December 2004 Archives

Woohoo! It's Friday, and more importantly it's my last day of work before vacation!

Yesterday at work I was moving something heavy, and my shoe broke. The top of my black leather shoe just broke at the seam. So lame. I'd only worn them maybe a dozen times at most. So I had to tape them up all ghetto-like for the rest of the day.

After work, we went to Nordstroms to go return the shoes. It sucked, because we'd long ago lost the receipt and thrown away the box. But you know, shoes shouldn't break after a few uses. The guy at the counter asked if I wanted to exchange them for the same pair. I said no thanks (and was really thinking, "why would I want to exchange crummy shoes for another pair of crummy shoes?"). I just wanted my money back. I got my $54 back, but he didn't seem altogether pleased.

I also got Christmas presents for my boss, which consisted of a 365-day calendar with funny Bush sayings, and a little paper Bush doll where you can stick on different word balloons with different sayings, like, "we must put food on our families" or something like that. I think he got a kick out of it.

We also stopped by Barnes & Noble to try to find the Bon Bon book. I felt really silly asking the guy if they had it in stock, which they didn't. Oh well.

Then we watched the three-hour Apprentice finale. I won't give away any spoilers or anything. But yeah, we just watched TV for three hours. Well, probably a little less since we watched in on TiVo delay, and just skipped all the commercials.

I put together my Christmas wish list yesterday, and could only come up with 13 things. There must be more, don't you agree?

I didn't blog yesterday because I was only at work for a couple hours before I had to leave for our department holiday party. There wasn't really anything exciting to blog about anyways - I didn't get to go to Bandit's agility class on Tuesday because I got stuck late at work helping people until like 6:30.

Our holiday party was pretty nice, we had lunch at Tamarine in downtown Palo Alto. Pretty upscale place and the food was good. It was some kind of Vietnamese-Indian-French fusion.

My coworker Christine and I had gone early, thinking the lunch was at 11:30 when it was actually at 12. So we went to Borders to kill some time. That was where she spotted this book, called, "Bon Bon on the Go-Go", which features this little Asian girl (she's actually French-Japanese I guess). Anyways, we thought it was hilarious. I really wanted to buy it. Maybe I will if I see it again, lol.

Thanks to the party I got home pretty early. I didn't do much, just played on the computer and took a long overdue nap. Marc and I watched the first episode rerun of "Lost" (we'd missed parts the first time around), and I worked on some Christmas present stuff.

We're still trying to figure out how we can get our tree up. Kenny decorated my parents' tree in Cal colors. Even funnier, he put two Cal caps up on top of the tree. I told him it was kind of dorky. He explained that he did it to cover up the fact that the angel was lopsided. At which point we got to jokingly discussing why they have an angel at all, and that it might be more appropriate to have something like a star. But the whole holiday is a religious holiday and we celebrate it anyways, so I guess it really doesn't matter.

Maybe we should celebrate Hanukkah too, just to be fair. Do they exchange presents? If so, count me in.

Anyways, Marc woke me up this morning, and Bandit had already taken his spot in bed and had his head snuggled up against my chin. He's such a momma's boy.

Two more days...I can almost taste freedom.

So, I'm playing in this fantasy football league this year, and I had the best record at 11-2 going into the playoffs. I just lost in the first round, thanks to stupid Jake Plummer, who posted a big fat zero. And thanks to Matt Hasselbeck, who posted 20 points and would've gotten me the win, but who I benched because he'd been playing piss-poor all year.

Anyways, last night Marc and I went to visit his mom after work, since she'd had a difficult day. A funny thing Marc did - his mom has this quirk where she likes green M&Ms the best. So everytime she always separates them out and saves them for last. So Marc went and bought a couple bags of the Christmas M&Ms (which only have red and green ones) and separated out all the green ones for her. I'd never seen someone so excited about a tub full of green M&Ms.

Afterwards, we went to the mall to pick up the second half the gift we were getting for one of those giving tree gifts from my work. I had picked a boy that wanted either a 49ers fitted cap or a CD player. We just got him both.

I also went to KB Toys to look for the Talking Edna doll from The Incredibles, but to no avail. I really think she's sold out everywhere. I found a ton on eBay, so maybe I'll have to get it from there.

Also, I finally found and won a new, better overflow box for our aquarium on eBay, so hopefully after the holidays we'll get that thing back up and running. Our snails are amazingly still alive, as are a couple hermit crabs.

Four more days of work!

My brain is just completely fried right now. I can't remember what we did on Friday.

Oh yeah. We went to see Ocean's Twelve with Henry, Vicki, and Kenny. We had dinner at Fuddruckers first, and then caught a late showing of the movie. I thought it was okay. Definitely a different movie from the first. Henry and Marc didn't like it at all. I don't think it was worth $10.

Kenny stayed over at our house that night, since he didn't have a car, and we played NCAA football on the Gamecube. We played Cal versus Stanford, and Marc took over for Kenny halfway. I almost came back to this spectacular victory, but made the mistake of throwing it down the middle of the field into coverage and got picked off.

Saturday morning I dropped Kenny off at home, and went to go teach. One of my student's parents gave me a Christmas present, which was pretty nice of them.

Afterwards, I went home, had some soup for lunch, and took Bandit sheep herding. Marc and Steve were taking their mom to her new place (it's a house with about 4 other people and people to take care of them full time) at about the same time. The place is, incidentally, very close to our sheep herding place. Marc was supposed to stop by the farm afterwards, and right when Jan and I finished, a car pulled up. But it wasn't Marc, it was Steve. Marc had apparently headed straight home. Apparently Steve wasn't blind and could see my car parked there, whereas Marc somehow managed to miss the bright blue Rav4 sitting on the driveway. I think he was just lying about not seeing me there and was too lazy to stop. You think he would have at least noticed that his brother was no longer behind him.

I took a looong nap in the afternoon, and then Marc and I drove down to Newark to meet my family (my grandfather is visiting) for dinner. My cousin Mark was also in town. We went back to my parents' house after dinner for cake for my brothers' birthday.

Marc and I were bickering a little about our backyard (long story) and afterwards my mom wanted to have a talk with me. She thought I was being too hard on him. She said, "You're too much like me. Don't push him away. You have to be careful, you know, he's good looking. Not like your dad, I don't have to worry about him."

This was right in front of my dad, lol.

Sunday morning Marc and I went to Best Buy and bought a DVD recorder. We had a 10% off coupon, which we used, but later realized that we had forgotten to use a gift card that he'd gotten for his birthday, which was the whole reason he wanted to get the recorder in the first place!

I took Bandit to Petsmart afterwards, and Marc stopped by later in class so that we could take pictures with Santa after class. Bandit wasn't too fond of Santa. But the pictures didn't turn out too bad (I'll have to scan it - Melanie took a couple with our digital camera, but none of them turned out).

Afterwards, we went to visit Marc's mom, and she seemed to be in fair spirits. The place she's staying at isn't too bad. Right now she has her own room, and it's pretty big. We got her a TV, so she has her own to watch.

That was about it for the weekend. Back to doing year-end reviews and lab work. Bleh.

Okay, so in talking to Cynthia this morning, I realized that people think I do "no-brainer work" (Cynthia's words!). For which I'm partly to blame, since I gave that impression for the sake of being funny (and which Marc continues to perpetuate).

So no, contrary to popular belief, I am not just a monkey at work, lol. There is actually science involved. ;)

I was going to go into the science a bit, but then I realized everyone would probably fall asleep reading this.

Anyways, so Wednesday night when I got home, I was greeted by two VERY muddy dogs. I ended up having to give both of them baths (I thought I was going to break my back carrying Snoopy upstairs), which was pretty exhausting. The bath water was just thick with mud.

Yesterday I went over to Steve and Erin's house to hang out since it was Marc's night to stay over. Erin went out at one point to go buy diapers, so it was just us and Jacob. Jacob came over to me and said, "Auntie Bonnie, my mommy says I can play football, okay?" He was referring to a Madden football on the PS2, which he loves to play.

I know he plays too much, so I asked, "did your mommy really say you could play?" He nodded.

Wary, I said, "well, let's wait till your mommy gets home and then you can play."

"But she said I could, Auntie Bonnie."

"Let's just wait, okay?"

I asked Erin when she got home if she had said he was allowed to play. She said no.

Four year olds are manipulative!

Another funny thing he did - Marc and I were sitting at the table and Jacob came over to me and whispered in my ear, "Auntie Bonnie, I spilled Uncle Marc's water." I think he was afraid Marc was going to be mad, so he let me know instead. It was cute, considering Marc was right next to me and he didn't whisper all that quietly.

I went home and took care of the dogs (muddy paws and all). I left Snoopy outside to eat, since we have to feed them separately, and went upstairs. I later heard Bandit barking downstairs, so I thought he had to go out (this is becoming a recurring instance, I'm noticing). I went downstairs and let him out, and saw that Snoopy was lying down chewing something. It was a bone. Snoopy got up when I opened the door, and Bandit went out, went over to the bone, picked it up, and came back to the door to be let back in.

The little brat just wanted the bone because Snoopy had it.

So one dilemma Marc and I have is whether or not to put up our Christmas tree. The problem is, that with the fish tank (yes, we still have the sucker, we've just been too lazy to start it up again), we're just not sure if we have the room.

Should we try to rearrange our downstairs and squeeze in the tree, or just forget about it?

I gotta put up the lights this weekend. One more week until vacation!

Last night was Marc's turn to stay over at his brother's house, so I went over there and had dinner and hung out for a while. Erin, Marc and I spent most of our time making up our lists of celebrities that we'd put in our "Top 10." I had Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Scott Speedman, Tyson Beckford, and others. Marc had Julia Stiles, Christina Aguilera (eww) and Mariah Carey - Christmas Album version. He's got weird taste, that boy. I don't know what that says about me.

Jacob was cute, he told me he wanted to show me something, and that I had to close my eyes. So we go upstairs to the kids' bathroom, and he tells me to open my eyes. He's just standing in the bathroom beaming, and I can't figure out what he wants to show me. I'm like, "what did you want to show me?" And he grabs this new tube of toothpaste and goes, "Power Rangers!" Turns out he got a new tube of Power Ranger toothpaste.

Later, he tells me he needs to show me something else. So again I close my eyes, and we go into the kitchen. He starts rummaging through the fridge. We're there for like 5 minutes, and he's rummaging and mumbling. Finally he's like, "okay, I've got three things I can show you, but I have to go potty." And he closes the fridge door and runs to the bathroom.

I go back to watch TV, and he comes to get me again. So back to the fridge we go. A few minutes later, he tells me I can open my eyes again. And he's like, "okay, hmm, I have apple juice, cranberry juice, milk, and....that one." "That one" happened to be a bottle of Coke. Knowing he's not supposed to have soda, I say, "well, do you want apple juice, milk, or water?" And he says, "well...I have apple juice...but I also have that one." Again, he points to the Coke. We have this exchange a few times before I say, "well, you're not supposed to have soda, Jacob, so do you want apple juice or milk?" At which point he says he doesn't want anything.

Of course, a couple minutes later he asks his mom for apple juice. I guess he realized he wasn't going to be able to con Auntie Bonnie. So cute, lol.

So I got home kinda late, let the dogs (muddy and wet) inside, and went upstairs. I was on the computer when I heard Bandit bark. Snoopy was upstairs sleeping, so I figured he must have to go himself this time. I go downstairs, and he's lying on the floor. I head over to the sliding door, but he doesn't get up. So I'm like, "what the hell?" All of a sudden I hear, "meow...meow..." coming from the downstairs bathroom. Turns out I had somehow locked Stubby inside the bathroom. It was a good thing Bandit barked, because I probably would've gone to bed without knowing.

He's like the little zookeeper of the house, haha.

Dear Santa,

Well, since you screwed me out of a Rose Bowl trip (I've been a good girl all year too, dammit), I suppose I could settle for The Incredibles Talking Edna Doll. Amazon is out of stock, so I'm counting on you, Mr. Kringle.

Please leave it on the front porch, as we have a gas fireplace, and the dog will chew it up if you leave it out back.

Love,
Bonnie

So last night I found out that the Holiday Bowl was already sold out. Cal had also already sold out their allottment of tickets (I suspect from all the season ticket holders who pre-ordered with the Rose Bowl in mind, and the Rose Bowl has a much larger allottment of tickets). So we found out from craigslist.org that we could buy tickets through Texas Tech, so we picked up 6 tickets. We'll be sitting in their section, but hopefully there will be other Cal fans there to keep us company.

Road trip!

Smart Dog

The other night I discovered that Bandit will bark when Snoopy has to go outside. I was upstairs and I heard him bark (his usual thing to do when he needs to go out), and I went downstairs. He was just lying on the floor chilling, but Snoopy was standing at the sliding door doing that dance that you do when you have to pee really badly. Bandit did it again later and Snoopy had to go out again. I don't know how he knows it, but it seems like he does!

I think I'm gonna have to pick up a book on dog tricks, because he picks up on things amazingly quickly.

Look at me, gushing like an annoyingly proud mother. He is my baby though!

Not Helpful

The other day I was surfing the net, and came across this "Present Finder" or something. The idea was that you told it who you were shopping for, and what price range, and it would "sniff out" a gift for you. So I thought I'd check it out, and I used Erin (sister-in-law) as a test subject. I made my selections for person/hobby type, and price range, and it suggested....a Dremel. And that was the only suggestion. It didn't have any other ideas. Very much not helpful.

You know, maybe Christmas should be changed so that we all just buy presents for ourselves. Because I know what I want, but I hate telling people what to get me. It feels cheesy. And at the same time, it's hard to think of what other people might want. We should just all get ourselves what we want, and then we'll all be happy!

Yeah, I stole that off a sign at the Cal-So. Miss game, but it's damn fitting.

I'm so pissed I could spit. Cal goes 10-1, loses only to USC in a game in which they outplayed USC, has only one close game and tons of blowouts, is the only team ranked in the top 6 in offense and scoring defense, and we're going to...the Holiday Bowl. Worse yet, Texas stole our Rose Bowl berth. The one state that if I were God, I'd take a poop on. Except for maybe Austin. I'd leave Austin alone.

Even worse, class doesn't seem to matter in this subjective system. Mack Brown shamefully lobbied for votes; Jeff Tedford didn't and he refused to run up the score on Saturday's game. Guess shameful displays win.

"I thought it was a little classless how Coach Brown was begging for votes after the [Texas A&M] game," Rodgers said. "I think a team's record and the way you play should speak for itself, and you shouldn't have to complain about the BCS system. Coach Tedford isn't going to, although he's frustrated just like we are. I think we're a bigger team, classier than that."

Damn straight.

I was planning on going to the Rose Bowl, and I'm thinking of going to the Holiday Bowl, despite how pissed I am. I want to go out and support the team and watch them crush Texas Tech (yay, another Texas team). Texas Tech finished third in the Big 12. How's that for a matchup? Snort.

I hope we don't lose Tedford. After having Mariucci bail out on us, and having to live through the Dark Ages of Holmoe, I can't take much more as a Cal fan.

Anyways, so about my weekend.

Marc and I babysat Jacob and Allison on Friday night while Steve and Erin went to a Christmas party. I got to change my first diaper, which I thought I did wrong, but Allison didn't complain, not that she could. Jacob was really grumpy about going to bed, and it took us a while. We let him stay up a few minutes past his bedtime, before he finally went up without a fuss, and I read him a book to tuck him in.

I went to teach Saturday morning, and then Marc and I babysat again, although this time it was just Allison. Erin and Steve took Jacob to see The Polar Express. I think we're getting the hang of this babysitting thing!

I went home and watched the football game (which was nerve-wracking), and then we went to see The Incredibles again, since we wanted to see something but there wasn't much else out. Still awesome the second time around.

Sunday morning I took Bandit to Petsmart (he let a kid touch him on the nose) and then Marc and I took his mom out to lunch. The rest of the day I pretty much bummed around, played on the computer, and did laundry.

Sigh.

First, happy birthday to my brothers, who turn 23 today. Egads, that makes me feel old.

So glad it's Friday. I can't decide if this week felt like it went by slowly, or quickly. I've been really busy lately, which is good, since it helps make the days go by faster. It also helps keep my job interesting, which is a good thing, since more and more I feel like I'd really rather be doing something else. Not that I ever planned on doing this for the rest of my life anyways.

I'd love to be able to do something with dogs for a living.

Anyways, so Wednesday night Marc and I met up with Deepali, Leslie and Maynard, Vicki, and Elaine (in town for a couple weeks) for dinner at Texas Roadhouse. I think I ate like 6 or 7 dinner rolls, it was insane. I got ribeye for dinner, which was pretty yummy, although I had to send it back the first time because my steak was totally rare, and not medium rare like I had ordered.

We had a pretty good time, it was great to just chill and chat with friends. There were a couple times that I started laughing so hard I couldn't breathe. We had a little peanut shell throwing fight, and I nailed Leslie right between the eyes. To add insult to injury, the shell then landed in her water. Brilliant!

Good times, haha.

Yesterday I met Cynthia for lunch. We went to a pho place on Castro which is pretty good. She gave me Marc's birthday present, which was the first two seasons of Seinfeld on DVD. I think he liked it more than my present! ;)

Marc and I went to Newpark after work, because I had to pick up some presents for my tutoring kids at the Sanrio store. That shit is expensive. $3.75 for a freaking pen!

We were supposed to have dinner with my parents and my brothers too for my brothers' birthdays, but my mom couldn't reach Leslie, so she told me we probably wouldn't do dinner. So of course, 5 minutes after Marc and I grabbed some dinner at the mall my dad calls to say they're ready to go to dinner.

We spent the rest of the night catching up on TV on our TiVo. "Lost" was freaking awesome. I was totally freaked out. I love this show! We also watched "The Apprentice." I'm glad Ivana got kicked off and not Kevin. But I do wish Jen M. would get kicked off, I can't stand her. It was so funny how Sandy kept gushing about her during the whole thing, it really IS like the project manager always gets enamored with Jen. Maybe she really is that good? I dunno, she still strikes me as dumb.

They totally sold more because they were two cute blondes. I mean, who the hell is going to spend $5 on a chocolate bar for the chocolate? Kevin and Kelly should've worn muscle shirts or something, I would've paid them $5. ;)

I was reading Deepali's blog this morning, and there was a link to an article about a report that lists Berkeley as the #2 university in the world. Harvard was #1, Stanford #7. Pretty damn cool.

I didn't bring lunch today. What should I have? Suggestions?

Holy crap it's cold. I can't believe it's getting below freezing at night. There's frost on the fields along 680 when I'm driving in the morning.

So last night I took Bandit to agility, and we had a pretty good time, except that his fear issues with the teeter seem to be back, so we're going to have to work on that one a lot. I'm really starting to believe in the effectiveness of clicker training too (not that I doubted it, just never used it much) - he picks up on things really quickly with it.

For dinner I stopped by the A&W on the way home and got a root beer float, cheese fries, and a hot dog. I really gotta stop eating like this.

Marc wasn't home, so I just played World of Warcraft for a while. Then the servers went down, so I went to Wal-Mart (Bandit came along for the ride) and picked up the first of my Christmas presents (which already puts me ahead of past years) and started working on that before finally going to bed.

Is it vacation yet?