I am a survivor

When I was in college I found myself to be in the category "chubby" all of a sudden. My whole life up until high school I was as thin as a rail and I actually tried to gain weight most of my childhood. However my metabolism eventually slowed down and my overwhelming caloric intake from the sheer volume and late night nature of my food took its toll so that suddenly my junior and senior year I was developing padding in unwelcome places. Anyway, since I hated going to the gym, my attempt at exercising was always to go "running"*.

*Lizzbot's rhyming dictionary

Running = light jogging mixed in with a good amount of walking and a lot of talking 

Studying = going to different cafes (boba shop, bookstore) and chatting galore

Anyway, one night as I was meeting a friend to go running at our track I encounter a pesky obstacle. The gate was closed. Here's the scene:

Now one option was to go all the way around the top and down to the bottom of the track where there was another entrance but I was already late in meeting my friend and I hadn't brought my cellphone with me to let that person know. So I decided to re-assess the situation. I am a strong believer in "if there's a will there's a way".

I looked down to my left at the green foliage beneath me. Now keep in mind it was around 9 pm (night-time) so it was very dark, but the plants looked like bushes and I calculated them to be about 1-2 feet high. So I decided that I would just hop down, cross over past the protruding gate spokes and get over to the other side.

So I just plopped myself on down when....

Whooosh!

I started dropping MUCH lower than I had anticipated.

Turns out that those "bushes" were actually TREES. Thankfully, a fortuitous part of this incident was the fact that I landed on a random crate. What the heck was a crate doing down there? Who knows?! But it saved my life. When I landed, all I saw in front of me was a smooth cement wall in front of me with no way of climbing up. I must say I panicked for a good 30 seconds or so. I had dropped into an abyss of darkness with no way to contact the outside world. There was no way anyone would be able to find me in the mess of the FOREST I was in.

I yelled out for help, but not a soul could hear me.

Again, fortunately because of that crate I didn't fall too low as to be unable to reach those spokes on the gate. But even so, I had to jump to barely reach and grab them to pull myself up. Thank goodness for adrenaline + my freakish upper body strength (I can do push-ups and even 1 pull-up in my lifetime but cannot for the life of me do sit-ups) because I managed to drag myself up and out. The worst part of it was the spider web conglomeration that I had to pull myself through in order to get out. Yuck! 

Honestly these pictures do not do justice to the dire situation I was in or how even more dangerous (life-threatening) it could have been if the drop was actually even much deeper. Next time you go to UCLA's Drake Stadium, see for yourself!

I was a bunny owner

Growing up we went through our share of pets. We had dogs, rabbits, fish, a bird that flew into the house, crickets that we kept in jars, etc.  Sad thing is that the pet we had for the longest was probably one of our fish. Anyhow right now I'd like to discuss our rabbits.

Rabbit #1 = Eyeshadow

Eyeshadow was named because of the coloring around her eye, but we usually ended up just calling her bunny. However, she was pretty far from the cute bunny stage. Eyeshadow was of the patchy coloring, large floppy-eared variety and was rather old, fat, and unpleasant. She hated humans and would always do everything to avoid us. When she was in her cage, she would sit furthest from the opening so that it would be hard to get her out or even touch her. Pretty much a useless pet. Not worth having to constantly clean all her smelly rabbit poo and pee. One day we let her loose in our yard and she disappeared the next day; probably escaped through an opening underneath our gate to become food for the local coyotes. Considering her obesity, we doubted she stood a chance at being able to run away from them fast enough.  

Rabbit #2 = Bunny

Not long after we lost Eyeshadow, (I'm not quite sure what prompted us to consider purchasing another rabbit), we decided to give the species another chance. THIS time we actually got a youngster and she was a cute solid tan color. We didn't even really bother naming her because we knew we'd just call her bunny anyway so that was it. Now Bunny was the complete opposite of Eyeshadow. As much as Eyeshadow hated us humans, Bunny loved us. 

For example, we made a larger play enclosure for Bunny to have more space than her cage and if we ran around it, she would run alongside us. 

And even though she was surrounded by the lawn, if we would dangle some vegetation above her, she would jump up to eat it from our hands.

I was even able to fashion a leash for her and take her on walks/hops around our neighborhood.

Bunny was really all you could ask of a bunny. In fact she was pretty much a little puppy in bunny form. Until one day...

It started out as innocently as any of our other walks around the neighborhood.

Then suddenly out of the bushes...

A neighbor's cat pounces from behind some plants to attack Bunny!

In my surprise I flung the leash with Bunny on it up out of the way:

And I thought disaster was averted.  Unfortunately the whole incident was too much for Bunny's weak heart to handle. The next morning, we found her completely still in her cage. My grandpa tried to revive her by massaging her limbs and it seemed to be working but then she relieved herself and went cold.

It was a heartbreaking moment... my poor adorable Bunny. And unfortunately this is the sad ending to my happy story. 

I am a happy camper (usually)

The last time we went camping we ran into a very UNhappy camper. We, along with two other friend couples, got to the camp site pretty late on Friday night after work so it was very dark by the time we got there. We still managed to find our spot (campsite #8) and set up our tents.

The next morning around 6 am we wake up to hear the campsite #9 neighbors complaining that we camped too close to them. It turns out that we put our tents in between campsites 8 & 9 because there was no clear delineation.

So in a half-awakened state my husband (hus-bot) got out to apologize to the neighbors and let them know that we would move our tents over.

He addressed the female but she didn't say a word and only seemed to look down the hill at someone else. Suddenly a man appeared and got right into my husband's face calling him "ignorant" and yelling at him.  He accused us of not paying for the campsite and just starting going off. In the beginning I tried to reason with him, letting him know that we DID reserve and pay for the campsite and that we would move our tents further away from him.  However, it soon became apparent that he was just crazy and that there was no reasoning with him.  (During this time, we moved all our tents over away from the middle.)

At first my husband was shocked but then he started getting angry. The man was accusing us of all sorts of things and seemed to be trying to scare and intimidate us. My husband started to explain, "Look, what happened was..." and held out his hands as he was speaking when the man slapped his hand away. At that point, my husband got fed up himself and pushed the man's chest. The situation was escalating and my husband actually challenged the man to a fight. He literally said to the guy, "Fine, you and me, let's settle this. You wanna fight? Let's fight on level ground." (The campsite was on an incline).

So my husband proceeded down the hill to the street while the other guy went up the hill towards his tent and started rummaging through a bag on the picnic table in front of it. This was the point where we were wondering what the heck was going on and couldn't believe what was happening. Then what does he pull out?!

A HUGE knife! I could not believe it. It was like an out-of-body experience and I really started freaking out. This whole part was a bit of a blur, with the guy yelling out who knows what and my husband darting from side to side (to avoid getting hit if the guy decided the throw the knife at him) and yelling at him "That's a violation of penal code 245 - Assault with a deadly weapon! I'm a criminal defense attorney!"  He also tried to wake up the other campers by yelling "Everyone this guy has a knife!". Anyway, I believe at this point our friends were also waking up and started getting involved and somehow the guy ended up putting away the knife (I actually don't remember when he put it away). 

The guy then started yelling about reporting us, calling us "gang-bangers". My husband yelled back about us all being professionals (3 attorneys, 1 physician, 1 pharmacist & 1 optometrist).  Anyhow the guy started going around to our cars and writing down our license plate numbers and I believe at that point he noticed the license plate cover of my friends' car that named her law school.

After that I think he finally realized that we weren't a group of clueless teenagers and started getting scared. He began to back down with his yelling and looked a little more nervous.  However both he and my husband were pretty souped up on adrenaline and both were still posturing and staring each other down. My husband even went so low as to imitate his Australian accent to aggravate him.  Of course I was yelling at my husband the whole time to calm down and stop. Eventually the guy came over and gave a half-hearted "apology" which seemed more a way to cover his butt, saying that my husband actually started this whole ordeal.  Finally he and his female companion went off hiking and we were able to have some breakfast in peace, albeit with a bad taste in our mouths. 

We spent the rest of the day attempting to fish (none of us were successful) and in the back of our minds we were all a bit uneasy about sleeping next to the crazy man that night. However, when we got back from our fruitless endeavor we were surprised to find that they had....... left without a trace!

After that it we were able to breathe a sigh of relief and relax, enjoying ourselves by our campfire. Phew!

I am female

... and so is my daughter. Obviously. Unfortunately this fact is apparently not so obvious in real life. Wherever we go everyone refers to her as "he".

Since the above picture is a fairly accurate representation of what she looks like right now, you can't really blame anyone. We like to call her "gender neutral" but she pretty much resembles an old man right now as highlighted by the descriptions. (The attached earlobes part has nothing to do with old men, but is just an interesting part of her anatomy to us because both her parents (we) have them; genetics can't be denied!).

Anyway, out of any context we agree that it's a little hard to tell. But see the following scenarios involving our baby bot. C'mon!

Scenario 1: Outside our home re-introducing ourselves to our neighbors. The neighbor guy asks, "And what's his name?"

Granted the color can throw you off a little bit, but who dresses their boys in dainty lace tank-onesies?

Scenario 2: At a restaurant. An older lady asks "How old is he? Oh wait is it a he?"

Really? All dressed in pink PLUS a pink blanket yet still there is confusion?

Scenario 3: At another restaurant. A waitress came by and said, "Oh he's so cute". Thank you for the compliment. But did you SEE the hot pink lining of the jacket?

Scenario 4: At the mall. Baby bot's Halloween costume was a cow. Overhead a grandma saying "Oh he's a cow. My granddaughter is going to be a cat and has that stuffing around the middle too." (BTW we saw that costume at Costco too and would've gotten it but we went too late and they were out of our size.)

Scenario 5: At an outdoor food court. Someone asks, "Is it a girl or a boy?.. Oh, there's a bow so must be a girl". You think? (The dress kind of looked like a shirt, but still).

I am constipated

Since I'm constipated 90% of the time, one of my constant obsessions is poo. At this time I will rank/grade my preference of said subject matter. Please do not proceed if you are easily grossed out/offended or tend to be condescending. *Condescending people are the worst. 

A. The Gold Standard: Long, even, but not necessarily lean. Always best if they have a "clean" break, if you know what I mean. If you don't know what I mean, let me just say that it saves toilet paper. Should have those characteristic "pointed ends" for a clean break.

B. Loosey-Goosey: Not packed as nicely as the gold standard, but is one of the furthest types from constipation so ranked second best. The problem with this one is that it hardly ever comes with a clean break.

C. Clumpy/Bulbaceous: This type has been around a little too long so that its hardened a bit and folds over itself. This is one step away from the worst of them, but isn't too bad because it usually comes with a clean break and doesn't involve a stomachache.

D. Diarrhea: Most people hate this, but I love it. I like how it feels like a mini-cleanse as it flushes the system out. I'll take diarrhea over constipation any day. In fact, I would actually rank this much higher, maybe 2nd best except for the fact that it's just not healthy and is usually associated with some problem.

F. Rabbit Pellets: Now these are the absolute worst. After straining and moaning and groaning, creating hemorrhoids in the process, you are rewarded with a tiny bead. Ugh. Constipation is in full swing and you depart the porcelain throne in the sourest of moods.

I am obsessive

I have an obsessive personality. I am obsessed with being obsessed. One of my current obsessions is trying to find interesting blogs-- the best are the funny ones, but the ones that are super revealing are great too. By super revealing I mean those blogs that get very in-depth and personal into people's lives and have lots of pictures. It sometimes makes me feel like a creepy stalker, but since I'm a small, relatively sane, and well-educated girl with a family of my own, I'm pretty sure not many would find me threatening.

How did this obsession begin you ask? Well it all started when I got pregnant and began scouring the world wide web for pregnancy blogs to see what other people went through during their pregnancies and compare their belly shot photos. Then after giving birth the only thing I was really capable of for a while was breathing, eating, (not sleeping), and going on the internet.

Anyway reading these blogs always inspires me to start my own. I actually did start one that was super revealing but then got freaked out and privatized the site, inviting only my best friend to read it.

So now I decided to make a random blog for the world's viewing pleasure (I can't say funny because that's too much pressure. (I rhymed)). It won't be anything new or revolutionary. Everything will probably have been said or done before, but oh well. No one's forcing anyone to read it!