Fear the Crab

I seem to have a relapse of my sinus cold. At least, it is much more apparent to others now than it was before. I bought some NyQuil so it can knock me out when I sleep, and I took it early so that it wouldn’t impact my awakening to do chores.

There was a brief power outage at work, which scared the bejeezus out of everyone. A complete and total blackout that even shut down the registers. However, it only lasted as long as it took me to find the flashlight.

I can’t wait for tomorrow. I will wash my car and wash my dad’s car, and do other car-related things, but the real fun will take place in the evening, when I attend Maile’s Xmas party. It’s going to be at a restaurant in Waikiki, I think the Oceanarium at the Pacific Beach Hotel. I’m not entirely sure, since Maile has all the details and that’s good enough for me. I just need to be aware of what time it starts, which is 1830 hours. Although, I wonder if we need to bring a grab bag gift…

It was pointed out to me that I failed to mention a strange occurrence on Wednesday. While I was lazing in bed at Maile’s house, lying on my back while Pupu the cat was lying by my feet, I experienced a very weird incident. I felt something hit the top of my head, like something had fallen and tapped my scalp. I felt behind me, and there was nothing there except the pillows and headboard. Nothing had fallen from the top of the headboard. I thought it somewhat strange, then I began to realize that what I felt also felt like someone tapping the top of my head with a finger.

That creeped me out, because there was no one else in the room, and the only other people in the house were on the other side and certainly could not have fit between my head and the headboard.

Maile’s house seems to be loaded with weird activity. I remember several stories she told me about seeing a little girl in the bathtub, odd noises, and a robed, evil-looking bald man surrounded by smoke. She said nowadays, weird things only happen when I’m around, such as the time the both of us saw some quick movement across the floor, but there was nothing there. What made it doubly interesting was the fact that I saw something white, while Maile saw something black (or was it the other way around?). This happened a second time, except this time that flash of movement was something falling to the floor.

It occurred to me that I hadn’t posted in a while, so I will play catch-up now.

Monday was a typical work day. I was assigned to Sunglasses, as per the norm on those days I work the swing shift. While that in itself automatically means it’s boring, at least George was around to talk story, and later Min started work so it was, overall, a good day. I stopped by Maile’s house for a little bit to hang out.

Tuesday there was a dam leak in my nose, as it just kept dripping snot like a leaky diaper. That made it a bit difficult to focus during school, but I still managed to attend. I fucked up on my 211 quiz because I mistakenly believed the correct procedure for an inorder traversal of a binary tree meant I print the internal vertex on the second pass. But the right subtree only had right children, so instead of listing them correctly from top to bottom, I went bottom to top. Later that night I slept over at Maile’s house.

Wednesday (yesterday) I felt very lazy, and the fact that my nose was all clogged up didn’t help. I wanted to wash and wax my car, but I just couldn’t find the energy. I stayed in bed all day while Maile was at work, though Titan kept me company. I discovered that I actually didn’t do too badly on my 211 quiz as they only removed 5 points, though I will check again to make sure. I also received a new homework assignment, but I didn’t start on it because, as stated before, I was feeling lazy. Maile gave me some “body toddy” for my head cold, which I am mainly supposed to gargle with, and it’s supposed to lessen the duration of said cold. It tastes like fermented lemon juice, for lack of a better description, but it does make me feel a bit better after gargling with it. I am left with the decision of whether or not to attend the 241 class on Thursday, as they have an exam and, while I want to take it, since I have a slight cold I am debating whether or not that will be a good idea.

It is now Thursday morning, and I am at school, well in time to attend the 241 class, but I have decided not to. I reasoned that since I have a bit of a cold (still present, obviously), it wouldn’t do to have my sniffling and sneezing distracting those still enrolled in the class, whose grades are dependent on their performance. Instead I will hang out in the computer lab and work on my 211 assignment until it is time for that class.

I plan to wash and wax my car on Saturday, because I have vacation and will have the time. Since I will be at home, I will see if my dad wants the van washed as well. Hopefully such tasks won’t tire me out before Maile’s Christmas party later that evening, but perhaps if I have time for a nap it won’t be so bad.

Uber boring. I was in a bit of a bad mood, too, because some of my co-workers are idiots. I shan’t get into the details because that will only serve to make me more upset, but suffice to say that some people only seem to be able to do one thing in life, and they can’t even do that well.

There was redemption afterward, however. I stopped by Maile’s house to visit her, and a hug from her made everything go away. So much so that I’m actually awake and chipper like a good little boy, and I have Maile to thank.

Tomorrow bodes to be a better day, I think.

Thankfully it wasn’t boring, but that’s only because I was able to talk to Min about trucks and finances, and I was able to talk to Maile on my break. I did get into a bit of an argument with Takashi, who was going off about Christianity imposing itself on other religions, specifically Islam, and the modern-day relations between the US and Israel and why that is damaging the mid east. There were many flaws in his argument, some of which I pointed out to him, but it remains unknown whether or not it sank in. So many flaws, in fact, that I would find it hard to repeat them here with any semblance of clarity, and therefore I won’t do them any justification.

My vacation request for the 23rd was approved, so that means I will be able to accompany Maile to her company Xmas party.

I almost overslept for school, but thankfully I was only asleep for an extra half-hour. The mere shock of it jarred me fully awake, though towards the end of the day I started to come down from that high. Took a nap after dinner, and now my throat is itchy. Perhaps it’s all the dust in the air and in my room.

So now I’m a bit more awake, but bored. I talked to Maile earlier, and after a very pleasant conversation she went to bed because she has work tomorrow. She also must register for next semester, so it remains to be determined how she will register and work at the same time. I know she can do it.

Now that everybody’s asleep, I don’t know what to do. I’ve done whatever homework there was for me to do, and I don’t feel like studying for the 241 exam coming up next week (which I will not be graded on, since I dropped the class; I just want to see how well I would do). I puttered around a bit on CheesyMUD, but that got to me after a while, and now I’m just twiddling my thumbs wondering what to do next that doesn’t require a whole lot of activity, yet still keeps me amused.

Or perhaps I will just sleep.

Tuesday:
Went to school, and had a school day. It rained off and on, but never to the point where I had to open up my umbrella. Slept over at Maile’s house

Wednesday:
Woke up at 0600 hours and never looked back. Applied some Rain-X on my windshield because water just wasn’t beading up like it used to. Spent some time online and basically was a bum. Maile came home at around 1200 and brought lunch, which was sweet of her. We left the house at 1300 hours or so to conduct the day’s activities.

First we went to her mom’s working place because the mom forgot her lunch. We dropped that off, then assembled a bookshelf for the store so that the desk in the office could be more organized.

Went to Ala Moana and started our Christmas shopping spree. We first browsed through Macy’s, then Shirokiya, then a whole bunch of other places. While in Shirokiya, I ran into Min, who was there to buy dinner before he started work. I was finally able to introduce Maile to Min, since neither of the two had seen each other before, but both have heard about the other.

By the time dinner rolled around, I was dead tired. I think I was actually tired after lunch, but it didn’t hit me until 1700. Maile and I planned to eat at Bubba Gump’s, so that’s why we stayed at Ala Moana. The food was good, though a bit spicy, and the service was pretty on it. At least, they were very “happy.” I had a beer (Kirin draft) while Maile had what was called an Orange.. something. It basically tasted like a creamsicle with orange juice in it. For the meal I had a fish sandwich, which was excellent, and Maile had Shrimp New Orleans, which was also excellent. However, we were both feeling kinda full from the chips and dip we got as an appetizer, so it was unfortunate that we weren’t able to finish the meal.

I’m going to try and keep my hair long this time. With the occasional trim, of course.

Tried the “bed head” look, though I don’t know if I pulled it off. Nobody said anything bad about it, so I guess I did okay. I don’t know if it will become a habit, though.

Min watched The Ring, and he was a bit creeped out by it, too. Not as badly as I was, however, but I felt better being able to talk to someone else about it. Now I just have to wait until George sees it before the circle is complete.

People have wondered what The Ring stands for. I have one theory, though for now I will only say one word: Eternity. I have other theories, too, but those can wait until I can explain without giving away details to those who haven’t seen the movie yet.

It’s 2230 hours, and I can’t sleep. I’m going to suffer tomorrow at school.

I had another bug-in-the-ear incident this morning. I awoke to feel something tickling my hair, so I tried to brush through it, but since I had just woken up, it ended up being more of a slap. I figured that was the end of it, when suddenly I felt something tickling my ear, this time. When I stuck my finger in, I felt something big and prickly, and immediately sat up. I found one of those big “drunken beetles,” quite dead and on my comforter. I call ’em drunk because they fly around in circles and always ram things like the ceiling, walls, lamps, whatever. They’re big, maybe a centimeter long, and they have a hard shell. Except this particular one no longer had the protection of its shell, since I had whacked it open.

I would have preferred something smaller, like those flying ants.

I didn’t get a chance to talk to Maile tonight, because she fell asleep before I got the opportunity to call her. She did have to wake up early and run some errands, and she was probably out all day. It’s understandable that she’d call it an early night.

…as usual.

I talked to Maile for a bit on my break, and we made some plans to attend her company’s Christmas party on the 23rd of this month. If it seems early for a party, it is, but it has some practical applications, too. For starters, the company gets 2 weeks vacation towards the end of the year, so no one will be around to have a party. Secondly, Maile’s best friend is due to give birth to her second child near that time, so planning the party for the end of this month is common sense to those in the know. I put in a vacation request so that I can accompany Maile to the party, and hopefully my request will be honored. I don’t know where the party will be, but I remember one year it was at the Hawaii Prince Hotel. I think last year it was at the Waikiki Parc Hotel, but I could be wrong.

I’m still creeped out from The Ring. Every little noise, every little shadow in the house makes me nervous. People will laugh, and have laughed at my condition, and I can laugh, too. But only in the daytime.