Behind the Smile

On January 2, mere hours after I'd driven 360 miles home from LA, I came down with a bad cold, and as of today (January 31st), I've still got it! UGH.

I haven't been sick in ages. I had some quick-moving virus thing in November when I had a fever during our last week of budgets, but I managed to get better pretty quick from that (3 days, I think). The spring of 2011 I was sick for months, though, so I guess I'm about due. I remember after Jason died, after being healthy for so long (because if we gave him a cold, it could have turned into pneumonia and killed him), my immune system went totally kaput and I was basically sick from January through April that year, culminating in a fabulous three week flu and I haven't been that sick since. 

However, I'm finally on the mend after a full month of being sick – I had two colds, back to back, and am halfway through my second bottle of Nyquil. HURRAY. My favorite part of this whole thing was A) coughing so much/hard I threw up and B) just when I thought I was getting better from the first cold (two weeks ago) I came down with a fever and vertigo and missed a day of work with the onset of the second cold. HURRAY. 

Anyway, that is pretty much the reason why I haven't been good at updating this here blog, as I wanted to update at least once a week, but man, I've been pretty out of it. I mean, I've been so out of it that I haven't even seen the Hobbit yet. 

And that is just sad. 

But anyway, so before I got sick (or, haha, while I was getting sick) I was down in LA for New Years with Sarah, Bill, Sam, Malvina, and Bill's friends Dana and Jimmy. We had a delicious spread of appetizers and played an epic game of Cards Against Humanity (like Apples to Apples for horrible depraved people… it's pretty much AMAZING and hilarious)

(You motherfucking sorcerers!)

and I also made a trip down into HOLLYWOOD where I never go when I'm down there but I heard about this huge Walgreens that opened up at Sunset and Vine where a Borders used to be and I was like, let's go there! So Malvina and Sam tagged along for this trip and Malvina and I spent some time looking at the high end products they have there in the special Look Boutique or whatever and we also indulged at the juice bar and took a look at the froyo counter and sushi bar.

It's a pretty amazing Walgreen's, is what I'm saying. They're supposed to be opening up a similar flagship store in my neck of the woods (San Francisco) this year around summer time so maybe I'll have to make a special trip over there and also check out the Fluevog store and actually buy something this time.

Anyway, so then I went home, got sick, was sick for the rest of my vacation and most of the next week till I finally felt better enough to join Sarah at EJ Phairs in Concord for a cover band fronted by one of her choir buddies from high school. I am definitely sure that kid did not remember me from high school, but whatever. It was a nice evening hanging out with Sarah and another friend, Kirsten, sans kids. Sarah doesn't get up here that often so it's nice to see her any time she does manage to make it to the Bay. 

That following Wednesday I got Round 2 of the cold/flu. I woke up around 6 am and was extremely hot and sweaty, and considering my house is like 61 degrees at night, this was not good. When I tried to get up, I had a terrible case of vertigo and could barely make it down the hall to the den, where I logged into my work email and was like, "um… not coming in today, I am sick and can't even walk let alone drive." Back to bed for me until noon, till I dragged myself back into the den for an afternoon of crime shows, which would have been more fun if I didn't have that epic vertigo! Suck! Made it back into the office the next day, but man, I was pretty wiped. 

That weekend I managed to make it out to the reservoir with my dad for a walk (our slowest walk ever, haha!), and he disinvited me to Sunday dinner, based upon the amount of coughing I was doing and the presence of my grandma. It was actually pretty funny the way he said it. He was all, "Were you coming to dinner because… I'm disinviting you." LOL I love my dad. 

Anyway, so that worked out fine (I was not planning on going to dinner anyway) and Malvina came over to bring my sickly self some coffee and we had a nice afternoon just hanging out (and me coughing).  The following week I managed to get through and start feeling better, and last weekend I finally felt good enough to run around and do some errands (err, drive 25 miles to the Brentwood Ulta) and we went to the reservoir again and made better time (not hard considering the crazy long time we did the week before, hah), and I did manage to get to my parents' house for dinner, yay!

So, that's what's been going on with me. It's been a frustrating month to say the least! Can't wait till I'm back at 100%, right now I would say I'm at 80%, which actually is doing not too bad. I wish I had more to report, but this has been a boring month in terms of doing anything! This weekend we finally booked a tea with Malvina and Katie so we're doing that on Saturday and also hitting Ulta in Dublin. 

Ending on a sad note, my cousin R died on Monday and we have the viewing tomorrow night. He wasn't very old, and I didn't see him very often, but he was a good guy and I'm going to miss him. 

I hope you all have been having a nice holiday season. I’ve been pretty much going non stop in December since our office has a lot of parties and I’ve had my yearly MOJITO overindulgence (always lovely to stay to the very end of an outing when you have had too many mojitos, haha!) – there’s this restaurant in Walnut Creek called Havana and it has amazing Cuban food and super delicious mojitos. HIGHLY recommended, and I think I will probably organize an outing there for my birthday next year. Crab cakes, cuban sandwiches and mojitos! A great way to ring in the big 33, yeah? Heh.

So, since I haven’t really posted since the beginning of November, I thought I would update on Operation Home Improvement Dammit. Updates in red:

1. Clear out second closet completely, bins, dresses, paint, foam bed thing, everything. Actually unpack bins and put things away and/or get rid of stuff. DONE
2. Move filing cabinet from big closet to second closet. Decided not to do this, it’s fine in the big closet.
3. Install shelving into second closet so it can be a linen closet (which I don’t have – my linens live piled in a cardboard box, as they have since 2009. Oops. For someone who has a generous amount of sheet sets and towels, this is vaguely embarrassing. DONE. Installed gorgeous Algots from Ikea, which fit all my stuff with a drawer to spare and put Melmers on top for the nail polish collection. It’s literally my favorite place in the house right now.
4. Get massive Star Wars collection out of the den and into the big closet, where the filing cabinet was. My Star Wars crap is stored in two very large bins under the bar section of my kitchen counter (on the den side). I want to get at least one bar stool to place there instead. DONE – Star Wars bins are in the small closet. Didn’t get a bar stool yet, still pondering that one.
5. Clean out old clothes/shoes, stored clothes at bottom of the big closet, and donate to the Richmond Rescue Mission. Mostly done – need to go through my shoes, but I have a big bag of clothes in my car to be taken down to Teen Challenge on Saturday.
6. Move shoe bin of shoes I actually wear to big closet instead of under vanity. DONE
7. See if I can get purple luggage set into either big or second closet OR store outside in the shed. NOPE
8. Move paint to shed. NOPE, but I did put some it in the china hutch, haha
9. Clear off vanity of clothes thrown on it and chair, move makeup train case to vanity from bathroom and maybe get a Melmer from Michael’s to hold the nail polishes. Also get a 5x magnifying mirror for the space and move some of the other makeup crap from the bathroom to the vanity. DONE. Vanity is cleared off and Melmers installed in closet. And Abby got me a magnifying mirror for Christmas!
10. Clear out vanity drawers (I don’t think there’s too much stuff in them) NOPE, in fact I crammed more stuff in them right before Christmas Eve.
11. Cull books and donate to WC Library foundation for fundraisers. Did a little of this, but I decided that more needs to be done. My dad picked up a box full of books earlier this month.
12. Straighten up living room and get cow horns up on the wall (not sure how to attach, need to check 3M products if they have a narrow hook to hang it – can’t really use a nail because the area where I want to hang it is right behind the stove vent and power outlets above the microwave in the kitchen) DONE
13. Move old computers and Harry Potter Legos from the living room into now-organized closets. Harry Potter Legos might go into the craft room closet, but that is another disaster for another day. Moved Harry Potter Legos but didn’t get around to moving the computers.
14. Unpack new dishes and pots and get them into rotation – clean out old dishes and pots and donate to the foster kid program (for kids who age out of the foster care system and don’t really have anything to start out with – a program I hugely support! I think these kids are often forgotten about in the grand scheme of society.) NOPE
15. Move sconces from foyer to flank college diploma over bookshelf. I ordered a large print to hang in the foyer that I’ve been wanting. NOPE, mostly because I didn’t get around to moving the computers, which hamper access to the wall. Oh well. I did get the print up under the cow horns though.
16. Replace pinch pleat curtain hooks – the hooks have disintegrated and I need to reinstall new hooks along the rod and rehang the curtains. I’m pretty peeved about this because I feel like I JUST replaced the one set, but what are you going to do? The sliders are plastic and don’t cost very much. I did one set of curtains but I still need to do another one, and to be honest, until these totally fall off, it’s not going to happen because changing out pinch pleat sliders SUCKS SO MUCH.

So, in conclusion, all the big projects got done! I’m super proud of myself for buckling down and getting the closet cleaned out and organized. So thrilled with the closet in fact that sometime next year I’m going to tackle the studio closet which has been a disaster from day one. Those Algots are great and I think they could be good in the studio but I have to measure in there – not sure if the closets are the same size or what. Also I don’t think I need the same size Algots, I think I can get the smaller/lower ones.

***

The first weekend in December Abby and I went to see the Lion King at the Orpheum in San Francisco. It was really pretty amazing! As we all know, I am NOT a theatre person (for the most part, I truly dislike going to the theatre, not sure why, but I find it extremely tedious) so when I do go, I hope it’s very special. Most of the time it’s not and I can’t say that I liked the one Cirque du Soleil show I’ve been to, but I was relieved that I enjoyed the Lion King. The costumes and animal devices were really cool. I was a little thrown by the Timon costume/puppet but once you got past it, it was fine.

We went to high tea again with the Nice Family ladies on Dec 15, this time at a place in Lafayette, and it was good but not as good as Lovejoy’s in San Francisco (though I think we started with the best and every other place will be compared slightly unfavorably, hah). Our group was loud and scared away the other group in the room. Sorry ladies! But not really.

Christmas Eve was at my house again and it went really well. I get pretty stressed when people come over, especially so many of them. But everything was fine and nothing got broken like last year, and it was nice to hang out with my cousins – and we finally met two of the girlfriends. Christmas Day was at my uncle’s house and my cousin was there with her baby, who is pretty adorable – at that smiley, giggly stage and scooting around, putting everything he can reach in his mouth. Aw, babies!

I’m off for the full week of New Years, but I was back at work after Christmas. I’ll be heading down to LA for New Years Eve, then back up to the Bay for the rest of the week, just to relax and hang out at home. I *might* go to the Hobby Lobby in Stockton but honestly I don’t know if I’ll want to do any more driving around after going to LA and back. I want to go to the big new flagship Walgreens in Hollywood while I’m there (they have INGLOT there!) – hopefully with Sarah but if not (based on number of children she has with her that day), I’ll go by myself, and see if my cousin Alex is around and grab some coffee or something with him. He lives in Venice Beach so it’s not totally out of the realm of possibility. Also he yelled at me the last time I was in LA and didn’t tell him, heh.