4/24/09

Can't wait to take a bite out of the Big Apple? I hope there is enough time for sightseeing.

4/21/09

One of the best places to people watch is in the jury selection room. It is full of people who find many different ways to fill the time, make the idle minutes pass by busying themselves. There is the one who has been here before and has brought something to occupy the time either a book, newspaper, laptop, phone to text simply to chat. The phone talker is a funny specie to watch. He/She calls everybody on her address book to tell them he/she is whiling the time away in the jury selection room waiting to either be called to serve or to either get released by the judge. The gadget-toting person is another interesting specie. She/He avails of the "free" electricity by recharging her IPod or other electronic devices while waiting for the call or release. The readers are the quiet ones. I wonder if they really are reading or simply flipping the pages. The workaholics who bring their work to the jury room are the ones who I thought needed the break of doing nothing for a few hours just being bored. The inspector walks around, pacing back and forth and making eye contact with everyone she/he passes. I wonder if she/he memorizes the faces for future reference. Then there is the sharer. Unmindful of the place, she/he either chats on her/his phone about sensitive matters (like how far behind is she/he in her credit payment) or with a neighbor, a stranger, about her/his medical conditions, the treatments, and the prognosis. I don't know how these people can blurt out these information not considering the other people within earshot, and there is about 200 of us, I surmised.


And then there is me, the blogger, who'd rather forego reading the magazines provided for a chance of a lifetime to watch people in this situation. And hopefully can squeeze a post out from these few hours of waiting in jury room before getting released. Oh well, there's another next year to people watch when I get my summons.

04/14/09

Got invited to a wedding. In NYC. Next week!!!!

The question is to go or not to go.

04/13/09

A week in review:

Monday

I started my new work schedule today, got up ahead of my alarm clock, first day jitters? Was able to shower and eat breakfast and still have at least ten minutes to spare. I love it. Then commute to work was wow only 20 minutes, I certainly am loving it. Work day went by quickly and when it was time to go home, my I was home under 30 minutes. I love this schedule. Oh they killed Kutner on House, shocker of the season right? I can't believe my eyes, until of course I heard the actor wanted to leave the show to pursue a job in the White House. Good luck Kumar, er Kutner, er Kal.

Tuesday

It's raining, hard around the Berkeley-Oakland area. And the exit ramp to work was closed for public works. Yikes, nope I did not panic even though the rain was pouring really hard. I usually do panic in the past, even though I know to take the next exit go around to the other side of the freeway to get to the exit from that side.

The drive home was marred by an accident that had all five lanes of Eastbound 80 crawling. I was getting agitated at the thought of missing the beginning of American Idol. Fortunately, I made it just in time to see the end credits of Seinfeld. Oh Anoop my dawg, you made me smile. I really liked you tonight, your song choice (bravo, one of the songs I really like), your preppy look which made you appear like you just came out of a catalog, and oh you're so cute baby pictures. Hope you get the votes required to stay for another week.

Simon giving a standing O to an Idol wannabe? Now that's a shocker, even more shocking than the suicide of Kutner. Two nights in a row, Fox has given us a shocker. Here's a standing O from me to you Fox network.

Wednesday

It's a relatively easy day until about three hours until my shift ends, my coworker fell ill, she had to be taken upstairs to urgent care. Her BP was through the roofs apparently. When I inquired about her condition from my supervisor who took her up there to be seen, she said not good and continued to tell me how high her BP level was. I was bothered from then on. I couldn't get her out of my mind.

Still down from the news from work, I came home to find my husband sporting a long face and when I inquired he told me he came home to find our dearly beloved pet Mulder of four years dead. My mother said he was still alive at around 3 pm and husband came three hours later to see him dead. Wow, that was gut wrenching, Mulder has been with us for four year, five in September. What is going to happen to Scully now (the partner)? I begged hubby to get a replacement tomorrow. He said he will talk to the girl from work who sold us these lovebirds.

It's results night on American Idol. In the past years I would not touch the computer before AI results show because I know the results of who got booted off will be in front of my face each time I open Yahoo (the bane of living in the West Coast). Anyhow, this year that is not the case. I did not mind knowing before I watch the show whose time was up. Hubs has the computer on as he was still working on our taxes so I asked if he could go online and see who got the axe. He did. He was reading the article and not saying anything, I was folding the laundry on the bed a few yards from him so I couldn't read the writings on the screen. He remained quiet and kept on reading. So again I asked while continuing to fold clothes. I told him as long as it's not Adam or Anoop that's fine. It turned out to be neither of those two, but Anoop again landed on the bottom three. How could that be? He was really good. Well, it's Scott's turn. I thought it was the right singer to go.

Thursday

Nothing especially worth remembering today or else I would have remembered it. My husband and I met at Pet Smart after work to get a replacement for the dead parakeet. The price was a bit higher than the other pet store that we frequent so we both decided to get the bird from the other store. This store is an independent mom and pop store so to speak and they carry wonderful animals for sale, albeit extremely expensive. They used to have this beautiful pink African grey bird that was oh so entertaining. The bird is no longer there and upon inquiry we found out that it was sold. Lucky owner.

They also have great little puppies always. This time around though, all their puppies are to my liking. I really wanted to bring them all home, not to mention the little kitties they have; they rarely have kittens, I don't know why. We did not even wander towards the fishes we were meant to get another look alike of our parakeet for less than what Pet Smart was asking.
So we brought home the little parakeet and put him in the cage with our Scully who we were afraid would die of loneliness. It was a long pause of silence between them and at around 11 pm when I went down to check on them they were perched side by side. Which brought me some hope.

Friday

I haven't worked on Good Friday for years until today. Long story short, I was late in putting in my time off requests even though every year I get the day off short notice and all. But that doesn't matter. Husband did take the day off and went to the service, and took my car for lube change. Nothing happened today that is worth noting.

Saturday

We got invited to a prayer/lunch at a Sikh temple in Fremont. I always love going to Sikh temples partly because I enjoy ogling the fabrics and clothing of Indian women. To be honest, if I could I would wear the shalwar kameez on a daily basis, I definitely would. It is so comfortable. And I had to wear my own Indian garb to the temple as requested by my friend who was also coming with us. And of course we ate chaat (snacks) and then lunch in a span of about an hour. After the visit to the temple and meeting my husband's colleague, the one who invited us and whose petition/thanksgiving the service was offered, we went shopping at an Indian store. I found a package of tandoori flatbreads (10 pcs for 3.70) which we used to make as a pizza for dinner.

Sunday

The glorious Resurrection. We attended two church services today, Episcopalian and Catholic. We then took my mother to a late lunch at 8th Street Cafe in Oakland Chinatown, her favorite place to eat. Upon arrival from home we found a message on our voice mail from our realtor that she's ready to show us another house. So we called her back and said we're now home and ready to see the house. The house is ideally located. The front views are of heavily wooded hills, and the floor plan is the same as the house we loved and lost because we got outbid. We really love this house too. Plus it has a pool. Let's see what happens.

03/31/09

Why oh why did Anoop sing that song? Didn't they ever listen to the judges (and to every one else) about the importance to choosing the right song? I am getting anxious about his chances of staying in the show. On a positive note, however, he is not the only one who "sucked" tonight, IMHO. Megan was so-so too. And Lil wasn't really outstanding. I'm glad Adam was his usual self.

Oh my goodness, I am here ranting about AI. I know I should get a life. I better sign off here so I could get me a life.

Happy April Fools day tomorrow.

3/14/09

Today, I learned how to lay out tiles. Hubs and I attended the hour-long free demo workshop at Home Depot. We had to wake up earlier than we normally do on a Saturday, but I thought it was worth it. I even found the workshop interesting; I also found myself fielding questions. Now, all we need is a house and I can redo the bathroom :)

3/11/09

No this is not a weekly blog. But it starts to look like it. Anyhoo, my week had been well, good, ordinary, and nothing special. However, I can now breathe a sigh of relief after learning the reasons for my worries. It's always better to find what's on the other side of the closed door, good or bad, it's better to know than guessing what could be there. I'm glad I opened the door and found out what's behind it. It's not all good, but it's not bad either.

Now on American Idol talk. I was stoked last week when they made an exemption to the already established rule of having 12 singers move on to the final round. That meant my Anoop made it to the top 13.

On last night's show, I was amazed at how much I really enjoyed the performances as a whole. The first few singers were good, I thought. After all had sung, and believe me I was all focused on the show, which was something out of ordinary for me to do, three people made an impression to me:

1. Danny Gokey---that guy can sing and I have thoroughly enjoyed his performance, including his jerky, awkward dance moves.
2. Adam Lambert---0ne of my two favorites from the very beginning. He did a fabulous job I thought, but I was quite unsure when I found out that he was singing Black and White. He did good on that performance. I just hope there were enough people to vote for him, because I am surely not voting. I am merely a spectator. To quote my husband: "We don't want to invest more time and effort to AI than we already do."
3. Anoop Desai----not a good impression, but an impression nevertheless. Okay here I go.....WTF is that guy thinking. I hope he's not channeling the ghost of Sanjaya by being a goof. Okay I read some write-ups about the show last night and people say that while his song choice was bad, his performance and his singing wasn't all that bad. I really really hope he sails to the next round so I can see that all my faith in him is based on solid grounds. And that he can sing at least one good song that feels like tailor-made for him.

The rest did not really register that much to me. I know that Lil Rounds is good, but quite boring. The girls are kinda boring to me this year. Okay, here's crossing my fingers for Anoop. My husband wants him to stay long enough so that he can sing the Oscar-award winning Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire :)

Well that's all for now.