ok ok ok

so it's been four days since i've first heard about the kindle. yes, i'm still obsessing over this lil gadget. so i decided to shop around, see if there were any other similar products. there are. about the same price range but you have to sync them to your computer. lame.

yesterday i received my million dollar dental bill. yup, you guessed it. granny chayna is going to be responsible, again. i'm going to put $300 towards my dental bill rather than buy a product i really think i might possibly love.

you should have seen brett's face today when i told him about this fantastic machinery! he didn't even let me get out that i had decided NOT to purchase the gizmo at this time. he went ballistic! he's right, but we were agreeing! boys and their little tiny brains.

on another note, i learned a lot this morning. when i got off work, i woke brett up and he got ready for a morning full of errand running before physical therapy. first we went to the dmv. **top secret info ahead** tuesday mornings are the absolute BEST time to go to the dmv. we all know the dmv sucks. california dmvs suck harder. and la dmvs suck the most. we waited a whole 45 seconds before they called our number! sweet mother of god! we didn't get what we went to accomplish done, but we will. so then we go to cvs to pic up some 'scripts. brett's belly was rumbling and he wanted togo's but we instead went to starbucks. if i haven't already said it a million times over, i love fall. yeah god for pumpkin spice lattes with non-fat milk! heavenly! so then we went to costco, another great place to go on a tuesday morning. except apparently you can't get in at 10am unless you're higher than a 'gold-card member.' bite me costco! turning me away at the door! f you right in your a! so we went to target <3>

brett must be loving me because (1) he hates running errands & (b) he's still injured while running errands. he hasn't shaved his face since the accident... nearly 6 weeks. caveman. and he has been begging me to get a beard/mustache trimmer. i was trying to get him to hold off as i had already told my loving mother that this hot item was on his xmas list. he won, got the trimmer. was.so.pissed when he found out you had to charge it before use.

by noon i was out like a light. when i woke up this evening, yep you guessed it. my cave man can now be in an add for phillips norelco. he's so content. who needs kids when you have a guy like mine?

i am such a consumer!

ok really? oprah is that big of an influence on my pea-sized brain! i set my dvr to record her show daily and on friday she revealed a new gadget that she is (and i am now) obsessed with. the kindle. omg. omg. omg. i.want.it.now.
i immediately emailed my mom about my new obsession and told her NOT to buy it for me for christmas because, let's be honest, it's a bit overpriced. and because i cannot wait until christmas. so today is sunday. i learned of this gadget yesterday and have been non-stop searching for this thing. reading reviews. comparing similar product. etc. etc.
so what you're thinking is, 'wow. chayna is a book worm. a sexy book worm. i didn't know that. wow.' nope. i'm not. i'll become an electronic book reading fool of a worm if if get this device of course. again, probably not but i want it! i want it! i want it!
if you don't know what a kindle is, go check it out. it's basically a wireless gadget that allows you to download books in A MINUTE, no matter your location. it stores a crapton of books. it's saving trees people! yeah, i'm a green book worm.
damn you oprah! one day you have suze orman on who tells me to save my money and buy only the things i can afford. the next day you have a super-cool gadget that i probably can't afford but i'm going to buy anyway. damn you!

in other news... are you kidding?! this is the.only.thing on my brain right now! i'm such a geek for technology. Yes, I love technology, but not as much as you, you see... But still, I love technology... Always and forever.

lesson learned!

it's not what you say, but how you say it. simple enough? yes. have i heard it before? a million times. it.just.sank.in. i sorta kinda put in it the brain bank yesterday when brett & i were on our way to blockbuster. to get out of our apartment complex from the garage, you have to do a blind turn into an alley. i, almost always, take the alley to the nearest street rather than just getting on the narrow side street. and i generally fly down the alley at 25mph. and it's full of other parking structure and private garages. so brett has been telling me for the last six weeks to:

slow the fuck down!

you are gonna get schmucked!

you need to quit taking this damn alley! you can't control morons!

slow down! ok, don't.

etc....

then, yesterday he tried a different approach: chayna, i would prefer if you would please not take the alley behind our apartment. i care about you so much and don't want anything bad to happen to you. ever. please just be more careful and if possible take the street instead, but if you do have to take the alley, go very slow and be cautious. i would kill myself if anything ever happened to you.

turns out, the second approach was much more effective! so much so that i have not yet driven down the alley.

my turn. when i was at work last night, brett had a couple of friends over for drinks and video games. no he's not ten, he's just a man addicted to the video games. let's not go there. i did buy the xbox for him for his birthday. stupid wonderful girlfriend. anyway... i came home this morning to pick up brett for physical therapy and he seemed unusually (i use that word lightly) cranky. i was like:

are you hungover?

who did you all supply beers to? there are three left in a 30 pack!

did you smoke a cigarette last night?! are you some kind of fucking idiot?! you quit six weeks ago! with everything that has happened you want to smoke? ew.

to which he replied, why am i honest with you? i didn't have to tell you. urgh.

and then i dropped his monkey ass off at *seriously almost typed pre-school?!* physical therapy. came home and thought about the way i said what i said. an hour and a half later, i picked him up and told him, i've learned my lesson. i know it's my tone and/or the inflection in my voice that frustrates you. but just like you care about my safety when i'm driving down the alley, i care about your safety too. with everything that's happened this past month, i know how short life can be. we've watched our grandparents suffer from smoking. please, i'm asking you not to ever smoke again. i want you to be around forever so we can grow old together. please?

clearly, much more effective. i have a feeling we're going to be having a lot of repeat conversations in order to word them the correct way. it is totally worth it though. what do you have if you can't communicate? lesson learned.

happy birthday mama!

today is my mom's birthday=D yeah:) too bad i'm 2,000 miles away from her on her special day. a phone call just isn't the same as a big squeeze, you know? it's really hard to decide what to get your mom for her birthday, especially since she pretty much never "needs" anything. i've been asking her for awhile now what she'd like for her birthday and she came up with "new floor mats for my car." whoopdifreakindo! and no. so she had an archaic camera that finally pooped out on her so i decided to buy her an easy to run digital camera. welcome to the 21st century mom! i'm sure she'll be reading the owner's manual for the next week and a half and maybe by early january i will see an actual photo printed out! oh, moms!

she told me that last night she got to go to dinner with four of her high school classmates that she hadn't seen for a loooong time. since she's been single she rarely... ok never... goes to her class reunions. the ladies went out for dinner and chatted the night away. i think it's hilarious that the first thing she told me was, "they all looked old! i was like, 'oh my god! i'm with a bunch of old people!" i carefully replied, mom, maybe you need to get one of those magnifying mirrors so you can see your reflection better....

jokes aside, i do have the best mother in the entire world. her life hasn't been easy. she pretty much single handed raised two successful children. not by choice, but that was the hand she was dealt. she never complained. she is the sweetest lady you could ever meet. she is very wise. i can always, always turn to her. her arms are wide open. i hate that i live this far from her and really hope to move closer to home when i decide to have children. seeing her twice a year is not enough. i love her more than she'll ever know. she has raised me to be very strong and independent. i am forever grateful to have been blessed with such a wonderful mom. just look at the pic, she is superwoman!

happy birthday mom! i love you!!!

random thoughts of the day

i'm just not the housewifey type. i already have four days off a week, and i just don't know what to do with them. it takes a day to complete the housework/laundry etc, thanks to a great boyfriend who helps keep it clean day to day. and then another day to run errands. we have no pets thanks to allergies. and no kids thanks to a fractured pelvis. i literally feel like there is nothing to do. i know we're surrounded by millions of things to do, this is afterall LA. not too many people have the middle of the day off though, and i haven't captured the art of having fun alone.

one thing i could do everyday, recieve fantastic wine shipments from amazing wineries. oh yum! now i have to try to leave them in our wine fridge for more than one week. it's so tempting. who doesn't love a glass of vino?

brett & i went to see 'W' tonight. eh. it wasn't what i expected, yet very long. i wouldn't recommend it. there was no real end and it didn't have a whole lot of substance. w has been in office for eight years. in one hour i could think of much better content to include in a movie about him and his never-ending fuck ups. and condoleezza rice's character was so annoying. she is a very intelligent lady and this actress sucked. bad.

i am going to have to dedicate an entire blog to the before & after of b. he is seriously manorexic now. he's lost 30ish pounds since the accident and cannot stop (a) looking in the mirror, (b) weighing himself. he'll soon weigh less than me! he really does look good though. like really good. like david beckham good. lucky, lucky me! that pelvis will heal my darlin and i'd better find a gyno before that. tmi? my bad.

not many thoughts running through my brain tonight. i need to slip into bed with my man and finish this glass of wine. g'nite!

happy 60th birthday daddy!

today would have been my dad's 60th birthday if he were still here. wow. imagine the shindig! i don't have a lot of memories of my dad since he passed away when i was only six. i have a lot of pictures and i know i was a daddy's girl, but actual memories are scarce. i often wonder how life would have been different if he were still here.

i wonder if if i have any of his mannerisms. i know i look just like my mom. and since i've spent a majority of my life with just her, i'm sure i have more of her mannerisms than his. but i wonder if i think the same way as he did. do i act like he did? i know i have some of the same interests that he did.

i've wondered if he would have been here, would i be where i am today? would i have gone to college out of state? moved 2,000 miles from home? be a nurse? be so independent? be with brett? be allowed to date at all! he used to tell me i couldn't date until i was 30!

i think about what my future will be like without him. when i get married, i'll walk alone but hold him in my heart. when i have kids, will they understand that everyone has two grandpas but only one is here on earth? i worry about my mom when she gets older, alone.

i wonder if my brothers would have treated me more like a sister than a daughter for the last 18 years. all three of them have been very protective and did a great job playing the role they were handed. each of them are very different and have therefore taught me different things. i am so thankful for them. i should tell them more often.

so in the spirit of halloween and what should have been my dad's 60th, my friend & i carved pumpkins today! because that is a memory that i do have with him. and i found out today, carving pumpkins is a lot of work man! but we did it, and then rewarded ourselves with a beverage. which then made it a lot easier for me to carve my second pumpkin, the one that my anti-traditional boyfriend didn't want to carve!

cheers to our parents! remember to tell them thank you. remind them that you love them. we don't know how long they will be here with us.

live for today!

sounds easy enough, right? so wrong for me. so hard for me.

brett & i have been struggling lately with our communication and making our relationship the priority. we've had a rough month. last friday was one one month to the day of his car accident. he's been struggling at home and i've been struggling at work to get us by. i recognize that he's lonely and bored and that his entire life has been turned upside-down, inside-out. imagine blinking and not being able to do anything you're used to doing. you can't move your body like you just could. you don't have enough energy to hang out with your friends. going to work is next to impossible. and your social circle has slowly melted away because you can't participate in the usual activities. i do get that.

now on my side, i've also been exhausted, for very different reasons. it's very hard to understand the path that God has chosen for us. we just have to have faith that everything will work out. but our plate is very full right now. i was out of work for awhile so that i could be with brett during this stressful time. so of course our income isn't what it should be. now that he's home, i'm trying to pick up extra shifts so that we can make it. comfortably, like we're used to. but i'm exhausted. i go to work and take care of patients. i come home and take care of my personal patient. i'm TRYING to think of fun activities for us to do. any fun, sober ideas for someone with physical limitations? point is, i'm forgetting to take care of myself.

we've both been stressed, which makes us cranky, which in turn makes us argue. today i was reminded by my love that i need to live for today. i am in a constant state of wonder, daydreaming if you will, about our future. i want to get married. i want to have kids. i want to own a home. i want brett's career to take off. i want to be close(r) to our family or at least have the funds to visit them more often. i spend a lot of time thinking about our future.

brett so kindly reminded me that "all of that shit will happen." it's not something i have to worry about, all of that just happens. everything will fall into place and there's no need to worry about it. he says people who have "goals" to get married/have kids/etc are morons. that's life. it's what we're programed to do. it isn't a "goal." so i swallowed all of this information, choking it down. but he's right. we will get married, we will have kids, we will have a house, we will grow old... together, no less. just relax. enjoy today. live for today.

i don't want to be 85 telling my grandkids that yes, grammy & pops did live in LA when we were your age but we didn't take advantage of the city. how it was a tough time for us and we stayed in and argued a lot, we got through it, but we REGRET that we didn't take advantage of all of the opportunities because we were too busy bitching at each other.

soooooooooo, do me a favor. try to take this advice with me. let's live for today! let's not live with regrets, k?

as michelle tanner would say... how RUDE!

so i accidentally set my DVR to tape oprah every day. which isn't necessarily a bad thing since i appreciate her... for the most part. but the episode i watched today was talking about how rude people have become. it's just really disgusting. she touched on a few topics, listed below that i'll gladly comment on. i just want to remind you that being rude and being bitchy are two completely different things. i admit, i am a bitch. i have improved tremendously, but i'm still a bitch. i try not to be rude, but some people are just so fucking stupid, they kind of deserve it. i would also like to note that when i was young and didn't really know what a 'pet peeve' was, i listed 'smoking.' now that i've been there, done that, quit that... i have a new list. similar to the o's. now on to her list of rude behaviors...



*talking on the cell phone/texting while doing public tasks

i guess this one doesn't really bother me so much because i know that the world is coming to an end. clearly, everyone texts/im constantly because we no longer know how to converse with one another. and it's way more fun to get into an accidental fight because you interpreted the tone of the text incorrectly. i do seriously hate when people talk on the phone when in a restaurant. ew. either excuse yourself or try to remember the times when we only had landlines. don't you have voicemail anyway?


*gossiping

guilty, no comment.


*being chronically late

i've found being late has a lot to do with living in california. i was NEVER late when i lived in the midwest. i was early. at least 10-15 minutes. granted, la has traffic. but if you've lived here a week you know you have to adjust because anything can happen. still, i'm late. except for work because i leave one hour early and it's a whoppin' 12 miles away.


*not picking up after your pets defecation

that's just sick. pick it up you lowlife. you'd be pissed if i shit on your lawn. carry a plastic bag or buy some gloves. i know it's sick but you bought the damn animal! take care of it! oh, you probably can't even afford to feed that animal. you know what? dont' worry honey, the electric bill can be late as long as fido has his food. dumbbbbbbbbbbbbb.




*taking someone's parking space

ok, this one i'll debate about. parking spaces are a free for all, especially out here. there are no names labeling them. the only reason i feel the need to justify this is because brett & i stole a woman's parking space ONCE. she was on her way up the parking structure, us on the way down. so CLEARLY we were there first, right? because we had been all the way up. and were on the way down. so we took the space. the girl cussed at us and whatnot and i was afraid she'd key my car, but she didn't. it's just the karma i worried about.


*being rude to service workers/terrible tippers

i was a waitress through nursing school. thank god, it taught me amazing time management skills that i would need as a nurse. which is still the service industry. if you want to bitch about how crummy the food/service is, quit returning. stay at home and cook for yourself you fatass! and if you can't afford to tip the appropriate 15-20% for a full meal, get an appetizer. it's not the waitress' fault you can't afford it! they are making $3 and hour.


*speaking a different language at work

ok this is my own personal pet peeve. we live in america. we work in america. fucking speak english. it is RUDE when you speak to someone other than your patient/customer in any language other than english. i don't think i need to dive into this topic, you get it right? si?

mrs.riley?

i am a walking contradiction. my last post was related to marriage... the appropriate age to do it, if at all. this week, all i can think about is the future. i have weddings on the brain. two of our friends got married over the weekend on the central coast. she posted pics on myspace and she had some really cute ideas. so now everything i look at, i correlate with weddings. for example, crate & barrel has these cute candle centerpiece things that could be arranged nicely if done correctly. not exactly like this one, but similar. in my head, brett & i are getting married in october. i'm not sure what year.... it's not like i haven't dropped major hints.


*one* i made him drive 3 hours out of his way to see this beautiful ring i had found. i wanted him to see it on my finger. this was after a few short months of dating. and after i had already given him the jeweler's card with the skew number on the back, the ring size, the price and the sale price.


*two* i'm sure i've shown him this about five-hundred-thousand times. oh tiffany, i love you!

and i've showed him this one.



and of course a girl needs one for work, right? so this would be the matching band.

i just don't know what to do to actually get him to pop the question. i remember a long time ago he informed me that i'm supposed to propose to him. so instead i think i'll just buy a bunch of wedding-esque stuff to randomly lay around the house until he figures it out. i'll probably have this entire planner, that i'm seriously contemplating buying, filled out before we're ever engaged. even though i'm not martha stewart's biggest fan, the woman does have great taste!

i'm not going to cross my fingers or hold my breath, but i'm hoping this is hanging on our door next christmas, with "the riley's" engraved on it. *sigh* i loves him.

ps remind me to post something about brett's face when he says that. that & he just compared us to britney & k-fed. where do i? how do i? oh my boy is SPECIAL:)

marriage? i must be cranky!

hhhmmmmmmmmffffffffffffff.... come on magic fingers, think of something to blog about. how about why people find it so necessary to get married these days? before you go judging me, talking about how i must be an old woman who's been burned one too many times by love and now i like to knit and sip cocoa with my eighteen cats gathered around, guess again! i'm in a very loving, happy, committed relationship of three and a half years. i feel like you could just go ahead and remove that happy and loving part if we were to say... tie the knot.





don't get me wrong. i do want to be married someday. i've never been anti-marriage. since i was very young though, i said i wouldn't get married until i was 27. why? no idea. just my lucky number for marriage i guess. so really i'm just bitching about all the youngsters that get married.





just look at the stats. you are more likely to get divorced if you marry in your early twenties or before. do i know people who have been married young in life? yes. are they still married? two or three years later... yes. can i name a few who have been divorced? yes.





i have been dreaming up a magnificent wedding for awhile now. but with the state of the country and my lack of funds, i've been thinking. is it a ceremony binding two lives together, forever, through love or is it a huge function to prove your status. get glammed up and show to your peers just how much you are worth? i would gladly marry brett in a pig farm (it would not be my first choice, but i still would).





i just want people to stop rushing everything. take a second. friggin' breathe. is this the person you want to wake up to for the next 50+ years? or did you both happen to be at the right place and at the right time? do you REALLY know each other? do you make each other GROW? are you in it as a TEAM or is it his/her bullshit?





on a semi-related subject... *stolen from brett* why do you have to have a license to hunt/fish/drive but anyone can have children? if you can't afford to feed your own mouth, why bring an innocent child into the world? if you're not done being a child yourself, why bring an innocent child into this world? to tie it all together... it is 2008. if you knock a girl up/get knocked up... marriage is not necessarily the best answer. nor is it mandatory. really? your parents would be disappointed? just because you're married, doesn't mean you were abstinent while you were dating (obvi, there's a bun in the oven!).





but i do, do, do want to marry brett someday. and be the mother of his children, someday. all i'm asking is to think with your heads, not your genitals.

oooooooooooooh politics....

first and funniest... the boy just told me i look like sarah palin, and that is why he's been mad at me lately. nice. and i don't.

so i was at work last night during the presidential debate, i maybe unconsiously on purpose schedule myself during the debates. i know i need to be informed and this is an extremely important election... you know, compared to all the other elections that clearly meant nothing. duh. but i've been watching anderson cooper (oh yum) discussing what happened last night. i will apologize in advance because two things i should never discuss are politics & religion. but if you think for half a second that anything will improve, or even change slightly, if mccain gets elected, you might be an idiot. that's all i'm going to say.

well, that and who gives a rats ass what obama's middle name is? seriously? a middle name? just f'in pretend his name is barack richard obama. for the next month or so, it's going to be more racial than it already has been. because mccain called barack 'that one.' oh lordy. uh uh, oh no you didn't mccain!

i'm over it. completely and entirely. i'm tired of seeing gas prices soar and hardly being able to afford groceries for two mouths. thankfully i don't have children yet.

oh yeah, and aig got bailed out, again. and then the executives of aig spent more than $400,000 on a fancy shmancy get away for manis/pedis/massages. dumb asses. can we please go back to a cash society? you don't have the money, you can't have that! and then can we go back to the caveman days and practice survival of the fittest? grrrrrrrrrrrrr..........

nada to bitch about?

oh man, this weekend went by way too fast! i was waiting all week... 8 nights of work in a row and all i wanted was a long weekend of relaxation. silly me, i nearly slept the entire weekend away. rats!
this is odd, i have nothing to bitch about right now. i mean i do, but it would take multiple blogs and i'm just not up to that right now. i could complain about how bad life sucks, & why did this (car accident, etc) happen to us?! or why is it SO f'in hot STILL... it is october! or a million and five reasons i would like to uproot and move out of this country.
brett is still improving every day. he's lost a lot of muscle mass... around 25 pounds. today he started outpatient physical therapy. it's so hard for me to see him like this. i want my old buggie back. the overly active one that even has to pace when he's on the phone. my athletic (ok i get it, you are athletic. after nearly four years, i am admitting this to you: you are an athlete. and not just on madden or tiger woods golf) boyfriend. the one who can't stand to spend another day in the house so we HAVE to go out. let's go out. i know its been a real struggle for him this week. he can't be at the clubs every weekend because he needs someone to drive him and those other people apparently have lives... eh. he hasn't had (with the exception of my adult supervision last night) a beer since the accident. this may be no biggie for most people, but as a stand up comedian with many friends who enjoy the occasional (binging every night) cold brew, it is a big deal. he's lost his socialization network. my poor baby.
so on a totally different topic: where are we all going to move when the recession gets so bad that there is an even larger amount of violence/crime in la? hmm... where?
and finally... LOST. ever watched it? it's got me hooked but i'm not sure why. it's very suspenseful and i like that, but you really never find out the answers. how do i so easily get hooked on moronic tv?

long overdue

wow. i am an awesome blogger. only three months since my last post! it's because i'm incredibly busy you see... so this blog will serve to briefly update you on where i've been the last few months.

july came & went so fast! brett and i got settled into our new luxury pad. i LOVE it. it is SO spacious! it's a bit of a pain to keep clean (to a normal OCD chica) and a lot more expensive to cool than our uber-efficient tiny box that we used to live in. we've had plenty of friends (and plenty of room for them) hang out, which i love! the more the merrier! and we've had family visit on two separate occasions since the move. the memory foam sacks, although large and a little tacky, are a hit!

august, i can't even remember august. i finally, for the first time all year, did not work ANY overtime. yes, i saw it in my paycheck, but it was worth it! brett's dad and brother spent the first week of the month with us. fun times my friends! we did A LOT of binge drinking. yikes! add a little karaoke, a lot of friends, a day or two at the beach and good eats... sounds like a good time to me! and it was! to be responsible, we finally registered our cars in the state of California. oh joy. and then i decided on a whim to fly home during September...

september i headed back to good 'ole iowa in search of my favorite season, fall. ah, fall. the cool breeze, the crisp air, the leaves morphing into beautiful beings, millions of tiny stars in the sky, my family surrounding me... and me falling fast asleep in a cold bed, alone. i had so much fun, it was much needed r&r (who knew i would need it the very NEXT week?!). i surprised my grandma, much to MY surprise, did not recognize me. how long have i been gone? jeesh! and then surprised my bestest cousin ever! i wish the trip could have been longer, but it obviously could not have been. God knew i needed to be in la, just in time for brett to get in a nearly fatal car accident. yep i said it. sucky sucky sucky september... more on the accident later...

and now, it's october. which i was SO excited for. last year brett PROMISED (he's in denial about his promise) that we could go to knott's scary farm this year. i begged, literally begged, him to go last year. we did not. this year was the year. not anymore. grandpa booty can't be struttin' his walker around the park. probably shouldn't be tossing his insides around quite yet either as they are still healing from major abdominal surgery. ugh. i'm annoyed. i really, REALLY, wanted to go. i mean, yeah i guess... look on the bright side... brett IS still alive. he has no spinal cord injuries. no brain injuries (the doctors claim! show me the CT and i'll be the judge of that!). he can talk, walk, eat & even poop now. i know i'm being whiny about this whole knott's scary farm thing, but come on man! we ARE going next year. WE ARE!