Hehe...and all I wanted was the license to practice law!?!?
Hey, Rob: Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die. :)

Okay, so maybe it has been awhile, but it hasn't been that long! Geez; by the way you all go on and on about my notposting, you'd think I had missed an entire month or something. I've just been busy.

I suppose I will begin with Monday (if you want to read about the Ren Faire, read Jen's journal entry - she covered it all very well). As a celebration for passing the Bar, I treated Scott to Ruth's Chris. He absolutely loves the place and truly appreciated it. As always, the food was excellent. There was a special sweet potato side dish which was to die for - it had brown sugar and cinnamon baked on the top of mashed sweet potatos - mmmmmmmm.... We opted for some pinot noir to go with the dinner; RC's had the most phenomenal p/n! I would like to find the same wine, but since I will be avoiding VWC because of "Creepy Wine Guy", I am left to find other devices for doing so.

After dinner, Scott and I made a stop at Staples to check out some bookcases they have on sale. Now, mind you, the Staples catalog states "color swatches - free - in stores"; exactly what I want. There are four possible wood stains I need to match to my furniture in my living room. We ask for the furniture guy, should be an easy task. I don't know if it was because it was forty-five minutes before closing and he didn't want to do more work or deal with customers, or if it was because he is just an incompetent fool and knew if a customer asked him a question, he was f***ed. Either way, he eventually came over to Scott and I. I asked for the furniture stain swatches. The guy looked at me like I just asked for the top secret code for genetic gene splitting. I showed him the statement in the catalog which states the stores have free color stain swatches. Still, no light bulb going on. Okay, here is where even the Scarlett "S" is insufficient... The guy actually looks directly and Scott and myself and says,"Well, I can't just break off pieces of the furniture for YOU to take home to match to your furniture!" Oh...my...gawd!!! Um, okay, thanks. We left. We left the store, got into my car, and then realized exactly how dumbfounded we were that someone could be that incredulously S-T-U-P-I-D! Oh, how I long for a stupidifier gun. *sigh* Wow. I hope Scott has recovered; it took me until the next day. Scott, I am soooooo sorry. I wish I could take all those moments back and return them to your life. We are 'stupider' for having encountered him.

Tuesday, Jen hit the donkey on the nose - her husband and I are magnets for stupid people. Yep. That's it. The difference? Rob has no longer has expectations of people; I still do. I still expect intelligence and am let down when there is none. I am discovering that Rob's approach makes for much more happiness - how can you be let down when you expect nothing? I am working on changing my approach to match Rob's. What brought this on? I wanted to buy a belt. Macy's. I understand there is no requirement for a high school diploma, college degree, etc. to work at Macy's. Maybe there should be. At least an IQ test. I found a belt on sale. Cool. I took it to the register. Cool. It rang up with the correct sale price. Indeed, I am impressed. The girl takes my credit card and swipes it. Da**. This is where it all went wrong. The girl swipes the card the wrong way so it doesn't read into the computer. She tells me my card seems to be demagnetized and doesn't work. I tell her to turn the card around and swipe it again. Nope. She tells me it doesn't work. I explain I just used it at Sephora about two minutes beforehand. She then tells me the card doesn't work, at least not in her register and she doesn't know how to manually type in the credit card number to finish the transaction. *blink-blink* What?!? Please, God, put her out of her misery. Jen and I then head over to another register, the transaction is completed with no problem, and we leave the store in a haze mixed of wanting to laugh and also wanting to invent a way to rid the planet of stupid people. Two thoughts continue to dwell in my mind - Scarlett "S"s and Stupidifier gun. *everlasting longing* *closes eyes tightly and wishes fiercly*

The day was a long overdue girly day. I picked Jen up and headed to my "Hair God", Martin, at Alacrity. Needed to be recolored and cut. Martin always take good care of me and my hair. He wasn't too impressed with a color thing we experimented with last time, so he changed up what he was going to do. Result? Amazing. I wanted a red overtone to my black. He found a way to get my roots red (not just a red you expect in hair color - I am talking fire engine red), with the red carrying down over the black for a few inches, and then fading out to pure black. I love it! Jen thought it looked awesome. I think she really enjoyed Martin as well as what he can do to my hair. He asked her if I am always "this crazy" or if it was only around him. LOL. Jen told him, "No, she is always like this. Actually, she is more crazy." Thanks Jen! I think she made his day. He loves happy people. She also got to meet Michael, the owner. Martin and I tease him mercilessly about the cell phone he needs to have permanently attached to his head. He proved it once again. We were there for a couple hours - he was on his cell the entire time. I would hate to see his cell phone bill.

After my hair, we walked around the mall a bit. I bought two dresses and a skirt at Ann Taylor Loft and a pair of mini-heeled flipflops. Jen bought lingerie from Lane Bryant. Oh, her husband will be a happy man for quite some time! My fave is one with polka dots. I love polka dots. We decided we were a bit hungry and should eat before our girly appointment and went to Friday's. As always, yummy food. Also, great service. No stupidity there.

From there, Jen and I stopped by my mom's work to grab some stuff she had for me, including my Bar scores. Cool. Not bad at all. At first, I read it wrong and got mad and sad. Then, after looking it over more closely, it was fine. I can totally kick it's a** in July! It wasn't even the third day which did me in; nope, it was the MBEs. I always knew if I didn't pass the first go-round, the MBEs would be the reason. Of course, after the drama of the third day in February, I thought THAT would be the reason. I am relieved to discover the third day didn't make or break me. I cannot imagine doing more to practice for MBEs than I already did. I mean, by the time the Bar rolled around, I had done almost 5000 MBEs!!! Oh well, I am not surprised. I have always blown chunks when it comes to "multiple guess". Too bad it isn't the 'old days' when you only had to retake the portion you did not pass. No biggie; I am gearing up and getting ready for July.

From there, we headed over for manicures and pedicures. Jen was pleasantly surprised by this place. She said she wants to go back. The prices are comparable to the place she has been going, but the treatment is SO much better. We had chairs next to each other in a quiet alcove of the salon, which is HUGE. The way it works is that we sit in massage chairs with the foot baths. While the pedicures are being done, the manicurist comes alongside and does your hands. It is hard to describe what makes their treatments so much better, but it involves massing, warmed lavender lotion, and time. All the time in the world seems to be at your disposal. There is no rushing - during or after. In fact, after we were both done, we sat there for another twenty minutes or so. We just chatted and relaxed. When the polish was solidly dry enough to tackle life, we left.

Jen finally got to meet my Rob. I needed to pick up some stuff from him at his work, so we drove on over - a hop, skip, and a jump from the salon. He was a bit frazzled over some stuff going on, so we didn't get a whole lot of time to chat with him. Jen did manage to squeeze in a nickname she has found for him, "Love-bunny". LOL. What I like the most about it is that it avoids any labeling whatsoever. Too cool. Well, that leaves just Jen's Rob to meet him, at least of my friends. Oh, and she will not let him forget it. Funny thing - out of my family, only my mom has met him, yet my friends continue to meet him. Such is life.

Jen and I decided to hit Sephora on the way back to her place. We both found some perfumes (hers has a very soft clean [Rob, note the emphasis on CLEAN] baby smell to it; mine is a crisp scent - CK / Purple Orchid) and I found a shimmery lip gloss. Of course, stopping there is what prompted the aforementioned trip to Macy's. Not everything can be perfect in a day, I guess.

I stopped in for a few minutes at Jen and Rob's. Had a bit of a tackle fight with the kitty. I knocked her over in return for her putting kitty teeth marks into my newly polished fingernails. We made up before I left.

Rob and I had talked about getting together for the evening, but his hectic day left him drained and stressed out. I opted for my home and he for his. We got to talking on the phone, however, and decided to get together anyhow. I headed over to his place. In an effort to get him to relax, I gave him a massage. I got him relaxed enough that I figured he would be able to pour himself into his bed and finally get a good night of sleep. I left sometime around midnight. From what he told me, he didn't want to wake up in the morning, but slept quite well.

Wednesday I headed to Disneyland to meet up with everyone. I stopped by Justin's so we could carpool over - and be able to leave together when we chose. Everyone else, and I mean EVERYONE - there were sixteen of us total (Tina couldn't come because her kids were sick) - met up for breakfast earlier in the morning, so we met up inside the park. Patti's dad had all the tickets at Will Call, so all we had to do was call her on her cell to meet us with our tickets. Good idea since that also got the group all together in one place. First ride, first thing we did - Tower of Terror. Oh yeah, I love it! I will not write exactly what happens (Scott was right in not telling me beforehand), but I will say that when you think it's over, it's not. SO very cool. We went on four times! We all did a lot of wandering about and fastpassing alot of rides. Jackson bought a bunch of balloons from the vendor just so he could untie them, give each of us one or two, and then let them all go at once in the middle of Main Street. Nat always loved balloons, so that was one of two somber moments we had in thought of her. We met up with Patti's dad briefly so he could get everything taken care of and verify arrangements were dealt with for our meal at Club 33. I swear, I think I ate eight pounds of food! Thank you so much Dale. It meant alot that he did that for us. Before we ate, we did have our second somber moment. Patti wanted to say something short and sweet about Nat since this is the first time the group is together since she died, albeit we were without Mel and Jake. She had written a very short poem which made most of us cry. I think she summed up what most people felt and thought about Nat; it was beautiful. After that, we all got the biggest shock - Justin is leaving. I knew he was out of town "on business", but I had no idea the business was going on several interviews and finding a place to live. New York. Good grief. He will still be working with predictions of stocks and stuff, but for another company. He found a place to live in GV. (I don't know how to spell it, but I think it's Greenwich Village.) I do get it. I know he wants to get pretty far. Heck, he isn't from here, has no major attachments here, and his job quals permit him to be there. I wish him nothing but happiness. I just wish he would have told me before he broke it to everyone. That made me cry more than Patti's poem. So, more friends scattering to the four winds. Out of the entire group, seven of us will still be in SoCal. Yes, I know life means moving on, but I wish it didn't all have to happen at the same time. Anyway, after stuffing ourselves like a bunch of starved banshees, we rolled our way to the canoe ride. We wanted to paddle our way around Tom Sawyer's Island, but wanted to race each other. The ride operators are not really supposed to let people race in the canoes, but I think since we took up two boats and it was only us, they gave alot of leeway. We were told to not splash other people, but we were aiming to splash each other at every opportunity. Alot of splashing. Let me say now, I get into this everytime (the splashing); yet, everytime, I say I will never do it again because the water is SO disgusting. As we made our way back to the dock, soaked, we were groaning about what may really be in the water. Lo and behold, Patti took the opportunity to threaten Justin with more of the dark, mirky, scary water. Just so happened that as we were departing the boat, her threat became quite real when Justin ended up more in the water than out of it. Imagine this - upper torso on deck / lower torso in the disgusting water. Needless to say, the ride operators were less than amused. That is to say, security was also not amused. Since Justin and I both planned on leaving pretty early anyway, it didn't affect us much that we were politely asked to leave. Definitely a day that will live in infamy - in all of our hearts and memories.

Justin and I headed back to his place to take showers and get into clean clothes. It felt so good to get the nasty feeling off my body. Ick. Called my mom (I HAD to tell her about being 86'd from D-Land) and Rob before I headed out, and then got on the road to meet Rob for the night. Traffic wasn't too bad; I expected it to take longer than an hour and a half to get to Rob's. It was very nice getting the entire evening with him. In a way it struck me as overwhelming that I got to spend the most part of two nights just hanging out with him; not on the phone, not out and about, but just relaxing and watching tv.

Yesterday, I picked back up where I left off on my weight loss vendetta. Last week I had a difficult time even maintaining my weight because of stress, anxiety, and self-annihilation. I went up something close to six pounds. However, a few people told me that once Bar results came out and other stuff ended, the weight would come back off without a problem and I would be back on track. So true. So happy. Not only are the six pounds gone, but I am down another pound and a quarter. YAY! Losing weight is a love / hate relationship. I love losing weight and getting back to where I want to be, but I hate losing weight and not being able to wear some clothes I love. Even some of my dresses I am very attached to are becoming too big. I have held on to some of these things for awhile, thinking, "If I ever lose enough weight..." Now that I have, I have to get rid of the,. I refuse tothink, "Well, I should hang on to them in case I ever put back on the weight." Blech. No. I am down to a size eight and loving it! The tens are going out the door! I do want to get down more in size, but no more than to a six. However, I have found that sizes are fitting bigger than they used to, so I may end up in a four or five by the end of it. A four or five now-a-days fits like a six used to. I cannot imagine that I went from being a six / seven (old size fittings) to a fourteen (new size fittings). That means that when I would have been wearing like a sixteen back in the day. That would be like having two of me in one body! Whoa. Jen even made a comment when I was buying my belt - I had to buy belt, size large. WOW. Imagine...if I am a size eight and wearing a large size belt, what size are people wearing if they are a twelve or fourteen? I think as clothing sizes have been altered to fit larger, belts have been altered to fit smaller. LOL.

Almost all caught up...

Yesterday afternoon, another year of Teen Court wrapped up. It was a pretty quick afternoon - only two cases on the calendar. Followed it up with pizza for the jurors and participants, thanks to the Siroptimists for providing the food and soda. The adults then chased that up with drinks at Red Robin. Everyone had stuff going on, except me, so I hung around after everyone left. I watched the Lakers game (and waited for it to get over with) before heading home. Met Nicole and her husband during the game. Once the game was OVER (I am NOT a basketball fan; frankly, I am not a Lakers fan - whining, sniveling, cry-babies), I headed out. Talked to Bub on the phone and told him I would swing by his place on the way home. We went to shoot darts and get in a game of pool with ??? and Claudia. Saw the time and headed home around midnight. Way past my bedtime. Rob had told me if I left before eleven to give him a call. No way I was going to call him at midnight. Home. Bed.

Got up and moving pretty early this morning. Lots to get done today. Errands, chores, blech. It took some time updating everything here, so I need to get the hustle going and get moving...