Ronnie: OMG WOULD YOU RATHER SAVE MY LIFE OR YOUR CURRENT BOYFRIEND'S LIFE?! I've been meaning to ask you this for weeks but I keep forgetting! Me: hahahahah cant i save both?
Ronnie: you can
but you'd have to lose all your memories
and chop off your hair like a british man9:22 AM
i mean you could refall in love with your boyfriend again!
and anne hathaway won an oscar!
so it could be a decent tradeoff
Me: haha
okay!
i'll do that!
that sounds like a win-win-win!
and then i could pay for all 3 of us to live together like threes company!
Each summer our office has a staff retreat to disengage from the hamster wheel (as my boss puts it) reconnect, renew, and prepare for the next academic year to come. Last year we had it at the UCR Botanic Gardens, which was fun, especially because we had a scavenger hunt, and this year they really stepped it up a notch by having it at the Mission Inn.
The day always starts with our boss treating us to Starbucks (can you say venti?) then we drove down to the Mission Inn for the day. Aside from goal setting, reflection, strategizing and encouragement, we also played games, watched a documentary, had lunch at the Mission Inn Restaurant, and got to take a tour of the Mission Inn, which I had never done, and learned a lot! (Did you know the 8 stained glass windows in the chapel are straight from Mr. Tiffany of Tiffany's & Co. himself?)
I can't get this to go vertical, but that's a glockenspiel at the top
Here's the staff ascending the rotunda to our conference room. Our boss at the top, followed by all her little ducklings, me first (remember I'm blonde now?)
I was exhausted by the end of the day but it really makes me appreciate my job and love my boss and the staff a little more. And it helped me to remember why I love this job (the students!)
This past weekend was the wedding of my friend Palak to her fiance Neil. They have quite the cross-country story. They met while he was living in New York, she in DC, while she's from San Francisco, and he's from Pittsburgh, and now they live in Chicago. So it was a big production getting everyone to her wedding.
I left on Thursday in order to make it there for the mehndi celebration. (It was also Palak's birthday that day!) We went out to celebrate afterwards at the super classy Buffalo Wild Wings establishment, and stayed up practicing the dance routines (well, some of us fell asleep).
In the morning, Ankita made pancakes and then we went to Palak's for the pooja ceremony, and from there, Neil's entourage arrived with the chaat presented to Palak. It was just so neat to witness all of it. We checked into the hotel that night and the girls still had lots of preparation.
Saturday morning for the wedding was an EARLY day (hair started at 5:30a) and we had to have the aunties drape the saris, so I got draped around 7:30a and then didn't have much to do until the lunch at 11a. After lunch was the baraat, which is the groom's procession in. He rode in on a ferrari with DJ Tanveer spinning and everyone dancing and going crazy and with the groomsmen getting on shoulders.
They meet up with the bride's family and do some ceremonial rituals and then everyone (grooms side and brides side) all walk to the ceremony altar together.
The ceremony was long and it was hot. They passed out paper plates for people to fan themselves with, but it was beautiful and really neat to watch.
After that was a short break (we practiced dances and ordered pizza and set up some table stuff downstairs) and then the reception... with an open bar!
After speeches and toasts, lots of combinations of the wedding parties went up to dance for the bride and groom, which was awesome, and after the floor was open, it was packed to the brim the ENTIRE time, all generations. It was really fun. Sri had just seen the Taylor Swift concert in SF the night before and was on a Taylor Swift high and kept wanting to request her songs but wanted to make me do it and I refused haha.
At the end, the groomsmen passed out hats and we all thought they were just Golden State Warriors hats, which was weird... then we realized they said "Palak & Neil 08.15.15" on them, so that was pretty sweet. When the place had to close down at midnight, we took our party into the hotel lobby bar, until that closed at 2. It was long, but super fun, and given that neither side had really met the other, everyone was so fun. I had to get up at 7 to check out and get to the Bart station to make it to Oakland. My flight to Ontario was delayed but a flight to Orange County was leaving then and I was able to just jump on that, which worked out perfectly since AJ picked me up and then came to my grandmas and got to meet Dorothea in the flesh and my favorite aunts haha!
It was beautiful being able to be at Palak's wedding, and I remembered her from college, and from our times in NYC and her apartment in Maryland together, and all of us long talks and relaxing trips and just thinking about her getting here, it was just sweet and I was happy to be there for it, and so happy for Palak.
I more or less spent the entire weekend at the beach, and it was fabulous because I think I got a good tan out of it.
There had been nothing planned for the weekend at all, and I was looking forward to nothing to do because my weekends are about to heat up with weddings and vacations and holidays soon, but I woke up to a text from my boyfriend asking if I wanted to go to Hermosa Beach like, right now, and to bring clothes to stay out there.
One of his friends lives right ON the beach. I don't mean the strand. I mean the apartment building is built lengthwise onto the sand, on the border of Redondo and Hermosa. It was a large get together, but really fun. We played 4 games of sand volleyball (my team won woop woop), there were drinks and food and boci ball and swimming and then we went to the apartment complex's pool and ordered pizza and spent the evening playing King's Cup and Jenga. AJ and I left to go spend the night at his mom's in Hermosa.
She is fostering some Maltese dogs, and one particularly derpy rescue was just so darn cute, here it is cuddling between me and AJ.
We were exhausted from the beach day and crashed early, so we even got up early the next morning, had breakfast on the patio, took all the dogs for a walk (I got to walk the derpy one), hung out for awhile with bloody Mary's with AJ's mom, and then AJ and I went down to the sand and went swimming for awhile. I hadn't been in the ocean in so long, it was so fun!
After that we went with AJ's mom to the Hermosa Beach Summer Concerts Series outdoor on the sand, and it was fun, but this band was from New Orleans and couldn't stop talking about being in California, I lost track of how many times he had to remind us (himself?) that we were in the "beautiful state of California on the beach". We got it, guy. I thought the band was called Cowboy Mouth. AJ thought they were called Cowboy Mouse. I said maybe they are called Cowboy Mouse but the singer has a lisp. We never did find out.
We went back and AJ grilled steaks and we had dinner outside on the beach patio. We went in to clean up AJ and I went to our room to pack up, and came back out to the kitchen to find his dog Anana had gotten the remaining 3 steaks off the counter and eaten them all. It was a sad end to the weekend, but I did come back to my little kitty.
I'm still waiting for summer to start but here it is August already. It never really feels like summer when you have to work! Plus, all my vacation days will be this month, so I had to go hard in June and July.
Anywaysssss this weekend was quite pleasant. On Friday after work I went to the gym and then had to go to Target to get mimosa juice for my cousin's bridal shower. An hour later I emerged with new sandals, a dress to wear for the shower, cat food, and shampoo... and later realized I forgot the juice. So then I went back to Target for the juice. After I dropped that off, I walked to Woodfire Cafe, a newish pizza place in downtown Riverside. It was perfect weather, and I had a book and sat with pizza and a beer reading for over an hour. The owner even came over and gave me a free brown butter and sea salt cookie. He probably felt bad for me thinking I was alone on a Friday night, which I was, but I didn't care. But hey, I'll take the free dessert!
Saturday was my cousin's bridal shower which had been a long time coming, what with the preparations and everything. I was glad it was finally here, and everything looked so beautiful! And it was a fun time with my family and catered tacos and micheladas mmmm...
On Sunday, AJ and I went out to LA to his friend's apartment with his other friends and then walked down a dusty hill and into the Dodgers/Angels game. It was fun but it was HOT. And our seats never got any shade, so I ended up with a nasty shorts and sandals tanline burns. It was also a shame that it went into extra innings just for the Dodgers to still win. As a Giants fan I have to hate the Dodgers winning. AJ said he wouldn't be seen with me if I wore my Giants jersey, so I refrained, and wore red shorts to be supportive, but that was the most I would do.
AJ looking kute on his friend's balcony
Our "it's too damn hot to even smile" photo
3 Angels fan, a Dodgers fan... and me
I meant to take a "nap" when i got home but I was down for the count. And it was really hard to wake up to a Monday.
