A What?

Earlier this month, Leina was sitting on a fourth floor rooftop terrace leisurely eating her breakfast with Tony, in the fascinating city of Istanbul, Turkey. Conversation had died down, as Leina was between thoughts. The sound of a car starting floated up from below, among the many sounds that one would expect in the center of a thriving megalopolis.

"That's a Subaru," said Leina. "That sounds just like my car."

Istanbul has a lot of many things, but Subarus is not one of them. "What?" said Tony, quite skeptical. "I haven't seen a single Suburu since we've gotten here. No way."

"Let's have a look, then," said Leina, and they both peered over the edge onto the street below." Tony strained to identify the logo on the grill badge of the vehicle in question.

"Yup, that's a Forester," said Leina, and they returned to their tomatoes.

Big time traveling!

On Sunday, Leina leaves for Turkey! This is her first time in Europe, and she is very excited. She has had numerous conversations with Erica regarding what to bring, especially how much cash, and where she will be able to get Turkish lira once she is there. Leina expects to spend several days in Istanbul, then go off to the interior to an area called Cappadocia, and then hit Istanbul again on the way out. She will be traveling with Erica and Tony, and will also meet up with Yayoi and Miwa in Istanbul for the last few days of her trip, where they coincidentally will be in the same exotic city at the same time!

in her own words

so let's see, i stepped foot into forever 21 this afternoon, on my lunch break, and was paged. i was OD (officer of the day) today, which means i go on emergencies, kinda like an emergency worker.

tonight my sister and her family and i went to foster city to ihop. my sister had been craving ihop for several months now, and i found a coupon in the sunday newspaper, so we decided to go eat ihop tonight for dinner, charles met us.


my co-wkr, mary, gave me tickets to the opera. the ticket is valued at $220, each. crazy, huh. one of my other co-wkrs sent an e-mail giving these tickets away, and he said whoever calls or e-mails me first, and mary was the first, and then he gave her two pairs. mary is giving a pair to her sister, and one to me. mary was going to go, but she is now going to the philippines in june for several weeks.


in june, i'll be doing this REI fix the hiking trail day event with co-wkrs. so far there is only 4 people wanting to go, but it should be a trip, since how the heck am i supposed to walk a mile to the trail, and then start making the trail, with a shovel. i'm so weak, and i have allergies, but whatever.


another sat in june, i'll be going on a walk from pac bell park to candlestick, 5 miles. i did this the first year with mr. turner and sanders, but this year, i'm going to do this with work people. it's sponsored by the city.


dominic is trying to be potty trained. jack is standing, but not walking.


a [REDACTED] is looking for an executive director. nicole dare's mother-in-law had given them my name and contact info to them, i told them no, but they still want to talk to me. oh boy.


alice, do you think i should visit bathe and or stonehedge while i'm out there? i need a map.


my friend who studied with me in japan, kenji, is expecting his first child.


another friend who studied with me in japan filed for divorce.


will graduated law school last friday, and is now studying for his bar.


got to lowell alumni newsletter today. too bad, no andy green comment.


did i tell you guys that LaTreisha, my friend from long beach is expecting too.


don't know what else...hmm...my highlighted hair is turning orange.

Walgreens?

Leina is an astute shopper. She knows that Walgreen's offers hella coupons and discounts in their circular and often don't even put the sale prices up in the store; it just rings up cheaper when you check out.

So Leina flipped through this week's circular and noted that many of her staples were on super sale there--kleenex, canned mandarin oranges, and Pringles. She clipped a few of the coupons and made a list of the things she wanted that were cheap.

So Leina went to the pharmacy and filled her basket with the abovementioned items, feeling savvy. However, after getting almost all the way through her list she realized that she was not in a Walgreen's--it was a Rite-Aid! Super frustrated, Leina sheepishly put down her basket and left. She had forgotten that several months ago, what used to be a Walgreens had turned into a Rite-Aid.

Valentine's

Charles wanted to go out to a nice dinner for Valentine's Day. Leina had a better idea. They would both eat dinner at their respective homes and then Leina would drive down to Foster City and they could go out afterwards. The plan was a success. They drank bubble tea.

Not staying at Ricca's

Leina is in L.A. with Charles right now visiting friends. Ricca had invited them to stay with her. But Leina didn't want to impose. She wouldn't stay at Ricca's even though Charles said he'd be comfortable there, because he knew Ricca best of Leina's L.A. friends. But Leina didn't want to impose so, despite her cheapness, they booked a hotel room.

Backup birthday date

Today is Leina's birthday. Yes, another year has gone by, but this one was only partly blogged. So what did Leina do on her 31st? Something crazy? Was there an almost-surprise party for her that Auntie only partly ruined by coming at the wrong time? Or a half-baked idea to bicycle to LA? No, this year was much calmer.

Charles was busy, and Leina was nothing more than a backup date for Mary, who was going to a Chinese dance concert this evening. Mary was maybe going to go with her maybe ex-boyfriend, but didn't know how things stood in the relationship, and Leina was trying to stay out of it, but she wound up as the backup date in case Mary didn't want to go with her maybe ex-boyfriend, which she didn't, so Leina was available and is at the show right now. She heard it was going to be pretty good.

Other news in Leina's world is that she is getting new roommates! Four of them! Her sister and her brother-in-law and her two nephews are moving in for a year, starting next month. Leina is anticipating lots of babysitting in her future.

A wedding and a funeral

So this morning Leina got up at 5:00 a.m. and drove Erica to the airport. She was wearing sweatpants and Franco Sarto leather dress flats in her hastily put together predawn outfit. Erica at least had done her the favor of staying over, so Leina didn't need to pick her up to drop her off.

She came home and went to bed for a few hours because she had a big day ahead! She was going to a wedding and a funeral. So she reawoke earlier than she wanted to and got packed for the wedding this evening, the rehearsal dinner of which had kept her up late last night (Charles is a groomsman). But before the wedding, she had to go to the funeral of the husband of the woman who played the organ at her parents' funerals. Leina doesn't own an all purpose cute black dress that could have served double duty, so she wore a black v-neck sweater, black pants, and the same Franco Sarto shoes that she wore earlier. The funeral was in Marin County, so she crossed that big red bridge and saw Auntie.

Then it was back to San Francisco for a quick stop at Nicole Dare's parents' house in San Francisco to pick up Nicole to drive her to the wedding. Leina changed there into a more festive outfit. She is now at the wedding. In the wedding planning, Leina was almost pushed into duty as the MC of the wedding, because it is well known that Leina is very comfortable being a participant in a wedding. She is contemplating spending the night at Charles's parents' house, because she intends to help them go to San Francisco to watch Charles's brother run in the Race for the Cure marathon that is going on tomorrow. His family does not know the city well, so she has volunteered to be their guide.

Oh, and Noriko just had a baby boy. His name is Kaito.

An old classmate

Leina was at work today, where she had to visit a client who was a pedophile. He was living at a gay-friendly SRO that she thought might be a brothel. She didn't know. The consult went fine, and this was definitely a place she wasn't used to hanging around. Then she saw a guy living there who she thought she knew. Was it him? She decided that maybe this wasn't her old high school classmate because, well, it had been 10 years and she didn't know he was gay (not that he was necessarily gay because he chose to live in a gay-friendly SRO). But then someone else came in and said, "Hey, Will!" and Leina knew it was him. She didn't say hi.

Addendum (10/9/07): the guy's name was changed in this blog to protect his identity. He was not called Will.