The Karmic Circle

SO once upon a time, long long ago, I had this conversation with an old friend, Kathy Yu, about the ups and downs of life. Every now and then, either when I'm having a rough time or conversely, a great time, I think back to that conversation and smile at our superior intellect! I think our "Karmic" wheel/circle/bar graph idea was pretty correct as I look back through the years and even more true to this very day. I won't go into detail about the concept because it's just to scientific for many of you... It'll blow your mind! haha jk, I just don't feel like writing it...

Lately, as some of you may know, I've been going through a pretty rough patch in life with the passing of my Grandma, the constant troubles with my car, my knee/bodily health, and of course my crappy job. It was definitely clear that I was at the bottom of the circle or on the low bar in the Karma bar graph. But hey, I feel as though I'm a pretty optimistic person with a generally sunny outlook on life and thought, "hey, don't sweat it, things will swing around for the good and everything will work out."

Well... for the frickin' LONGEST time, I had been patiently waiting for that day to come and I was getting pretty fed up with waiting. This Thursday-Sunday, the tides turned and my luck just swung to the top of the circle and to the highest bars on the graph!

THURSDAY: It was the second Thursday of the month and that means it was Art Walk day in downtown LA. I was super stoked to go, mostly because all my coworkers wanted to come with. When it got down to the end of the day, they ALL backed out and it was up to me on whether or not I was still going. Normally, I'd want to avoid the hassle of parking downtown and venturing out all by myself, but this time I decided I really wanted to be independent and go just for me!

I walked around for almost 3 hours by myself, collecting free food and drinks along the way. I only looked at the stuff that I found interesting and never stayed in a place where I didn't feel comfortable. I even managed to get over the awkwardness of taking pictures and shot away. Up above is probably my favorite piece of the night. Its probably just some homeless woman walking the street, but the background is horizontally blurred into streaks of vibrant colors. The way the picture was lit and hung on the wall just forced viewers to gravitate towards the piece. In my haste to photograph it and move on, I didn't even catch the name of the piece or the artist!

An equally favorite piece of the night came as I was tirelessly heading back to my car, ready to leave for the night. I saw this guy taking a picture of these girls through the window and decided to check it out. This Asian painter was doing two intricate pieces on the backs of two other Asian girls. Just the style and technique of the whole thing was very fascinating and really caught my eye. I stayed for a while, watching them interact and joke around as she slowly painted one girl and then the next. I wonder how long they were sitting there for??

So the Art Walk was a huge success and I was very proud of myself for venturing out and not letting the fear of being a loner deny me the chance to experience one of the best monthly events in LA. I really do wish that I could bring Jenna or my brother one time because they would absolutely love it!

With spirits already soaring high, Friday rolled in and I was ecstatic for the weekend. Mostly because it would be the first time seeing Jenna in over 3 weeks! Oh, i forgot to mention, another reason why I was happy was because I got a job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes, I already, had a 'job', but this new one is a real one! Its a large and prestigious company with lots of success in their past and future. The best part is that I get to do graphic design for a candy company! Let me repeat: CANDY! I love candy! Almost as much as I love cereal and cookies. Doing my job now will make me so happy and I should flow with ideas and excitement. This will be my new home in 2 weeks!

On Friday, I broke the news to my current boss and all of my coworkers. At first, I was nervous that my boss would be upset but in the end he was actually very supportive and understanding. I do want to thank him and the company for taking a chance on me and letting me be a part of their company. There were many times I had to miss work for personal reasons and they were ever so understanding. I appreciated that more than they know.

The end of the day quickly came and I called Jenna to see how her drive from Santa Barbara was going. Of course, she was stuck in traffic but had a surprise "crazy" question to ask me.

"Hey, do you want to go to Disneyland tonight to celebrate your new job?"

"!!! WHAT??!?! Yeah I do!"

haha, so we did!

We only spent a little over 2 hours at the park but dang, it was well worth it! We didn't have to pay for parking because we parked at Downtown Disney (shhh..dont tell), we made it just in time for fireworks, we walked right into an outstanding showing of Captain EO (which I now dub myself as Captain C.O.) AND we even managed to fit in Pirates and Smallworld. Great relaxing time if you ask me! And of course it was all made better because Jenna was there celebrating with me!

Saturday came and we decided to go to the UCLA/Westwood area because Jenna wanted to buy a 'UCLA Mom' mug for a ...coworker? Anyways, we ended up getting sushi at Tomodachi's in Westwood!

This was Jenna's Dragon Roll which was a heavenly combination of baked crab and lobster on top of a california roll. (i think)

I was starving and opted for the larger 2 item lunch special. Spicy Tuna and Spicy Chicken. I'm hot like that!

After lunch, there is only one place where you can go in Westwood for a great cheap dessert: Diddy Riese!

Because I AM the cookie monster, I got myself a M&M cookie/Snickerdoodle/Strawberry Ice Cream Sandwich while Jenna purchased a dozen and a half of cookies to bring back for her office. Surprisingly, she also got a scoop of Rocky Road ice cream, which I now know is her favorite!

It was barely the beginning of the afternoon and I had already had sushi AND cookies!? My Karmic circle was way on the top now!

We then headed over to the campus to buy her mug and stroll around the beautiful campus. When we got there, we were surprised to see a bunch of people, both kids and parents alike, and wondered what the heck was going on!? Apparently, we had come on the right day, because Saturday was "Alumni Day" and Jenna was most definitely a UCLA Alum! Cool! We (or I) stocked up on free Alumni coffee and fruit, while Jenna found some comment cards to fill out letting others know how great the experience at UCLA can be.

Here's the Alumni registration tent and the cool big letters they set up.

These were the comment cards that we filled out and posted for everyone else to admire and take to heart. Guess which one was Jenna's and which was mine!

I swear, it's like they knew she was coming to visit this weekend and lured her back to the campus.

After our tour, we headed back home to cook some dinner. (BTW, the iphone map is a MUST for LA because without it, we would have been stuck in the downtown traffic for the Bieber/Urrrsher concert that was about to start.) We decided to grill steaks and bake sweet potato fries (Jenna's specialty) It had been a long time since I'd had steak and boy was it tasty. Even though I'm broke and could only afford the bulk cheap cuts, the marinade that we made saved the day and I think it turned out alright!

We did a lime based marinade. 2 limes were juiced over the cuts of meat.

Then we added garlic, cilantro, hot sauce, olive oil, honey and salt & pepper later.

As I grilled the steaks, Jenna prepared the sweet potato fries. If you haven't made them, I HIGHLY recommend it. They're simple to make and require very little cooking knowledge.

Be sure to season well.

I think the steak was done... and I made sure to rest it for at least 10 minutes. (or else Anthony Bourdain would kill me!!)

After quickly sauteing some kale with garlic, onions and corn, our meal was complete! A delicious ending to the day.

After dinner, to burn of some calories, we decided to do a little yoga and impromptu ballroom dancing. One day we will memorize the Melissa Waltz from Dancing with the Stars and perform it for you. I have some grace in this large body!

ON TOP of all that awesomeness that had happened in the past three days, I forgot to mention that I FINALLY got my car back from the repair shop! If you don't know, I got into a chicken fight with a Ram (I swear!) on I-5 and ended up losing badly. My car had been in the shop since 4/20 (hehe) and I just finally got it back Saturday morning (5/15). I drove for almost a month in that 2 lb Nissan Versa aka The Anti-Cool. When I brought the car back to Hertz the guy was surprised that I had put over 2300 miles on the car! HAHA. That's what trips to SB, SD and Danville will do to a rental car. What a crazy month.....

But hey, everything was turning around and my Karmic meter was finally swinging towards greatness. I feel as though all the stresses and bad times down here in LA were solely so I could feel even better right now. I am loving my relationship with Jenna (even though we do not see each other enough), I have the Batmobile back (which I am renaming The Problem Child), my body is in stable condition (so long as I wear the brace) and I finally have a job that I can be proud of! I hope this high feeling lasts for a while and it would be nice to finally start loving life down here in LA. Here's to the future and believing that even when times are rough, things will get better eventually. All you have to do is wait and be patient!

Up next: 2 bball tournaments, Jenna's Birthday and a family trip to Toronto!