Thursday, October 28, 2004

Good Fortune

I forgot to mention this last week...

Last Thursday, we had Lora over for dinner. (Omar was out of town on business)

We ordered Chinese Take-out from our local place that delivers. We've been ordering from them for years.

Our order came with 4 fortune cookies. I usually forget to open/eat them, but since Lora was here, she and Dick opened them up when we finished our meal.

Dick opened his first. Here's what it said:


Isn't that a great fortune?! Let's not forget that there were 4 cookies, and any one of us could have chosen it, but it was Dick that chose the cookie with the correct gender-specific fortune! :) Not to mention that this was all quite timely!

Generally, I take fortune cookies with a grain-of-salt (of course) but I think this one is a keeper!

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

Playing with the Big Boys....

At last! I have a XML site feed for my blog. (at first, I thought this was the same as an rss feed, but Dick just corrected me)

...and to think, the technology was there all along.
All I had to do was look for it... kind of like Dorothy finding her way back to Kansas.

So, here it is:
http://www.trinachow.com/blog/rss/trina.xml

Add me, baby.
Perhaps now I'll make "the list" on Omar's page. ;)

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

Marcel's worst. birthday. ever.

Our poor Big Cat, Marcel has had a rough couple of days.

This past Sunday (10/24) was his 9th Birthday! (We adopted him from the San Francisco SPCA when he was 4 1/2.) When Marcel came downstairs Sunday morning, we noticed that he was walking with a limp. Poor guy - he partied to hard the night before, and now he was paying for it. ;) We decided to keep an eye on his limp to see if it improved over the next day or so.

Monday morning, he was still limping, so I thought we might as well bring him in to the vet just to make sure it wasn't anything serious. (Noe had a limp about a year ago that turned out to be an infected wound that we couldn't see) Our vet is in Milpitas - I've been bringing my pets to this doctor for over 20 years. I also figured that we've been delaying bringing Marcel in to get his teeth cleaned, so we may as well do it all at once and get it over with.

I brought Marcel in at 10:00am. The doctor check out his hind leg, and couldn't find anything, so he figured it was probably a bruise or a minor sprain that would heal in time. That was good news. More good news: Marcel lost almost 2 pounds since we last brought him in 3 1/2 months ago! Yay! He's "down" to 15.2 lbs. now.

We still needed to have Marcel's teeth cleaned (he's never had it done before) so I was told to leave him there, and pick him up at 4:00.

I picked Marcel up at 4:00, and they brought him out to me in his carrier. They said his teeth were in good shape, and that the procedure went well. Poor Marcel - he was still quite groggy from the anesthesia. I was told that his gums may be sore from the cleaning, and he also had part of his front left paw shaved from when they put the IV in him.

Poor little guy. He was not happy with us.

I kept imagining him saying things like "This Birthday Sucks!" and "This is the worst Birthday ever!"

I had severe Momma Cat guilt.

When we got home, I tried to give him just a little bit of his regular dry food. I think his teeth were too sore to eat. I went to the store and bought him some yummy soft food. That was a HUGE treat for him - he ate the entire portion I gave him, and I think we all felt a lot better afterwards.

The joys of City-Living

Okay, you all know that I LOVE living here in SF.

With that said, every once in a while, something happens that makes me wonder, "Would this happen in the 'burbs?"

Dick and I walked out our front door this morning to take him to the train station. We noticed that someone had thrown-up on our front porch. (a.k.a. vomited, up-chucked, spewed, hurled..)

Nice.

Lovely.

and then I have to wonder, "Why?"

Thursday, October 21, 2004

"Trina" Brand .... Broccoli?

I was taking my daily walk today and passed by a produce box on the street:

"Trina" Organic Broccoli

Too bad I didn't have a camera with me. I just did a search on the web, and didn't find anything about it.

funny.

So far, the different "Trina" Products that I'm aware of are:

"Trina" brand softdrink: (as seen here with yours truly)


"Trina" brand cosmetic bags:
(I used to have a "Trina" bag. Maybe it's time to get another. These are all pretty cute, don't you think?)

...and now..

"Trina" brand Broccoli!

No picture. Too bad.
Okay, I'm officially the biggest dork in the world. When I finished writing this blog, I decided to take a walk with my camera, and take a picture of the box. I thought I'd better do it now, in case I Don't ever see it again.

Dork.

I realize that this isn't too exciting for all of you reading this, but it amuses me. My name isn't very common - at least not common enough for me to ever find things with my name on it when I was growing up: mugs, door plates, etc.,

I find it very amusing that I can't find my name on a San Francisco Mug, but I can find it on a Box of Broccoli.

Update 10:00 pm
I just caved again. The power of the web is too strong a force for me. Resistance is futile.

I just bought the cute "Trina Pretty in Pink Purse" (you've just gotta love that name!)

Wednesday, October 20, 2004

Funny name games

My sister called me the other day, laughing and saying, "Did you know that if you accidentally have your hands misplaced on the keyboard, your name comes out as "Truba"?"

I said, "Oh, yes! i've been doing that for years!" (typing my name incorrectly, that is) "Truba and I are great friends!"

I've also realized that my name is an anagram for: Train
I don't mis-type my name so that it comes out "train", but occassionally, some spell-checker will say "Did you mean to say "train"?" LOL

There are also some funny things about the pronunciation of my name:
Tree-na.

A long time ago, a new friend was trying to remember my name during our second meeting.

Our mutual friend (who had first introduced us) gave him a clue: "The first part of her name is like a very tall plant. The second part is the opposite of "yes"".

I thought it was a pretty good clue.

My (new) friend looked at me, and in all seriousness said, "Ferno?"

:) - that was my nickname for the entire next season.

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Time to go back to Ohio?

Some of you may know that I used to live in Dayton, Ohio, and that I go back almost every year for WGI (International Color Guard Competition). The only other outing that I take while in Dayton, is a trip to the Gap Clearance Center (which is actually in Kentucky, along with the Cincinnatti Airport).

Well, I may have just found another "must see" for the next time that I'm in Ohio. Paramount's Kings Island is just outside of Cincinnatti, not far from Dayton. I had gone once in the winter the year I lived there.

Anyhow, Kings Island has announced a new ride that will open in Spring 2005: The Italian Job Stunt Track. Imagine: a roller coaster with MINI Coopers! :) It looks like tons of fun!

Monday, October 18, 2004

Start Spreading the news

Okay, the reason I haven't blogged in over a week is because I had something that I really, REALLY wanted to write about, but I had to wait until we made some phone calls first.

So, let's pretend that it's last Sunday, October 10, 2004.
4:00pm EDT to be exact.

As I mentioned in my last post, Dick and I traveled to North Carolina last week with my parents. We spent the first few days in the Smoky Mountains - the western part of the state where Dick grew up. We tried to time our trip with the "changing of the seasons" or, the beautiful fall colors.

We flew from SFO to Charlotte on Saturday, got in mid-afternoon, and drove to our lovely B&B in Asheville. We spent all day Sunday driving through the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was a gorgeous day - very clear. The fall colors had begun, but were not in their full glory yet. (we were probably a couple of weeks early). The Blue Ridge Parkway is a great drive - there are scenic over-looks every few miles. A few of these over-looks have hiking trails that you can hike to the top, or to a ledge.

We went on one of these hikes at "Waterrock Knob Trail". It was only .5 miles, but became pretty steep early on. About halfway through my parents had decided not to continue on, and I was beginning to wonder whether or not I wanted to complete the climb. I told Dick that this trail was considerably more steep than the last trail we had done, and he said, "Yes, but this hike will be much more rewarding!". So, we continued on. 3/4 of the way up, this City Girl started to get a little more tired, and even a little cranky :) I said, "There had better be a pot of gold at the top of this mountain....or at least a rainbow!". Soon, we were at a pretty little clearing, just a few more feet from the top of the mountain. Dick was standing behind me, and said, "Well, I don't have a pot of gold, but I do have *this*". When he said this, I thought he had a piece of candy for me from the hotel. Instead, I turned around, and he had a gorgeous diamond ring! He said, "I think we should get married", and with that, he got down on one knee, and proposed. :)! I was so shocked, and happy all at the same time, that all I could get out were words like "Really?" and "are you serious?". Eventually, I came back to my senses, and was able to say "Yes".

So, that's the "Big Proposal" story, It's very funny, and makes me smile. Dick really outdid himself this time - he took me completely by surprise, and I absolutely love the way he did it!

Here are a couple of fun pictures. The first picture was taken seconds after the proposal. A young couple was coming down from the top of the mountain just after, and offered to take a photo for us. (okay, the truth is, they came down the mountain, and I said, "He just proposed to me". The young woman started to fan her eyes, because they were tearing up - it was very funny).



Here's another picture that my parents took once we hiked back down the trail.


One more story:
Earlier in the day, as we were driving along, the road became just a little windy, and I thought it might be a good idea to take a Dramamine. Of course it made me drowsy, so I needed to take a little nap. I later found out that it was during this time that Dick and my parents had walked out of the car (to admire another overlook) and he asked for their permission to marry me! I really loved that he did this. They were very surprised, and apparently, took a few seconds to give him their answer!

My first thought was to blog about the news immediately, but Dick reminded me that we should wait until we saw his family, and made some phone calls before we "put it up on the internet". Of course, he was right, so I waited until we had called my family in CA, and saw his family later that week in Chapel Hill.

So, that's it. That's the story.
That's all the info we have for now.
We don't have a date yet, but we'll keep everyone posted on the progress.

Gadgets that Rock when you're traveling!

We just came back from a week in North Carolina! (more on that later).
Our flights went really well - we flew direct from SFO to Charlotte, NC.

Here are some things that we brought that made a HUGE difference on the flights:

1. iPod - 40GB of music. it simply Rocks.
2. noise-cancelling headphones. These were wonderful! I used it with my iPod, to watch the inflight movie, and even to just lesson the noise of the airplane.
3. GPS - this may sounds somewhat ridiculous, but really, it was fabulous! Dick got this great Streets & Trips software with a GPS Locator, and installed it on his laptop before we left. When we were on the plane, we just attached the GPS devite to the window, and voila: we could see where in the world we were! It was so cool! It showed where we were, what our altitude was, how fast we were going, etc., It was also very handy to have as we were driving around the mountains, and across the state.
4. a power adapter for the plane/car. We were able to keep Dick's laptop charged during the entire flight, and also when we were driving around. It was really nice to not have to worry about the battery running low.
5. FOOD - We flew in coach, and you just never know what kind of food you'll be served. I planned ahead, and made sandwiches, chips, carrot sticks, and rice crispy treats for the trip. Turns out, our airline (US Air) doesn't provide food anymore, although you do have the option to pay $7-10 for a meal. Our bag-lunched worked out great!
6. Water. You just can't have too much of it on a flight.

Friday, October 08, 2004

Domestically Challenged

I just picked up an iron today for the first time in several years.
Really.

Generally speaking, I don't iron at all. I intentionally don't buy clothes that need to be ironed.
This is kind of funny, given the fact that my sister claims that she irons almost every day.
Some genes just aren't shared.

I figure it's been at least 3 years that I've ironed anything. I know this because that's about how long I've been living with Dick. I used his iron today, and realized that it was my first time because I had to really look at it to figure out how to configure the settings.

To make matters just a tad more embarrassing: I'm not even sure that the ironing that I did today would even be considered "real ironing". I ironed some placemats that I just washed yesterday. They looked so sad and wrinkly, that I had no choice but to press them.

Does ironing a flat, rectangular piece of cloth count as actual "ironing"?

Wednesday, October 06, 2004

Stay on Target

Can't. Stop. Playing.

We've been playing an awful lot of Star Wars Battlefront.
We played last night with Reeves & Pete, and then again with Pete for a few games tonight.
It's addicting.
Good Star Wars fun!

We'll be going back to Shan's pad tomorrow night to watch "The Empire Strikes Back".

I am once again a full-fledged Star Wars Geek.
I'm going to have visions of AT-ATs dancing in my head tonight.

Friday, October 01, 2004

Star Wars: Battlefront... Full Version

Okay -I caved again. Dick and I ordered Star Wars: Battlefront for Xbox on amazon.com last weekend, but it hasn't come yet. Actually, it hasn't even been shipped yet, so it could be a couple of more weeks.

Today, on my home from the gallery, I went to EB Games, and picked up a copy. We figure that we'd need two copies anyway (so we can play multiplayer/Xbox Live) so we might as well get another copy NOW!

Wow.

It is fabulous.

Everything you'd want out of a Star Wars game. We were playing stormtroopers, and rebels. We were riding Tauntauns, and flying Snowspeeders. We even saw Darth Vader running around. It was SO COOL!

..I haven't been this excited about a new game since we got Halo! really.

go out and buy this game so we can all play online!