California Lockdown

What a time to be alive!

It feels like absolutely nothing is going on, but I guess I'd be doing myself a disservice not documenting this crazy time in our society.

The most frustrating thing has been how fast everything has been changing; policies are double-downed on within hours of being made. For instance, at my work it became: reduced in-office hours for spring quarter. Then it became working remote all of spring quarter, starting at the end of winter quarter. With that in place, this week they announced that we would need to be working remote after this week. Then by the end of the day they said no one should come back if they could help it. By Tuesday they said the building would be locked on Friday at 5p and by Tuesday afternoon they said nevermind, we're locking it at 5p today. It's been really annoying.

Travel, both domestically and internationally, was suspended through May 31, which sucked since I had a trip booked to Central Asia but didn't make much of a difference anyway considering flights are canceled and most countries are completely closing their borders.

Our city/county quarantines getting upped more every day, and as of yesterday the whole state is on lockdown. It's definitely a new and weird situation, but the fact that we're all in it together (and I mean ALL), it actually makes it less weird somehow. It's been nice seeing the community rally and come together though: Internet being offered for free to students, gyms offering free virtual workout sessions, John Legend performing songs live virtually. It's nice.

Of course on the other hand are all the assholes who aren't treating it like an actual quarantine and are still getting out there. Yesterday, AJ and I drove to his coworkers house so I could get something notorized, and I couldn't believe my eyes: I hadn't left the house since Monday afternoon when I got home from work except to walk the dog, and yet it looked like a completely normal day. So many cars on the road, shopping plaza parking lots full, office buildings still operational (and no, they weren't hospitals). It was making me so angry. I saw a great meme today that encompassed the feelings: CAN EVERYONE PLEASE JUST STAY HOME FOR 14 DAYS SO WE CAN GET PAST THIS? I FEEL LIKE A KINDERGARTNER WHO KEEPS GETTING RECESS MINUTES TAKING AWAY BECAUSE A FEW KIDS CAN'T FOLLOW THE RULES.

So far, I've had enough work and things to do around the house that have kept me busy and mentally stimulated, so that's been good and I'm just trying to take it one day at a time, because thinking about how this is going to last for AT LEAST two weeks, cause man, that's a lot. I've been working on integrating small physical breaks into my day and that's been working really well because I've been able to rotate out walking Anana, going on the treadmill, doing YouTube videos of yoga and playing my Just Dance 2020 game (the best!)

I know we'll all come out the other side okay just like we have with every other global situation, but being stuck in the middle of it and not knowing how long it's going to last is the stressful, frustrating part. But man, if any generation could do this, we could! FaceTime, Google Hangout, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Petcube, Facebook Live, Instagram, Twitter... we're literally as connected as we can be without coming into contact with one another. It almost feels wrong to bitch about it.

Fun fact: Jayna, who grew up in Germany, mentioned how everyone had to stay indoors after Chernobyl and while she doesn't really remember it, it was a big deal that her mom tells her about now, and this will eventually be the thing she tells Annika about that was a big deal that she is too young to even remember. It really will come to define our generation... I mean shit, 9/11 was almost 20 years ago now! I guess we've been overdue for another generational milestone.

Here's to getting through this together, sooner rather than later!

Birthday Things!

Well, my 34th birthday was obviously one for the books - quarantined away while all our plans kept getting canceled over and over again! But, I was lucky I had AJ to make it great for me.

My first order of business was a birthday donut! We saddled up Nannerz and walked to the corner to get some for breakfast. The grocery store there had a line into the parking lot... turns out they were only letting in 5 customers at a time, which actually made the line seem not that bad and I'm sure the actual shopping experience was that much more pleasant.

AJ went in while I waited outside with Nannerz

Mmmm sprinkle donut - tasted amazing cause it was zero
calories cause it was my birthday

I spent a lot of time on the couch with my coffee answering all the nice birthday messages I was getting - what a way to relax :)

AJ gave me my birthday present... ready for this? You might remember that Lithuania is known for all of their amber. It's a big commodity. For Valentine's Day, AJ and I were on our birthday trip and he gifted me an amber ring that he had gotten in Lithuania for me. For my birthday - he presented me with a hefty matching amber necklace!

It's big and chunky - I said it reminded me of the Heart of the Ocean, but this is the Heart of Lithuania. Kathleen said maybe for Christmas I would get an amber tiara (my God, could I be so lucky?!)

I love seeing my birthday everywhere, so here were some screenshots of my special day, including the (depressing) headlines - oh joy!

I told AJ in no uncertain terms that I would not be doing any dishes today, and they better not just sit there for me to do the next day. See what a little light threatening can do?? :D

My mom came over for a little bit, and we celebrated...

And that evening AJ and I went to dinner. I got to choose the place and Restaurant Week was still going on, so we went to this bomb-diggity Mexican place in San Juan Capistrano - seriously - bomb diggity. Sol Agave, and I had this jalapeno cream soup, and pollo serrano and AJ had seafood enchiladas and for dessert we had churros and butter cake with vanilla ice cream.

And then, on the way home, we stopped off for AJ to pick up my other birthday gift - the Just Dance game for Nintendo Switch! SO. EXCITED. I started playing it at home and it is quite the workout (especially still doing it in heeled boots like I was doing).

It was a nice birthday, and now I'd just like all this COVID-19 stuff to be over with plz.

Vegas Baby 2020

It's that time of year again - albeit a little earlier than usual - for Vegas Baby! For some reason the Mountain West Conference was moved up a week, so it was the weekend before my birthday in the end, but I'm fine with that (is this what growing up feels like?)

So, in all honesty, having done Vegas so often, it seemed most of us were just like, okay, we can make a quick trip out of it for the weekend, and flew in late Friday night and left Sunday afternoon/evening. And yet, the weekend was SO MUCH FUN, we were all wishing we had made it longer! It really exceeded our expectations.

AJ and I flew in late Friday night. We didn't land until about 10pm! We were the last ones. It was fun for everyone to send their status as we all made the trek over though (Pam and Doug had been there since Wednesday to watch all the SDSU games in the conference).

When we were checking in to Treasure Island, we already had our friends' room numbers, so we asked our lady (Maria, from Iran! We chatted a bit ha) if we could have rooms near them on those floors perhaps. She tried but didn't have anything available, and she seemed to feel bad, so she offered us a strip view on the 34th floor. Ummm YES PLEASE!

We dropped our stuff and then went to meet up with everyone else where they had been dining at Mirage. We found them, and decided to venture into the Mirage Parlor, where Dave the Saxman was playing and it... was... awesome! He was playing all the hits (everything from Whitney Houston to Bruno Mars) and we were loving it.

...and that's how I know we're getting old.

After that we stayed local in the Mirage, inbetween drinking at one of the bars and gambling at nearby games. AJ, Rob and I went to play blackjack with an unfriendly dealer named Lisa (who we eventually broke down and made nice). I left that table up money and here's what was crazy... AJ gave me $50 to gamble with at that table. When I left way over, he told me to give him that $50 back LOL, so I went to cash out the remainder and guess how much it was... $34! I was there celebrating my 34th birthday! #signs

We had such a great time at that blackjack table, it's still living on. The first time Lisa offered insurance when she had an ace showing, Rob was in the middle of talking to me but stopped to answer "not interested" and I couldn't stop laughing. Then, there were some other locations to gamble, a dealer bust circle and a lucky circle. Every now and then Rob, not understanding the lucky circle, would play it, and narrate the actions by saying "and now she'll promptly take it away" (his chip on the lucky circle) and that became our new saying too. And then of course, they deal so fast I can't add them up so I would be shouting "do the math!" and trying to add up as they were dealing, but the dealers are always far superior to us LOL.

Well some of us went way too hard that night. The next day we were supposed to meet at the Vanderpump Cocktail Lounge in Caesar's Palace to have a drink before heading to the SDSU/Utah St championship game. We were running way behind and had to eat first, and by the time we were done, AJ was getting progressively worse and was in no shape to make it to the game, so we stayed behind to nap. Here was a snapshot of everyone else's Saturdays...

Rob and Raf chilled and met Oleksandra at the spa

Some people made it to the SDSU game

And AJ's life was like this

I put on the SDSU game in the hotel room, and though it was going to be a close game (SDSU, nearly undefeated seeded #1 and Utah St seeded #2), in the first half, things were going well and SDSU had a nice lead, so I closed my eyes figuring they would be fine. But then I woke up to see Utah St cutting down the net. I always worry about Pam in these situations, and with good reason - I learned later that she was crying alone in the bathroom when that happened! Not funny, but kinda funny cause that's our Pammy.

Thankfully AJ recovered to make it to nighttime festivities. Pam and Doug took longer to recover themselves, so they ended up meeting us at dinner at Rao's in Caesar's Palace, after the rest of us met up at Bellagio and paroozed the botanical gardens. This weekend was the last weekend of the Lunar New Year decorations. It was so beautiful, and how cute are these little ratties!

Dinner ended with a happy birthday surprise for me and Rafael.

After that, our group found a bar in Caesar's and took up the back room to ourselves. The DJ was poppin! It was all 80s 90s and 00s hits, and everyone was dancing, not least of all the Gale's, and Jerry who were the crowning jewels of the night.

We wandered back to Mirage via the Strip. No matter how old I feel Vegas gets, you can't help but feel that infectious excitement every time you're there. The fun, the lights, the energy, the crowds no matter the hour. You can wear whatever you want at any hour and just really do whatever you want and nothing feels out of place.

Wind tunnel!!

I was so in the mood for gambling. The blackjack dealers weren't giving me good vibes, so I joined Rafael on pushing the button at video craps. We had fun except for the crazy guy next to me who wouldn't stop shouting "oh Joe! Lil' Joe! Oh lil' Joe!" every time he was the shooter. Raf and I were holed up there for the night and we both did really good. I played $40 and cashed out $95, and Rafael was probably closer to double that.

It was daylight savings that night so that sucked. At what should have been 2:03a (yes, I remember exactly) we went to catch the tram back to Treasure Island. The tram runs until 2am on the weekend. However, it was actually now 3:03. We ask some passing security guards if the tram is still running and he says "yes, until 2am" but I say "yeah but it's 3!" but he kept walking and never responded to me. So we just walked back. Derp!

Sunday morning sucked as far as having to get up with not that much sleep. I packed up fast and AJ was still having issues, so I went down to the Starbucks. There was a lady in front of me with a lot of kids and I heard her give the name Kristin for her order. Not wanting to get confused with her millions of orders being called out, I decided to give a different name for mine, and all I could think of was Jane. So, I do. But waiting for my drink, they ended up calling Jane a bazillion times for another lady's huge order! What are the chances!

AJ and I checked out and stored our luggage and then met up with Rob, Rafael and Yohann for the drag show brunch of the morning. (Pam and Doug were already leaving and Kacey had had a rough night haha). It was a great funtivity for the morning. Rafael and I went up as birthday celebrants, had to twerk on stage and were given free Fireball shots. Can't say no to that!

Afterwards, we walked down to the Beer Park by Paris for drinks, appetizers and some games. Yohann and Kacey had to leave us from there (womp womp) and then Rob, Raf, AJ and I went back to Treasure Island to gamble until it was time to leave.

None of us had a very good round of gambling that morning, but AJ did go all in on his last hand and win it! So that was a fun end to the trip at least.

AJ and I went straight to bed after getting home. Although one funny story is that, we flew Frontier (and had a perfectly acceptable time), when we landed in Orange County, the stewardess was welcoming us over the intercom and added "we've arrived a bit early, so we hope you'll remember that the next time we leave a bit late" LOL. I enjoyed that!

The Driving Range

In 2020, AJ and I started dedicating a bi-monthly night to each other and take turns planning what we'll do. Last night was AJ's night and he gave me a choice of going mini-golf or the driving range. I've expressed to him before that I'm down to learn some golf since he's so into it, and I was kinda in the mood, so that's where we went!

We started off chipping, and I kept getting distracted by the mommy and baby bunny at the edge of the course eating the grass. Then we went to the putting green and AJ taught me a game (pullback or something?) I won first, he won second, so we did a tiebreak and I won! Booyah. Then we went to the driving range.

My mom said beginners luck runs in our family and I guess it does. AJ taught me some posture and general rules (and I reminded him every chance I got "don't talk in someone's backswing" (skip to 0:45) - even though he never did LOL) and I was getting the ball off the ground in some good arcs at the beginning... but then I started to wear out.

My back was really hurting - the stance didn't feel right, but AJ said it was just because I wasn't used to doing this. As a dancer and tennis player, I'm used to breaking my wrists, and not doing that in golf just makes me feel like Frankenstein. But I did end on a good note and get a few good hits to finish off the night. AJ said he doesn't like hitting range balls with his nice driver, but I made him let me hit at least one ball with the biggest driver in his pack.

I told AJ that next time I plan our nights... I'm going to drive us to the driving range... and I'm going to take out his golf club holder... and he's going to get so excited thinking we'll be golfing, but instead it's filled with carrots and we just go around the course feeding the rabbits. Hey I mean, it's my choice.

Bug Time!

Khaleesi's favorite pasttime has been playing fetch, but specifically with rubber bands. She loves rubber bands and used to try to pry them off of my wrists (and yes it hurt!) and she's always loved to chew and attack them.

Unfortunately, ever since Anana came into our lives, we haven't been able to play with them anymore. When Khaleesi starts to get worked up, Anana gets interested to see what the fuss is about and wants to play too, and then Khaleesi goes careening away somewhere else (there goes Bill...)

Well on Saturday, AJ took Anana with him to play basketball, so I decided to take our alone time as an opportunity to play with the bug bands again, and she did not disappoint. Here were some fun videos from our morning together







Other than that, I started watching 30 Rock last night (for the first time!) I have a new show to binge.

Happy My Birth Month To You All!