Patins & limonade

Hey all,

Well, since $teve's having fun decoding my last French blog title, I thought I would continue the trend. Booty letters... you crack me up, Dr. Love :)

So what a day! I actually took the day off from work for a few reasons:

1. Meet up with family that's staying in the Palm Desert area for the week
2. Time off to finish assembling the furniture & clean this place up
3. First quarter is tough, boss Lady wants us to take as much time off as possible.
4. There's pretty much nothing to do this week at work. Reason for #3.

So I slept in till 7am today, finished assembling my dressers - I'm done! Then drove to Riverside - it was exactly the half way point between LA & PD. Ha! LA & PD! That's funny in two ways. You Frenchies will know the 2nd way.

When I say the exact half way point, I mean it. I surfed the web and found a place we could meet my aunt, uncle and grandma (all by marriage) at a State Historical Park called California Citrus. I google mapped it - 1hr 16min for me, 1 hr 18 minutes for them. Can it be more perfect?

I know everything there is to know about citrus now! Well, not really, it was 87 degrees, so I was distracted by the heat and the awesome smell of oranges. We tasted about 5 kinds of oranges - mandarin, tangelos, blood, some name I can't pronounce, and another. So good! We also saw lemons the size of grapefruits.

We then went to a Chinese buffet and for $6.49 I had sushi, cream cheese wontons, some kind of seafood bake, awesome chicken Teriyaki, sweet and sour pork, and a bunch of other stuff one might find in a Chinese Buffet. I was proud - only took one plate, did not go back for seconds. I still felt full though. On the way back, I was ready to take a nap on the freeway.

Speaking of roads and freeways - what a day. A bunch of accidents waiting to happen on CA-91. First, 3 cars in front of me slam on their brakes on the freeway, causing me to do the same - there was a huge piece of cardboard with something in it that would be tall enough to ruin a car, so we had to dodge it. Second, I watch my family in their car in front of me and a piece of palm tree falling about to hit their car. They dodge it :). Third, an orange cone in the middle of the freeway. Fourth, a car that just got rear ended and front-ended (is that a word?) right in my lane, everyone had to merge somewhere else going freeway speeds. Fifth - total Fail moment - a guy in a truck with a huge dog park cage thingy, about to go under a bridge, but the thing is too tall. Traffic is stopped from miles afar. Wish I took a picture for failblog! Check it out if you want a good laugh. Ah, zis Cali traffic is terribleh, non?

Another fun reason that we met is that they brought down a few things for me from Utah - one of them being my old rollerblades! Oh, how I missed you... I haven't put you on since... since going to Classic Skating and waiting for the guys to pick the girls during a romantic song (it was called Snowball, anyone else remember this?) I was waiting for this guy I had a crush on, Ryan, to pick me... but he picked the three prettiest girls in school instead... sigh). Well, this roller skating phase was in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade. So it's been a while. I got home around 4:30 and went to the beach and rollerbladed for 20-25 minutes. Gotta get buns of steel. I'm gonna feel it tomorrow!

So tonight, nothing too exciting except finish cleaning the apartment, fill up the furniture, watching either "Mr. and Mrs Smith" on FX or "Ever After" on Oxygen or Lifetime or one of those estrogen channels (Hmm, passionate and unrealistic and violent yet fun to watch sexy movie or a good old chick flick? Hmmmm...), and tomorrow we're going to lunch for boss lady P's birthday at a French restaurant... her pick! Awesome!

Today I'm grateful for getting the courage to put on those rollerblades after 4 hours of driving time for the day and my right butt cheek being numb. I did it - it's a good feeling.

Funny thing of the day - saw that guy on a Segway going 5 MPH with a helmet on again at the beach. Somebody please remind me what's the purpose of Segways?

Have a happy Wednesday night!