Good Morning, Early Weekend

President Weekend / Valentine's Day / Chinese New Year I didn't realize today was a holiday. I went into work and saw a note on my computer screen that read "VioletSnowflakes, please don't forget that Friday and Monday are holidays." O_O HAHAHAA!!! I've done that before in the past and my supervisors are always teasing me about showing up on a holiday. Apparently, I did it again. Because it was still early, I really wanted to go for a run but I had spent 15 minutes straightening my hair that morning, which is something that I don't really do. Since I didn't want to mess up my hair in the name of vanity and the morning was still young, I went over to Philliam's to bake some cowboy cookies and play catch up since we haven't seen much of one another in awhile. Another busy weekend despite it being a four day weekend. I have to celebrate Chinese New Years tomorrow with the family. Hopefully, I can squeeze in some running time in the morning. Not a very good blog entry today, but it's something. Check out the next blog regarding my cowboy cookie receipe. =)

Surprise and Turkey

How did I make it through last week, unscathed? I'm shocked myself. At least this week will be quick and short. I have an oral quiz today for my Mandarin class, then I'll be out running for 1.5 to 2 hours this evening. Tomorrow I have work then I tutor a new little girl in reading. Afterward, more running. At least there will be daylight. Wednesday, I think I work?? I'll be taking a break from running on Wednesday because Thursday will be the big day. =/ I'm finding it particularly hard these days in coordinating my outfits. I try to make each of my outfits flow from work to school to volunteering at my local elementary school to my night outfits (if I do intend to go out for cocktails that night.) I've talked to Mermaid about this before (she's a teacher) and since we both have interesting choices on how we dress, not tasteless fashion, but the way we dress do cause some eye rollings at our respective schools of work/volunteer. So how would I roll from work to school? Or work to elementary school? Or school to happy hour? Or from work to gym/jogging? Ahhh, quite a dilemma isn't it? What outfits would be most appropriate. Maybe I should talk to Mermaid about documenting our outfit ventures. On another note, Thanksgiving is this week! I can't wait! We're having the traditional turkey and honey ham with yummy stuffing. We're also making curry as an entree dish as well because I'm half South Asian and it just makes sense to have our specialty spicy dish on a cold November evening. Then we got the knick knacks of food to grub on: candy yams, honey biscuits, corn muffins, my mom's secret, my aunt Jenny's secrets, and my aunt Vanny's secret. I hear a persimmon dish will be there too. But that's only a rumor. I'll be making pumpkin pie, chocolate cupcakes (yes Leslyn, I'll drop some off at your place), and maybe tiramisu. Philliam is going to try and "woo" my mom by making cheesecake pumpkin pie. Although, he needs my helps. -___- There will be other people there as well who are bringing dishes over for our evening feast. My glutton ass can't wait!

The Morning After

Philliam and I threw a Halloween party on Friday the 30th. Today is Sunday, November 1. We've officially finished cleaning and his house looks great! Well, we finished cleaning on Halloween but this morning we did another thorough cleaning throughout the house. It was exhausting. No pictures until I upload. I have a test this week. But here's a dialogue between me and him during our back breaking cleaning session on Saturday morning. Me: Babe, I need a scooper for the debris I piled up. Him: Sure, just give me a minute. *Philliam leaves the master bedroom and comes back after 4 minutes* Him: Here you go. *hands me a ripped up wheaties box* Me: Huh??? o_O He put some thought into making it because it has a nifty handle that scoops up the debris just fine. I guess I should be proud that he's following my footsteps in trying not to feed evil consumerism and being an environmentalist. Or is he is just being lazy? If you're wondering, I did use that Wheaties dust pan box until I no longer had anymore use for it. I'm thinking about either: making him a dust pan from items I have lying around, buying him an organic one (pricey), pay a visit to my local thrift shop, or go the Target way (because sometimes it's alright to be a hypocrite).

successful saturday

Friday night, I stayed home, did some cooking, tidy-up the house, and watched The Bodyguard. All alone. I was a bit uneasy being home alone due to the crazy things that has been going on in my neighborhood. Even though I was on high alert for anything that seemed out of the ordinary, my evening spent alone was nice. It's been awhile since I was able to spend Friday nights at home and alone. Saturday morning, I woke up bright and early, did my morning jog. Got home, had some breakfast, shook my brother awake with my foot, called Richard, and got ready for the Ocean Conservancy Lake Clean Up, which I had volunteered for 2 weeks ago. From 9am to 12pm, we picked up other people's trash at Lake Berryessa. It's amazing what we found. The usual trash items were beer bottles and cans, and also broken beer bottles. Although, the most common trash I found littered around the lake were feminine products, i.e. pads, tampons (and lots of it), and panty liners. I'm not kidding. How gross is that? Why would anyone do such an unsanitary thing? Of course, changing your tampons behind some bushes is fine, but at least take the trash with you! How hard is it to place the applicator back into the wrapper and place that in another trash bag and take it with you? I honestly don't get people who just throw their trashes everywhere. Good grief. Some volunteers claimed they found shells from shot guns and rifles. hmm... After we picked up trash, we waited around for the others so we can do a 30 minute drive to where the barbecue was held for volunteers. While we waited, we decided to take some pictures.

Richard and I decide who can make the best sounds on my hungry belly while we waited for the others to show up. Hot day at Lake Berryessa I didn't take many pictures since I was more focused on trash pick up, eating, and enjoying the water.

When we came back from our dip, we were the last ones there. Everyone packed up the food and left. No goodbyes. =(

Top, left to right: Ryo (Japanese exchange student), Jack (UCD Ph. D), and Ken (ex football player) Middle: John (Jasmine's right hand man on issues) and Jasmine (President of ESO) Bottom: Richard and Sunny (my lazy sleeping brothers)

September 12th, 2nd Saturday!

This was the craziest 2nd Saturday event that I've ever experienced. We had a total of 5-tag-alongs (total strangers that followed our group) and ony 2 out of the 5-tag-alongs stuck with us until we all decided to part ways at the end of the night. Crazy, ain't it? It began with just four of us: Philliam, Venetian, Jazzy Jazz and myself. We had a scrumptious dinner at Zocalo that was absolutely fantastic. I wished Mermaid joined us but she had some busy things to do. I love Zocalo's complimentary green rice that comes with every entree. The dessert is not bad either. It's my third time eating there. The first three times weren't so significant on my memory since the first time I was having one of those ugly days where I felt, looked, and had an ugly day. The second experience, I was sick and could not enjoy the food as much. Lastly, the third time was with my brother Sunny the Bunny and Richard. Very awkward since they didn't know what was going on with Philliam and I yet (early confusing state of dating where I thought I was gay and he didn't think he'd ever date girls of my race). HAH! But this fourth time was GOOOD. I actually enjoyed the food so much better.

Of course it's an Art Walk, so we walked around and checked out what local Sacramento artists had to offer us.

The first spot we hit up was located in the apartment complex nestled between Buckhorn Grill and Ginger Elizabeth's Chocolate. I don't normally like taking pictures of someone else work just because I feel that it's a tad bit rude and tacky - unless I ask for permission. At this particular booth, Jazzy was already schmoozing her way in so I was able to talk about the materials used on the jewelry pieces and where can I purchase later. Her jewelry company is called BlissJewelry and her pieces are amazing! She also sells locally at Sugar Shack and somewhere else in Roseville, so I'm going to have to hit up Sugar Shack soon. I have yet to spend my birthday discount cards there.

Now here is where it starts to get really interesting, we decide to take the lightrail to make our journey a bit easier and ended up picking up 3 people from the lightrail! We told them they could join our group while we walk the streets. We all got along so well and that made our night so much more interesting.

Later that evening, Mermaid decides to save us from walking many, many miles back to civilization and picks us up on the corner of P and 14th like the group of prostitutes we are. This is just our growing number of group members.

Here we are in my workplace garage acting the fool! woot woot Getting out the shops around town.

This is where two random guys joined our group but we lost them later after they got some girls numbers. They are located on the very top - two white guys. Like what Mermaid said, booty call. I don't really understand how people are so comfortable with doing something so intimate with a complete stranger. I mean, I understand the thrill and excitement of it all and there is nothing wrong with that, this is the new age thing, but I don't think I would do something like that. I would honestly have to get to know someone before anything intimate can happen. Call me old fashion.

This is the end to our adventurous night and all those that stayed with us. I still can't take that green rice from Zocalo out of my tongue. Yum...

Until next time. Sincerely, VioletSnowflakes.

California State Fair - Weird Wild & Wacky

My short trip to the California State Fair was enjoyable as I was able to catch up with fellow friends who I haven’t seen in a month. The last time I saw SouVi and Khoun was back in late May on our crazy rafting adventure. I haven’t seen Richard since I left for my trip to South Asia. When I had gotten back to California, Richard was in Mississippi, visiting his parents. It’s funny how that worked out. Being the total foodie that I am, I was more excited about the fried goodness than the oddball theme for this year, which was “Weird Wild & Wacky.” I can’t help being a glutton. Although, this past year, I haven’t thought about food as being a pleasurable act but treating food more like fuel to energize me. This kind of behavior isn’t exactly forced, it was something that I just started doing and I noticed this behavior towards food when I was in Asia. This probably has to do with my part in giving up beef.

America, Philliam and I were the first to arrive out of our bunch. Since we were starving, there was no way that we were going to wait for everyone to get there so we headed over to the Jumbo Dog stand. Yes... It’s just what I needed (the Cars!!!! Reminisces on ‘80s childhood.) The corndog was delish, I devoured every bit of it while I annoyingly talked to someone on the phone. -___- By the time our groupie arrived, it was almost dusk. In the pictures, you can see the gorgeous skyline. I absolutely love the colors. I won’t bore you to death with the written account of what went on, so I’ll go ahead and post all the pictures so you can see what we did.