Tagged

Seven random facts about Leina, because it was requested that they be shared:

1) She has a shaker in her kitchen with white crystals in it labeled MSG. When Angie was living with Leina, she began to use said white crystals and determined that MSG can be a tasty flavor enhancer to food. Everyone in China does it, so why shouldn't she check it out? Angie began bragging about how she had been using MSG. Turns out, she hadn't. Leina uses that jar as he salt shaker.

2) She has two full sized dressers in her bedroom but they are so full she keeps her jeans in a large blue tupperware thing on top on one.

3) She talks on the phone for at least one hour a day.

4) She drives a Subaru station wagon, and within the past year, both of her next-door neighbors have bought Subaru wagons themselves.

5) She really doesn't like dogs, even if they are Erica's dog who she's known for 6 years and only tries to lick her.

6) She talks to her sister on the phone every day.

7) A few times a year she has to buy some fancy chocolates or something and mail them to her host mother in Japan from when she studied abroad 10 years ago. And a few times a year she receives fancy chocolates in the mail from her host mother in Japan. On Saturday, she received some kind of cookie that cost $50 plus $50 more for shipping.

Perhaps Ricca or Ernesto or Angie can also contribute to the meme. They are now tagged.

San Tong

Leina has been celebrating her new permanent job hard lately. First, she bought two $100 pairs of jeans at Nordstroms, one pair of skinny jeans and one pair with butterflies on the back pockets, before she got buyer's remorse and returned them. But she also bought a few shirts and is on the lookout for new shoes. She bought a shirt at H & M and had to wait a long time to checkout because some woman was trying to return about six shopping bags of stuff and they wouldn't let her and then she started yelling and it was uncomfortable for everyone. She spent the next few minutes discussing with Erica whether or not the woman was a scammer.

On Friday, she took Erica and Tony out to San Tung, which is famous for its chicken wings and dumplings. They ordered some of each of the above, plus green beans and mu shu pork. It was very tasty.

The next day Noriko and Yuto came over with plastic bottles and they sat around watching TV and talking.

Recycling

Leina, in her cluttered basement, keeps all her recycling which she saves up so she can redeem them and receive a few cents a bottle. On Saturday, Leina and Erica and Tony went on her first redemption run in around 6 months. The bottles, including the 30-year-old bottles of white zinfandel, fully filled the well in her Surbaru wagon.

They went off for a combined breakfast/redemption trip. Leina wanted to go to the Safeway on Monterey Avenue at the bottom of her hill. To her dismay, the redemtion trailer was closed. No bother, they would go over to Tartine for breakfast and stop at that Safeway in Japantown. Tartine was open, but there was a huge line, with at least 20 people in it who could not yet fit through the door. There were no chocolate crossiants anywhere in the world that could induce Leina to wait in that sort of a line. And the redemption place was closed, too, with a long line of slightly sketchier canners waiting in line for it to open at 10:00. She wasn't going to wait in that line, either. So they went to a third Safeway, which was also not yet redeeming, before they decided to eat granola and muffins for breakfast in a cafe. Finally, they drove back to the first Safeway, where the trailer was open, but they wouldn't take her glass bottles. She earned $8.35 for her troubles, but still had half-a-trunk full of glass. Tony offered her $2 for them, so he could bring them home and put them on his curb. Leina declined payment, but was kind enough to let him take the bottles off her hands.

That afternoon, Noriko came over and brought over a big garbage bag of her empty plastic bottles because she knew that Leina liked to redeem them. The cycle starts anew. Leina has not decided if she will save them or put them on the curb.

Friends' blogs

Leina's LA friends Ricca and Ernesto, apparently jealous that Leina gets to have an internety presence and they do not, agreed jointly a few weeks ago to start their own blogs. Leina has enjoyed reading how Ernesto broke up with his boyfriend and Ricca has moved out to the OC. Even Sanders, who has been scarce in this blog, made a fleeting appearance. Neither mentioned that just three days before her Japanese test last week, Leina irresponsibly flew down there to hang out for a day and a night.

Passed!!

It was a hard test. Leina was scared. She had to do all this talking in Japanese, and they even wanted to know if she could say STDs in Japanese (she could). She was scared that she didn't pass. She was regretting not having studied more, but when the test ended she was congratulated by her tester--she'd done it! She'd passed the test! Now she is a full-fledged social worker, a civil servant, and she will probably be working for the City for the next 30 years.

Leina went out to celebrate with Charles to a restaurant across the street from Bacar. She might buy new windows for her house and a new computer now that she knows she has a job.

the Test

Leina was informed on Friday that her important Japanese test is today. She spent the weekend practicing with Noriko and with Charles' grandmother. She is feeling anxious. And it is after work, which means that she gets to stress about it all day and then go in and take the test. She is not very confident, despite the fact that she can ask, "Do you have any bedsores?" as well as "When was the last time you saw a social worker?" fluently, along with dozens of other relavant phrases.

Appreciating Andy

Andy was coming to town from Hong Kong this past weekend, and Erica and Leina thought they should do something exciting to celebrate his gracing the States with his presence. Leina agreed to host if Erica agreed to cook, so she and Tony made elaborate plans to construct a paella in Leina's kitchen, despite their minimal knowledge of cooking genuine paella in a 16-inch paella pan. Will and Amy and Joe and Angie and Stephen Dodson all said they'd come.

So preparations were slowly being made when Andy revealed to the group that he wasn't going to make after all. But since everyone said they'd come, Leina and Erica decided to keep their date and celebrate Andy anyways. Steven Dodson then bailed early in the day because he had just run a triathlon. Leina thought that was lame.

The paella was made and was pretty good but some of the shrimp were undercooked and maybe that was responsible for Joe complaining of a stomach ache later in the evening and it definitely needed salt.

Andy called and talked to Leina for awhile, and then the phone was passed around the room and he had to talk to everyone. No one thought to ask him about how things are going with his newly adopted sport of dragon boat racing.

There was some show on TV that had something to do with trying to help severely obese people lose some weight and return back to society. A commercial for Norbit played during one of the breaks.

The gang played a game "Oodles of Doodles" and Leina was pissed that Tony kept guessing her drawings on the 'doodle duel' portion. The girls beat the boys, and a good time was had by all. Tony is still upset that he had to draw "firetrap," which he failed to do.

Charles left early because he had to work early. They watched A-Rod hit a home run in the 9th inning of the Yankees-Red Sox on the TV and then everyone else left.

A fake Stanford student

The other day Will was eagerly reading the news on the fake Stanford student when he came across a ROTC picture. At first, he thought that he had discovered that Leina was in the ROTC and served with the imposter, but then he read the caption and learned that Leina just had an uncanny resemblence to the infamous 'student.' He immediately forwarded the image to Leina, who shook her head in with that "Oh please" half smile she constantly flashes, but forwarded it on to her cousin anyways.