Mikachu · nu

Well, I’ve slept away most of my day away, the only one I have this week, other than Monday. But that’s okay, since I don’t have much else to do and need rest to get rid of this sickness I have. I do think I’m feeling better. The mucous is definitely loosened and easier to cough out and I’m not dying so much overall.

As promised, I would provide a retelling of my week up in L.A. with my friends & family that was more positive then the last two posts I provided.

Tuesday was one of my best friend’s 25th birthday. Her boyfriend planned a wonderful surprise party for her at a sushi bar. I was late, unfortunately, and she was already wasted, but the night was fun nonetheless. After that was over, her older sister and I went to the bar I frequent up there to finish up with Porn Star Karaoke and she was a hoot. She loved it.

The next day, my friends from the Marinara group got together to do our Secret Santa gift exchange and make a Hanukkah dinner. We called it Chrismukkah, of course. Our out of town Vanessa was in town from DC and she, along with the other Vanessa, Ryan and Alissa, provided quite a delicious dinner of tri-tip, latkes and matzo ball soup! The rest of us just stayed out the kitchen since we wouldn’t know what we were doing. We lit the menorah for the 3rd night of Hanukkah and exchanged gifts. Of course, we finished up with some highly offensive and questionable rounds of Telestrations.

Christmas with the family was different. We celebrated with all the extended family on the 25th, instead of the 24th like we have done for forever. So, for Christmas eve dinner, it was just the parents, brother and I and we enjoyed tri-tip¹, homemade mashed potatoes ², Yorkshire pudding³, and baked asparagus. The brother and I watched most of Forrest Gump before receiving our traditional Christmas Eve presents of PJs from mom & dad. He got a set of Angry Bird PJs and my mom got me a 3-piece set of pink ones with pants, shorts and a long-sleeved top. I tried trading my brother for his, but he wouldn’t go for it

For Christmas day, my brother woke me up around 8:30 in the morning after he started making coffee. I started the day with some coffee & Bailey’s, followed by champagne. After opening presents and finally drinking the Civet coffee I bought my dad for Father’s day⁴, we got ready and head over to my uncle & aunt’s house. We were the first there in regards to those who weren’t already staying there. Over the course of several hours, my grandma counted at least 37 people in the end, who’d gathered to share Christmas in that house. We had our usual tamales, refried beans, salad & ambrosia dinner and a lot of wine. Nobody suffered from any accidents, there weren’t any fights, everything was very nice as usual. That’s why I love my family. Although, I do wish I still got presents from everyone like I did when I was little lol! That’s okay, I was able to give most of my close extended family something and that made me happy

Now, here’s my Christmas haul:

• Navy scarf (from Sandra)
• Lindt Lindor chocolates (from Sandra)
• Handmade necklace & earrings (from Vanessa, my Marinara secret santa)
• Handmade bookmarks (from Vanessa, my Marinara secret santa)
• Tiltpod (from Jenn, my Lavish secret santa)
• Box of liqueur filled chocolates (from Jenn, my Lavish secret santa)
• USAF sweatshirt with the Hap Arnold on it (from dad)
• Pink PJs (from mom & dad)
• $15 iTunes giftcard (from brother)
• Burt’s Bees lip balm, tic tacs, coffee mug, lotto scratchers, nail files (from santa)
• Check for $$$ (from mom & dad)
• $30 cash (from grandma)

The end

I rang in the new year with a marathon of House. I would have liked to take a coworker’s closing shift, but I started too early and would’ve had two hours of overtime which… wouldn’t have been willingly given, especially since they were sending people home early since it was that slow. I didn’t even stay for my entire 6 hour shift.

I faced some of the same old bullshit from the husband just hours into 2011 after thinking he was fine. It’s forcing me to really consider what I can do for myself to make myself happier and just forget whatever his problems are, because trying to take them on and make myself feel good isn’t going to work. Who wants to be with somebody insecure and isn’t happy? I don’t even want to be with myself. So, that’s my resolution. I’m going to make myself happy. Let’s see how this goes…

As far as recanting the past year, most of it was kind of shitty due to the huge issues in our marriage coming to the surface, his ex-girlfriend popping back into his life, his family finally revealing how much they don’t like me and how little they respect our relationship. Positives were moving down to a beautiful city ¹, loving my new store and coworkers ², I met two awesome girls in person that I’d been getting to know great online and even went out to AZ to say hi for a week and during all this, I’m down 20 pounds from my max.

Is it seriously still New Year’s Day? It feels like another regular day to me.

My Christmas holiday was enjoyable. I spent it at my parents’ house, spending a lot of time with family this year. My mom’s older brother and his wife were down from Oregon. I hadn’t seen them since New Year’s Eve in 2005, just a few days after the husband and I eloped. There was a mini-family reunion Thursday afternoon for lunch, with my mom’s twin¹, his wife and son, the oldest brother and his wife, my brother and his girlfriend, myself and my parents.

From there, I headed over to my friend’s apartment to meet up with my group of friends known as Marinara². I was a little late so I was only able to participate in one round of Telestrations, but afterwards we headed over to a part of the SFV³ where a bunch of homes in one neighborhood really go all-out with their yard decorations – they call it Candlight Lane. One house had a giant inflatable bear, decked out in Hanukkah garb. We immediately referred to him as Jew Bear. There were people selling light-up toys up & down the streets and it was quite the popular spot that night! I can’t imagine being a homeowner in that neighborhood. It was especially awesome, since one of our friends was in town for the holiday from D.C., where she’s working & going to school right now.

Friday was the usual tradition of going to my uncle’s house for tamales with my dad’s family. Everyone got a baggie of big, chewy chocolate chip cookies, a reindeer ornament and the recipe for the cookies. We sat around the giant fire pit in the backyard they just recently put in for most of the night.

Christmas day was opening of presents, breakfast by my parents and then a visit with some of the husband’s family.

Speaking of the husband, he drove me up to L.A. on Wednesday, drove back down to S.D. Thursday morning, back to L.A. Friday night and we drove home to S.D. together Saturday night. Talk about a lot of driving! I had planned on staying out until Sunday, but I thought I’d give the guy a break.

Wait, what happened to having my wisdom tooth extracted? It got postponed until the end of January. Although I was eager to have it over with, I’m grateful I was able to eat over the holiday. Not to mention, it’s our wedding anniversary on Wednesday, so to be able to for sure eat solids for a decent dinner is something I’m happy for. We’ll be celebrating 5 years of marriage! Wow… Not that the last one has been particularly great⁴, hopefully there will be MANY more, and they’ll be LOTS better.

I made off with:

• A sewing machine
• An IOU of help towards the trip to Costa Rica for the husband’s dad’s wedding.
• Harry Potter behind-the-scenes book (thanks, Tay-Tay!)
• Long john PJs
• Cashmere scarf
• Various bath products
• A decent amount of cash & gift cards
• Chocolates

If you celebrate Christmas, how did it turn out?

I have plenty to be upset and worry about. As an adult trying to make my way through the world while working on a marriage, that’s just what life is. However, there are tons of things I’m very thankful for and never for one moment forget about them, even if I don’t give as much acknowledgement to them as I should.

I’m thankful for…

• My family. They’re supporting and loving no matter what.
• My friends. Offline & on! They’re a 2nd family to me, the true & closest ones.
• My friends & coworkers still serving in the military, especially the ones who are currently oversees and away from their own family & friends for not only the time they’re over there, but over the holiday season.
• The husband’s and my jobs. For what we do, we’re paid relatively well and our jobs are secure so long as we continue to perform. Not to mention, my current coworkers are pretty darn awesome!
• Gunny, my awesome cat. While she has her annoying quirks, she’s my cat and I love her!
• Not having to work on Black Friday. A coworker contacted me on Wednesday to ask if she could take my shift and I was grateful to give it to her since that meant we wouldn’t have to drive back Thursday night so I could be at work at 10am.

Thanksgiving was very nice. It was held at my uncle’s wife’s brother’s house, so my uncle-in-law, but not from my marriage to the husband *lol*. There were about 20 people over, give or take a few, so there was a lot to eat. I only had one plate of food in addition to a sandwich and some h’ors d’oeuvres earlier in the afternoon. The husband had a work appointment during the day and either because of that or telling his family he just wasn’t up to it, we didn’t travel around to see his family this year. They probably think I have something to do with it and dislike me even further .

Surprisingly, there were some basic traditional foods missing from the spread this year! There were at least 4 different types of dressing/stuffing¹, but no mashed potatoes or green bean casserole. The husband was upset he didn’t get his green bean casserole this year. I’m thinking of going grocery shopping, preparing it with a holiday-type dinner sometime this week. The casserole, ham, mashed potatoes… Sounds nice, right?

The apartment is terribly chilly, but I want to avoid turning the heater on if I can get warm enough with blankets, sweaters and my blanket-with-sleeves. It wasn’t pleasant walking into the chilly place coming from outside which was also chilly. Apparently the bedroom is especially chilly which means, the window’s at least cracked, I think. The husband didn’t feel up to checking it out, though. How nice of him, right?

What is more exciting to write about than a slightly more-than-average day of mine? There is sleep, then there is waking up, then there is driving around, then there is going to work, then there is singing karaoke at a bar. It doesn’t sound enthralling, but today was what I would call a good day. Who doesn’t like an average day that just ends up being good in the simplest ways, right? The little things, people.

After dropping the husband off at work, I decided to stop by Bath & Body Works to pick up some more antibacterial hand soap since that shit’s always on sale. The other reason was to buy refills for my scent portable for the car. I was tired of it smelling all musty like my late grandparents’ condo whenever I got in, started it and turned on the air. I walked in on what was, apparently, their first day playing Christmas music and having all of their holiday-related displays up & out. I’m one of those people who find it excessive when Christmas music is starting to play the day after Halloween as opposed to the day after Thanksgiving. When the hell did that happen? I could’ve sworn Christmas and winter holiday shit like that didn’t start until after Thanksgiving! I can’t complain too much since I love the scent of fall & winter & Christmas. Needless to say my car smells like winter now, thanks to Fresh Balsam I bought the scent in the form of their scented fragrance oil over a month ago when Angel & Kristen were out here in SD for a few days and we browsed through B&BW.

Once I got to work, I had realized I’d forgotten to apply any cover-up to my neck to hide the bruise left from a particularly amorous husband from a couple days ago. It’s not obviously as far as hickeys go, but it’s still bruising and stippling on my neck above my collar I asked one of the coworkers I’m real friendly with if it was obvious and she played it down. Thankfully none of the management noticed, or at least didn’t say anything. Work was fairly hectic even with the random moments of slowness we experienced. I was told by one of my coworkers that he’s always glad when he sees me on the line-up when he’s working because I’m a hard worker. “I’m serious,” he said, even, since I gave him a chuckle and a look that pretty much said “Yeah, right…” I’m sure I’ve mentioned it, but at my previous store, there wasn’t a lot of morale boosting going on. More deprecating stuff usually. I think it made me a better associate, though, since I strove to please even though it was virtually impossible in that environment. It was the parent I could never please, if I ever had one.

On top of that, I’m beginning to feel a better kinship with my coworkers. Hopefully I’ll be able to move into hanging out with them outside of work soon. I need some friends out here. I want to be able to go out and have fun without the husband and without being by myself. I have no problem going out by myself, though. I have no problem eating at a restaurant or seeing a movie alone. It’s really freeing once you realize you don’t have to worry about anyone else when you’re doing those things. Just enjoy the solitude and people-watching

After work, I had to wait for the car to give my dead phone enough juice to call the husband and find out where he was so I could pick him up after I was held over for a few extra hours. He was at a bar¹ near his work. It ended up being a bar I had Yelped when moving down here and I was looking for karaoke bars. It’s kind of a dive and it’s big with the Navy & Marine guys, so lots of guys with buzz cuts and shit. I walked in on the husband singing karaoke, which I could hear from the parking lot. I knew it was him the moment I opened the car door I managed one song in before they discontinued karaoke for the night. The DJ even said I “didn’t suck”! I laughed since that was kind of awesome after his bad comments about the previous groups of girls who went up to sing Spice Girls and Cyndi Lauper and pretty much did suck. Just as we were leaving, an older black gentleman started talking to the husband and ended up tickling him. That was beyond amusing!

Now Daylight Savings Time is over and I sent a neener-neener-neener message to Kristen about it². Good night, all!