Category Archives: Dave

goodbye sleep, it's been fun, I'll miss you

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This weekend I did something that may prevent me from rejoining society for the next few months: I got a Game Boy. It all started because Dave bought one, and since he knows how much I love old-school Super Mario Brothers, he bought the game for me. Of course, I ended up stealing his Game Boy & not giving it back, so eventually we came to the conclusion that I needed one of my own. And I bought a new Super Mario game (Mario & Luigi Super-Stars! Yeah!!), so I haven’t slept much this weekend. I just lie in bed with my Game Boy and work on building up good calluses on my thumbs. Fun stuff.

Actually, though, it was a pretty productive weekend. Our Thanksgiving plans are now set: my whole family is coming here, and Dave’s mom is coming over from the UK, so we’re going to have the Big Meeting Of The Families on Thanksgiving. I’m really excited to meet Dave’s mom, she seems like a hoot. I’m a little nervous about inflicting my entire family (parents & 2 siblings) on Dave & his mom, because we can be a pretty loud bunch. I think they’ll all like each other, but I’m a little worried about my dad. He hasn’t really ever met any of the guys that I’ve dated – or if he has, they were just introduced as “friends” so he didn’t know I was dating them – but he’s never been particularly friendly to any of my sister’s boyfriends. Granted, my dad is just not an overly warm guy in general – for example, Kris was my college roommate for 3 years and has been my best friend since 1996, and to this day, he still refers to her as “that ol’ gal, you know, your friend what’s-her-name…” Nice. So, I’m excited, but I’m sure that I’m going to be more than a little bit tense when the time comes.

Anyway, we’re talking about having our big Thanksgiving dinner at Dave’s house, since he has way more space than I do. (Four-bedroom house vs. one-bedroom apartment… hmmm, which to choose?) And to that end, we’ve now started to try to make Dave’s house look like an actual home, rather than a work-in-progress. It’s a really great house and has potential to be really beautiful, it just needs some work. So we started that this weekend – we went shopping for a sofa on Saturday, and ordered one (and a coordinating chair, boo-ya!) that I think is going to look amazing – that is, it will look amazing when it’s delivered in 4-6 weeks, by which point the living room will be painted and the carpet will be replaced with hardwood flooring. And yesterday, we painted Dave’s office so he can actually start using it.

By the way, does anyone happen to know if it’s difficult to install hardwood floors yourself, or is it something that requires a professional? We’re both down for any do-it-ourselves project, but that’s one thing that we don’t want to get screwed up.

Oh, and yes, I’m referring to all of these home-improvement projects with “we” even though it’s not my house – I’m marking my territory there, and Dave is cool with that, so it’s fine. 🙂

Alright, I gotta go see an Italian plumber about saving a princess from an evil monster…

boy done good

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My sister is trying to find a new apartment in New York City, but her landlord won’t let her out of her lease without paying some insanely exorbitant fee. They finally agreed that if she can find someone else to rent her apartment, they’ll let her out of the lease agreement. So she’s posting classified ads on the Internet, and I’m hosting a photo album of her apartment for her to try to help out. We’ll see how much (if at all) this affects my average bandwidth usage…

In other news, Dave & I had our little tri-month-iversary date last night. I honestly wasn’t expecting anything, I just thought we’d go out to dinner. But when I got to his house, I had the following:
* flowers
* a very funny, sweet card
* a stuffed kitty (not taxidermy stuffed, toy stuffed)

Damn. Win a girl over, why don’t you? 🙂 That was so awesome. And because I am a huge dork and like to make note of these things for posterity purposes, this morning I arranged them all on my coffee table and took a picture of them. Hee! It turns out that Teenie really likes the stuffed kitty. She’s very soft (and… oh yeah, minor point… not a real cat), and she’s been using her as a pillow all day. Now I’m trying to decide on what I’m going to name the toy kitty. She’s Siamese and has blue eyes, so I’ve decided she’s definitely a girl. And she has to have a name, because that’s what I’ve done with every stuffed animal I’ve had since I was able to talk. As a kid, though, I only did alliterative names (i.e., Christina Kittycat, Morris Moose, Burt Bear, etc.). Now, I think I want something funny. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

* Davida/Davina is the female version of David, which would be funny since Dave gave her to me. And they both have blue eyes.
* My sister has a friend who named her cat Walter Peyton (and always refers to him by both his first & last name, never by a nickname), so I was trying to think of random blue-eyed vaguely cat-like celebrities to name her after. So far I’ve come up with Uma Thurman (probably my favorite so far), Olivia Newton-John (2nd place), Charlize Theron, Paris Hilton, etc. You get the idea. I suppose I could give up the self-imposed female gender association for this one – maybe Paul Newman or Frank Sinatra would work?
* The 2 Siamese cats in “Lady & The Tramp” were named Si and Am. I have a great aunt that we call Si, so that would be funny, and I like the name Am because it’s part of the verb “to be”. Hmmm… which to choose?
* Something silly & cutesy, but I have no idea what.

Any ideas, folks? I’m taking a poll.

mixed weekend

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I’ve put off writing about my weekend because I don’t really know where to begin. First of all, my cousin Teresa died on Sunday morning. What can I possibly say about that? There are no words. Catherine wrote a really beautiful post about it on her web site, so I think I’ll let that sum it up for me. I couldn’t possibly state it any more eloquently than she did.

Second, having Kris here was great. The family situation definitely took some wind out of our typical “party it up” sails, but I’m glad that she was here to let me cry on her shoulder. Dave has been great too (as always). It was nice to have my support system around me when I needed it. And it was cool that Dave & Kris got to meet for the first time, they really seemed to hit it off. I was a little worried about that, but it seems that there was no need to be concerned.

Other weekend highlights:
* Whale-watching didn’t happen, due to the fact that we would’ve had to get up at 6 a.m. on Saturday to drive to the ferry and wait in line for 3 hours. Hmmm… Ok, maybe next time.
* I discovered a new bar in my neighborhood that I really like.
* We sat on the beach and watched children playing.
* I love the SuperMall. Even though I can spend 2 hours there and not spend a single penny.
* My neighbors on either side of me now hate me, because I don’t let people smoke in my apartment. And since Kris is a smoker, she had to go out on my balcony every time she wanted a cigarette. Apparently every time she lit up, the neighbors would slam their windows shut. The thing is, I’m totally sympathetic because I hate the smell of cigarettes, and I would be pissy too if the situation were reversed. But what can you do?
* I broke a pool table. Or maybe it was already broken, who knows. But I grabbed one corner of it when I bent down to pick up a quarter that I had dropped, and it snapped off. And since that corner was what I was using to hold my balance, I fell flat on my butt (and took the corner piece of the pool table with me). How lovely. And typical.

Side note: Today officially marks 3 months since Dave and I had our first date. Awww….

beach pics

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After I got off work yesterday, Dave and I headed off to the beach. We didn’t know exactly where we were going, but we had a map and headed in the general direction of the Pacific Ocean. We wound up in Newport Beach, which is not far at all from Santa Ana. We took a ton of photos, which I added today (see the link on the right) during my downtime at work, which I have a lot of these days.

After the beach, we stopped at a sushi restaurant for dinner. This was my idea, surprisingly enough. I’ve always been vehemently opposed to even trying sushi, but there’s something about being near the water in southern California… I don’t know, it made me want to try it. So I did. And I liked it a lot. Scott once told me that he thought I would like eel, and I thought it sounded disgusting, but it happens that that was probably my favorite of all the things we tried.

Anyway, this week has been much more fun having Dave around. It’s a little weird being around each other so much because we haven’t done that yet, but it’s good. I think we’re getting a vibe for each other’s idiosyncracies (i.e., he likes to watch CNN at 3 a.m., and I tend to say/do things in the middle of the night that I don’t remember – apparently the other night I sat up in bed and said “what the….?”, and I have no idea why). And considering how I tend to be pretty demanding of my “me-time”, so far Dave hasn’t managed to really irritate me (yet), so I think that’s a good sign. 

One more day in the office, then… Disneyland, baby!! More pictures to follow, I’m sure.  

the final countdown

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Dave & I flew in to southern California last night. That was interesting, I’ve never flown anywhere with a boyfriend before. I think we both got to see each other’s less-than-attractive airport-stress behavior, but overall we did pretty well. Good thing for those Mile-High Bloody Mary’s in all airport bars. Once we got through check-in and security, everything was smooth sailing from there. Besides, I think it’s good that we’re learning each other’s negative traits – they all eventually come out when you’re with someone long enough anyway, so better sooner than later. I don’t think we have any deal-breakers between the two of us (so far).  

Anyway, the flight was relatively uneventful. Our baggage didn’t get lost – hooray! And we even opted for the rental car upgrade, so we now have a red Ford Mustang. That’s pretty cool, I’ve never driven a Mustang before. It’s definitely a muscle car, I’m starting to get why people love them so much. Lots of power in that gas pedal, for sure.

So, one thing I learned last week that I’ve been meaning to write about: This will be my last week flying to Santa Ana. This project is just dull-dull-dull, and there’s not enough work to keep all of the engineers busy, so they’re cutting back the team. Which includes me. I’m honestly thankful for it. This means that I’ll hopefully have a little downtime to work on my Microsoft certification exams before my next project. And I’m crossing my fingers and praying that my next project will be somewhere in the greater Seattle area, so I don’t have to fly every week anymore. Yes, frequent flyer miles are nice & all, but I also like sleeping in my own bed at night. With my cat. Surrounded by my stuff. So if any of you want to throw some “get Cindy a good Seattle project” vibes in my direction, it’d be much appreciated.

And I’m psyched that Dave is here for my last week. I’m really looking forward to the stuff we have planned for this weekend, and I think it’ll make a good farewell for my stint in “the O.C.”

vacation! (well, sort of…)

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Next week, Dave is coming down to southern California with me. He’s going to do his own thing during the week while I’m at work, then we’re going to stay over the weekend and do fun stuff, like Disneyland and Universal Studios. Whee!

Meanwhile, work is painfully dull, but I’ll spare you readers the details of my discontent.

Short post today. Nothing else to write about, really. Just… um, hi. I’m bored.

wherever I lay my hat…

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This weekend was awesome. I spent pretty much every waking moment with Dave. I left his house yesterday so I had just enough time to dash to my apartment, unpack, re-pack, and head to the airport. That was the first time I’ve set foot in my apartment in over a week – I haven’t slept there since the 4th of July. I kind of miss it, but I like being at Dave’s house too, so it’s a tough call. My plants are pretty much all but dead, though. I watered them (not sure if it’s a lost cause at this point) and felt slightly guilty, then I took off. 
 
Teenie, however, is faring pretty well at Dave’s. There are still some stand-offs with the other kitties, but they aren’t fighting as much. I let her play outside while I was there, which is slightly worrying since she has no claws to defend herself if necessary, but she seemed to be having so much fun exploring Dave’s backyard, I didn’t have the heart to make her come in. And anyway, it seems to be helping her make peace with the other cats. Outside is sort of no man’s land as far as kitty territory goes, so they can sort things out and maybe start to get friendly with each other. It’s like U.N. negotiations for cats.
 
So, lots of lazy time this weekend. The big highlight was the trip to Home Depot which ended with Dave buying an air-conditioner. I helped him install it in his bedroom. Sooooooo lovely not to be sleeping in the heat with the window open and god knows what bugs flying in & out of the room. Happy sigh. I may not sleep in my apartment again until fall, who knows. (Or until Dave kicks me out, whichever comes first.) Oh, and he got a new shower head, at my insistence. This one won’t fall & bonk you in the head while you’re showering. Hooray!
 
Anyway, I took the same flight this week that I did last week – it leaves at 7:30 p.m., which is easy because the airport is pretty dead on Sunday nights. I got here around 10:30, took a cab to the hotel, checked in, showered, got ready for bed, and got maybe 4 hours of sleep when it was all said & done. Good lord, but I am tired. Today is a coffee day, for sure.
 
Oh, the tattoo has now officially entered the Itchy Phase of healing. Oh god, it itches. I can’t put a damn thing on it, and I’m not supposed to scratch it. Aaahh! The agony!