Busy bee

The past couple weekends have been busy for me, and the next few also promise to be eventful.

The weekend of the 23rd, my friend Alejandro (we refer to him as Alejo) was in town from Utah to visit the Colombian consulate. Since the consulate is in the financial district of the City, he only saw the not-so-scenic part of San Francisco on Friday. We did take him to Emerald Glen Park on Friday night for Leavitt's going-away to Arizona party, but wanted to show him around the more tourist-y parts of SF on Saturday.

We drove over to SF and went up Columbus St. to Lombard, where we stopped at the crooked portion.

Lisa and Alejo climbed the stairs while I waited at the bottom. Then, on the way back to the car, we noticed this quaint little gate and a small park, Fay Park. We wandered in there for a few minutes and decided it was a good place to play hide and go seek.

Next, we headed down to the Embarcadero, and more specifically, to Pier 39. We enjoyed the sea lions and the candy shop!

The next stop on our day of fun was Fort Point at the far west end of Crissy Field. It was super windy, but of great historical significance.

After this stop, we finally made our way over to Ocean Beach. It was overcast and cold, but we still put our feet in the water.

And, if you are Lisa's friend on Facebook, you can also see this video of a Seagull eating a crab.

Yesterday, in my apparently new tradition of going to Yosemite every month (Lisa and I are going on August 20th if anyone is interested), I drove myself, Alan West, Allison Orgill, Lisa Despain, and Ryan Heaton to the valley. We had a great time.

Allison, Alan and Ryan ended up hiking about 2/3 of the way up to Upper Yosemite Falls, while Lisa and I hiked about 1/2 mile of the same trail before she graciously agreed to hike on the Valley Loop Trail with me. We hiked from the Camp 4 all the way to Mirror Lake on that trail, saw Lower Yosemite Falls....

Lisa and I stopped at the Awahnee Hotel for about 20 minutes on the way to Mirror Lake, and once at Mirror Lake, we dipped our feet in (the water was cold, but it felt REALLY good on our hot feet). I managed to drink almost my entire CamelBak full of water, which is a good thing, because it was HOT!

We rendezvoused with Ryan, Alan, and Allison at the Camp 4 bus stop right at 3, and then headed back to Curry Village to get the car and head home. It was a long day (we left the church parking lot at 6am and got back at 9pm) but it was really fun, and I can't wait to do it again.

What is that SMELL???

Public bathrooms rarely smell decent. In worst case scenarios, they smell like, well, crap. Literally. If you're lucky, it may only smell bad, but the stalls will not have paper on the floor or pee on the seat. Now, let's turn to the bathroom in the office building where I work...

It doesn't usually smell bad in there, and for a bathroom, it's quite nice; the landlords have decorated it in shades of grey. and put (fake) orchids on the counter. However, when I walked in today, I was overcome with dizziness as the odor of a newly replaced air freshener hit me. The scent was supposed to be Ocean, but it didn't smell like any ocean I've ever been to. I felt as though I had just stepped through the door into a florist who had only 1,000 rotting honeysuckle plants in stock; the smell was gonna give me a migraine. Now, I am all for making the bathroom smell a little more pleasant, but for heaven's sake, we don't need to make it smell so sickly sweet that I am overcome with the urge to 'hold it' all day, do we?

Seriously so blessed

It's very cliche, but I feel like I have some great people in my life, and I truly am blessed. So many of the women in the ward are willing to lend an ear and give helpful advice when I need it, and of course, my roomie, who is willing to drag her butt outta bed at all hours to take me to the hospital when I need it. Friends are important. A couple weeks ago in Sunday School, the teacher asked us why Christ asked Peter, James, and John to come with him to Gethsemane and "watch and pray." One of the responses was touching: Christ knew he was going to be having a very difficult time, and even he needed his closest friends with near him. If Christ needed friends, so do we.

What a Day

My Thursday was very interesting. As a preface, I had been having back-end digestive problems since Sunday night.


I woke up at 1:00am on Thursday with tear-inducing pain radiating from the lumbar region of my spine. I decided to try to wait it out and go to the urgent care center at 9am when they opened; my body had other plans. Around 3:45, despite repeated attempts to fall back asleep (or even find a position which wasn't excruciatingly painful), the stabbing pain was still there, so I decided to drive myself to ValleyCare. I knocked on Lisa's door to let her know, and of course, she being the selfless person she is, offered to drive me.

We'll skip past the boring stuff and get to the heart of the matter: I was seriously dehydrated. The doctor speculates that the back spasms were related to the bowel issues and the dehydration. In any case, they started an IV and pushed Toradol and Zofran into me. The entire IV, 1000mL (about 4 cups) emptied in less than an hour. They also checked to make sure I didn't have any infections; all of this is fabulous because I really dislike needles. Lisa had to keep me distracted by playing WordFeud. I think I still won, but am losing the game we started (I blame the drugs).

Other than the severe dehydration, there seems to be nothing wrong, which is a good thing. The doc prescribed me some pain meds and told me to get some sports drinks (I opted for PediLyte, which I think is a little gentler on the stomach). Then, it was 8:00am and time to go home and go back to bed until 12:30pm.

Much of yesterday was spent sitting around on a heating pad, watching Harry Potter movies in preparation for Deathly Hallows Part 2.

We met Shaine and Kevin (and 4000 other people) at the Dublin theater at 10:00pm and got in line. The theater had the lines divided into lines for theaters 1 - 10; the IMAX; theaters 11 & 15 (for 3D), and theaters 12-14 & 16-20. We were in the line for theaters 12-14/16-20, and it took us until 11:40 to get inside and get seated. After a few (too many) previews, it was time for epicness...

I thoroughly enjoyed the 2nd part of the Deathly Hallows; it was action-packed, fulfilling, and emotional. I didn't think I would cry as much as I did, especially for Snape. The girl behind us was snivelling, and I was just quietly weeping as the truth about Severus finally was revealed visually. There were clearly people there who had not read the books, as they gasped in horror when seeing Lupin, Tonks, and Fred's bodies.

I can't believe it's over, but it filled the emotional expectations I had for it; I hope J.K. Rowling invites us Muggles back into Harry's world sometime in the future.

Congratulations..

To Hang Nguyen of Raleigh, North Carolina for being the moron of the day and calling my house not once, not twice, but three times! If you'd like to call her, you can reach her at (919) 271-8053. This is her cell phone, so feel free to text her as well.

Weekend fun

On Friday, my boss let me off work at 12:15, which was awesome. I went over to Jeff and Daniel's house and played Settlers of Catan for awhile before switching to Phase 10. I did very well at Settlers, but not so much in Phase 10, which usually ends with me throwing my cards at the winner. :)

Saturday started with a lot of lazing around the house. Lately, I have been reading a lot. Some of the books I have read include Last Night at Chateau Marmont, Breathless, Buried Prey, Robopacalypse, most recently, a nonfiction book about the 1999 tragedy Columbine. That's what I was reading most of the day Saturday. Then, at 4, I left and went to Concord for the baptism of my 'nephew' Dalton Balmori. Rarely have I felt so loved, as when he walked into the room and his face lit up; "AUNTIE KATY!!!" I am really grateful to Heidi and Ramon for making me an honorary aunt; AnaSophia, Dalton, and Abigail are all unique and special people, and I love them. The baptism was marvelous.

After that, I hit up the Nordstrom in Broadway Plaza and got myself a pair of Cole Haan flats on sale. Thanks to my boss for the giftcard! Then, it was off to home. Lisa got home around 9, and I looked at her and said, "You wanna go to the 9:30 Monte Carlo?" Of course she wanted to go with me; it was a cute movie. Totally predictable but in the good, funny way.


Sunday I headed to the Pleasant Hill second ward for Dalton's confirmation; it's been awhile since I've seen a lot of the old Mtz 2nd people, and I really enjoyed it. Everyone from the Bergs to the Echols and even Mary Bell, whom I adore, was there.

Monday of course was the 4th of July; I started off by going to the gym and getting on the treadmill for half an hour. After that it was reading (Black House by Stephen King and Peter Straub). I headed over to the 'rents house; my mom and I went to the grocery store to buy some stuff, and Guy went to pick up a 15 foot ladder. About an hour later, I was asked to help on the ladder; my parents were applying some sort of crazy stained glass looking thing to the window above the stairwell. We also ended up mounting a 4 foot tall print of the Boston Temple.

Shortly after that was swimming; not gonna lie though, I only got in the water for about 5 minutes.The rest of the time was spent reading in the shade or laying out in the sun. Swimming was followed by a quick rinse, and then cooking. I made an apricot, blueberry, and strawberry crisp with my gluten free flour. Mom made fruit salad, I made corn on the cob, Guy cooked the steak. We also had macaroni, green, AND potato salad as well as chips and baked beans. Yeah, we ate.

After dinner was a boys vs. girls game of trivial pursuit. I am sad to say that the boys beat us....twice. Then I skipped the fireworks and came home - if you know me, you'll know that I need decompression time, and was utterly lacking that by Monday night. No fireworks, but a great weekend nonetheless.

Wow

So, there has been a bit of drama between myself and Jeff & Daniel since I told them on Sunday I wasn't going to Vegas because I wasn't feeling well enough. I have been on antibiotics for a week now, and am making progress, but can tell I'm still not 100%, because despite sleeping until 11am today, and only doing mildly taxing things (went to temple and saw a movie...the end), I am exhausted less than 12 hours later.

Anyway, I posted my two activities on Facebook, which exacerbated the problem. See, they think that I didn't go with them because they are gay. Yes, my family expressed some concern about me traveling with two guys, but only because they thought people at church might assume they are straight and that it might look like I was doing something bad with them in Sin City. I don't necessarily agree with that assessment (I also think it underestimates many of the friends I have at church), but I can understand it. Then, when I got sick, and the hotel needed 72 hours to give me a refund, and thought of hours in the car blowing my nose, and walking through a smoke-filled casino with already reactive lungs (I have asthma), and thought that I should take care of myself first.

Sadly, the way the whole thing played out gave them the impression that I decided not to go because they are gay, which is not the case at all. Hello - I spend every Friday night (practically) at their house,and they are like my brothers! If I end up losing two friends over this, I will be hurt; mostly because I thought they knew me better than to assume the worst about me.