Where to start? Well, I have a bit of a cold at the moment so I'm just resting up, and I see I've been neglecting lj again.

Easter Weekend

Friday night I had to work, and after that I met up with Josh at the Sonoma Chicken Coop in downtown San Jose for a group dinner event with his motorcycling friends, the South Bay Riders. It was pretty fun; much of the time was spent trying to convince Josh that he should go to Disneyland at least once in his life.

On Saturday we got up relatively early to drive down to Fresno for my cousin David's 20th birthday party. It was held out at my aunt's ranch in Clovis. While we were there some of us walked down the road to a neighbor's place to see my remaining duck in (her?) new home. The surviving duck turned out to be Kikumaru (I seem to be the only one who could tell them apart), so I guess Ooishi is fox food now. =( Maybe I shouldn't have named him something that sounded so close to "oishii"... ^^;

But all reports say Kikumaru is doing well and has buddied up with a black and white duck in the new pond, so I guess that's good. The neighbor is really nice and says we can visit anytime; we also went to another neighbor, a friend of my aunt's, and I talked horses with him for a while.

( Kikumaru at the new pond )

Then back at the ranch we went to visit the cows grazing in the pasture. My aunt and uncle don't live at the ranch (my aunt inherited it from a friend of Oma's; she's hanging on to it, but they actually live at their own house), but they let a guy who raises cattle graze some of them on their land. There are 10 acres split into three different sections; right now there are five cows in one of them, and some of them were actually friendly. Josh didn't seem to think much of the cows, but I thought they were cute!

( Cows in the field )

It's amazing how green it is out there from all the rain California has had. Normally it would all be brown and dried up by now. I'm glad it wasn't raining while we were down there, though. We stayed down in Fresno until about 7:30, then drove back up to San Jose.

Sunday morning I went to work and it was pouring and windy. That was good because it meant nearly no customers and I was able to leave early like I was planning on doing anyway. I left work at noon and went to Josh's aunt and uncle's place in Saratoga for Easter brunch that was really good. After the food we watched a photo album DVD with pictures chronicling the life of one of Josh's relatives...his grandfather I think? I wasn't paying all that much attention and fell asleep on his shoulder. When I woke up it was time to go over to my parents' house to have Easter dinner with them, my brother, and my grandma.


New Apartment

Josh and I are pretty much settled into the new place. I think all that's still left to bring over is my bookcase, and there's still some more decorating to be done. I don't have too much to say about it; it's a pretty decent place, and I'm happy wherever Josh and my computer and high speed internet are. *g* Anyway, onto the pictures...

( New apartment pics )

So as you may know, I finally got to go to Magic Mountain this Saturday! It was my first time there after TWELVE years! I love roller coasters and they have some great ones, so I'd been wanting to go back for the longest time; the only problem is it's in southern California and a pretty long drive from where I live. But as it turns out, my cousin Daniel also loves roller coasters and Magic Mountain, but no one else in his family does so he has no one to go with. So I found a roller coaster buddy in my cousin :) He lives much closer to the park than I do, so I was able to stay with and visit his family for the weekend as well as go with him to the park.

( ducks )

( drive down )

( X )

( Log Jammer, Goliath )

( Batman, Splashdown )

( Superman )

( Gold Rusher )

( Batman Begins stunt show )

( Riddler's Revenge )

( Viper, Revolution )

( end of the day )

Oh! I forgot to mention that on Thursday night I went with gokumew2 and wasabi_fiend to the circus in San Jose (seeing my Pierrot icon reminded me). The clowns sucked, but the animals and some of the human performances were cool. They had some gorgeous Friesians and Arabians and Norwegian Fjords performing, and I also liked the elephants and tigers (but the tiger trainer was a total nutjob; he had one of the most annoying voices I've ever heard!). I wonder which of the circus people had gone riding at the stable two days before...After the circus we got In N Out for dinner and went back to my house to talk about anime and watch some of the Seki Tomokazu panel from AX this year. 'Twas much fun ^_^

Oma's funeral/memorial? was on Saturday, December 4th. I guess you can't really call it a funeral since she wasn't buried anywhere. But it was a really nice service and the church was completely packed with all her friends and family and students and colleagues and so on; seriously, standing room only...she knew people from everywhere. Her best friend Maxine, who's known her since 1935, told her biography and lots of funny anecdotes. Oma had written that we shouldn't be sad, and to play a good polka or waltz for her.

After the memorial everyone went down the street to a school she used to teach at, and where my aunt works part time now and both my cousins went to for elementary school, because the reception was held in the cafeteria there. Pretty appropriate for a school teacher I think. The night before we had set up tables and chairs and decorations and stuff, but waaaay more people came than expected, so there weren't enough seats and we ran out of food and had to go buy more. It was good, though. My uncle had made a powerpoint slideshow with over 100 pictures of Oma from throughout her life taken from her photo albums, and that was shown on the screen on the stage. Also the cafeteria had a TV and VCR on the wall, and a news tape was played of Oma being interviewed and dancing in her folk dance group from October. My mom and aunt spent the entire time talking to Oma's friends; I don't think either of them ever got the chance to even sit down. Now they can finally rest for a while.

My parents are on a cruise in the Caribbean. They were originally supposed to leave on Friday, but then all this happened and the funeral was planned for Saturday. They debated cancelling the trip altogether, but that's definitely not what Oma the world-traveler would have wanted. So instead they changed their flights and left late Saturday night and will be gone for the rest of the week. I hope they have some fun because they need it.

I guess it's about time to go back to mundane crap. I'm waaaaaay behind on my schoolwork in every class. I'm going to fail my anime class since I haven't been to it in about four weeks and I didn't write the paper, but that doesn't matter since it's a completely meaningless community college class and no one will ever see the transcript from that school. I haven't even *started* the final project for my intercultural communication class, but I talked to the teacher and he says I can get an incomplete and turn it in next semester due to the circumstances. My English structures class is really the one I have to get working on because I'm doing it with a partner. These past few weeks she's been working on the assignments alone, and they're due today. Then the final project where they're all combined is due next Monday. She and the teacher have both been very understanding, but I feel bad about her having to do all that work herself because I haven't been able to help.

Things are looking iffy with Oma. Her lungs aren't doing well, and at this point they don't know if they'll get better or worse. If they get worse then they'll never get better. Even if she does get better, there's no telling how much brain damage she may have due to all the bleeding. My parents are still with her and my brother and I are going to go down there tomorrow night or Friday morning. She is NOT supposed to go like this. She's always been a strong, active woman, and she always said she'd live to be 100 like those other old people on the news. And she could have easily done it, too. Now that's all been taken away at 83 because some fucktard ran a red light. I hope we sue him for everything he has. I'll never forgive him for this, and I can hold a grudge forever.

I just found out my maternal grandmother, Oma, was in a serious car accident. She was on her way to seniorcize this morning (the same place she broke her hip in February. I'm beginning to think this thing is a death trap for her) and was broadsided. Now she has a broken pelvis and broken rips and a concussion and is drifing in and out of consciousness. Both of my parents left work and are heading down to Fresno to see her right now; unfortunately my brother and I have to stay here to go to school and take care of the animals. You know, with the exception of the anime conventions, this year has just plain sucked for me and my family.