Trish’s Blog

I’ve been tagged by Angry Asian. She’s not really as angry as I thought she was when I first stumbled upon her blog. What a wretched beginning we almost had, but now we send each other emails where she schools me on the ways of the world (having lived overseas and all) and the blogging world and I try to keep up. I had to ask my husband what tagging meant… see what I mean? And there’s more than one meaning for it depending on where you are. In this case, it’s a game.

So here goes: The rules: Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

What was I doing ten years ago?
Wait, what year is it? 2008… so 1998… Ten years ago we were preparing to leave Hawaii and move to the San Francisco Bay Area. My mom came from Guam to help us pack up and move. Sarah was a year and half. We spent the first few weeks in a hotel in Walnut Creek while Josh was trained as a Regional Trainer for Kinko’s. His area covered East Bay and Hawaii (he got to go back there on business trips and see his parents). Our apartment in Vacaville wasn’t ready for us to move into yet, so we spent a lot of time acting like tourists and getting to know the area. When we finally got settled, we went to church and people couldn’t believe we had left Hawaii for Northern California. They didn’t know that a box of cereal ran $5 or $6. And we were freshly out of college… both having right brain degrees. Ok, I’ll just say it… we were cash poor, but very excited to be getting out in the world.

What are five (non-work) things on my to-do list for today?
1. Cook dinner for my family – cudo – gotta use that chuck roast I got on sale the other day.
2. Fold the laundry that’s taking over my bedroom.
3. Take Sarah to another eye appointment since her new contacts came in.

4. Clean up my desk, maybe do some filing. (Yeah, even as i write it I know I won’t do it. the truth is I dunno what’s on my to-do list. Just trying to finish this one stupid thing for work so I can breathe again. So most likely, I’ll be eating a bunch of junk and hanging out with my vidiot kids playing Super Paper Mario on Wii.)

5. Being Zoe’s beck and call when it’s feeding time, but then it means I’ll get stuck reading a book even when she falls asleep. So… I guess I’ll finish another book today.

Five snacks I enjoy:
1. Strawberries. (Duh!) Or the blueberries that Sarah picked the other day… Texas grown blueberries are dang good.

2. Bread. Any kind. With real butter. Or fake butter other than Country Crock which my husband loves. I eat the other kind of butter because I got it with a coupon for way cheap. None of it is up to Josh’s standard and he has the kids against anything other than CC too. It’s not really about flavor… it’s about habit. He only eats CC because it’s easier to spread than butter. But hello! Butter tastes better! Ask my arteries.

3. Corn tortillas heated in the microwave. They get this really yummy texture when they’re hot. I would love Guamanian tatiyas which is basically a corn tortilla only thicker, but I forgot to ask Nana ‘Nita to teach me how to make them when she was here. It’s probably super easy.

4. Candy. Let’s face it. I do eat bon-bons all day long as Josh has always accused me of doing. The only difference is that I still work hard while eating them unlike what his comment implies. I love chocolate. (Still waiting for those Ice Cubes, yo.) I love chewy, fruity candy like skittles, starburst and strawberry mentos. I can hardly ever go into CVS without coming out with some kind of sweet (are you bri’ish?).

5. Ok, this is very strange. Sarah just came in with a number 10 size can of Freeze-Dried Garden Green Pole Beans from our food storage. I eat them as a snack because they are nasty rehydrated. She knows this and she has just made lunch for everyone (she’s so grown up!) and I told her not to worry about me, but she still did (so sweet! She thinks it’s funny and disgusting that I eat these things). So I went to get the number 10 size can of Freeze-Dried White Chicken Meat to go with it. When you first put these in your mouth they taste like paper, but then your spit hydrates the lightweight thing and then it tastes like chicken! So I’m eating these two together as I type this up. You are all probably thinking Sarah’s right, huh? That’s OK… when I was little I would snack on dry kool-aid (the kind with sugar) or dry hot chocolate mix. I know I’m weird.

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
1. I would set up a candy shop or restaurant so that my kids would have a place to work in high school. Yes, I would make them work. I’d work still, too. They would have to earn their college educations, but I’d be open to sending them around the world to learn other cultures and languages, too.
2. Definitely pay off all my debts and our parents’ debts, too. I owe my dad a canary yellow 1971 corvette. It’s what I promised I’d get him when I was like 14 years old. I promised my mom a shopping spree at Edmonton Mall in Canada… wait, she probably doesn’t want that now since she gave up owning a Rolex. So I think a visit from the whole family to Guam would be what she would want. Maybe I’d buy a hotel there, too.  Nana ‘Nita would get a new house in Oregon or Washington with lots of rooms for visits from kids and grandkids. She and my dad would have a reserved room for them in my hotel in Guam for whenever they wanted to visit. Josh’s dad would get a log cabin in Alaska with no telephone, but a computer and lots of books. Josh’s mom would get a publishing company and some of her own work published (of course she would have a room with a view in the log cabin in Alaska).
3. I’d make a donation to Simplicia Cruz Scholarship Foundation (my grandmother) and help Uncle Pete plan Benavente Family Reunions. How fun would that be?!
4. Annual vacations with my family and meet my bff families every year in Tahoe. I wouldn’t buy the house there because then it wouldn’t be as fun.
5. I’d start a non-profit giving art lessons to kids at schools that have dropped art for some stupid reason. Imagination is [still] more important than knowledge. Josh would probably handle the music side of it.

Places I’ve lived:
1. Guam, USA
2. Carson, CA
3. Long Beach, CA
4. Hayden Lake, ID
5. Buena Park, CA
6. Honolulu, HI
7. Vacaville, CA
8. Port Aransas, TX
9. League City, TX

10. Humble, TX

Jobs I’ve had:
1. Hostess at Claim Jumper, across the street from Knott’s Berry Farm
2. Waitress at Denny’s in the Buena Park Hotel

3. Lounge Girl/Waitress/Bartender at Buzz’s Steak and Lobster and Pieces of Eight in Waikiki, but the sister restaurants are so not there anymore to make way for a new hotel.
4. Receptionist at The Plaza Club in Downtown Honolulu
5. Ice Cream Scooper at Bubbie’s by University of Hawaii (Go ‘Bows! As they used to be cheered… now they emphasize Warriors). I was there when Keith went to the mainland to look at a machine that would make mochi ice cream and then shortly after he came back we started selling them.

6. Waitress at Ryan’s Bar & Grill

7. Salesgirl at Executive Chef/Bath & Butler at Ward Warehouse

8. Graphic Artist/Reviewer at S&J Advertising in Vacaville, CA (which job I’ve kept even when we left CA… except the reviewer part and I’m coming up on my 10 year anniversary – woo hoo!)

I tag:

Kristen at Kapele Krew

Betty at Ka’ai Family Stuff

Susie at Stewartville

Nancy at Pooh’s Corner

Brooke at Bowenspace

I was going to put everybody I subscribe to, but then nobody else would be able to tag them, so go and do thou likewise until our entire community of bloggers is hit.