misunderstanding

Leina is still feeling sick. She did, however, make a brief appearance at the Turners' this evening. Mrs. Turner was hosting Tony and Angie's parents (in from Wisconsin!) for dinner, along with their children, and as she tends to do, she made way more food than was needed. Leina stopped by. Tony was setting the table, and pleased to see her, anticipating witty banter and loads of fascinating social-work-related anecdotes.

"You eatin'?" he asked. Leina answered affirmatively, with such a casual ease that Tony was confused. How likely was it that Leina would have accepted an invitation to dinner with such a lack of apprehension? Something must be wrong, he thought, as he froze in his tracks while retrieving another plate.

She had misheard, thinking he had asked, "You eaten'?" Of course she'd eaten. It was almost 8:00.

Basketball Assistant

Leina is not an official coach of Charles' Asian league basketball team, but she might start demanding some compensation. She spent this past weekend in Sacramento with the team for a tournament. They played lots of games and she helped out with everything: scorekeeping, water-getting, towel-gathering, small-talk-with-the-parents-making.

Sacramento was very cold. Except that it was very hot. It was scorching outside so everyone had their air conditioning cranked up to the max and she was freezing inside--in the stadium, in the restaurants, in the hotel. That is likely why she got sick, she thinks.

Home Alone

Angie has officially moved out, to some studio in Pacific Heights. Leina has found it okay to be home alone now. She's got some plans for getting a laptop and turning that room into an office, but those plans will likely be slow to be realized.

She has a cold, too.

Brain Lessons

Leina had to do training in Palo Alto yesterday. It was about Alzheimer's and dementia and soforth. It was okay. Leina had to learn about amyloid things interfering with mitochondrial function in the brain or something like that. It was pretty confusing.

Uncle's eye

Auntie called Leina on Saturday morning and told her that Uncle had to go to the hospital and Leina had to go and visit him and stay with him because she had to go to work. "But I have to go to work, too!" protested Leina, but since she was the little niece and Auntie was the wizened Auntie, guess who had to miss work (with Mr. Turner) and go to stay with Uncle. So Leina crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and drove to Marin General and stayed with Uncle while he found out that he had a scratched cornea and then drive him back home.

Yumi lives only about a mile from the hospital, and today Leina was still trying to figure out how she got talked into driving up when Yumi was so nearby.

A day in Pleasanton

Though it has been good for Leina's pocketbook to have a full-time job it has been hard on it in some ways. Her department is very tightly knit, and even though Leina hasn't been there for even one year, she has been embraced with open arms. The problem is that with all these new friends come new obligations to celebrate. Every few weeks someone is getting married, or engaged, or pregnant, or newly unpregnant, or moving, or something which is deemed worthy of a celebration. So Leina finds herself constantly ponying up her $15 contribution towards a sheetcake and a banner for the breakroom as well as some sort of a 'gift from the office.'

Which she doesn't mind all that much, but when it comes to driving to Pleasanton, makes it much more of a hassle.

So when someone was having a baby shower, Leina decided to go. It was being hosted by a coworker of Leina's who decorates her cubicle with a great deal of Tigger (from Winnie the Pooh) apparel and knicknacks. Leina would have been more hesitant to go but she couldn't resist learning whether this workmate's house was as Tigger-laden as her office was.

So Leina drove from Marin (see next post), across the Richmond San Rafael bridge and out 680, and went to the party. There was not so much Tigger as she had thought there would be, which was disappointing but somewhat reassuring to her. And somehow she stayed really late and then realized that she spent the whole afternoon there, which saddened her. But it was an okay party and probably worth her time.

Early lunch

On Tuesday, Leina had a very light breakfast, which was on top of a light dinner the night before. So she got to work and then got hungry right away and then ate her chili which she had brought for lunch at 9:30 in the morning! Which wasn't so bad, but of course she ate it so early that her body thought it was breakfast so when noontime came around she was hungry again and had to go out with Mary and get herself a sandwich, which kind of defeated the whole purpose of packing her lunch in the first place since she spent $5 on a tuna sandwich.

Bomb ass

Sporadic attempts to color this blog with the idiosyncratic language that Leina tends to use have been only moderately successful. Leina has been known to use innovative adjectives. Leina's use of 'hella' is limited, for the most part, to 'hella good.'

Leina has, on more than one occasion, described shrimp as 'bomb ass.' Perhaps other items have been called 'bomb ass,' but, for the record, Leina maintains that Good Luck Dim Sum makes some 'bomb ass shrimp,' though the ladies working there are really mean.

Go Warriors!

Leina is no fair weather fan. She has been a fan of the Warriors for quite some time, even going to a game every now and then (and recinding invitations to her back up dates, too), usually thanks to Will.

Leina also generally has them on the telly while talking on the phone or eating dinner or talking on the phone while eating dinner. So it was extra exciting for her to watch the game last night and see those Warriors pull off such a big series upset after such a long drought.

Driving

Last weekend Leina drove to Pleasanton, during rush hour, from Foster Cityto visit Miki. It took a long time. And then she filled up her gas tank, even though it cost more a gallon ($3.45) than she had ever paid and her tank was only half empty, but she really didn't want to get back from Detroit and find out the price had risen ten more cents a gallon.

Leina then drove through that part of The Maze where the tanker blew up a mere four hours before the event itself. She never really realized it, though.

A new nephew

Leina got a new nephew on May Day, little Jack. She is flying out to Detroit to visit him tomorrow. She is excited.