So I'm home. I'm feeling a bit sick because I feel another cold coming upon, so now is probably as good a time as any to catch up on my blog.

I flew down south last Tuesday night to my mum's place for Thanksgiving. I had warned her before hand that she might be surprised when she saw me because I have lost a lot of weight. Well my mum was more than surprised because she didn't even recognize me when she came to pick me up at the airport. It took her a few moments to realize that I was her son. hehe. In fact, old neighbors, my grandma, and my aunt all said I looked completely different due to my weightloss. However this did not stop the occassional cheek pinch by my mum or grandma.

On Wednesday my mum and I went out to the local mall to do some shopping. My mum needed to pick up some chocolate from See's as a Christmas present for one of my aunts in the Phillipines. I ended up buying a pair of dark blue levi jeans from JC Penny. They were on sale for $25. I love Levi's 569s. I don't think I'll ever buy a different pair of jeans again. Well maybe that's an exaggeration, but I do love the loose fit, straight leg fit of the 569. We then went to this place off the 15 called Corona Crossings. My mum had heard from one of her professors about a movie theater there, so we decided we would watch a movie. Since neither of us could decide on a movie we both liked, we chose different movies. My mum picked Bridget Jonees 2, and I watched Sideways. I can't believe how good Sideways is. Paul Giamatti should earn an Oscar for his performance. I'm going to see it again with Jon this Wednesday. OOOH! They're opening a Chic-Fil-A at the Corona Crossing! When I come back down for Christmas, that's the first place I'm hitting up!

Thursday, I woke up at around 8am to smell of something my mum was cooking. She had made this awesome focaccia bread stuffing. It had chestnuts, carrots, celery, and spam. The original recipe had actually asked for pancetta, but since my mum couldn't find any she substituted spam instead. It came out great! Since my mum doesn't like turkey she instead bought a brisket for us to eat. It was nearly done by the time I made it down to the kitchen. I helped finished off the cooking for the beef and then started on the gravy and mashed potatoes. My mum meanwhile started making some green beans. Everything came together right in time for lunch. It was a great Thanksgiving lunch. My mum and I stuffed ourselves. I had this great wine my mum had in her liquor cabinet. I think I had about 3/4 of the bottle. After we cleaned up I headed to the couch to watch some TV. I ended up watching a Transformers marathon, but fell asleep half way through. Must have been that wine. By the time I woke up it was actually time for us to go to my grandma's place in Long Beach for dinner.

I was actually my mum's chauffeur for holiday as I ended up driving both of us everywhere. I actually didn't mind it, but I have to say that SoCal drivers have an awful time driving anywhere near the speed limit. I don't think I encountered one car that was driving faster 60 mph. My mum and I get to my Grandma's place around 6. My aunt's husband got a free 20lb turkey from work and cooked it for Thanksgiving dinner. I don't think I've seen a bigger mound of cooked meat before. I was assigned the task of carving the turkey, which I enjoyed quite oddly. After everything was carved me, my grandma, my aunt, my mum, and 3 of my cousins sat down to enjoy a nice thanksgiving feast.

I love being around family for the holidays. Growing up in England I didn't have any family except my mum and my dad, so every holiday would be spent with them. I don't know what it is, but having family around for the holidays is great. The first time I went to the Phillipines was around Christmas time. Every year my mum's side of the family has this huge reunion where everyone gets together to eat, drink, and be merry. I thought it was the most awesome thing ever. I never knew I had so many relatives. I spent the entire time at the reunion talking to a couple I had never met before. Now I was about 6 at the time, so talking to strangers was a bit odd for me. Yet I felt so comfortable talking to this couple about my life and everything. I think I spent a couple of hours talking with them and didn't want to leave when my mum and dad wanted to go. It's great to have that feeling of familiarity.

Back to Thanksgiving. After dinner we all just sat around for a bit watching TV and talking a bit. We actually talked to one of my aunts in the Phillipines for a bit. My mum and I left not soon thereafter. I drove us home and we went to bed to prepare for Friday...

The Friday after Thanksgiving is nicknamed Black Friday because this is the day that most retailers come out of the red and into the profit zone since it's the busiest shopping day of the year. Retailers have specials and discounts all set up for this day. Well being that I'm frugal(read cheap), I decided that I would go and see what this was all about. My mum woke me up around 5:30. I got dressed and stuff and we were out the door by 5:45. Our first stop was Best Buy...hehe...I had noticed a number things on sale there that I wanted to get. When we got there the line stretched around Best Buy to the back parking lot. There must have been at 200 people in line already. I thought this quite amazing because it was not even 6 in the morning and it was freezing too! They let us in at 6 and the frenzy began. I don't think I've seen so many people in one store before, ever. I already knew what I wanted so I headed over to the music section and picked up the following CDs:

U2: How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb
Tenacious D: Self Titled
Sublime: The Best of Sublime
Michael Jackson: Thriller(Special Edition)
Modest Mouse: The Moon & Antartica

I also picked up The Chappelle Show Season I DVD as gift for a friend. I ended up paying $48 for everything. My mum, bought Shrek 2, Harry Potter 3, a portable DVD player, a compilation CD, and two video games. After waiting in line for a half-hour to pay. We went across the street to Norms for breakfast. Next on our agenda was a place called Cabazon. There's a huge outlet mall there with 130 stores. It took us about 45 minutes to get there and another 20 to park. I could not believe how crowded it was there. There were no parking spots in the mall proper, so I ended up driving around the back of the mall and eventually found this parking spot in a construction zone. Some enterprising workers had decided to open up their little site for parking for a minimal fee of $5. In fact house owners around the area had opened up their yards as parking lots as well. We finally park and start walking around. I thought Best Buy was crowded, but this place was like Tokyo or something. Not only was it crowded like Tokyo, but all I could see was Asian people. My mum and myself included. What was odd was that certain stores would have queues of people outside waiting to get inside. Lacoste, Coach, Armani Exchange, were just a few of the stores that bargain thirsty shoppers chomping at the bit to get inside at buy designer clothing at low low prices. I don't get the thing with Asians and designer clothes. Well I ended up buying some black slacks, a jacket, and some shoes all for a decent price. Although it was only around 1pm my mum and I were both knackered from day already, so we decided to head back to Riverside for lunch.

We were originally going to eat at the Old Spaghetti Factory, but got there too late for lunch. We decided that we would eat dinner there and have lunch back at home. When we got back, the place was packed but we only waited about 20 minutes for a table. I got the spaghetti with meat sauce and sausage while my mum got the baked lasagna. I like her food better than mine. After dinner we called it a night.

I had been craving some Filipino food ever since I had arrived in SoCal, so my mum and I drove to Cerritos to a place called Pinoy Pinay for lunch on Saturday. They give you so much food for so little money. I think our entire meal cost under $15 with dessert and some extra stuff! I ate stuff that I had not eaten in a very long time. It felt good to eat. We went back to Riverside because I had to pack and get ready for my flight which was leaving that afternoon. We didn't much of anything else that day except lounge around. While I was getting ready to leave a small storm system had come into the area. This had me a bit worried because I was hoping my flight was not going to be delayed. My suspicions were correct because I arrived at the gate to find out that my flight had not even left its previous stop of Phoenix for Ontario because of weather problems there. My flight was delayed about an hour and a half consequently. The flight was nice albeit a bit bumpy from time to time, but nothing to big. All in all a quiet end to a great holiday. I'm looking forward to Christmas.

This entry was posted on 11.30.2004 at 13:58. You can skip to the end and leave a response.