Hello 2008

So I've had a lot to write about (happy sad and bitchy too) but on Saturday my grandparents came to town and after they left my uncle and his family came to town. It's been nonstop peoplepeoplepeople around here!

In the middle of all this my extended family did the mochi tsuki thing again and then on New Years Eve we cooked a TON of traditional food for our giant NYE party. The party had 100-150 people and was actually a bit smaller than in the past. I also stopped by a party where some friends from middle/high school were at. New Years morning I had the traditional Japanese ozoni soup, said goodbye to my grandparents, visited the neighbors, and ate more food.

I have to say that for the first time in a while, all of the new years stuff has been really fun. Making mochi is not easy and my feet wanted to kill me afterwards, but it brings a lot of people I never see together. In addition to the usual set of extended family, one of my high school teachers and his kids came, and relatives of my extended family came from LA, the Bay Area, and Idaho to name a few places.

The next morning, cooking soba (buckwheat noodles), stuffing "footballs" and making other traditional food was pretty cool. I haven't helped out in the past few years all that much and now that I cook for myself I'm actually realizing what goes into making everything. And it doesn't suck like it does when I actually try to cook something nice, because there's room in the kitchen for everyone (giant stove, 2 ovens, three sinks, and two chopping/prep stations) and we have people to talk to. One thing I did notice was the division of labor - men have their "manly" things like dealing with the lobster and crab and BBQing, and women make the noodles and soup and rice and all that jazz. I'm not really complaining though - I don't wanna be outside in the cold with all the stinky assed seafood, and I get along with my aunts better anyways.

My cousins decided to spraypaint some cans pink (of course) and label them so we can recycle the hundreds of cans and bottles that the party was sure to generate. My dad told my cousin that the chemical symbol for Alumiunum was Au, but that's actually gold! Everyone was like "well Uncle is smart so I didn't really question it! How were we to know that he would mislead us?!" I thought it was funny because unless it comes to things like plant biology or how to drive a tractor or the weather, I tend to second guess. Or rather, proceed with caution. [btw his weather thing is not always so good. I'm still waiting for the power to go out like he's promised.]

The NYE party was much more entertaining than normal. Sadly part of it had to do with watching someone's friend get (literally) falling down drunk and hearing what my fam had to say - they can be mean when they want to - but there were other entertaining things, such as my uncle doing an Elvis impression. Also, a drunk cousin told me that she was "really proud" of me, which she says was coming from her "not drunk self". It's something that I've definitely never heard from her before because we aren't really blood cousins and with the way that the whole dynamic works out...I am the one who doesn't do really noteworthy things. Growing up I certainly never did - she was better than me in every sport, super popular, and got the best of everything. I realize that we have grown up a bit and I'm pretty far removed from high school, but I hadn't realized that our dynamic had changed in that way.

I had to take my grandma and my sis home early though, so I decided to stop by a friend from middle/high school's party. I didn't know half the people there (I assume they were the co-host's friends) but I knew enough people. Someone that I didn't get along with in HS and haven't seen since showed up and didn't say one word to me...I felt compelled to do the berkeley "awkward" sign but everyone would have just been like "what does that mean?". The resident party crashers showed up at some point and I usually only tolerate them because one of their friends was a pretty good friend in high school, but I finally realized that the aforementioned friend is just as worthy of my contempt for the rest of his partycrashing boozer friends. So at 2am I left and hoped I wouldn't hit a mandatory sobriety check thing. I was totally sober but it was effing cold outside and I just wanted to get home safely and without hassle. My worrying was for nothing, as I literally only saw one car on the freeway on my way back - and it was a taxi. There were lots of northbound cars, but none southbound. I have not seen the highway that empty in a LONG time.

After all the New Years business, I decided on the second that I needed to go do a bunch of errands, so I went - by myself. Stops in AG to drop of rented DVDs (The Namesake sucked as a movie btw) and at Wal-Mart to buy "equate" meds for my Italy trip - apparently ibuprofen is not avaliable there, and I doubt lactaid is either since there are very few Asians. I got back in the car and made my way to SLO. I wanted to try out the only mediterranean restaurant within like thirty miles of my house, so I went to the old side of town (which is still a nice area) and ordered a falafel sandwich and was...very disappointed. It did NOT taste good. I wasn't expecting it to meet the avocado falafels in Berkeley, but I didn't even want to finish it! Luckily the falafel wasn't expensive so I choked it down and cruised downtown to the luggage store to get some more travel stuff. As luck would have it, I found a spot RIGHT in front of the store! I realied that I also FORGOT to pay the meter but I'd already been in the store for five minutes by then. At the same time I found what I was looking for, so I decided to pay and then go check. The misfortune of the falafel experience was redeemed when I went outside and saw that there was still four minutes left on the meter - meaning someone had taken off without using the entire time up right before I arrived. I decided to just leave downtown instead of re-parking somwhere that wasn't a 30 minute zone and went to the new Old Navy to pick up shower sandals. They were on sale for $0.99 but didn't have any in my size. I did find two pairs of shoes on sale and a sweatshirt for half off that I liked, so I stood in line for forever and bought them. Then i drove back to Nipas, stopped at the post office and ran into a few friends, and went home instead of going out with them.

The reason why I went home was because I had a GIGANTIC headache. And my uncle was coming to town. But mostly the headache. I woke up the next morning in pain because sleeping on my side hurt my ears so much and I knew that i was getting sick. The headache did not get better though because my cousins are really talkative...sigh. I spent all of yesterday and today downing airborne and advil and napping at every chance I could get, because I was NOT feeling good. Even dinner at McClintock's didn't do the trick - everything seemed to be subpar! So I went everywhere that my family went, but wasn't really into it. My aunt asked me in a roundabout way this morning if I was sick or just fakingit, which bothered me. I'm never going to be much older than her daughter (who is 13 years younger than me) in her eyes. I was not wanting to feel like shit and get annoyed every time someone's voice got high-pitched, and I am mature enough not to fake that kind of crap even if I didn't want to be around them. But still...she just had to ask.

Currently it's supposed to be raining though I can't hear it anymore. My dad makes it sound like we're entering the dark ages out here in Nipomo, and the weather channel makes this out to be the storm of the century. If I lived in hurricane territory maybe I'd worry. If I lived on a cliff next to teh ocean, maybe I'd worry. But I live in Nipomo, where the roads flood no matter what and the county hasn't got the money to fix the potholes because nobody's dying just yet. So really...I don't care. My mom says I can't drive out of the Nipomo area if the rain keeps up though - which may mean no Torrance on Monday!