An Extreme athlete? No.

In the beginning, there was surfing. Hundreds of years later, some rebellious Los Angelites decided to apply those same techniques to blacktop and skateboarding as we know it today was born.

At some point in the regrettable 1980s, a tiny subsection of skiers decided that skiing itself was not extreme enough, and snowboarding was born. There were a few stabs at sky surfing and sand surfing, but those never progressed beyond sand in your underwear and fatal accidents while filming Mountain Dew commercials, respectively.

However, one afternoon, no doubt after an insanely awesome day of carving and ollying on the slopes or in a drained swimming pool, an extreme athlete had an idea. "What if, we, you know, take this whole thing full circle, dude?" he asked his fellow pioneer of the future of sport. ['man' or 'amigo' may have been uttered during the preceeding sentence.] When his fellow pioneer asked him for clarification, he explained. "Let's take boarding back to the water. But instead of relying on Mother Nature's gifts of waves, gravity, or our own foot strength, we can harness the power of Daddy's powerboat!"

"Radical!" responded his amigo, and wakeboarding was born.

Saturday, Leina partook in said wakeboarding on a boat which may or may not have been owned by the father of the pilot. It is a lot harder than it looks on TV, especially when she had never waterskied before, either. Charles took her to Lake Berryessa, Leina had to get up at 5:30 to get to Foster City where they drove to San Mateo and met up in Castro Valley, where they drove to Napa in a caravan at 9:30.

Leina mostly sat on the boat and drank lemonades and felt the breeze on her face. It's hard to talk over the engine when you are towing an extreme athlete behind you. Wakeboarding is a lifestyle. But it is not a lifestyle Leina will be living.

Roommates in transition

Leina, who was living alone when this blog decided to track her comings and goings, picked up Angie as a roommate a few months later. This helped with her bills and allowed her to maintain the lifestyle she preferred without working more than 4 hours a day. Angie originally came to Leina for short-term transitional housing, but it was a good enough experience that Leina and Angie are now roommates indefinitely.

Starting Tuesday, however, Leina will have a second roommate, Nicole. Nicole has been friends with Leina for awhile. Nicole is an Aptos Posse member, has received rides from Leina, and once showed up to Stephen Dodson's birthday party at Element where she and Erica and Tony and Omid waited for a long time but Stephen Dodson never showed up. Nicole is also in need of short term, transitional housing, and her rent plus Angie's would allow Leina to quit her job for Mr. Turner and live off her roomers, but Leina will not.

Concerned that she will have to vie for Leina's attention now that there will be another attractive young woman living in their house, yesterday Angie went and broke her arm playing softball. Leina was duly sympathetic, and for the next few weeks will help Angie with such chores as digging her keys out of her purse and buttoning her pants.

Songs in Leina's Head

All day today, Leina couldn't help singing the refrain (which is probably the only part of the song she can sing) "Drop it like it's hot." Tony yelled at her to stop several times, but insidiously, she kept at it all night long. Late in the evening, she briefly tried to change her tune, belting out the old standby, "Love you girl, just love you," sung by Alan Thicke's son, but Thicke didn't stick.

Cookie Madness

Leina spent almost all day today making cookies for Miki's wedding shower. It is going to be a cookie themed party. Auntie Evelyn (who has a Kitchen-Aid) was kind enough to make the dough, and Leina baked a gross of each type of cookie. There were snickerdoodles, chocolate chip, and some sort of oatmeal-almond-dried cranberry type. Leina let Tony, Angie, and Erica sample all three. There was disagreement as to which was the best, but in truth, the chocolate chip cookies were the tastiest.

Last week, Leina and the other two co-hosts of the bridal party spent an afternoon making the non-perishible cookie part of the shower--fortune-cookie shaped refrigerator magnets. Two pieces of paper were glued together, then folded like a fortune cookie and affixed to a magnet. Something wedding like, along the lines of "Miki and Francisco for ever, 8/4/06" was written on the fortune. It probably looked a bit like this. But this was hard work and they gave up before they made one for each of the 40 or so expected guests. So they decided on two rules: 1) no member of Miki's family gets one, and 2) only one fortune-cookie shaped magnet per family.

A tube inside her

Today, out of nowhere, Leina got an endoscopy. Maybe it wasn't out of nowhere to her, but it was out of nowhere to certain friends who take it upon themselves to figure out what Leina is up to and broadcast it to the world. Remember how Leina hadn't been feeling so hot last month? Well, she pretended to the outside world that she had recovered, but she never really did, entirely. So this morning Charles drove her to Kaiser and she had an endoscopy and an ultrasound. The good news is that the procedures went without complications. The bad news is that they didn't figure out what was wrong. Leina may, at the suggestion of Tony, try switching her brand of toothpaste from her current whitening one to a nonwhitening one.

Getting Famous but not Getting Blueberries

Leina is finally getting some respect beyond area codes 415, 510, and 650. She has gained her first fans from the Eastern Time Zone, at least her first fan who runs her own blog (and it will not go unnoted that Michigan is in the EST). Indeed, perhaps this entry lavishes as much praise upon Tony as it does her subject, but remember, without Leina, there would be no Leina's Life.

Leina last week was very concerned about Mr. Turner's birthday, which had passed the previous week. She insisted on a cake, a celebration, and some party hats. There were big dilemmas regarding which type of cake to choose, so she consulted with Erica. Erica quipped that Leina really just wanted to get something with blueberries in it. Leina agreed. In the end, the party hats fell through and she purchased a lemon tart from Tartine. It was apparently quite tasty, and the absence of blueberries was not lamented.

More old school Rap/Hip Hop

The other day, out of nowhere, Leina brought up Da Brat in conversation. Then, before Da Brat's lyrical prowess could be extolled, the conversation steered elsewhere and the saucy rapper was never referred to again.

Another Bazaar?

Leina is invited to a party that Joe is throwing on Friday night. When asked if she is going, Leina demurred. "I don't think so," she said. "Japanese Buddhist Church is having their bazaar the next day. I've got to get ready." But didn't Leina already get ready for her Japanese Buddhist Church's bazaar? Oh. That was the Marin County one. This is the San Francisco one.

This is a big weekend. Leina will be leading scores of syncronized amateur obon dancers, celebrating the 90th anniversary of Japantown Mall. Not only does she need her beauty sleep beforehand, Leina also needs to work on the chicken teriyaki assembly line. She managed to avoid the 4 a.m. shift she was stuck with last year, but it means she'll be staying up late on Friday marinating chicken skewers.

Fremont Vietnamese Sandwiches

Today Leina received a call from Tony, who uses her to make his phone internet-equipped. Using her iMac, Leina was kind enough to direct him to the location of the Fremont Hayward Fault Line exhibit--a hole dug in the ground. The hole in the ground was closed, so Leina offered up an alternative activity in Fremont--Lee*s Sandwiches. Tony had never heard of Lee*s, but Leina is super knowlegable when it comes to ethnic food of all types, and she loves Vietnamese sandwiches best of sandwiches. Earlier this summer, Leina and Joe and Andy and Erica went out for Vietnamese sandwiches, and Leina felt bad because she knew that she loved the sandwiches more than anyone else and Erica paid, so she insisted on buying some knishes for everyone else as soon as they were done.

She gave him directions to the above shop, but she wasn't sure about the scale of the map, and wound up on taking Tony on a three-Starbucks long walk in and out of the office parks and minimalls of Fremont. The sandwiches were tasty, so it was worth it. And Leina was excited to learn that Lee*s is going to be opening up in San Francisco this fall!

Leina also disclosed that she herself has been known to read the comment section of this publication, and was embarrassed to admit that she didn't know the initials of one of her closest friends (here's a hint--her first name is Ricca).

Last night, Leina made some yaki soba, but realized that she had bought the type without the flavor packet. So she used Worcestershire sauce. And then she tried to share some with Angie, who politely accepted a little and commented on this particular dish's 'robustness.'

No Phone!?!

Leina had a nice time in Detroit, but she's unable to communicate to anyone about it, since she left her phone cord there! This mini-tragedy is softened somewhat by the fact that she does, from time to time, email, and has been able to notify some of her friends via her computer about the problem.

Liane is sending out the cord FedEx, but Leina requests that those in desparate need of hearing her voice call the home phone because all her numbers are trapped in her simcard in her batteryless phone. The rest of us can hopefully sit tight until Wednesday and join the queue when she finally gets her juice back.

Old School Rap/Hip Hop

is how you'll hear Leina describe her favorite type of music. Last weekend she was reminiscing about Da Brat. She'll toss around the acronyms ABC and BBD when describing the type of music she likes in a club if you're going to get her to dance.

Imagine her despair upon learning that she will be missing BBD, Johnny Gill, and SWV who are playing a show in Oakland this weekend! Once notified of this tragedy, Leina broke down with "I get so weak in the knees I can hardly speak" and a few more lines of that classic song.

Leina is spending the week in Detroit Rock City, the home of much great music and the first half of the title of that classic Boyz II Men song. She'll be celebrating Dominic's 1 year birthday. It is true Leina already celebrated it in Marin County a month or so ago, but she's doing it again--this time on the real birthday. She plans on bringing back Middle Eastern bread as gifts upon returning Monday.

Say no to FasTrak

Leina is a pro of navigating the traffic in the city (she'll tell you it's all about 511.org), but as one who crosses at least three bridges a week, she is also good at and being stuck in traffic waiting to pay a toll. Leina, obstreperously, refuses to buy a FasTrak. She claims that when the black helicopters come and the UN takes over, the first people they will come for will be those whose actions can be tracked by the little white box they keep on their dashboard.

High school 3rd

Leina's 4th of July was unremarkable, involving the Marin County Fair (where you can purchase organic onion rings and fair-trade cotton candy).

Leina's 3rd of July was more interesting. After almost bailing on the cookout at Erica's, she cancelled obon practice and came--an hour late--with Charles. This wasn't a Lowell reunion somuch as a Hoover reunion. Hoover is a middle school in San Francisco where all attendees went, aside from Erica, who is an honorary memeber. 'But wait,' you may say. 'Wasn't Leina a member of the Aptus Posse?' A justifiable question, which deserves clarification. Aptus is a different middle school (short for Bartholomew P. Aptus, the famous swine rancher), and Leina is only an honorary member. But more about Aptus later.

At the cookout, Leina was in top form. Shortly after arriving, Leina accused Tony of sneezing into the food. It was just the scrape of the spatula against the grill--Tony was just flipping his home-ground, grass fed burger. In an act of revenge, he later dropped Charles' burger on the ground. Then, while everyone else was in a tablewide conversation, Leina borrowed Serena's cell phone to call someone and counsel her about what to wear that evening.

Steven Dodson, Will, Andy, and Serena were there, along with assorted significant others. Steven refused to play Boggle with Will, Amy, and Annie, but kept up the banter with the non-players. Leina arrived in the middle of the Boggle game and spectated for awhile.

About 9, Leina and Charles left so they could hang out with Khalil and Aptus Posse. It was Khalil's birthday, and they were going out to Storyville, but the venue was changed to an undisclosed location. They made it there about 11:00 because they got stuck on the bridge coming back into the City. Leina drank a cosmopolitan and did a little dancing, but mostly leaned against the wall with Charles nodding her head to the music. Serena, another honorary member of the Aptus Posse, arrived around 1:00, but by that time Leina was ready for bed.

Beaches and haircuts

Leina was tricked into going to Point Reyes yesterday to fake celebrate Erica's birthday. Erica's birthday is actually on July 4, but Leina didn't want to do anything with Erica on that day but was feeling guilty and wanted to do something anyways, so Erica invited her up to the National Seashore so she accepted. Leina invited Charles along to accompany her, but he had a haircut in the morning and they didn't want to wait for him. So instead, she was stuck in the backseat alone while Angie and Chris drove.

Leina thought they were going to sit in a restaurant. She was suprised when Angie and Chris showed up in flipflops and swimsuits. It seemed that they were going to the beach instead. Once rendezvousing with Tony and Erica at Point Reyes, Erica surprised them all by explaining how they might go to the beach later, but at the moment, they were going to go hike out on Tamalpais Point to see some rare elk, and that Tony would be birdwatching the whole way. So they drove from sunny, warm Bear Valley Visitor's Center into the cool, foggy, Tamalpais Point, and hiked along the ridge for an hour or so before turning back.

During their hike (where a Song sparrow, a Caspian tern, and a Savanna sparrow were sighted, along with many elk) the fog rolled in further and made all the beaches cloudy and unenticing. So they went off to eat some oysters at Tony's Oyster Shack in Marshall (no relation to the publisher of this blog). They had bbqed oysters, raw oysters, oysters Rockefeller, and a pitcher of MGD. Leina ate the last of the fries before Tony could have his fair share, and he was angry. But she paid for the snack and he figured he could forgive her.

Leina had scheduled a haircut for 4:45 on Saturday evening, so they had to hurry back. Tony criticized her for the riduculous timeslot she'd chosen for her haircut but she explained that she needed it so she could look cute for the future little Lowell cookout she'd almost bailed on earlier in the week. But she was late to the haircut so he cut it fast and it doesn't look as good as it could have.

After that she had to run to Masa's second going away party (third, if you count the trip to the track where he didn't come), and Leina hung out with her family and ate some cake and tormented little Yuto for fun.