The Girls

Anana, Khaleesi and I have been enjoying the place to ourselves with AJ away for work. They're just so kute.

This was the best picture I could get. She doesn't like
posing for pictures when there's so much else around
that she wants to sniff and explore!

Kitty on the back of my chair. I was
impressed she could balance up there!

Laying on the fresh laundry. Naturally.

And AJ comes back today - yay!

Disneyland in June

With AJ's family in town, we made the last minute decision to join them on a trip to Disneyland yesterday. The parents of the younger cousins were surprising them, which was really cute, and AJ and I took half days from work and met them there in the early afternoon.

It was pretty hot... so hot, AJ bought a new shirt to wear for the day, and it was crowded. Not too bad, but just enough to be kinda annoying. It definitely hurt a little bit to buy those insanely priced tickets, but it was such a good cause. Everyone had a wonderful time, and it was so much fun experiencing Disneyland for the first time with the girls, who live in Washington state.

Amusing ourselves with Snapchat filters
while in line for rides

We got to do everything, and AJ and I even got to do more rides that we didn't get to do when we went in January... Haunted Mansion, Casey Jr. train, Jungle Cruise... and we watched the Main Street Electric Light Parade and the fireworks show. It was magical!

Iconic dragon from the Main Street Electric Light Parade!

In line for Alice in Wonderland

AJ in the Casey Jr WILD ANIMALS cage!

AJ and I shut that place down and and didn't get home until about 1am, which was pretty rough with work this morning and more so for AJ who had to be up at 5:45am. Still, it was a great time and worth that hit to the bank account!

Junetime

I was both looking forward to this weekend, and dreading it, simultaneously, for a long time. First of all, after my insane workload since August, June 2nd marked the last "real" event before summer, so it will be plenty more relaxed for the next few months now. And, as it happened, I scored some tickets to Modest Mouse at the House of Blues Anaheim for that night, so it was the perfect way to celebrate. So that definitely happened.

The only time I saw Modest Mouse was at Coachella 2013 and the lead singer definitely seemed drunk. But then tonight he was also kinda weird so I'm starting to think that maybe he's just on the spectrum or something. But anyways, they were freaking awesome, they have such good music to dance to!

On Saturday I went to go have lunch with grandma, who seemed to be doing great and in great spirits. She was wearing her Halloween socks, eating chile rellenos and crackin jokes

On Saturday evening, AJ and I went to a dinner to celebrate my cousin Robert's graduation from Chapman University. He has four weeks off and then he goes back for his masters! He wants to be a high school English teacher.

Then Sunday was the rough day, it was AJ's grandma's funeral. It was a beautiful day, but it still didn't feel real, any of it. As she was a lifelong pianist, her graveside service featured a live jazz band, and it was followed by a reception at the restaurant where she played live piano every Saturday for years.

After that, a lot of the extended family, in town from all over (Northern California, Washington state, Kansas City...) decided to have a BBQ at AJ's grandma's house, so we went back there for pool and food and the NBA finals. AJ and I spent most of our time in the pool with the youngest cousins and had a lot of fun. I refused to get my hair wet so I made up pool games and was the judge, ha.

It was a really nice end to an otherwise very sad day. AJ and I actually came home in really good, happy moods, even though we still can't believe that Arlene is no longer here.

The Last Page

For some reason, very coincidentally, May 31st has served on more than one occasion to be the last page of chapters of my life. I know that metaphor is just so cliche and I can't handle it but it is what it is today. Maybe May 31st, 2017 will be the end of me using cliche language.

May 31st was the day I departed France after a year abroad. It's been ten years since I studied abroad and it doesn't feel as far away as it is now. But it was hard, and a struggle, to reacclimate to life in the United States. A lot of my values and core beliefs are not in tandem with American culture, read: gross accumulation of wealth, profits before people, no work-life balance, etc. So a part of me has always felt a little less at home since studying abroad. But in a good way. I'm happy I've seen what it really means to both work hard and live well... to value people and practice business within ethical boundaries, and see the value of fresh things over shelf life, of the customer not always being right and creating the culture of gross entitlement over simple human error, etc etc. But, I digress.

May 31st was also the day that I finally got the courage to abandon a decades-long bully relationship in my life that inflicted physical, emotional and endless verbal abuse, as well as narcissistic gaslighting and manipulation (and no, it wasn't a boyfriend). My life has peace, serenity, calm and support in it now without that toxicity.

So, every May 31st is something of a reflection, something of a rebirth, something of the end of something. I'm happy.

And so I also look forward to every June 1st as the anniversary of a renewed beginning, a fresh start of new milestones and a real celebration.

Memorial Day Weekend

I have actually been dreading Memorial Day Weekend since July. That's because I started this job in July and I was told we were going to be hosting an event on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend that I needed to attend. On Memorial Day Weekend! On the Sunday! The Lord's Day! So I had been bitter about that and just looking forward to getting through it all. Well, I got through it, and it was actually a pretty awesome weekend!

On Saturday we celebrated the first birthday of Penelope, essentially the first kid to be born in AJ's immediate and closest friend group. Penelope has been a light in our life! I love that girl, and it's cute how much Anana loves her too and protects her.

That was a really fun day, and there was face painting and games. My skin is too sensitive for unknown paints, and since I was working the next day I didn't want to risk not being able to scrub it off, but there were some sick facepaints there, especially Jon's Mike Tyson tattoo lololol!

I worked on Sunday (ugh, trying to erase it from my memory lololol) and then we had to go to AJ's grandmas house to go over some stuff with his family. The best part was how something so depressing turned into something so fun! AJ invited his friends over and we turned it into a pool party - with BBQ, baseball (the drinking version) and champagne in squirt guns!

We didn't end the night until about 10pm in the jacuzzi. And for us 30+ folk, that was pretty impressive.

AJ and I had the grand plan to go play tennis the next day around 11:30. Long story short, we left the house around 4pm lololol but hey, we still made it out to a tennis court! We slept in, had breakfast, lounged around, I watched Bridesmaids and lots of Portlandia, and we took Anana out to the tennis courts with us. It was probably the first time I even held the racket in literally ten years. Probably longer. But muscle memory kicked in, and I was relieved that I could still hit a top spin and even my backhand was still decent.

We had tied up Anana to the fence on the shady side of the court, and all of our water bottles and stuff we put on the bench on the opposite side of the court. Unfortunately this meant that every time we took a water break, Anana was going crazy and barking from the other side of the court, thinking we forgot about her and was sad we were hanging out without her. Poor pup! I can't wait to play again though, I forgot what an amazing work out all that start-stop action is!