25 things about yourself (2009)

facebook recently changed it's layout and somewhere on my page a "Note" that i had written in February 2009 popped up. hidden away in the archives was one of those chain things where if you are tagged, you complete the survey and tag more people. this one in particular just asked that you write 25 random things about yourself. i vaguely remember writing this years ago so it was fun to go back in time a little bit and compare what my thoughts were back then vs. today. reading through it four years later, all but one fact still stands to be true. interesting, Regina....verrrry interesting.

1. sometimes i think i'm the most boring person and i bring nothing to the table 

2. sometimes i think i'm crazy awesome, in the most unconceited way...if you can imagine that 

3. i loved my old dog, Shortie, so much so that part of the reason i opted not to apply to a school away from home was because i'd miss him too much. 

4. i don't have checks, which makes me being an adult kind of difficult    so have checks now!! still don't quite feel like an adult though. 

5. some days i obsess about caloric intake and other days i gives a shit about it and can probably out eat most people i know 

6. i love to take photos and think i'm decent at it, but am completely too lazy to figure out photoshop or how to properly use any function on my brand new spiffy awesome camera. it's about angles and simplicity for me. 

7. i am mediocre in all aspects of life. i stay the middle ground. it makes life easier and keeps me grounded. 

8. my mom is the person who i most admire and i aim to be quite like her. 

9. i live by "it's never what a person said or did in their life, the only thing you remember about them is how they made you feel." 

10. i don't care for football, however "dun dun dun duuuuu....duh duh duh duh duuuuuhh" was the one song i thoroughly remember from my childhood. you know, the song from the NFL at the beginning of games. 

11. i love food so much that if a piece of delicious food drops onto a not-so-cleanly table i'll pick it up, put it on the side of my plate as if i'm not going to eat it and then eat it anyway when nobody is looking. 

12. i'm not the most friendly person, but i'm a good friend. 

13. i can't stray away from honestly. it's a blessing and a curse. 

14. i am ecstatic about the career path i've chosen, especially in this economy where most feel unstable about their positions. x-ray, you've done me well. 

15. i want to own a rent-a-dog shop. someone already stole my idea, bitches! 

16. is always, ALWAYS early or on time. it's considerate! you should probably think about that. 

17. right handed but swings like a lefty (golf/baseball....and i would skate and snowboard goofy too) 

18. thinks all the exercise she's done in the past few years has ruined her back and posture more than helped. 

19. used to be a fat kid, and remains one in her heart/mind 

20. doesn't waste her time on bullshit in any form if possible. 

21. likes to be spontaneous, but only when i'm sound and everything is done and i've got nothing to worry about. does that make any sense?? it does in my world. 

22. hated santa claus for a while because when i heard "i saw mommy kissing santa claus" for the first time i thought santa was a bastard. 

23. would rather eat a beetle than lick any portion of a foot. 

24. sleeps in livingroom if a spider is present and dominating my room 

25. sings annoyingly in the car, so much so that i laugh at myself often and then drive with a smile on my face for miles.

a late post on Chris' dirty thirty

oops, this is a slightly overdue post...

a Vegas weekend with friends is a solid way to spend your thirtieth birthday, i would say. throw in some PAC tournament basketball and St. Patty's Day celebrating and it's an especially awesome birthday weekend. well, for him anyway. i couldn't care less about basketball but maybe if i keep hanging around this guy i won't have a choice but to start paying attention to games and rooting for his team. i suppose i don't mind that though. anyhow, i spent two and a half full days in Vegas (him, three!) and if you've ever taken on Vegas full force, you know that that's much more time than the average person should be there. it's a fun albeit exhausting city and i surely cannot handle more than two consecutive nights of drinking. for those of you who day and night drink, i do not know how you aren't on the floor in fetal position whilst awaiting your flight back home. 

yay! 

we went to see David Guetta at XS friday night. i'm not a big fan of dance music. i just don't get it... so actually attempting to dance to those beats is nearly impossible for me. throwing my fist up in the air is about as far as i got to staying in sync with the music. nonetheless, it was a good first night in Vegas. 

saturday brunch at the Bellagio. not the greatest. not terrible, but i feel like the Bellagio should hold itself to higher standards. still, i ate until i wanted to die.

lazy river time at MGM. i was too lazy to even get in the river. 

saturday night/Chris' actual birthday was much more enjoyable dance-wise due to hip hop at Tryst. that's what i gets down with for dancing purposes. some actual beats. yes, please! fun ensued!

sunday (St. Patty's Day) turned into a hunt for green beer. i assumed that in a place full of tourism, green beer would be abundant and flowing from every bar but this isn't the case. after basically giving up, i spied with my little eye what appeared to be a beverage of the beer variety that looked like it might have some food coloring in it! after confirming with the gentleman holding the drink that it was indeed a green beer, we finally found our way to a proper St. Patty's celebratory drink at a restaurant called America. ha!! 

and that was the end of a birthday well spent. Happy 30th!!!

Alcatraz Night Tour / National Corn Dog Day

does anybody know why tourist attractions even bother trying to sell these photos anymore? i'm pretty sure most people whip out their cell phones and take a picture of the picture, saving themselves $22. they're really wasting a lot of natural resources with all of the unpurchased photos.

so, the awesome guy you see pictured above leaves me for eight long months to work in Beijing. before doing so, we thought it might be a good idea to make a "Before Beijing Bucketlist" full of fun activities in order to not get bored with each other. just kidding guuuyyss! i couldn't get bored with this character of a person. we crossed off one of those activities last night when we went on the Alcatraz Night Tour. yep! we put our tourist hats on and checked out The Rock. if you haven't been in a while or have never been, this is a good way to go about it. the crowd is less than that of the daytime trips and at night you get to see the span of the Bay Bridge (with it's new LED light show! so awesome!) and the city skyline in it's entirety. seriously, even if you're not interested in seeing Alcatraz itself, it's worth it just to go to see that view and all of the twinkling lights on a clear night. but the partial guided, partial audio tour of Alcatraz is a pretty awesome thing to do at least once anyway. 

leaving the dock around 630pm

Le Rock

i heart SF so hard! 

sunset from Alcatraz

creeeeepy! i don't know what it is about cracked and peeling paint, but it creeps me the f*ck out! this was somewhere in the hospital portion of prison

operating room of the prison

hmmm you can't really tell but this is the x-ray room. as an x-ray tech, it was necessary for me to take a picture in it. 

aaaaahh pictures (especially from a cell phone) do this view no justice.

_______________________________________

today is National Corndog Day. i'm not even kidding. it's a legit thing, folks! so Soma Streat Food Park honored the day with various trucks serving up their normal food as well as corndogs or corndog inspired things. between the two of us we shared a bacon wrapped corndog, hotlink corndog, chicken apple sausage corndog, and some tater tots. it doesn't sound like it would be enough to make you feel like you literally had a brick in your abdomen, but i assure you it does. still, that didn't stop me from heading to Mr. & Mrs. Miscellaneous for some ice cream to round out an incredibly gluttonous saturday. 

Haven

Haven is a great date night restaurant if you're ever in Oakland. contemporary with a somewhat industrial look. the best way to describe the food is earthy in flavor profile as well as visually. if you take a look at the pictures below you'll notice all of the food is made up of varying shades of brown and green. the service we received was excellent as well. though we walked in twenty minutes before closing time, the staff was still friendly and accommodating. having worked in a restaurant as a server, i know how frustrating it is to think your shift is ending with tables all cleared, only to have a two top (table of two) walk in, holding you up for another hour or so. the server never showed signs of rushing us out or irritation about having to take care of the only remaining table of patrons in the restaurant at 10pm. bonus points for that!

bone marrow served with parker house rolls

the marrow was cooked with some curry flavors along with melted onions and turnips. the curry and onions surprisingly went very well with the marrow and the turnips helped to cut the richness a bit. 

gnocchi with braised oxtail and smoked ricotta

the gnocchi was good but it's really hard to wow me with the texture of gnocchi in general. the oxtail was super flavorful and tender.

trout cooked on cedar with celery and potatoes

the fish was cooked nicely, though i'd prefer the skin to have more of a crisp to them. i don't typically prefer celery flavors or mustard seed flavors so this dish was just okay for me.

"i love you and i like you"

"i love you and i like you" -Leslie Knope and Ben Wyatt (in their wedding vows), Parks and Recreation

you like someone.
you eventually grow to love that someone.
you still love that someone but you've fallen out of like.

in a relationship, the more time you spend with someone increases the probability that you love them. well, i would hope so anyway. if you don't see yourself in a situation where love is in the future, then you should probably get the eff out, right? you slowly learn their ins and outs, you know them better than they know themselves and you care a lot about them. but sometimes people stop caring for them. love lingers, but you don't necessarily like them anymore. does this make sense? i see a lot of people get comfortable in relationships and stay in them because they're scared of change or can't see that they're unhappy. or they love them. sure, you love them. but are you happy? do you even like the person anymore? or do you stick around because you just care about them?

"i love you and i like you" is equivalent of the saying "i love you and i'm in love with you." loving someone is great. but if you're going to spend the rest of your life with that person, being in love with them is just as important. yes, the butterflies might go away but you should still prefer to do/plan activities with that person, be attracted to that person (this doesn't necessarily mean superficially, folks), and that person should continue to stimulate you. whether it's in conversation, humor, or you see something in them that makes you want to be a better you. it could be anything so long as it keeps you in love or in like. and it's pretty f*cking important, i think. so please do yourself a favor and don't settle. i promise you i won't!

with that said, i wish you all luck and i hope that you find someone you can love and can be in love with.

chain of kindness

i got a call from my friend, Kim, today. she told me that she wanted to share an awesome happening that had just occurred. she was at Target and stepped away from her cart for a moment. when she came back she found an envelope in the cart that said "open me." inside there was a gift card for $25 written out "to: You   from: Your Caring Neighbor" and a card that read "Dear Neighbor, We hope this small gift helps brighten your day! Enjoy!"

how fucking awesome is that? *picture me with arms spread out as wide as possible* this awesome!! except it's even more awesome than that. multiply the distance at which my pictured arms are spread by infinity and there you have it. it's infinitely awesome! aaahh how refreshing. a simple act of kindness for no reason other than to make someone else smile! in a world full of pettiness and selfishness, little things like this really help to restore faith in humanity. and what makes this even better is that there's no face to associate the gesture with. the person/people who wanted to spread a little love into the world didn't even need any acknowledgement. i'll bet that from afar they watched Kim open that gift and to see a smile on her face was just enough to make them feel accomplished. it's a win, win. i'm sure that in that moment all parties involved felt a warmth in their hearts.

after Kim got the gift card she felt like she, too, should do something nice for someone. share the kindness, right? pass it along. so that's what she did. she saw a woman with two children in line and figured that they could use the $25 more than she could. Kim explained how she obtained the gift card in the first place and the woman was really grateful for being chosen next in the chain of good deeds. it would be amazing if that woman then did something nice for someone else and then that person did something similar. the chain of goodness would amass many links. but y'know, even if that specific chain stopped at that woman, the story lives on and hopefully it'll inspire more people to just acknowledge others and maybe do something nice for a stranger every so often.

Kim told me about this immediately after leaving Target because she knew i'd love the story. she also knew i'd write a blog post about it (ha! she was right!) and that it would reach just a few more people.  after hearing about her experience it definitely made me want to do something nice for a stranger. tomorrow i'll start a chain of kindness and hopefully it'll put smiles on faces. maybe you should too! it doesn't have to be monetary. it could be something as simple as making sure an elderly person crosses a busy intersection safely or cracking an appropriate (and hopefully actually funny) joke with a stranger. just a small gesture to make someone else feel good for just a moment in time is worth one small moment of your time, right? share happiness!