2006

Archive for the year 2006

Five Years Ago

Posted on October 16, 2006 by Ching under Family, Life.

I found an old journal entry from No. 2305. I thought I’d repost it here. Sometimes we can learn a lot from looking back at the past. Sometimes it’s just fun to poke fun at ourselves. Enjoy.

2001 HIGHLIGHTS
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Bought a house. Brian and Kevin shared a two-bedroom, two-story townhouse. They had just moved there when Brian and I started seeing each other. I officially moved in with them in January of 2000. We lived there for over a year and then one day, Brian woke up and decided he had had enough of apartment living. He was tired of the loud, annoying neighbors. We were totally unprepared.. We didn’t have any down-payment money saved up, but we were both able-bodied and had excellent credit, so we felt sure that we would be able to qualify for a reasonable home loan. We did. We moved into to our very own house on the 14th of April 2001. That’s where we currently reside with our lovable cat, Hobbie. 2305 Farmstead. It was the first house that we could agree on and it satisfied all of our requirements: three bedrooms, two full bathrooms, two-car garage. It is small and doesn’t have a basement, but it is large enough for the three of us (Brian, Hobbie and I).

Got engaged. The proposal came as a surprise, but wasn’t totally unexpected either. I know this sounds like an oxymoron, but there is no other way to describe it. Let me explain. Brian and I had always talked about getting married — eventually. He never really proposed (up until then), but we knew that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. We had talked about getting married, having children (and grandchildren) and growing old together. He knew that he didn’t have to propose.. Because I already knew how he felt about me. But on Sunday, May 6th, he arrived at my work. Armed with three red roses and determination, he proporsed. My engagement ring consisted of a princess-cut diamond with baguettes on either side and it was set in platinum. It’s very beautiful. We had to take it back to Zales for sizing, though, because my fingers are tiny. Now, do you understand why I say that was suprised, but then I wasn’t?

Hosted a successful house-warming-slash-birthday-party. We had to post-pone it several times because we wanted to make sure everyone could attend. There were lots of things going on in everyone’s life, so we weren’t able to have it until June (two months after we had actually moved in). By then it was time for Brian’s birthday, so we ended up having a combination party. Brian had gotten his birthday present from me a couple of months prior. I bought him a 60″ TV with my tax-refund money. We had it delivered the day that we moved in, but he knew it was to be is 27th birthday present. It’s a present that he won’t soon forget and that I probably will never be able to match in this lifetime. The family room is now dubbed the BAT-room (kind of like the bat-cave, only in this case, BAT stands for “BIG ASS TV”). We spend most of our time in there.

Matt and Jen separated. As my relationship with Brian flourised, Jen’s (my sister) relationship with Matt (now her ex-fiancé) fell apart. Their wedding, which had been planned for September 2001, ended up getting canceled. They have a child, Logan, who is primarily in Matt’s care. My mom baby-sits him sometimes. He turned one in July. We got him a wooden rocking horse, which he loves, for his first birthday. After their separation, Jen moved back in with our parents. Up until then, she and Matt were living together. She lived with mom and dad for about a week before getting kicked out. She’s kind of a pain-in-the-ass, childish and irresponsible. She lived on her own for the rest of the year, but spent the night at our parents’ house every now and then. Mom and dad feel sorry for her though, so they’re allowing her to move back in again. Hopefully, she’ll be more respectful this time around.

Betty and Clark’s 60th wedding anniversary. Betty and Clark invited us all to join them at the Crown Uptown Dinner Theater to celebrate their 60th anniversary. Dave and Donna (Brian’s parents), Kevin and his girlfriend Stephanie, Brian’s Uncle Kenny and his wife Laura, and Brian and I all came. The host does announcements before the show and he greeted Betty and Clark a happy anniversary (they were given a free specialty drink in a commemorative goblet on the house), Clark a happy birthday (their anniversary just happens to fall on the same day as his birthday) and me a happy birthday also (I didn’t get a free drink, though). It was really neat! The food wasn’t that great, but the show was awesome. I really enjoyed myself. We watched a local production of Sweet Charity, which I hadn’t seen before, and I liked it a lot.

Our first Christmas in our first house. We got a four-and-a-half foot pre-lit artificial Christmas tree as our first tree. Donna had loaned us some Christmas ornaments, so we used some of that. We also used the ornaments that Brian’s grandmother had given me in the past. We had to buy our tree-topper and some gold-bead garland, but everything worked well together. The end resuld was a cute but beautiful first Christmas tree. We spent Christmas Eve at my parents’ house, as was the tradition, but we hosted Christmas Day at our house. Everyone (Brian’s grandparents, Kevin, his parents and even their dog Sally, and then later that same day, my parents, Jen and one of Kevin’s friends) came. They all seemed to enjoy themselves, so I guess it’s safe to say it went well. I don’t know if we’ll host it again this year.. We’ll see.

The Departed

Posted on October 14, 2006 by Ching under Movies.

Please do not read any further if you don’t want me to ruin the movie for you…

Okay, you’ve been warned…

My father-in-law David, Brian and I went to watch The Departed after dinner tonight. We, and by we I mean, Uncle Kenny, Renee, Feifel, Grandma, Grandpa, their neighbor John, David, Donna, Brian and I, all went to Red Lobster for dinner to celebrate Grandpa’s 89th birthday and Grandma and Grandpa’s 65th wedding anniversary.

Dinner went great but back to the movie… The Departed is probably the best movie I have seen in a long time. Martin Scorsese knows his stuff. The movie is excellent. It captures you and entertains all the way through. I loved all the plot twists [incoming spoiler] and the unexpected way that DiCaprio’s character dies at the end.

Now, I’ve seen a lot of movies. In most movies the protagonist lives. So let’s say DiCaprio is our hero. You’d think he’d survive and then we have ourselves a happy ending, right? Well, that’s one of the things I loved about this movie. It’s not so predictable.

So let’s say Matt Damon is our hero. Well, guess what [another spoiler]… He dies, too. I love how everyone dies at the end. I know that’s morbid of me but it worked out great. The movie is more effective with everyone dead. I think the only top billed person who doesn’t die is Marky Mark. Go, Marky!

Anyway, the movie is great. I even told Brian that I wouldn’t mind watching it a second or third time. If you know me, that’s quite a compliment because I generally can’t stand to watch a movie that I have already seen. It is so good that I am willing to forgive a film flub.

Which film flub, you ask? If you recall the sex scene between the shrink and DiCaprio you’ll notice that her portrait is still hanging on the wall, she’s still packing stuff up and she’s still got most of her furniture at her place. Maybe you were too busy oogling the girl to notice, but I did and believe me when I say this is a flub. Recall that a couple of scenes before she had moved her stuff into Matt Damon’s apartment and the same childhood portrait of her was in that box. The movers rang the bell, remember? If that was the day she moved then why was her stuff still conveniently at her place when DiCaprio decides to pay her a visit?

Having watched a couple of episodes of Project Greenlight I’m pretty sure that Scorsese was well aware of this. I’m sure I’m not the only one who picked up on it. When you think about it, pacing is more important and if you have to make sacrifices to make the movie better then so be it. You gotta do what you gotta do. Ultimately I order that they went with in the movie works better as far the the pacing is concerned. If they would’ve gone with the correct chronological order then the pacing would have been off and the movie would have been less effective. That’s just my untrained opinion, though.

Regardless of the flub, it’s a great movie. Go see it already!

—

P.S. The weird thing about going to the movies with David (but without Donna — she wasn’t feeling well) is that it felt oddly like Brian and I were on our first teenage date and his dad was acting as our chaperone. Brian did not misbehave during the movie. 😉

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The Way We Were

Posted on October 10, 2006 by Ching under Life, Memes.

This is an old Friday Five entry I found. It was originally posted on February 23, 2002.

1. Hey, baby, what’s your sign? Do you think it fits you pretty well? Scorpio. Yes, I’d say it fits me pretty well. Or should I say, I fit into the Scorpio stereotype pretty well?

2. What’s the worst birthday gift you’ve ever received? There is no such thing as a bad birthday gift. At least, not in my book. I’ve never, ever received anything that I absolutely hated. All gifts have their own merits.

3. What’s the best birthday gift you’ve ever received? The personalized silver beaded bracelet that I got last year. It consists of two strands of various beads. The two strands are attached so they never separate. It’s got an antique heart clasp, which is the most beautiful that I have ever seen. Brian & his parents chipped in and they got it for me at Kay Wiggins (she’s known for personalized jewelry items). One strand has square letter blocks that spell “CHING” and the blocks on the other strand spell “BRIAN.” There’s a bead at each end of our name that corresponds to our birthstones (which happens to be our wedding colors, too — pure coincindence — we didn’t pick our wedding colors with our birthstones in mind). What makes it really special is that Brian mom got her bracelet first. Hers says “DAVID” and “DONNA.” Several months down the line, Brian’s parents got his grandma one for her birthday. Hers says “CLARK” and “BETTY.” Still a few months later, I got one for my birthday (you already know what mine says). I feel like a truly a part of the family now.. Like I am now officially a Brubaker woman.

4. What’s the best way you’ve celebrated your birthday thus far? The best birthday that I’ve ever celebrated was last year. It was very low-profile. We had a barbecue and only a few people were invited. But all of the important people came. And it’s the first birthday that I’ve celebrated in our very first house. I thought it was pretty special.

5. What are your plans for this weekend? Skipping work on Saturday (today). Gina Ann’s debut at the Hilton (Saturday night). Picking up my Ortho TriCyclen at Walgreens (Sunday morning). Getting our new (new to us, anyway) dining table from mom (Sunday night). It’s a hand-me-down. But it’s better than the one we’ve got. It’s a dark, solid wood (which will match most of the wood we’ve got throughout the house) and it’s got six chairs (our current dining table only has four, because the other two broke eons ago — it was a hand-me-down as well). I’m actually excited to have six chairs because Brian and I both love to entertain.

I couldn’t believe the last part when I read it. I had to ask Brian if we ever liked entertaining. He said, “Who said that?” I said, “I did. I wrote it in a blog.” He goes, “Were you delusional?” How things change!