Last night was good. Heidi joined us and she even liked the place. First we had dinner at Amicis. Su hated the waiter. The poor kid couldn’t have been more than 16 years old. Then we headed to our new pub hangout (according to Su who is the official selector of hangout places). It was ok, there were lots of very old men there at first.

Then this guy came over and handed Su a fairly large bouquet of flowers. The guy was icky and he was obviously infatuated with Su. Fifteen minutes later, the waitress tells us that the guy with glasses (Su’s guy) wants to buy us drinks. Heidi and I already had drinks so Su ordered another Cosmo and debated on what the protocol was for thanking the guy. The cute Irish bartender didn’t seem to think that she had to go talk to him. Five minutes later the waitress comes over and asks Su if she’s going to go thank the guy. Unbelievable! I think, in the end, he came over to talk to her again. Before we left, he gave her his phone number(s), email address and wrote something cheesy like “Keep smiling”.

I forgot to mention, yesterday I was officially promoted to UI Design Manager. It was pretty exciting although I have been doing the manager job for over 6 months now; I just didn’t have the title.

Today, Su came by after work and we went to the mall together. It was nice; I hadn’t gone shopping with a friend since I moved to California. I got some makeup and a pair of pants. Su bought some nice shoes. We then came back to MV and had Indian food. The food was great but I ate way too much.

Since Tuna started talking about phobias, I thought it would be appropriate to add to this topic:

Ablutophobia - Fear of washing or bathing.
I think this may apply to Heidi. I’m not saying that she smells or anything but she mentioned that she’s afraid of getting her face wet so she doesn’t enjoy showers.

Allodoxaphobia - Fear of opinions.
I’m assuming that an allodoxaphobic would never want to be a friend of mine.

Anuptaphobia - Fear of staying single.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Asymmetriphobia - Fear of asymmetrical things.
This must be a prerequisite to becoming an engineer.

Ballistophobia - Fear of missiles or bullets.
I have a fear of things flying in my direction. This was the closest phobia to describe that.

Coulrophoba – Fear of clowns
My sister is coulrophobic. She is also afraid of the Easter Bunny but I’m not sure what that would be called.

Hydrophobia- Fear of water or of rabies.
Hmm, maybe this describes Heidi’s condition better. And did she ever tell you how she almost had rabies once?

Hygrophobia- Fear of liquids, dampness, or moisture.
I guess there are many ways to describe Heidi.

Leukophobia- Fear of the color white.
That would be me.

Mageirocophobia- Fear of cooking.
Uh, me again.

Polyphobia- Fear of many things.
I like this one. You can just pick and choose according to your mood that day.

Porphyrophobia- Fear of the color purple.
I must say that I always change my opinion about someone when they mention that purple is their favorite color. Is it a designer thing?

Sesquipedalophobia- Fear of long words.
If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably not sesquipedalophobic.

Symmetrophobia- Fear of symmetry.
I think all designers pretty much fall under this category.

Textophobia- Fear of certain fabrics.
Two words: pleather and polyester!

For more phobias, visit phobialist.com

Girls’ night out was great. Su had several Cosmos (okay, she only had 3) and we wrote postcards to send to our remote friends (including Heidi who isn’t so remote but we thought that would convince her to join us next time).

Saturday was Nathan’s b-day party (more like a partylet) at my house. Su came over around noon with 6 bags of food from Whole Foods. Then we started worrying that there weren’t enough meat items for the men so we went and got some more food. In the end we had way too much food but at least there was something for everyone. We then went to get some coffee in downtown Mountain View. We were sitting outside and there was a crazy woman talking to us about crazy stuff.

Heidi and Chad were the first to show up. They brought me flowers (Su did too so my house is looking great now). Nathan and Eric arrived a bit later. Tyson (Nathan’s brother) and Kim (his gf) were also there. We played Cranium and the girls won (again).

Star Wars® Darth Vader

Hasbro, Toy, $9.99

Tonight I’m meeting Su for drinks and dinner. I’m really looking forward to going out in the middle of the week. Since all my friends turned 30, they only want to go out on weekends. But Su is cooler than that. She should be 29 again!

Saturday is Nathan’s b-day party at my place. He wants Star Wars Action Figures. I must admit I am embarrassed to be seen buying them. But I like Nathan so I’ll wear my sunglasses and see if I can find them at Target tonight.

I’m still confused. So what’s the difference between a curly fry and a butterfly fry? Is the butterfly fry a flatter curly fry?

I wish there were strangers linking to my blog. But I don’t think there are. My life is just not interesting enough lately.

I just found my next place! It’s on Floribunda Avenue in Burlingame. I can’t wait to tell people that I live on Floribunda Avenue. You see, in Portuguese, "Flor" means flower and "Bunda" means ass. Floribunda sounds like "Flower and Ass"

I wonder what butterfly fries are…

Thanks to Joel, I now know of someone else (Jenny) who is also anal about keeping her gas tank full.

I have to admit that I draw the line at the 1/2 tank mark though. If the needle drops below that, I start to panic.

I must be afraid of running out of gas during my commute to work. All four miles of it

Tuna paid to get my blogspot ad free. That was incredibly nice of her! I figured I would pay to get angryheidi’s blogspot ad free but Chad is hosting it himself so there are no ads. I then thought I would create a blog for Su (she mentioned yesterday that she should start blogging), but su.blogspot.com is already taken! What should I do? Su?

When I first moved to San Francisco, a guy paid my toll for me on the Bay Bridge. I always felt like I should pay for someone else but I never got around to it. Now I’m two favors behind in the Pay It Forward scheme of things. That can’t be good!

Bill
I had to go play bocce balls with the managers yesterday. I really don’t feel like I belong in that group. Some of them are only 5 or 6 years older than me but I still feel like a kid around them. I think our generation has some serious peter pan issues. I am going to be 30 for god’s sake!

So anyway, I email my dad almost every day so I had told him about the bocce ball event. He replied back saying that in Brazil the game is still only played by old Italian men. I thought to myself, give it a year, it’ll be trendy down there too. So, at the end of his message, very matter-of-factly, he mentions that he had met Bill Clinton the night before. Apparently some newspaper launch party hired Bill and my dad ended up sitting next to him during dinner. He told Bill that his daughter (that would be me) lived in the U.S. and was working hard to “help build” his country. I think he should have taken the practical route and just asked “Bill” to get me a greencard. I wonder if ex-Presidents would have that kind of power.

Woke up and there was no water again. Cleaning lady came but couldn’t clean. She acted as an interpreter and talked to the plumber. He wouldn’t be done until 5:00 pm (and would continue this week). Cleaning lady left and rescheduled for Saturday at 8:30 am. Argh!

Called Su and we decided to meet for lunch. Picked up Su and went to Mandarin Gourmet.

We drove around Palo Alto looking at houses. Some construction workers let us check out some places that were being restored. They sucked.

Came back home but felt antsy with no running water available.

Drove to downtown Mountain View and checked out some apartments. Hung out at Starbucks until 5 pm.

I was watching The House of Mirth when Su called. It was Nathan’s b-day and they wanted to go for dessert and drinks.

The House of Mirth

Remi Adefarasin (Cinematographer). Sony Pictures 2000, DVD, $14.94

We had desserts at Il Fornaio. Su wants that to be our hang out place now. Headed to F&A. It was full of Europeans. We couldn’t figure out why. Then we tried British Banker’s and that sucked. Finally we went to Blue Chalk but it was pretty dead.

On our way to my house, we decided to go to Denny’s. The guys in the booth behind us looked like they had played Dungeons & Dragons. I mentioned that. Two seconds later we hear them start talking about wizards, ogres and trolls.

Woke up and there was no water.

Called the water people. They sent some guy. He said the water was shut off and turned it back on. He figured kids must have turned it off.

Five minutes later the water was off again. Now I knew how to turn it back on. Thought this was weird and kept watching the water shut off valve location. Caught a Mexican guy turning it off again. He explained, in broken Spanish, that the water would be off all day.

Tried to clean my closets but felt this compulsive need to wash my hand every five minutes. Since there was no water, decided to go shopping.

Went to Target and bought a few things. Went to Pier 1 and bought BB2 pillows. Came back and watched a movie.