Love at Every Sight

Two days ago, I was talking to Geoff's mom and she told me, "You can really tell Geoff is so in love with you, by the way he looks at you. He never looked at any of his previous girlfriends the way he does at you. That's how I can tell he's truly in love." It was the sweetest thing of her to say.

This morning, I thought about what she said again when I saw this picture of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie:



While I'm not huge fans of theirs, I do love the way he's looking at her and think this must be what Geoff's mom is talking about. Then I felt all warm and happy.

Rotten Banana

Last week, I ordered the prettiest little dress from Banana Republic's website. It was knee-length, short-sleeved, cream-colored, with a light tan floral print and cute neckline, size medium. Very vintage-looking. This dress was going to make me happy for two reasons, 1) it was on clearance and 2) it would go perfectly with my tall brown boots that I've been wanting to wear, but hadn't found anything to wear them with. I placed my order, dusted off my boots and invisioned where I was going to wear my new outfit.

Cut to today...

I had been tracking my package for the past couple days and saw that it had been dropped off at my house earlier this afternoon. When I got home, I saw my package on the porch. Yay! I ripped open the package and...it was the wrong dress. It wasn't even close to what I ordered. What came in the package was not at all what I described above. The dress they sent to me was an unflattering brown color with a weird puckered ruffle thing and, as if it wasn't incorrect enough, it was a MATERNITY DRESS.

I sat for a moment with a "Huh??" look on my face. I checked the receipt in the package, and it had my correct order on there. I went online to check my confirmation email and it too had the correct order. So I called their 24-hour assistance line to ask what was up with them sending me a fugly dress. The girl I talked to was nice, but not helpful at all. I told her what happened and, after laughing at me for an irritating amount of time when I told her I got a maternity dress, she informed me that the dress I orignially ordered was sold out and they had no more in stock. "Are you serious?" I said. "So you screwed-up and sent me the wrong dress and are now telling me I can't have the dress you were supposed to send me because you have no more??" Great. There was nothing I could do with the situation, so I just said to forget it. She offered me an "apology" in the form of 10% off my next online order (online ONLY). Wow, 10%. Whatever. And why the hell she would think I would order something from them online again is beyond me.

The thing that really pisses me off about this is that this is the second time this has happened to me. Old Navy did the same thing and, ironically, Old Navy is the same company as Banana Republic (GAP, Inc.). When I told this to the girl on the phone, she said that it was a freak coincidence and that that hardly ever happens. Yeah, I'm sure it doesn't. Lightning just happened to strike twice with me, huh??

No more online shopping for me! At least, not with the GAP companies. I'm just gonna have to drag my lazy butt to their stores for now on. Sheesh. Really, how hard is it to put the right dress in the right package??

Weekend Update

Friday
Geoff and I decided to try eating somewhere new Friday night. We ended up going to Caspian, a Persian restaurant in Irvine. The atmosphere in this place is kinda crazy. It's a pretty big restaurant and very noisy. The dining area resembled what a nightclub might look like in Iran. There was entertainment in the form of a band, including a singer and dancers. Geoff ordered a dish that had saffron rice, a filet mignon kabob and a ground-beef kabob. I ordered the grilled chicken kabob, which also came with saffron rice. For the most part, the food was pretty good. However, Geoff did not like his ground beef kabob. We gave the place a B+. Geoff dropped points from them because of the beef kabob and I dropped points because it was too damn noisy. I could barely hear Geoff when he was talking to me. B+ isn't bad though, and we did have fun. After that, we decided to try a new restaurant at least once a month.

Saturday
Geoff and I got up early and went over to Breugger's to have bagels for breakfast. We talked about the housing market and about buying a house together, possibly this year. After breakfast, I went home to relax, finish up some work and catch-up on my TV shows, while Geoff and Brad hosted a "UFC fight night" party for the guys at their house.

Sunday
I had to force myself to sleep in. I hadn't really been feeling well since earlier in the week and thought maybe I needed more rest. Turns out I was right. Later in the day, Geoff and I went to California Adventure (we're getting the most out of our Premium Pass!!) to have an early dinner and watch the Aladdin show playing at the Hyperion Theatre. It's a 45-minute musical of the movie "Aladdin" (duh). I would recommend seeing it, but for the Genie and ONLY the Genie. And maybe for the carpet ride. Everything else was lame. The guy playing the Genie was hilarious and a really good actor/singer.

After the show, it got pretty cold outside, so we went back to Geoff's and called it a night. I felt like I got robbed of my time this weekend!

Next weekend, we're going to see Geoff's family up in the Yosemite area. His cousin is in the Army, currently serving in Iraq and he'll be home visiting for a couple weeks before he has to return to duty. The following weekend is the weekend right before my birthday. Geoff has plans, but he won't tell me what they are, of course. I think we're going somewhere. I'm hoping he's taking me to San Francisco. I haven't been there since I moved away and I miss it so so much!

(Don't) Always Let Your Conscious Be Your Guide

Jiminey Cricket can suck it. He had no clue what he was singing about...

This was me at 9:45 am:

(Replace the cat with a 50 lb. dog)

I could not get out of bed this morning. I had the worst headache and my body felt very heavy. I asked my conscious, "Should I work from home today in the comfort of my jammies? Or should I force my tired butt out of bed, drive to work in the rain and be uncomfortable in my office?" Hmm...tough choice.

I should note that I'm typing this during my lunch break...at work...from my office. Apparently, my conscious thinks I need to severely suffer today.

Hmm...

I think I need this adorable dress from Urban Outfitters:

Yeah...I'm pretty sure I need it.

Presidential Inauguration

The scene at Whittier College's Student Center on the morning of January 20, 2009:

The room was packed, as everyone watched Barack Obama being sworn-in as the 44th President of the United States.

SPT

"I resolve to take more self-portraits while trying new things." That is the theme for today's SPT.


Geoff's brother gave me a pretty pink yoga mat for Christmas that came with a yoga DVD. I've done pilates before, but never yoga. Although they have yoga classes at my gym, I decided to try it for the very first time with the DVD in the comfort of my own home, just in case I look like a fool trying it for the first time in the gym (plus, I think people would think I'm strange trying to take a picture of myself in the gym). The verdict? I did well. I don't think I have to worry about looking like a fool. So, starting next week, I'll be going to yoga classes every Monday and Wednesday at 24-hr Fitness. Hooray!

Weekend Update

Saturday
I had quite the busy week with my mom visiting, meetings everyday at work and a mid-year planning staff retreat on Friday. I was beat! I slept-in as much as I could this day. Around 12 noon, I got up and went over to Erin's apartment to meet her and Geoff's cousin, Cassie, there. Cassie had lost her job earlier in the week and I told her that I would help her clean-up her resume and help her write a cover letter, since she's never done one (and I'm excellent at resumes and cover letters!). Also, there is a job opening at the college I work at for a Financial Aid Coordinator that I showed to Cassie and she was very interested in applying. Given that she would probably mention my name when submitting her application, I didn't want her submitting a sloppy resume. So, that was yet another reason I wanted to help her have the sharpest resume possible.

When she showed me her original resume, I knew we had some work to do. Her original resume was only 3/4 of a page and, Cassie's a bright girl, but even she admitted that her language and grammar skills were not up to par. However, after we sat together for a few hours, I helped her turn her 3/4 page resume into a 2-page resume! We re-wrote her work experience, highlighting skills she had that were similar to what the position at the college was looking for. I also had her add in some volunteer work and references and presto! It looked like a resume of an accomplished person. She was amazed and really happy that I was able to help, which made me really happy.

After we finished her resume, we sat around with Erin and talked for a little while. Then, I headed over to Geoff's to spend the rest of the weekend with him. I hadn't seen him all week and was looking forward to just sitting back and relaxing with him.

Sunday
We got up early and had breakfast at Champagne French Bakery in Irvine. Afterwards, we headed over to Downey so that Geoff could play golf with his dad and I could meet with Cassie again to help her with her cover letter.

After golf and my little cover letter "workshop" were over, Geoff and I talked with his mom, dad and brother for a little bit and then decided to stop at Disneyland on the way back home to Irvine to watch the fireworks show. When we got there, we met up with Erin and Erick. I noticed it was really windy and I said that I hoped they wouldn't cancel the fireworks because of all the wind......well they did. We waited an hour and a half just to be told it was too windy for fireworks. Bummer. We wanted to have something in exchange for our patient waiting, so we stood in line to buy a pineapple whip from the Dole stand over by the Tiki Room. Since our evening was shot, we all decided to call it a night and go home. We had more fun talking on the tram ride back to the parking lot than we did in the actual park!

Monday
Since it's a holiday (Happy MLK, Jr. Day!), I didn't have to work. Yippie!