe them.

So with last years forces still working against me, CB and I just found out that a Manila TV personel, ???Montenegro?? decided to get married for the second time and took the booking off our hands. That's just F-ed up. I can see why they'd choose to accomodate him and his 400+ guests but now we're left with the smaller ballroom, or to just change the date. I'm not sure I want to be stuck in a hotel with another wedding party blocking the beach and ballroom. We're still debating on what to do.

some good news..The wedding bickering has finally stopped between CB and I. The bad news...It took one big public argument in a restaurant and a dramatic display of temper that I'll never forgive myself for to finally calm us down.

good news...My dress is being made by Lorymer, CB's cousin. It's good in a way, because it's out of my hands and there's no point worrying about it. Problem is, the guy never checks his emails. What are you doing with my dress buddy?? He came highly recommended from his relatives, but it never occured to me to ask him if he even wanted the job!
It's ok. I've got a back up dress.

bad news.... we've got ants in the house. Those ant traps never work. They don't even crawl into those things! It gets worse everyday, now they're all over our pantry!

arrr.....

gown shopping

I thought wedding gown shopping would be fun. How can it not? I get to shop and try on pretty dresses and feel like a princess. But then I discovered that I can't just walk in to a bridal salon and shop, I have to make appointments. So in preparation I flipped through magazines and checked out some designer runways to find dresses that appeal to me, but I kept in mind that I don't have mile long legs and I will not be walking down the aisle like it's a catwalk. Regardless, the first time I tried on a dress I was floored at what a bustier can do for the body. That, plus cut of the dress... check out those curves! Damn, I'd have to say I look pretty damn good. But what's up withe the price? $3000-$5000+ WHAT?
Not having a clear idea of what I want, every dress looked nice except for the price!!
I checked out David's Bridal too, which has less pricier gowns, but the material is not the same. mmm...That silk charmeuse sure felt nice.

Now I'm stuck trying to justify spending that much on a dress that I'll only wear once. Of course it's my big day and it only happens once. But does anyone really remember what the bride wears? And what am I going to do with that thing the day after? The sentimental sales lady will tell you to preserve it for your children. One day it could become their "something borrowed".

I highly doubt that will happen. Now I'm banking of having a girl? A girl who will be my size and have my style? Would any of you want to wear your mom's dress?

I can't, I can't justify the cost, it's just retarded. My other option is to have Lorymer, CB's cousin make the dress for me in the Philippines. The idea is nice, to have someone in the family make the dress. Not so nice if the dress should arrive ill-fitting and well, ugly. Fashion in Asia is just not the same. Sadly, I'd have to say Taiwanese people have the strangest ensembles.

hmm...maybe I should be carried to the chapel in a Chinese bridal chair.

still planning

holly F*** we've been "discussing" every night,
this is really picking my ass

another night:
-we need to decide on a location-if we keep stalling we're never going to send out save the date cards and people need to know exactly when, to take time off.
-well we need to factor in cost and stuff
-forget about cost first and tell me what you want(repeat 'one night')

a different night:
-have you called to check availability?
-well, have you decided on a place yet?(quick repeat of 'one night leading to a repeat of 'another night)
-how can we not worry about cost?

I won't even begin to write about what happened after that. Let's just say we've both developed a sudden talent for sarcasm and quick come backs.

Tonight
-Do you want to send pictures as thank you cards?
-No, our thank you cards are part of our invitations, it'll cost more to make separate orders blah blah blah I'd rather spend the money on making our guests who've travelled far comfortable than something people may lose or throw away blah blah blah..
-could you stop being so long winded

then I got the LOOK

oops
heh heh..that wasn't a smart comment on my part

The end before the beginning

Wedding planning aka catalyst for arguments.

So many things to consider, so many people to please. Everyone has an idea and everyone wants an input. I watch these people speak Tagalog. I hear churches, hotel names, so and so's my flower girl.

-who?
-do you want to be a flower girl? or bridesmaid?
-no, she's too old, she'll have to be a bridesmaid.
-Headdump, show S0&So the dress you picked out for the bridesmaids, show her which one she's wearing.
-what dress?
-the brown one.
-of course, lemme see if I can find it again in the magazine, you asshole.

I don't think I'm being a bitch when I say I don't want some girl I've met 3 times my whole life to be my bridesmaid. I don't even care if the mention of her was just out of courtesy because your relative is in the room. The fact that I had to flip through pages to pretend I found the dress just boils my blood.

Sitting in a room dominated by the majority. I need back up. Back me up CB or you won't sleep well tonight.


on one night:
-I want you to have the wedding of your dreams.
- =) I want it in Boracay
-except for Boracay
-???????##@??????
-The church has to be in Cebu.
-I'm sorry, what did you say? a wedding in my dream?