The Nation's capital

Leina spent the weekend in DC. She's an important person--she's on the board of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), so she attends meetings about every three weeks. This one was a hard one--the topic was "How can we, as social workers, get more respect?" They sat around and brainstormed and then finally realized that social workers are too nice. Unlike the rest of the professionals in this country, they spend all their time working and helping people to spend their time lobbying for more money, prestige, or respect. They have no AMA, no powerful lobbyists. And unlike teachers, they don't have a strong union and aren't even really thought about by people in power. Powerful people all had teachers when they were young, few had social workers.

So Leina decided to do something about it. She's in the midst of planning something huge, involving civil disobedience and fireworks, to make people more aware of the good work that social workers do. But first, she had to go to the orthodontist.

In her words...

Today was perhaps a typical day for Leina. Here is her day in her own words, transcribed by me to the best of my ability as she reeled it off: "Went to work went to West Portal went to the post office and bought some notecards to write thank you notes for the Hawaii trip then came home ate and then wrote about 3/4 a page on my thesis and said at least I did something and that's about it... and watched American Idol and am watching some of the Warriors game right now."

Tomorrow night she's back in DC, and hopefully she will have some great stories for us that go beyond giving the email address of her friend's sister who already has a boyfriend and is about to move away from San Francisco permanently in less than a week to another not super close friend who asked for it so he could kind of ask her out, leading to the inevitable asking out and rejection.

Birthday girl

Today was Leina's birthday. What did she do? Well, there was a celebration of some sort at work, where some cha su bao was purchased and consumed and maybe one of those storebought cakes from the bakery across from Ranch 99 that she gets excited about but can never justify purchasing. Then, I don't know, maybe she talked to some of her Long Beach friends and hung out with the Aptus Posse.

She was clearly doing something super exciting because she never answered her phone all day! So Tony and Erica felt bad that they didn't get to talk to her on the phone. Unless she is calling right now. Okay, she was.

Maybe Erica and Tony took a low priority because she walked down Mission street with them yesterday sampling tacos--she tried six tacos from four different taquerias. Las Palmas made the best, but messiest, taco al pastor, and Pancho Villa made the most expensive but worst, according to our consensus. Leina bought some mushrooms and some salt and pepper fried smelt that weren't very good.

Spaghetti

After a long lamented separation, Leina finally got back together with Tony and Erica last night. She gamely took BART across the bay, though only in exchange for the promise that she would be personally escorted back. She enjoyed a meal of homemade spaghetti and meatballs and red wine. She generously bestowed macadamia-related gifts upon her hosts. She remarked how she inexplicable hadn't taken a pepcid AC before the meal and her face was rapidly becoming the same color as the wine she was imbibing. She disappeared from conversation for minutes at a time in order to look at photos from their trip and show photos from hers.

With a belly full of pasta (it was extra full because she had already eaten a preliminary dinner before coming over), she headed out to some bar off of Hayes street in order to make an appearance at the birthday party of Xochi. And an appearance we made. She found herself talking to a boy for awhile before delicately extracting herself and replacing her place with Erica's sister. She sipped on a beer but didn't finish it. This bar, whose name escapes me, served no mixed drinks. It was a triumphant return to the Bay Area social scene by Leina, no matter what your metrics are.

back from Hawaii

Leina had a good time in Hawaii. She saw a toucan! It was good to see her family and put her parents to rest.

Then she got home and missed talking to Erica. Finally, Erica made it back in the country and was able to talk to her but it was too late, Leina'd already written a rude email that Erica and Andy called her out on and later she sent out a halfhearted apology.

Then she talked to Erica again nd had lots of stories to tell but alas, Erica was too tired to hear them, so they'll talk again tomorrow.

Dear readers, I have realized that I cannot complete this formidable task alone. I need eyes and ears everywhere to record Leina's goings on. Please do not be afraid to contribute your anecdotes, observations, and lies regarding Leina's life.

So I lied

A special, reporting from Hungary edition, finds your narrator many miles from our protagonist. She's been busy lately. Between hosting a full out, barn-raising, christmas-cactus-tipping, Japanese-curry-eating new years eve party where she got super faded and passed out on her couch until five am when she made it the fifteen steps to her room, spending about four hours a day packing for her trip (it was extremely difficult to decide whether to pack the green or the blue tank top), debating whether to purchase and self cyrovac a peking duck, going to a 49ers game, or cleaning out her refrigerator, the action has not stopped.

It did come to my attention that she spent some time in a bar at the extremely unladylike hour of 1:00pm with a group of people known as "the aptus posse," but I forgot what they drank so I can't relate more. I think it was Jaigermeister, peach schnapps, and something "nutty."