little brothers' birthday fun

this was an IM from andy:

andy: no xmas present, no bday present
andy: <----- sad face

i did get him a present, though it was late.

in honor of both brothers (mike and andy) having birthdays earlier this month, i'll share a few funny moments about each of them.

mike turned 24 a few weeks ago, and divided by 6, that makes 4. so here are 4 short stories.

• when he was little, like under the age of 6, he used to be really scared of fire. whenever there was a birthday cake with candles, he'd duck under the table and hide until after the candles were blown out. i'm pretty sure we have a bunch of pictures with all of us around the cake and mike hiding underneath.
  

• i came home from UW on a break and i guess i'd gained some dorm food weight. i walked in the door and the first thing mike said was, "you ate my sister!" jerk. though i admit that was a pretty good one.
  

• a few years ago, i was home on some break and was making food. i told mike (or it could've been andy...i can't remember, but we'll just say it was mike) to wash the rice. he looked and me blankly and said, "what do you mean wash the rice?" i was like, "you know...wash it and get it ready for the rice cooker." he said, "you have to wash rice?!" all those years in college and he just cooked the rice straight from the bag + water...no washing.

• most recently, my family came to LA for my graduation. they rented some kind of car, a dodge i think. anyway, i was driving us somewhere and on the radio dash, it read "trunk ajar." mike says, "what does that mean, ajar?" i told him that it meant that the trunk was slightly open. he says, "in what language?" we (except my mom, because she has no idea what's going on) look at each other and say, "uh...english" and start cracking up.

andy turned 22 last week. 22-2=20. 20 divided by 5 is also 4. 4 stories about this punk.

• when he was little, he was total mama's boy and a brat. i had gotten a souvenir mini mug and saucer from BC from my trip with wendy, chris, and their parents. andy was fascinated by it, so i put it on the top of my bookshelf, out of his reach. next thing you know, we hear a huge crash. he tried to climb up to get it and ended up toppling my shelf and breaking a bunch of porcelain paperweights (like my cute ballet shoes). he wasn't hurt, but i was so mad. i made sure my mom punished him - she had him stand against the wall and hold his arms straight up above his head as he cried the whole time. every time he tried to put his arms down, i made my mom come back in to enforce the punishment. he was 6.
  

• he wrestled in high school and was always cranky, trying to make weight. my mom always tried to make him eat, which made him more cranky, like seriously PMS cranky. anyway, one season, he got ringworm. i incessantly made fun of him. he hated that, but i had my fun.

• during his senior year, i drove him out to forest grove (or was it cornelius?) to pick up his letterman jacket and as we were looking for parking and a space opened up, andy says, "what frugal timing!" i looked at him and was like, "you know that's not how you use frugal right?" now every time we find parking, i say, "what frugal timing!" he tries to explain that it was on purpose. sure it was.
  

• last year he turned 21. he woke up with his face all scratched up. i guess he met with the pavement sometime that evening. he told our mom that it happened in basketball or flag football or something. she believed him.

happy birthday kids.

wacky weather

it's been raining on and off this week like seattle/portland. i have to admit that i kind of like it. however, what i do not like is how so cal drivers react to the rain - they can't drive. it took me 45 minutes to get to work on friday morning during light rain. that's just ridiculous. it almost doubled my commute time. LA is not built to handle rain. Case in point - my school's main lobby area flooded from the rainwater seeping in through the double doors and caused some damage to the flooring.

i went to target earlier and during the drive there, i listened to the sound of rain drops hitting the car. the entrance was super crowded with people waiting for someone in their group to bring the car up because they didn't want to walk in the rain. it made me laugh. LA people are funny, albeit unintentionally in this case. and now, sitting in my apt, i hear the rain hitting the windows. it's great.

latest obsession

my time at home as launched a new obsession. forget pop culture news. these days, i'm reading a sport blog, mostly having to do with the blazers. but, i've recently discovered gilbert arenas's blog, because he mentions the blazers, and i have to say, it's pretty entertaining.

i used my internet search skills to find a new jersey radio station broadcasting the blazers vs. nets game because i couldn't find a live stream anywhere (and because i don't have NBA TV) and then at half-time, kept refreshing my blackberry until i could make it home through traffic to get the radio broadcast again. i told my brother this, and he laughed at me.

anyway, blazers won. and i just watched the sonics lose out to the lakers in OT. boo.

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this morning, the kids were walking up the stairs and one of the kids, edward, tells me that his mom told him he's not black. i stopped walking and looked at him. he said, "my mom said we're asian." edward is korean-american. i swallowed my laugh and said, "edward, why did you ask your mom if you were black?" his response, "because you said we're not white." great...good one teacher. i clarified with edward that not being considered "white" just meant that we were minorities/under-represented people group (whichever you prefer as i know some from my ucla cohort do not like the term "minority"). i told him that not everything is black and white. i also told him to tell his mom that i did not tell him that he's black. edward and i had a pretty good laugh about it. now he knows he's asian-american.

bye bye 2007, hello 2008

i'm on my last few days of break before starting work/school (i never know how to refer to my job as i work at a school) on monday. i was home in portland for 2.5 weeks and had all the time in the world to do the many things that were on a list. and of course, i didn't do any of them. winter break = unproductive. and i'm ok with that. here's what i did do:

• was delayed at LAX for an hour and a half and got into portland well-past midnight
• went shopping...tax free
  
• sewed for the first time since home ec. in 7th grade (not counting the two scrunchies i attempted with my dad's sewing machine in high school) and made 2 rice-filled heat/cold therapy satchels
  
• learned about fabric stores bolt and fabric depot and started a fabric stash
• christmas eve service at village baptist
  
• christmas day extended family potluck
• saw juno, atonement, and i am legend
• went to skamania lodge for mike's work brunch with the entire fam, where his coworkers, who are our parents' peers, proceeded to network me with their high school daughters prepping for college applications. they were 10 years younger than i am, which actually made me feel old. i work with 10 year olds and they don't make me feel old, but these two high schoolers did. sigh.
• video games: rock band, viva piñata! party animals, guitar hero, ds games
• read books by henri nouwen (in the name of Jesus and still reading the return of the prodigal son)
• watched dvds with andy and mike - 4 brothers, resident evil: requiem, ocean's 13,
  
• blazer games - 13 game winning streak! my affection for the blazers has been revived.
• ate...a lot - sushiland, pho, broder (euro breakfast), old spaghetti factory (finally!), thai elephant, cpk, hosoonyi's, nak won, and buffalo wild wings (andy, mike, and i felt disgusting afterwards)
• read a lot of blazers news, blogs, sports sites (espn and yahoo! sports, etc) catching up on blazermania
• annual post-christmas potluck/white elephant gift exchange (which i didn't participate in...anyone who's seen my apartment here knows i have too much junk and therefore, cannot take on anyone else's junk)
• caught up with friends
• finally saw wendy and chris in all their pregnant glory - awesome. saw wendy and josh's baby room and did research shopping with wendy and chris at babies 'r us
  
• played games - settlers of catan (i won a game) and apples to apples. no bean game this time around.
• visited the well church on sundays

there are probably things i'm missing, but oh well. currently, i'm listening to the blazers vs. jazz on streaming radio on the laptop. i thought i had nba tv, but i was mistaken. boo. the best i can get is yahoo! sports game channel text updates and radio. sigh. no love for blazers in LA.