So, my brother and I always complain about how we have to take goofy ass pictures on family trips. We always have to stand awkwardly, pretending like we love each other. The pictures usually turn out like this:
Can you feel the love?
But for this family trip, bro-seidon and I decided to humor our parents because they sacrificed a lot so that we could take this trip to Tahoe.
We realize that our family trips are just as much, if not more, fun for them just because they miss the good ol' days when we were so young that even just getting in the car was fun. Now our family trips are plagued by my incurable motion sickness, my brother's incessant text messaging, my dad's need to sing Christian music for 5 hours straight, and my mom's claims that she would have rather stayed home and watched Filipino tv. Family vacations Picardo style.
What my brother and I didn't expect was to actually enjoy our parents' company on this trip.
Definite WTF moment here:
My mom probably made an inappropriate joke about...well, anything.
During the day, we split up so the chillun could go snowboarding and Bennifer (my parents are literally named Ben and Jennifer) could gamble my college fund away.
Snowboarding was sick because we basically had the mountain to ourselves. We even had some room to get a little extreme.
Chaos, I tell you.
We reunited around 5 and decided to cook dinner in our room. We stayed at Northstar, paid $255 for a 4 person room AND got two free lift tickets with access to the priority lift line. WHA WHAAAAAAAA.
After a wonderful steak dinner in front of the tv watching Dirty Jobs, we left to go ice skate in the Village. Of course, it closed .015 seconds before we got there so we went to Plan B: DRINK. Again, family vacations Picardo style. We found a nice little Jazz spot that had awesome live music, good dessert, and sold me alcohol. I effectively got wasted because I guess the altitude makes a difference? Whatever. If only it took me one drink to get wasted all the time...
FREAKING adorable.
Overall, good trip. My mom lost $100 and my dad won $150 gambling, so we are in the positive. I still have both of my legs and my brother's snow crave has been relieved for the time being. Good trip.
Ah, Christmas. The time of year that it's okay to irresponsibly spend money on random crap, ignore the bills, and pretend like the water won't shut off tomorrow, mid-shower.
I love Christmas because my family gets uber in-the-spirit and likes to go all out. The best part is when we go up into Half Moon Bay and cut down our own tree. It's meant to be fun and a chance for family bonding, but it always ends up being the most ridiculous experience. This sums up the day pretty well:
Mom: Ange, I like that tree. Me: Which one, Mom? Point to it. Mom: (points with her lips in a general direction) That one. Me: Mom, we're in a forest. More specific. Mom: (starts mumbling and cursing in Tagalog) Why are you such a bitch?
Yes.
But the trip turned out alright. My dad found a HUGE tree and challenged my brother to be a he-man and cut it down.
Are those tears?
He got halfway, but I think the tree was winning at that point so my brother tagged out and my dad took over. He got to the core of the tree and started to blame his inefficiency on lack of electrolytes or something. So while he went and got a powergel and some 5 hour energy shots, I decided to test out just how well P90x was working.
Like a hot knife through butter.
With each pass, I'd saw through a half an inch, almost effortlessly slicing through the densest part of the tree. As I got closer to the other side of the tree, my brother started to panic, dreading that I get to make the final cut, earning the right to shout "timber!" To avoid him shitting his pants, I left the last three cuts to him. "Behind every great man..."
In any case, our Christmas adventure ended in our cute, 11 foot behemoth of a Christmas tree. Like Shaq in a cocktail dress.
My mom and dad always find ways to hide the fact that the recession has brought the smackdown on our budget.
Someone needs to explain the logic of this to me:
We somehow got a Cole Haan purse, Cole Haan boots, and a $75 gift card all for the price of $170.
Ok. My sister bought a beautiful Dooney and Bourke purse for my mom's birthday this year, but just not in the right color. My mom finally made the time to go to Stanford Shopping Center to simply exchange the bag for another color, but left with so much more. When she found that her purse was no longer in season, she decided to just get a store credit and buy something new. This is where the fun begins.
My mom found a gorgeous, black Cole Haan purse that she just HAD TO have [I will insert a picture here soon]. Yeah, it was $500. Her store credit was for about $298, so she was debating whether or not it was worth the difference. In the words of my grandmother, I told my mom "Just buy it now because it might not be there tomorrow." Didn't need to tell her twice.
Ok, so there's this thing with Filipinos that I don't understand, but totally love. For some reason, Filipinos feel like they need to give all other Filipinos discounts or any kind of extra benefit possible. Two years ago, I was at the McDonalds in the train station in Venice and the cashier just happened to be Filipino. Was it a coincidence that I got two extra orders of french fries with my meal? I think not.
Back to the story -- the cashier helping my mom was, you guessed it, Filipino. My dad and I didn't hear the entire conversation, but after one burst of laughter between the two, the cashier had somehow given my mom 10% off the bag AND knocked off an additional $100. So, if you tally it all up, with my mom's $300 store credit, $100 discount and the 10% off, my mom paid $70 + tax for a $500 purse.
WOW --> MOM
IT GETS BETTER. Ever since my mom won $5,000 on a slot machine in Vegas, she has enjoyed testing her luck. My mom wanted to buy my Christmas present today and wanted to see if she could hustle another sales clerk. I wanted a pair of boots and found a super cuties pair that I fell in love with [too lazy, insert picture later]. They were originally $175, but with my mother's magic, we purchased them for a mere $100. My mom basically distracted this really, really stressed out clerk and got him to take off 15% and then an additional 25% five minutes later. Insane.
Oh, but wait, IT GETS EVEN BETTER. The stressed out cashier manages to find a second to tell us that if we present our receipts at a certain counter, today, for every $100 we spent, we get a $15 gift card. On our receipts, some of the discounts didn't appear or something crazy because it said that altogether, we spent $500. I'll have to go over the numbers again. That means, yes, we got a $75 gift card. Of course we gave it to my dad to enjoy so he wouldn't feel left out. What's funny is that out of the three of us, he took the longest time to shop. What gender scripts?
Basically, I feel like we stole from Bloomingdale's but it was in such a fantastic manner that I don't even feel bad. All I can say is that my boots are AbFab, Bloomingdale's is stupid, and my mother is Robin Hood.
Hello, Blog. I feel like we've been apart for too long. I've been too busy (lazy) to visit for the past month, but that only means I have much to talk about. Let's start from the beginning of November.
So, to all of you insomniacs out there, I know you've seen the ad for P90x. It's the infomercial that almost guarantees that you'll go from this
to this
in 90 days. Well, my uncle, who is an avid supporter of the original P90 workouts, bought the workout dvds and let me borrow it. Now, while I still can't visibly count my ab muscles, I did lose over 12 lbs in three weeks. That's like...a large baby. I feel much stronger, I can see definition in my leg muscles again, and I don't feel like someone just punctured my lung with a harpoon after climbing the 5 sets of stairs in my house. The workouts are hard but it's so rewarding when you finish. I actually feel like the people on screen are my daily workout buddies. At one point, I even caught myself trying to high five the TV. Bittersweet moment.
Anyways, I'm now in my fourth week and going strong. I'll film myself doing one of the workouts sometime. I ride an emotional rollercoaster throughout the hour long workout; I'll get angry at myself, then at the TV, then I'll get really pumped up but then I get tired. It's like a soap opera but less crying and more sweat. Well, maybe the same amount of crying.
I went to UC Davis on the 20th to go see my friend perform at a benefit concert (www.youtube.com/annacriselda) and got to meet some B/C list celebrities. I met Andy Baldwin from the bachelor:
Yeah, it's no big deal. I was like "Oh, it's really nice to meet you." And for some reason, he gave me a rose and proposed to me. Like I said, no big deal.
I also met Gabe Bondoc, a very talented musician who is actually from my hometown.
Check him out. He's great. I also saw some other bands, including this one called Songbird. They did a pretty sweet cover of "Thug's Mansion" (you can hear my brother singing in the background):
Moving on. I'm in my second to last week of school and I AM SO RELAXED. Since my only friends live in my television, I've had plenty of time to get all of my work done a couple days before their respective deadlines. I turned in my English research paper three days early today and I don't think I've heard so many people say how much they hate me in one sitting. It's a loving kind of hate.
I got my UC apps in (cue heavenly trumpets) so they are out of my life until May. It's funny because my main motivation for getting my work done early was so I could get HAMMERED during Thanksgiving break. Mission accomplished. I used my brain cells so I could spend the weekend destroying them. I hope they regenerate because if not, I think all of mine are floating in a toilet at Santa Clara University somewhere...
Thanksgiving was marvelous. I drank the night before so I was late to my grandma's house for lunch. After picking up butter at the grocery store, I walked through my grandma's front door and everyone was staring at me. "Sorry, I'm late. I brought the butte---who's that white chick?" I see my sister's friend Margarita and at that point, due to a lack of brain cells, I couldn't connect the dots. I finally look to my left and it was my sister! She surprised the family and showed up for Thanksgiving when we all thought she'd be gone until May. Lunch proceeded to be fantastic and fattening, just how I like it.
Now, when my sister visits she likes to play tourist. She tries to convince people that she's just showing her out-of-town friends a good time, but no.
She took my brother, Margarita and I to the Explora--orium (South Park reference) and all I can say is...find a tennis racket, put your hands on either side of the nylon, move your hands slowly and prepare to be blown away.
After that, we went to Pier 39 and looked at 4 sea lions. They sit on the docks and look like big piles of poop.
My sister left early Saturday morning because she had to do the whole wife thing and not leave her husband by himself for an entire holiday weekend during their first year of marriage. That makes sense, I guess.
On Sunday, I went to the 49er game and had SICK seats courtesy of my cousin, Jeff.
Yeah, that's the inflatable helmet the players run through at the beginning of the game. If I could enter every room through an inflatable helmet, I would be pumped 24/7. I'd run into the dentist's office all 300-Spartan-style like "AHHHH!! LET'S DO THIS ROOT CANAL!" Then proceed to headbutt the closest person. Too intense? I don't think so.
Well, that's a recap of all the big, exciting stuff that's happened. I can already smell Christmas break. I plan on doing a lot of nothing. That makes for a very boring blog but a very happy Angie.
If you've read this far, you are probably procrastinating and really should get back to making your power point presentations, Ate Bev. For those of you who do not work at the BBC (callin' you out too, Lou), thank you for reading!
