Family visit!

My family (parents, Phil, Grandma P.) left today after visiting for a week. They got in last Saturday night, late, and then took David and I to brunch on Sunday before I had to work. David then gave them a tour of the Stanford campus. They spent Monday and Tuesday exploring various beaches, San Francisco, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium. On Wednesday, since I didn't have to work, we went (of course) to the mall I work at and got my mom and my grandma some lovely outfits. They got semi-matching jackets (the same jacket in red and purple, although the texture shows up more on the purple), as well as shells to go with them (ivory for Grandma and black for my mom).

This is the jacket in purple.

Grandma was concerned that if they wore them together, people would talk about how they were twins.

And this is the jacket in red.

I also convinced my mom to try on these new fabulous wide-leg pants that looked fabulous on her (and she got them in black and khaki). And then I got a beautiful beautiful plum shirt (silk cotton blend, 3/4 length sleeves, boatneck neck with pointelle detail) for my birthday. Yay!

We ate lunch at the Palo Alto Creamery at the mall and as we were ordering, a man walking by commented to my father (who was wearing his University of Wisconsin-Madison dad t-shirt) that he was a Madison alum who was now a professor at Stanford. So we all had a nice little laugh about that.

Then we headed to a beach via Highway 84, which is the most winding and awful highway that ever existed. I was getting sick, my mom was getting sick, my brother was getting sick of the heights, my grandma was getting worried about the curves, but it was just a bad idea. But the beach was really nice when we got there. It had all kinds of cool rock formations that you could climb over to get to the beach. The water was of course very freezing cold but it was fun to run in to the ocean and run out, being chased by the waves.

Then that night, David and I went to their hotel (they got a wonderful two story penthouse with kitchen and two bathrooms for a steal!) to make dinner, which turned out ok. It was a pasta dish where I about tripled the amount of pasta without tripling the sauce. But meh. Now we have leftovers for days.

On Thursday, David and I both had the day off so we took the family to San Francisco to go to Chinatown for dim sum and cheap fun things. That night we also went to Kabul, an Afghan restaurant about 20 minutes away with wonderful food and big servings, so we went home with 5 take-out containers filled with food.

And now they're heading home. It's strange to think that, come Wednesday, I'll be heading home too. I'm not actually that sad about it thinking about it right now, but I'm sure I'll be a mess at the airport. It'll be better than leaving last time, though, since I'm not leaving at night and we've agreed to not draw it out as long as we did before. I'll probably also research flights for David for Thanksgiving, since Stanford gets a week off and we only get Thanksgiving and Friday.

Living with someone else is a rewarding experience, if you're living with the right person. It allows you to see yourself in a different light and learn things about yourself that you may not have seen before. Who knows what the future will bring now? We want to live together again if we can manage it next summer, although preferably in Madison since it's difficult to find cheap apartments in California.

So that's that. I've been avoiding packing, of course, and buying more groceries than we actually need so David will have something to eat when I'm gone. Not that he's not self-sufficient. Just that I feel like I need to take care of him.

Wrapping Up...

Two weeks to the day and I leave....booo. I said the same to David this morning but we promised we wouldn't be all sad and melancholy about it until I actually left. So no melancholy for me!

Work has been fine; we had to undergo mind-numbingly stupid training on Sunday morning (!) for 2 hours. It was rather unfortunate, as the guy who is in charge of training thinks that by reading us the standards by which we are judged, we will pay more and better attention. Frankly, I disagree with some of the standards so it annoys me that they are the ones so arbitrarily judged. Plus, as bonus, we got to watch 2 of the same training videos I watched a month and a half ago when I was hired. And then take quizzes. The whole thing was rather unfortunate since the customers in the training videos are nothing like our actual customers in that real customers are harder to serve.

But I actually do like my job a lot. When you're a file clerk, the sense of accomplishment you get is small because it's something along the lines of "hey, I've finished filing today, good for me" or "hey, I closed 20 files in 40 minutes, good for me". Any job with actual customer interaction is so much different because, if you do your job well, you get positive feedback from the customers you're working with. It makes work very gratifying although I do have to admit that the demographic is challenging at times. Generally, I get along best with the customers that are 50 years old and below. At the same time, I mentioned to my manager yesterday that I feel much more comfortable working with this age group than I would working with my own age group (I'm not cool enough, ha ha).

And I'm glad I have retail experience now. I'm pretty good at sales, especially if I know the goods I'm selling. It's funny; whenever I feel like I could be good at something, I always start planning wild, abstract things for the future: a chain of stores that stock everything from cooking supplies to clothing.

By the way, if anyone wants anything from Coldwater Creek, let me know. We're getting a 50% discount in store now (only on full-priced merchandise, not sale prices). If you check out www.coldwatercreek.com and let me know what you like, I can see if we do have it in store. Unfortunately, the online store has more things than we have in store and not everything in store is online. But let me know and I'll see what I can (40% discount on sale priced items too).

I've also been coordinating with my beautiful roommates for next year, working out things like who is bringing what, when our electricity is getting turned on, and when rent is due. It's really frustrating not being able to go through my things until I get home later but fortunately I have a pretty good idea of what I have so we won't be bringing duplicates of things like vacuums or shower curtains. It will be nice to get back home, although the task of going through the accumulations of the past 19 years of my life in 48 hours is rather daunting.

Happy August!

Today I got a library card at the Palo Alto library and checked out two books - Sarah by Orson Scott Card (it's the first in the Women of Genesis series - I think you might be interested in it, Mom, although I'll let you know how it actually is) and American Islam, which is a collection of non-fiction vignettes about seven Muslims living in America. It should be interesting.

Also, since work is the same as always and the boy is awesome (same as always), time to review some TV shows that I have been watching.

The West Wing (7 seasons, starring Martin Sheen, Allison Janney, Joshua Malina, Bradley Whitford, Richard Schiff, John Spencer) - an excellent series although it can be a bit boring/dense if watched for too long. Chronicles the "behind-the-scenes" of the executive branch and, later in the series, the running of a presidential campaign.

Battlestar Gallactica (3 seasons so far) - currently hosted by the Sci-Fi channel, this series is about the human survivors of an apocalyptic attack by the cylons, essentially human-created robots that rebelled. The individual stories are compelling and the music is either haunting vocals or drums. Although the special effects vary from episode to episode, the overall quality of the series is very good - one that can be watched for a long time.

Tidbits of news

Since my life is pretty boring (work, boy, work), I decided that this post should be about the more interesting things that have happened lately.

1) Harry Potter!!! SPOILER ALERT****DO NOT READ BELOW THIS LINE IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO HEAR DISCUSSION OF CRITICAL PLOT DETAILS
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Ok, so Harry Potter. I had to work on the 21st but Amazon was pretty punctual in getting it to the apartment so David was able to read it before I came home. I was a bit worried that I hadn't re-read books 5 or 6 but 7 re-capped pretty well. I enjoyed the transformation in Kreacher and the explanation of Dumbledore's earlier life. I thought the epilogue was pointless although I predict it will launch lots of fan fiction based on the lives of Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione's children.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
END SPOILER

2) With that said, on the 25th, my roomies for next year will finally be in the country at the same time! Which means I should call them and we should try to coordinate moving in and cleaning and budget things like that.

3) In the store last week I met a woman who flew down from Spokane to have her hair cut. Because she clearly couldn't trust anyone when she wanted to go back to her original color. Clearly. The first thing I said to her was "seriously?". And then I had to backtrack and say, well, of course you couldn't let anyone else touch your hair and of course, I understood as my stylist Kelly was the only person I would trust with my hair ever. The only thing that would have made it more perfect was if she had a tiny little dog with her.

4) I don't know if any of you watch Food Network at all but the winner of last year's Next Food Network Star, Guy Fieri, will be making an appearance at the Stanford Shopping Center on August 4th. I guess this will be my closest exposure to celebrity...even if it is D-list food network reality show celebrity.

Friday the 13th...dun dun dun

Hi everyone!

Very quick update (1 minute to read or less): I've been working a lot but work is going well. I've also been able to see David more. Last Sunday we went to San Francisco with his aunt and cousin. It was fun. On Sunday, we plan to go see the new Harry Potter movie....the end.

Detailed and fun update:
Since the 4th, I've been working a lot although I finally managed to finagle one weekend day a week off so I can spend it with David. Last Sunday we went to San Francisco with David's aunt and cousin and went to the Exporatorium, which is an interactive science museum near the shoreline, nestled amid tall columns which would be a wonderful backdrop for taking wedding pictures (not that I'm planning to get married anytime soon, just that someone was taking wedding pictures there when we were there).

Then we headed to Chinatown to pick up some dim sum for lunch - we were able to find our favorite dim sum place again. It's called You's Dim Sum and it's right next to this restaurant called something like the little Paris Cafe or something like that. It's on Washington Street a block above the Wells Fargo Bank...I think.

David's aunt (I could probably actually call her Marta and not just David's aunt) took us to a performance of the San Francisco Mime Troupe (not actually mime). They are a theater group that does wonderful political satire and, to kick off their new shows, they perform for free in a park near the ocean (actually, everything is kind of near the ocean in San Francisco - their website is here). It was an excellent show, although we were sitting on a hill that was about a 75 degree angle, which was mildly uncomfortable.

After that, we were driving around San Francisco trying to find a taqueria that David's friends have raved about. After passing a taqueria that Marta thought looked interesting, it turned out that it actually was the place David was looking for so we had to stop. The food was good; I tried some of Marta's real shrimp cocktail (real like authentic, as opposed to fake). It tasted like a thin ketchup with avocado and cilantro.

Then we headed to Marta's house to go swimming in their pool. Marta and Dean (David's uncle, he's in Israel on business right now) have a house in a community that has a wonderful community pool. Then we went out for sushi and I tried mussels, salmon roe, yellowtail, crab, and something else...that I can't remember. Everyone was very proud.

This week has been more work - on Wednesday, we had a visit from the Vice President of Operations so we had to go around and tidy up the store as well as move out our new fall pieces, which are lovely, I might add. The tidying up meant that the first half hour of my day was spent sitting where the carpet and tile met and trimming the carpet where it was worn. What fun and goodness it was! Seriously though, I bet there's a reason they had me do it and not one of the experienced (read: not new) employees. But the visit went well, which was good, since our manager Grace had not really been sleeping so that she could get everything set up. By the way, Coldwater Creek is having a sale online - 60% off everything until Saturday night at midnight eastern time. If you're interested, e-mail me and I can forward the e-mail with the code in it.

Yesterday and today I've had off so I've been hanging around the apartment and cleaning. I've also been thinking more about graduate schools since a friend of mine e-mailed me a link about the Tufts Graduate School of International Relations (the Fletcher school). They offer a two year program for a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy. I've also been thinking more about a LLM or Master of Laws degree. Unfortunately, most programs only let you pursue this degree after you have a JD so I may also be considering law school. Let me know if any of you have suggestions - I'm interested in a program where I can continue my language studies and study immigration, Islam, and France. Although perhaps not all of those. We'll see.

So that's the most recent long update. In closing, I leave you with this funny animation - it's about a 30-second song that loops. You may want to turn down your sound on your computer as it is quite loud: You are a pirate!

Happy 4th!

David and I had a busy 3rd and 4th. After work on the 3rd, we caught the fireworks at Stanford and then went to a party hosted by one of his co-workers. Since both of us had off on the 4th, we made plans to shop for some household items.

We first went to a Goodwill in Palo Alto which had more expensive items than any Goodwill I've ever seen. Granted, they were mostly designer clothes and I still saw a 100% cashmere sweater for $6. They were also having a 4th of July sale where everything except select merchandise was 50% off. I ended up getting a red sweater and this gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous brown sleeveless dress with swirls of pink dots as well as black and maroon. The hem is about mid-calf and is uneven (intentionally). The front looks like a halter but the back is more like a racer-back, so I could even wear a bra with it. But I don't have to. Because it's awesome. There's also about a 2-inch band under the bust and then the skirt just falls away (it's kind of empire-waisted in that way, I guess). It is the most flattering wonderful dress I have ever owned and it's even hand washable! Both of them were I.N.C., which, based on my extensive and somewhat embarrassing knowledge of Project Runway, is a good brand at Macy's. So that pretty much made my day. And my week. Possibly my month. It's a really great dress. I said "wow" I put it on.

Then we headed to Coldwater Creek so I could shop and use my discount. I got a pair of jeans and some gifts for my next year roomies. The jeans are great - they were on sale for $16.99 and then I got 40% off with my employee discount! Yay!

After Coldwater Creek, we went to a barbecue hosted by another of David's friends, one of the Davids from the original David David David and Fred (David's freshman roommates). He and his girlfriend Jillian and some of his friends from Stanford's Shakespeare troupe (that may not be the appropriate word) are renting a house in Menlo Park (about 5 blocks away from ours) until they attend the Fringe Festival in Scotland (Appleton West sent a delegation my senior year). We actually didn't think they lived as close as they do so we may be having them over for dinner or swimming or vice versa.

We left the barbecue to go to Ikea which is a great and wonderful place full of modern design (but not super-modern) that appeals to me so much. It was fun to walk around with David and plan my future home in my head. We also picked up a real set of dishes, a couple of glasses, a dish-drying rack and a silverware caddy. Ikea is my new favorite store. Unfortunately, there is no Ikea in Wisconsin....but they do have online ordering.

Since it was only about 7 when we left Ikea, we decided to dress up (I wore my new dress and even heels!) and see a movie. We drove to Redwood City to see Ocean's 13; it was a short drive and now we have a new place to do dinner. David had already seen it when he visited his family but he was sweet enough to see it again. My review: MUCH better than Ocean's 12. I love con movies, especially those that create a good/evil binary and make you feel good about this kind of crime. Al Pacino was wonderful, as was the ensemble. I laughed a lot. Go see it. It's totally worth the actual ticket price and is a lot of good clean fun. Plus very nice-looking men.

So that was our 3rd and 4th. I have off today as well, so I'm doing laundry and rearranging the kitchen to accommodate our new dishes.

Updates!!!

David's back from visiting his family in Utah but on a retreat for his job so I am alone again in our apartment. After a few hours of dedicated work on the day before he got back from Utah, it's looking nice. The only boxes we have left are at least stacked neatly in corners and I've put some pictures up. It's nice and homey.

David's birthday was yesterday and, fortunately, I had off from work so we had a picnic lunch and then went out for dinner at Osteria, an amazing Italian/Tuscan restaurant with incredibly reasonable prices and good service. It was nice to go out since we haven't really gotten an opportunity lately as I've been working late and we get home in time to eat something and fall into bed. For his birthday, I got him a wallet (since his old one was in shreds), a Starbucks card, and a Borders card.

Work has been going fine; it turns out that I'm pretty good at retail. My one complaint is that they are scheduling me to work both Saturday and Sunday, when I would prefer one or the other since David only has off on weekends.

David David David. It seems that he dictates a lot of what goes on in my life right now and I guess that's true, to some point. It's nice living with him.