vindication!!

There has been a running joke between me and The Boy regarding the fact that the one time I bet him that he couldn't fit into my jeans because his waist is not smaller than mine, he actually fit my jeans (at that point in time!).

A lot of people recently have been noticing my new, slightly thinner figure and have commented about my recent weight loss. Someone, I forget who, commented about the size of my arms being thinner than before, which made me pondered out loud, "I wonder if my arms are thinner than The Boy's?"

You would think the answer is an easy "yes, my arms are thinner than The Boy's!" but to my surprise, everyone we asked speculated that MY arms were NOT thinner than his. This is because The Boy has a reputation for being anorexic and extremely vain about keeping fit. And the fact that at an early point in our relationship (the point where I was fatter than I am now), he was able to fit into a pair of my jeans. So I said that one day, we will measure with a tape measure and I will prove that my arms are thinner than his.

Today was the day. I measured his right arm -- it was 12 inches in diameter. He measured my right arm -- it was 11 inches in diameter.

VINDICATION!! He may look thinner than me but the numbers don't lie! The Boy did ask if I wanted to take another bet that he could fit into my current jeans. I politely declined. I know when to quit when I'm ahead.

And plus, the reason he can fit into my jeans is because I have a big butt and he doesn't, so there's ample room for his lack of behind. =)

the cutest little slugger I've ever seen

I was at another one of The Boy's baseball games, and this is the cutest little boy dressed in a baseball uniform I have ever seen!

The little boy's father was on the visitor's team playing against The Boy and his team. The little slugger was the unofficial batboy for his father's team.
Here, the game is over and the little boy is preparing for his own batting practice.
As I was taking pictures of this adorable little slugger, I kept fearing that his father was going to come snatch my camera away for being a crazy lady taking pictures of his son.
He's so adorable!! The Boy better watch out or he's going to lose me to this little slugger.

the cutest puppies ever

These puppies were so adorable, I wanted to dognap one and take it home. Unfortunately, its owner would not let go of the leash.

wedding story #3

This isn't a personal story, but since it's wedding season, thought I'd share a CNN article about some wacky wedding history and tradition.

Click here to read the article. Enjoy!

awesome pizza friday

To my Girls of Awesome Pizza Fridays -- I MISS YOU! I'm having pizza, all alone in my cube at work, and I start laughing thinking about the time K put parmeson cheese into her soda and drank it.

Wish you were all sitting in my cube eating pizza with me. Although Pizza 51 is MUCH better than what I have pictured here (Mr. Pizza Man). And, the idea of sausage and pineapple is much better than the actual taste of it. Nothing else but ham should be paired with pineapples on pizza.

yummy deem sum

I went to a Summer Law Clerk reception that was sponsored by the AABA of the Greater Bay Area (that's Asian American Bar Association for those of you who couldn't figure it out). It was supposed to be a networking thing, but I just went for the free dinner. hee hee

Side note - I have never seen dim sum spelled as "deem sum" but this is how they used it on the restuarant's website.

The reception was held at Yank Sing, a high-end dim sum restaurant in SF's Financial District. I was at the reception with two of my fellow law clerks at the City Atty's office. One of the law clerks volunteered to sign people in, so the other law clerk and I just sat there talking to one another until we were given permission to get in line for the buffet (the other intern doesn't like networking events either).

So unlike certain buffet lines that I recently took part in, the servers here were very generous with the servings. I had each of the dim sum items: shrimp dumplings, pork dumplings, vegetable dumplings, scallop dumplings and a pork bun. There was also chicken lettuce cups, shrimp fried rice, beef chow fun, eggrolls and fried shrimp. Boy was I full after eating everything on that plate. It was all very delicious. And there was dessert - sesame seed buns and egg custard tarts. I felt like a pork bun myself after I left the reception.

I suppose this wasn't a completely free dinner -- there was a cash bar and I spent $6 for a glass of white wine. That's still a pretty cheap dinner for a place like Yank Sing. And best of all, I had breakfast for dinner!

port tour

We had an actual law clerk outing last Thursday -- a boat tour of the port! And it was on one of the hottest days of the year.

There were quite a lot of people -- aka tourists -- on the boat in addition to us law clerks. Although it was hot and not quite as entertaining as I thought it would be (and just a bit educational), it was a great 3 hours away from the office and full of fishy sea air.
We saw the Coast Guard go by and all the cute men on board waved at me (well okay, maybe they were waving at everybody else on the tour boat).
I wonder if this is the same Cosco ship that crashed into the Bay Bridge and spilled a ton of oil into the bay.
Here are the cranes that move the containers from the ships onto the port and vice versa. My favorite quote from the tour guide: "Containers are the metal objects that are rectangular in shapre and comes in different colors. The containers may hold anything from raw material like cotton or new cars imported from other countries." And I added to myself that I never knew what a container was until she gave me the definition.
I tried to take a picture of our tour guide but I don't think you can see her here. She's in the third window (closest to the right side of the screen). It was totally obvious that she was reading from a script the entire time.
And here is a picture of the Bay Bridge with the new-not-yet-completed bridge right behind it. This is the eastern span of the Bay Bridge -- the one that connects Treasure Island/Yerba Buena Island with Oakland. They're building a new bridge to replace the one you see here. I think the new bridge is supposed to wrap around the island instead of going through it. Don't take my word for it - it's just speculation that I heard from the other interns and I'm just too tired to research further into that right now.

the hills of san francisco

I walk these hills every day, two times a day. Once in the morning to get to Bart to go to work. Once in the afternoon to go home from Bart. Takes me about half an hour each time.
Up the hill...
...down the hill...
...up another hill...
...with my comfy walking shoes...
As you can see, this is a very steep hill.

I've got legs and buns of steel thanks to all this walking up and down the hills. This is how I can afford to gorge on fatty foods all weekend.

wednesday night dinners

Everyday for lunch, I usually just have a tuna salad sandwich on whole wheat bread. That's it. For five days a week. Once in a long while, I'll splurge and actually go out and get something else for lunch. Then for dinner, I'll nuke a frozen Smart Ones and have a piece of fruit (if there's any). I don't cook dinner because it's not my kitchen and there's not much for me to cook with anyway. And the frozen entrees are pretty good...I just hope I don't die from an overload of sodium.

So, I look forward to Wednesday nights, because that's when The Boy takes me out to a restaurant of my choice and I get to spend some quality time with him while gorging on real food (emphasis on spending time with The Boy and NOT on eating food). Why Wednesdays? It's the date-in-the-middle-of-the-week-before-the-weekend-dates.

Since I've been back in SF for the summer, we've eaten at: my favorite Chinese restaurant, Koi Palace; really good pizza joint, Haystack; and most recently Chevys.


I love the fact that Chevys provides a neverending basket of chips and salsa. I usually get through one basket before our food comes, and then they bring out another basket of chips for me to munch on throughout dinner. The salsa is really good too.
I usually get the Chicken Flautas meal with refried beans and rice. I also get an extra side of tamalita (the sweet corn meal) because I just love the stuff. This dish comes with habanero sauce, but it's not as spicy as it sounds; it's more sweet than spicy. I still have to add hot sauce to it. And because I eat about a pound of chips and salsa before my dinner arrives, I can only finish half the plate and then I have to take home the other half (leftovers are not always good the next day).
The Boy had Fajita Nachos, and I ate all the jalapenos on his plate. The steak on the nachos were really nice and tender, and even though the "toppings" were baked right on the nacho chip, the chip wasn't soggy at all - it was still quite crispy.

After dinner, we walked around the mall to digest a bit before heading home. As we were walking through, we saw a Haagen Dazs store and I was estatic to see they had cupcakes! I didn't immediately go in and get one. We walked around a bit more and then it was closing time. So on the way out of the mall, we passed by Haagen Dazs again and The Boy insisted I should try one of the ice-cream cupcakes.


You don't need to twist my arm to get me to eat dessert. I had a mint-chocolate chip ice-cream cupcake with whip cream and chocolate sprinkles on top. The idea of ice-cream cupcakes was more thrilling than the actual eating of it. It's basically just a miniature size ice-cream cake, and so I had to wait for the ice-cream to thaw a bit because it was rock rock. Once the ice-cream was soft enough to eat, it was DE-LIC-I-OUS!

Hmm, what's next on my list for the next Wednesday night dinner...

wedding story #2.5 - dancing while intoxicated

wedding story #2 -- the money dance

There was a new dance game at this wedding that I never knew about. It's called "The Money Dance." It starts out with the Bride and Groom dancing together. Then, others will start cutting in to dance with either the Bride or Groom, but the only way you can cut in is if you stick money onto the Bride or Groom (stick a dollar into the Groom's pockets, down the Bride's dress, etc). Supposedly, the money goes towards the newly married couple's honeymoon trip as spending cash.

Dancing for cash. Isn't that also called stripping? Well, no one's clothes came off here - THANK GOODNESS. I think the Bride and Groom made off with about $100 for their honeymoon in Vegas and Cabo.

I don't have a video of the Money Dance, but I have a video of some very energetic dancers here.

There's another funny video I took but am having trouble uploading at the moment. Will attempt again tomorrow.

wedding story #1 -- a little more please?

"I would like some asparagus and carrots please."

The server proceeds to give the person in front of me one stick of asparagus and one stick of carrot.

"Um, can I have a little more asparagus and carrots? Please?"

The server then gives him one more stick of asparagus.

"Just a little bit more? Pretty please?"

The server clearly looks annoyed, but hey, this is a guy who eats a lot so it's not surprising he would want more than one stick of asparagus and carrot. So the server puts another stick of carrot onto his plate.

Moving onto the next dish in line, the guy in front of me asks the same server, "I would also like some pasta alfredo, please."

The server gives him a scoop of pasta, which only has four rigatoni in it. The guy is laughing at the server now and even shakes his head. I'm trying not to laugh as I wait my turn to get food.

"Pretty little miss, do I have to beg you for a little more food? I'm a growing boy here."

So the server gives him another little scoop of pasta, which results in another four pieces of rigatoni.

He gets the point and gives up asking for more food. Luckily, it was self-service iceberg salad and fresh fruit, which was what I filled up my plate with after I only got one stick of asparagus and one stick of carrot. Oh, and it was one piece of chicken per person (although I didn't finish mine because I filled up on salad and bread).

I think the guy went back for seconds. I don't remember whether he was successful with round two, though, because I think I was busy playing with the baby sitting next to me and trying to feed the baby my bread.

I had my fill of the chocolate M&Ms on the table though.

bluebook nerd alert

Warning -- I'm going to gripe about the Bluebook. If you have no idea what the Bluebook is, please read over this post and enjoy the Po the Panda video.

---

Having been in law school for two years now, and also being on a law journal for most of those two years, I have to live and breathe by the rules of the Bluebook. I might have slept with the Bluebook under my pillow for the whole first semester of law school (we had these stupid citation quizzes we had to do online). And then there were these "Bluebook Parties" for the legal journals. Ack, needless to say, the Bluebook is "my friend."

So I've been interning for the City Attorney's office somewhere in the Bay Area for the last month and although I don't physically have my Bluebook sitting right next to me, I have been quite proud of myself for memorizing most of the rules for citations. Well, put a foot in my mouth! Little did I know, California state courts DON'T FOLLOW THE BLUEBOOK.

Example:

Regular Bluebook citation -- Ehret v. Congoleum Corp., 87 Cal.App.4th 202 (Cal. App. 2nd Dist. 2001).

How the courts in California wants that same citation to be cited -- Ehret v. Congoleum Corp. (2001) 87 Cal.App.4th 202, 104 Cal.Rptr.2d 370.

I was all proud of my memo, and was so surprised to get it back with all these red arrows from the year indicating it should go after the case name.

*Sigh* At least I have the excuse that I'm a student at a mid-west law school. The other interns from Bay Area law schools didn't know about the difference in citation either. Goes to show that WHATEVER YOU LEARN IN LAW SCHOOL IS COMPLETELY USELESS IN THE REAL WORLD.

pottery painting fun

I went to a Bachelorette party this past weekend and instead of the usual alcohol and strippers, we had ourselves a good time getting "dirty" in our own way.

The Maid of Honor, and perhaps also some of the bridesmaids, surprised the Bride with a painting pottery session at this place called - surprise - Pottery Fun.
First, the Bride got to pick out pieces of pottery that she wanted us to paint, and eventually have in her home (whether it be in the closet or displayed on the counter).
Next, the Bride picked out the colors she wanted us to paint with and left all the creativity to us.
For three of us, we decided to tackle the sake set the Bride chose. I was in charge of painting the tray.

A couple of hours later and voila! A gorgeous blue sake set.
Here are some of the other pieces that we made for the Bride:

Some sort of appetizer dishes, but it's cool the way you put the dishes together.

A couple of martini glasses.
There was also a vase and a pitcher of some sort, but I didn't get a chance to take a picture of it.

These pottery pieces shown here are not quite 100% completed. The pottery place will have to put the painted pieces into the fire and then add a glaze to it so that it's all nice and shiny. The finishing process takes about a week to complete, so I may not get to see the completed product until I visit the Bride in her new home and she'll be forced to take out the pottery pieces and display them for our visit.

for the love of the game

I'm dating a player on the Detroit Tigers. For real. No lie. Okay, if you noticed, he's not exactly one of these Detroit Tigers, but he seriously is a team member of the "Detroit Tigers".

Anyhow, The Boy started playing baseball in a league created by players who just wanted to play real baseball. I've only been to two of his games. There's not a lot of people in the stands, but all the players really love to just play baseball and strive to win each game.

At the last game that I went to, the game started late because of some snafu with the first field being locked. So while The Boy was playing in his game, I noticed that gradually more and more people started filling up the stands. When I looked around, I noticed they were half in uniform, and finally I figured out that they were players from another two teams in the league. They apparantly, were also scheduled to play on the same field that The Boy's team was currently playing.

I overheard the umpire talk to the captains of the two teams sitting in the stands and it was agreed by all that the teams sitting in the stands would start an hour later than scheduled, or whenever the teams on the field finished the 7th inning, whichever came first. So as I was sitting and watching the game on the field, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the players sitting in the stands just started changing into their uniforms. I mean, there was a guy sitting about two feet away from me who just stood up, took off his pants, put on something that I assumed was his jockstrap (because my eyes were ON THE GAME, you know) and then put on his baseball pants (or whatever they're called). A few more guys sitting behind me and to the other side of me also followed suit and started changing into their uniforms.

Do men have no modesty at all??

I ask this question, and yet who was the one getting dressed for a wedding in the backseat of a car? (that would be me)

kid at heart

I indulged myself with a Happy Meal from McDonalds. I rarely eat at McDonalds, probably once or twice a year at most. But I was walking around the Plaza today and needed a little snack before dinner (and because I skipped lunch), so decided to get a chicken nugget kids meal there. I really did forget that the Happy Meal comes with a toy, and was so excited to see that this month's meal is about Kung Fu Panda!
I secretly want to watch this movie because I love cartoons (I'm still a kid at heart). But I will not pay $10.50 for a cartoon. So I'll just have to wait until it comes out on DVD later this year. My all time favorite cartoon so far is Over the Hedge ("...but I like the cookie...")

Anyway, my little Happy Meal today came with Po the Panda. I thought it was just a plastic figurine, but oh no, it also comes with sound! Below is a video of me demonstrating how one can have fun with a plastic little toy.

i sound like a broken record

I'm starting my fourth week at my wonderfully stress free internship, and I feel like a broken record everytime someone new asks me "So what school are you from?" It usually goes as follows:

An atty/investigator/paralegal/secretary/law clerk/mailroom person who I was not previously introduced to would ask: "What school are you from?"

Me: "University of Missouri - Kansas City"

Them looking shocked, then asking "What are you doing out here?"

Me: "I used to live and work in the Bay Area before I went away for law school."

Them: "Oh. So what made you decide to go out to the middle of no where?"

Me: "Well, I applied everywhere, and during the time that USF waitlisted me, UMKC kept throwing money at me to entice to go there. It worked."

Them: "Well, that's really smart. A JD is a JD whereever you can get one."

Me: "And it's all the same. As long as I can just pass the bar, right?"

Them: "Absolutely true. You've got quite a story there."

Me: "I seem to always take the more challenging route."

Them: "Barbeque must be really good out there."

.....

And so this is how my conversation goes when someone new decides to stop at my cube. With this internship and trying to make contacts for future job prospects, I feel like I'm living a never-ending interview.

campaign paraphernalia

It being campaigning season, I usually get bombarded with people handing out flyers about various proposals, ordinances, propositions and such. And the people campaigning for the politicians are out too, and they also bombard me with flyers and buttons and balloons and stuff. I usually ignore and keep on walking.

Well, I got something new today that I actually took -- a potholder! Who would have thunk it? It's something I could actually use and not immediately throw into the recycle bin.

Too bad for Carole Migden that I'm not registered to vote in California. Thank you for the potholder though!

farmers' market

This was the smallest Farmers' Market I have ever went to in my entire life. Even smaller than the one in Kansas City. However, these are the hugest red onions I have ever seen, and they looked so fresh. The onions were such a nice color too, and smelled pretty sweet for onions. If only I actually liked eating onions...

old chair new chair

This little puppy was left at home alone one day and decided to take out his fear of being alone on this rocking chair. He chewed out the corner of the bottom pad and actually ate the thing. There were shreds everywhere, or so I was told.


So L and I bought some material and a new pad for the rocking chair. It took me a whole afternoon to shape the bottom pad, and then figure out how to cut the material without screwing up because we didn't want to make another trip to the fabric store. Luckily, I managed to cut out just the right size to cover each of the padding perfectly. Now we just hope Beau doesn't chew up the newly redone padding.
Sometimes I amaze myself with all the handy things I can do.

dog food

I hate being potential dog food for the chihuahua.

Damn chihuahua bit me again today and I was doing nothing to it and was no where near its owner (IT itself wasn't even near its owner).

Note to self -- never get a chihuahua for a pet.