LA-zing around

we are in LA, having arrived last night after 7 days in sacramento & the sierra nevadas where it was so beautiful & dusty. LA has been cool, in fact, too cool to go to the beach today so i spent a lazy day at quantou's parents' place reading HP7 (20 pages left & i don't really want to finish it! i guess that says something about me). we are both pretty tan from all the activity the last week & i will provide an indepth report (oh trust me, i will) but still i think we will go to the beach tomorrow regardless of weather to round out the holiday! quantou's mom made us dinner & now we are just chillin'. saw the simpsons movie last night & i really enjoyed it:
smithers: they took everything, sir. (burns sighs)
burns: you know smithers, i have never been a fan of suicide, but if you wish to try it, it may cheer me up!
hee3
we have such great photos from the trip which included tons of outdoors activities that proves once again that i, niederwelt, am quite durable & nature friendly or nature tolerant! the bloody noses were a bit worrisome but i am such a bleeder anyway, it was not as if i haven't seen blood before. oh so much to recant but just not right now. suffice it to say, a good time was had by all, quantou is still very much alive after near 10 straight days of hanging out with me with nary an argument, but i cannot wait to sleep in my own bed, to see my boyos who by all reports are doing well despite an emergency vet visit for tentoes & subsequent lampshade wearing & super long nose in effect, to wear something else that is not in my suitcase though i must say i will try to underpack next time. to bring the scrubby was the best idea ever!
we catch the redeye tomorrow evening & will have most of mittwoch to hug & kiss my dogs at home before the inevitable return to the office the next day. a quick check of my email indicated few emergencies while i was away but that is due to my good planning & foresight. i am sure my pile of to-do's will be staggering.
it was strange not to have any reception up in lake tahoe which was stunning & smelled of pine (my favourite) althroughout the days & nights. text messages were scant. i did find a spot, conveniently where smokers congregated, where if i sat still & craned my head just so, i could make a call. but it was also a spot with full on sun & strangely where mosquitos hung about so i didn't hang out too long. i will be catching up with everyone, hopefully over drinks, very soon.
i am excited to train on donnerstag since we didn't do much of that, except at pope beach where we took photos of ourselves in various shaolin poses (like the freaks we are) & were stared at by other people quite a bit (nothing new there). we did "train" in other ways which i will get into soon enough. also quantou & i constantly wore our USA Shaolin temple gear so we advertised temple quite well, prompting some Q&A.
so i survived my first camping/outdoors experience well enough. good on me. never a dull moment, well, i'll go into that later. plus folks were asking if i would return again & i diplomatically said: if i am invited back, which seems to be in the affirmative. it would be better to go with the dogs but hauling them all the way across the states may require a much longer holiday in the future. so we shall see.
yeah, more chi!