Excuse: It Happened In Monterey

It happened in Monterey
A long time ago
I met her in Monterey
In old Mexico
Stars and steel guitars
And luscious lips as red as wine
Broke somebody's heart
And I'm afraid that it was mine

Heh, okay that old Frank Sinatra song doesn't fit at all, only the title.

Some really terrible timing had me going to Monterey (California, not Mexico!) for a day and a half right when a bunch of other crap was going down. It's hard for me to travel and take care of my cancer kitty and monitor my business all at the same time. I would have looooved to go to Monterey for two full nights, but even a day and a half is pushing it. My cat is supposed to get Prednisone every day, and for her to have it earlier one day and then later the next isn't really a big deal, but until I find a catsitter who can give medication and stay overnight, I can't really go anywhere for any length of time.

Yeah so, it was really great to get to spend a whole day and a half with my bf away (mostly) from cell phone calls and computers and email, but at the same time I'm being slandered by someone, and the sad thing is I see people who I might have expected more from, you know, expected them to say "well, we don't really know the whole situation" (because they don't) saying "oh this bad evil person, I hope justice is served and they are properly punished" and just totally hating on me. Maybe it's partly my fault because I read that the worst thing you can do in most situations is just say nothing, and I do that all the time. Instead of trying to explain my side or defend myself, I just say nothing. And now for legal reasons I can't really say anything anyway...but it's human nature to accept the dumbest, lamest reason for anything over no reason at all, so people assume silence = guilt. But as to a law suit all I can say is...bring it on! I'm more than ready.

So, that's life, right? All good/bad at once, all wrapped up together? I think it's the bad stuff that makes us appreciate the good stuff more.

And now, I'm off to actually do some work and to probably watch a salsa lesson dvd I have. I'm sooo terrible with this salsa stuff. My bf knew how to salsa before we even started taking lessons, although he had never had a formal lesson before so it's not like he isn't learning anything, but ME I'm just an uncoordinated klutz. So we're talking about some weird song on the radio and he was saying "I bet we could salsa to this" and I'm like "let's hear you count out the beat" and he listens and says "1,2,3,4,5,6,7....1,2,3..." and I'm like "what about 8?" and he tells me "there is no 8, it's a 7-count." What???? How did I not know this? He's probably right, but I must be worse than I thought! I thought I was dancing on an 8 count when really it's 7??? Errr...I need to get this sorted out by class tomorrow.

Excuse: Chemo day

Well, yesterday was China's chemo day. Thank goodness my bf has been taking us to the oncologist the last couple times. I had to hire a private car to do that ever since August, and she used to have to go every week. Of course, now it looks like the money I will be saving on hiring a car and driver will go to having some lump in China's left ear biopsied. Ugh. Like, as if I have that money anyway. If that turns out to be cancerous I don't know WHAT happens then. I don't think she can have more radiation treatments. She has lost another quarter pound (a lot for a cat, especially one that weighs only 7 pounds) and they couldn't give her the planned protocol because they couldn't find a good vein. They even shaved a few new spots on her legs. Instead she got next week's protocol and they'll try again with the intravenous one next visit.

So anyway, visiting the oncologist is not only expensive of course, but it takes hours, what with going to East Bay and all. We go out to lunch, which is better than before when I'd just sit in the waiting room the whole time, but it still takes up much of the day. Once I got home, I had to turn right around and go get catfood for Rodney aka the "dustmite allergy puking kitty". I had the brilliant idea of giving him some canned food in the morning since he was out of dry, and it just meant he puked up canned food instead of dry...and if you know anything about cat puke, you know canned food puke is much messier and hard to clean up. I really, desperately need my carpet shampooed now.

After that, I had to do some There related stuff and then...I don't know...the whole day was just kind of over!

Today I maybe have a little more time because I only spent an hour at the gym. However...I have a bunch of crisis to take care of so in the end...well, we'll see...

Excuse: Up too late plus I had salsa class

Ugh, Sunday night I stayed up way too late watching dvds from Netflix. I don't know why I did that. So yesterday I was soooo tired. Going to the gym was hell. I was struggling to bench like, 70 pounds or something. What a wimp! At least I did an hour of cardio. But of course by the time I got done at the gym and then went to the vet to get China's special high-fat, anti-cancer food (almost $40 a case...ugh!) it was well after noon. Then I had to run another errand that ended up taking a couple hours so then it was basically time to shower and get ready for salsa class!

After salsa class (which is actually getting to be more fun and less stress...I don't really like touching strangers and having them in my personal space, so salsa dancing where we have to switch partners and dance with everyone in the class can be a bit overwhelming for me) we went to A Tavola for a few hours and had wine and appetizers. Their butternut squash ravioli is divine. After that, it was time to get China to eat something and take her medication and then I had to go to bed - I was dead tired!

So what about today? I guess we'll see...

Excuse: Brunch + Winebar = lazy day

Yesterday we went to brunch at Alana's Cafe, which was nice...I'd like it a lot better when the weather is nice enough to eat outside. It seemed strange they didn't serve any butter with ANYTHING, not even on the toast (I know because I licked the top just to be sure) and we were kind of complaining to each other that they don't have anything like mimosas or anything with alcohol in it, and the coffee cake was dry but I did like the home fried potatoes. If we can eat outside I'm thinking I could bring my cats in their Kitty SUV. I dunno, maybe they wouldn't like that and we'd have to go down the street and eat at the Main Street Coffee Roasting Company, where I know they'll let me sit outside with my cats and the food is very tasty BUT they aren't open on Sundays. Oh, and they don't have any alcohol either.

After brunch at Alana's, we went to The Savvy Cellar, a wine bar where we are trying to become regulars. It isn't working that well, though, because we keep trying to go on a day they aren't open (Monday) or after they close (9pm on most weekdays, 7pm on Sundays) and when we do go and manage to bond with an employee so maybe they'll remember us, then when we go back we'll find out they don't work there any more. I think we might be some kind of bad luck for the employees...don't talk to those two or you're fired! We sort of made a little headway yesterday when this woman seemed to remember my bf but not me. I'm a bit offended as I think I'm a pretty memorable person!

After three glasses of wine, there was just no way I was going to get much of any work done, so I watched the 2 dvd set "An Evening With Kevin Smith" instead. Y'know, he's Silent Bob from Clerks, Mallrats, etc, and also the filmmaker who wrote those movies in the first place along with Chasing Amy and Dogma, etc. The guy is pretty funny. He can tell really long stories and it's okay because the entire story is full of funny details. So I watched that and some episodes of Weeds, which I guess is okay, and I drank some more wine, which I probably shouldn't have done.

So yesterday = no work done but hey...it was Sunday! Now today is a whole new day, so let's see how I do....

Oh but WAIT, Saturday I actually submitted something to IMVU! It's kind of lame and it's probably been done before but I was tired of seeing shoutouts on my homepage so I submitted a plain black bar that goes over the top of the shoutouts. I guess it counts, although it's just a sticker and it couldn't be any plainer. at least it's SOMETHING.

Excuse: It was a late night!

Well, last night we went to Jack London Square to The Fat Lady for dinner and then to Yoshi's to see Keiko Matsui. I was up until nearly 3am and I have no idea what I'm doing up so early now, but I'm a little out of it.

The Fat Lady was pretty nice. We were there before just to sit at the bar and have wine and I think we had dessert but I can't actually remember what it was so maybe I just imagined that part? Nono, I'm sure we had dessert because it was after we went to the Parkway Speakeasy Movie Theater and we didn't have dessert there and what is life without dessert? But I digress. The food at The Fat Lady was good. It was above average, but not the best meal ever. Same with the wine, even though we had cabernet which is generally my favorite, in this case I might have liked something else better. I had the mushroom risotto, and I will say that risotto is pretty easy to screw up and they really got it right. Dessert was not that memorable, so I guess that is right in line with my non-memory of dessert from the time before. Wild Horse and Hot Goat...that's all you need to know about dinner!

Damn, it's hard to concentrate and type with all these shoutouts whizzing across the top of the page. Are they always so annoying?

So then on to Yoshi's for Keiko and her supporting musicians. Both places were sooo crowded last night, but Yoshi's has a line for everything, so no worries! It's organized chaos. Or something. We had really great seats...there was one guy sitting in front of us that I might argue had a better seat than us, but really by some fluke ours were really, really great. Keiko uses both a baby grand piano and a set of keyboards, and we were very close to the stage halfway between these two sets of instruments. We were also directly in front of the horn player, who was awesome. I think many of the people in the audience were there just to see him.

I don't always like jazz, sometimes it sounds really discordant to me. Now my opinion has changed somewhat. I do think it can sometimes simply BE discordant just because it isn't the best jazz, but I'm more inclined to think you just need near-perfect accoustics or a really good home sound system. I'm really more of a noisy alternative rock and "other" music type person, but I could definitely listen to some more Keiko Matsumi! She was so cute, too, introducing each song and telling a little story and acting all shy with her halting english and you just have to think...she has been performing for over 20 years, she can't really be that shy! Our great seats and the great performance made me think about this book I've been listening to called "Stumbling on Happiness", which is about how our brains work, and I remembered what the author said about how once we have a really great experience in a particular situation, we will be dissapointed if we put ourselves in that same situation and the experience isn't quite as good. So for instance, if I go back to see Keiko Matsui at Yoshi's again someday and the seats aren't as good and maybe the perfomance seems a little off or the backup musicians aren't as good or somebody is coughing in the room or the wine isn't that great...my brain will perceive it as a big letdown.

Ugh, speaking of letdowns...I had several rather large chargebacks this morning. That always sucks. People buy credits from me and then...I don't know, mommy and daddy refuse the credit card charges or who knows what happens and then I'm out the money (and the credits.) The only satisfaction I get is that IMVU shuts down their account. NOT what I like to wake up to and now I'm feeling very poor! I think I'll play a game I like to call "how long can you go without spending a penny".

Excuse: I had to take a picture of Rodney!

I'm trying to get stuff done, I am! But...on Wednesday my bf brought me a couple dozen roses and last time he did that I woke up in the middle of the night to hear the weirdest sound, which turned out to be my cats chomping on rose leaves. Not really good for a number of reasons. When I told bf about it, he apologized for not bringing my cats any flowers of their own. Soooo...on Wednesday, along with the roses he brought some extra filler-flowers that are kind of like babies breath (which he knows they like) but are purple (which I like.) That's so cute. So I had to prove to him that Rodney really did like the flowers he brought especially for him and that is why I was messing around taking pictures of my cat (see below) and trying at least to send the image from cellphone to cellphone (still working on that one.) C'mon, this is a good excuse, right?

Chomp, chomp!!!

It's a post full of excuses! It's a whole blog full!

Hi Everyone.

IF you have been paying attention and even know who I am, you may have noticed I haven't submitted any new meshes or anything in quite a while. I hope to change that, but darned life keeps getting in the way!

Now, don't feel too sorry for me, I mean it's life's GOOD things that have been getting in the way. It takes time to make new stuff, like big chunks of time when you can sit down and concentrate. At least it does for me. So every morning I think "oh, I should make a new mesh, or at least start something!" and I sit down and I do a little work checking credit and therebuck transactions and customer service stuff and doing all those little things I need to do to make sure everything is a-ok after sleeping for 6-8 hours, and then next thing I know it's probably time to go to the gym, and I get home and it's already after noon because I probably ran some errands on the way back and I need to eat something and I think I should do a little cleaning and take a shower and next thing you know it's time to go out in the evening for dinner or a salsa lesson or whatever or sometimes my bf wants to do something that starts even earlier in the day like go to the horse races or something OH or if it's the weekend maybe he wants to come over in the early afternoon and then spend the rest of the day visiting restaurants and wine bars (haha, now you see why I spend a couple hours at the gym!) and like...it doesn't really sound right to complain about this, does it? And yet...this is why I never get any work done.

So, this is going to be my new 3d modeling and "activity report" blog. Maybe it will give me a little accountability so that when I DO have time to mesh, I will actually do it. Or maybe it will just be my blog-o-excuses or my "all the restaurants I've eaten at" blog.

Yesterday's excuse for not getting any meshing done is that I had to go in to San Francisco to get my hair done. That may not sound like it should take up a whole day, but I didn't get back from the gym until 12:30pm and then I had to eat and take a shower and all that and leave at 2-something to take the train in to the city. Then, I didn't get home until 10pm, and I spent like, half an hour on the phone, had dinner and then fell into bed. Well, at least my hair looks nice!

Todays exuse(s):
Well, today I don't have to go to the gym for a change because I dropped boxing. I was going to do yoga and erging at home instead, but I didn't. I had also thought of going to the Friday morning yoga class at my gym to replace boxing, but I didn't do that either! My bf just texted me to ask me if I did my yoga so I am all like...guilt, guilt, guilt! Should I do it? Ha, I think I'll eat a plate of nachos instead.
My other choices in the category of "things I could do today that aren't meshing" include: go get my cats some more food (if I don't do it today I'll have to tomorrow), make some banner ads I said I'd make, clean up my kitchen, get a mani/pedi.
Hey, the mani/pedi would be a very good idea because this evening we are going to Jack London Square to eat at The Fat Lady (probably named after me if I don't do the yoga and erging!), where we had dessert before (and omg it was sooooo good!) and then going to Yoshi's for live jazz. It would be a REALLY GOOD IDEA to have my nails done for this. I mean, they are wayyy overdue. I wouldn't be surprised if these places take one look at my fingers and toes and simply don't let me in! otoh...I basically wasted all of yesterday getting my hair done and I just feel I don't want to be that high maintenance and I have other things to do with my time. Oh plus, we are going somewhere really nice next Wednesday, and I would just have to get them done all over again by then I'm sure.

Oh well, I'll have to get back to you will more excuses later. Or at least with a report on how much fun I had last night.