This one time I went to Greece

I think I was a bit delusional when we flew into Athens.  I thought every city in Greece was like a scene in Mama Mia with dancing in the street and a donkey ride up to a white washed village followed by a visit to a club called the Parthenon.  Okay that last part was a dig on Shaq, but I really didn’t know what to expect especially given the recent economic unrest of Greece.

My husband, mother-in-law and I stayed with my husband’s family in Athens that consisted of a seventy-two year old man named Apostolos who spoke better German than English, a middle-aged woman named Despina who reminded me of Blanche Devereaux from the Golden Girls and her quiet older sister named Corelia.  They lived on different floors of an apartment building near Agios Eleftherios metro stop.   

Every evening we would listen to the news on the small television set in the living room which was in Greek.  I asked my husband’s great uncle Apostolos, “what are they saying?”  He answered very matter of factly, “they are talking about the economic situation in Greece.”

Later I would understand that new amounts of aid were given to Greece to avoid default but with that came more austerity measures including higher taxes, cutting pensions, laying off workers which lead to more strikes.  Constant images of Greek’s Minister of Finance Evangelos Venizelos flashed across the tv screen and he reminded me of John Candy and a sexier version of Jabba the Hut.

Meanwhile we stuffed our faces full of stuffed grape leaves, moussaka, pastitsio, and played the tourist.  We spent an afternoon in the hot sun walking along the ruins of the Parthenon while hearing stories of Greek mythology.  We visited an ancient olive tree with roots twisted around itself, saw marble bust after marble bust of Athena, visited the new Acropolis museum and saw a glorious sunset in Oia. 

In other parts of the city, a white haired shop owner installed an alarm since his store was broken into, air traffic controllers went on strike leaving passengers stranded, an older woman looked in a trash can for her stolen purse and medical tests, and thousands of protestors burned tax bills on the parliament steps.

On our last day in Athens, Pete’s family took us out to their neighborhood café and crowded twelve chairs around three small tables.  As we poured cloudy glasses of Ouzo and shared jokes in English amid a soccer game playing in the background, for a moment it was as though there was no political and economic turmoil.  We simply reveled in each other’s company, sharing a drink from across the Mediterranean sea.

This one time I wrote a newsletter for work about lasers

I set forth to learn the mystery of lasers just like Conan venturing out in the world discovering the riddle of steel.  Instead of a thief by my side, my tour guide was Charles Hubert, a Senior Staff Engineer at CVI Melles Griot.  He swiped me in the building and I entered an industrial-looking, open space with fluorescent yellow lights hanging overhead.  It was a cross between the hallways of my elementary school and my grandfather’s garage.  The linoleum floors were polished to a shine and the walls were lined with various charts that looked like they tracked productivity or sales.  It was three in the afternoon which is considered after hours so I only saw a handful of employees on my tour.  In close proximity of lasers you had to wear safety glasses and Charlie handed me a pair and told me not to look directly at the lasers lest they bore holes through my eyes. 

As we passed tubes of pink neon, Charlie explained that laser is an acronym which stands for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.  To put simply, light goes through a tube of neon gases which bounces around, gains energy and comes out at the end as a laser. 

We bumped into his one of his colleagues wearing fancy-looking safety glasses who showed me their blue helium cadmium lasers.  I asked what those lasers in particular did and he said that they created 3D representations of things before they are made out of metal.  I thought the laser melted the plastic but it actually has the opposite effect, it turns liquid plastic into solid plastic.  He explained that green lasers are used for eye surgery.  Yellow lasers are used for chemistry.  Red lasers are used for scientific applications like DNA sequencing or blood analysis and even lumber cutting.  Their lasers are also used in concerts, television shows and sporting events. 

In order to see how they actually make a laser, I had to wear a head bouffant, a surgical mask, latex gloves, shoe coverings and a smock that looked like my great aunt’s pajamas.  Charlie laughed and said I looked like a lunch lady.  Once we were ridiculously dressed, he led me in the DPSS work station which stands for diode pumped solid state lasers.  The room was really loud since they pump filtered air since they are more OCD than the Nicastro brothers.  He explained that their lasers can’t have any type of microscopic contamination or else it can change and block the action of the laser.  We met another colleague named Mark who looked even more ridiculous than I did since he had to wear a beard covering instead of a surgical mask.  He pointed to a laser work station that had a black square box the size of a small car battery with a tiny blue light inside.  Midgets and children must work there since the size of their instruments are so small and the optics and crystals are even smaller.  I asked Mark if there have been any laser injuries and he said that you can have minor degree burns on your hands and that papers have had holes burned through them. 

I took a deep breath and asked them my last question.  When I die and Crom asks me, what is the riddle of lasers, what shall I tell him?  They looked at each other and said, tell him the riddle is stimulated emission converting energy into a monochromatic beam of photons.  A smile crept on my lips.  Thank you, I whispered, knowing that I shall live forever in Valhalla.

This one time I needed to write

I haven't written in my blog in a long while and I don't have an excuse other than pure laziness.  I will try to rectify that especially that I have only days left of being thirty-one years old.  The thoughts of a thirty-one year old are much different than those of a thirty-two year old I imagine.


My family came to San Diego this past weekend to celebrate my birthday with me even though it's really this Saturday.  We spent a lot of time at the beach in Carlsbad which was like re-discovering the city given that I work in Carlsbad but don't really know the area apart from where I work, the gym and the outlets.  I'm an outlet fan, what can I say?  Aside from stuffing ourselves silly there were some really memorable moments which I'll share.


The hotel played a movie every Friday, Saturday and Sunday in their outdoor patio.  We watched The Lion King huddled under beach towels sprawled out in the grass against the night sky.  I wanted to sing the words to some of the songs but no one else was singing so I just whispered, "hakuna mata" to myself.  That particular song reminded me of my sister Cristina given that she sang that song at one of her school productions.  She used to practice so often we eventually knew most of the words to the song as well.  I could hear my father's laughter to the jokes in the song as though he were watching the movie for the first time.  "What's a motto?" asked Pumbaa.  "Nothing, what's a-motto with you?" said Timon. 


On Sunday we took a stroll along the beach with my two nephews in tow, my husband, my father and my sister Vanesa.  My mom had a headache so she opted to stay in the car.  We pushed my four month old nephew in his stroller and when he started protesting I decided to hold him in my arms and then when he got heavy I held him in the baby carrier also known as the baby bjorn.  (Which is actually quite fitting since he looks like a little German given his hair cut even though the company is Swedish.  I like to say Auf Wiedersehen to him because I think it's hilarious.  It's from this movie Bridesmaids and that quote never gets old).  So I held my little German nephew even though he's really Mexican and he seems so observant with those black marbles for eyes so I spoke to him in Spanish, pointing things out to him as though he understands everything.  I described things that were happening around us, pointed out birds, asked him questions, I was just his translator until he found the words himself.  His response?  He just giggled in delight.  

This one time I wrote a Father's Day Poem

I should preface this by saying that my father was out of the country during Father's Day so I just wrote him this poem a few weeks ago.  I cried writing it and he cried reading it which is a sign of a good poem to me.

A Poem For My Father

Long fingers push the back of my bicycle

Streamers fly in the wind

Skinny legs pedal as fast as they can

Crooked teeth expose a giant smile

Memories float to the surface in remembrance

Flat stones skip across an ocean sky

Baseballs thrown and caught in a grassy field

Small limbs undulate to dramatic music

You are my loving father

Human elevator

Over-complicated math tutor

Family genealogy instructor

And loving father

When my hands are wrinkled

And years have passed

My heart will burst in remembrance

Of twirling in white with you by my side

This one time I went to the beach

Today I decided to jog along the lovely stretch of beach in Del Mar near my apartment.  Sometimes I like to jog in the mornings during the week where bits of my story comes to me in little snippets.  I think the beach inspires me.  One time I went for a jog and saw seaglass on the sand and was touched.  I had read this book called "The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake" where the main character, this little girl, was described as seaglass by her mother.  Since then, the sight of seaglass makes me smile.

Today was more of a sight-seeing day since the beach was crowded with families and couples rather than the occasional jogger.  There was a young family on their way to the beach with Tommy Bahama chairs strapped to the parents' back.  They had two young girls with blonde hair so light it was almost white.  I couldn't help but notice that the youngest girl wore flip flops that were too big on her, as though they once belonged to her older sister.  I liked being close to them, as though I was somehow sharing an integral moment of their lives.

It was warm though the sun liked to hide behind the clouds most of the late morning.  As I jogged along the beach I noticed my surroundings.  There was a little boy about seven years old making a large W in the sand with his hand and I wondered how much sand he would get underneath his fingernails.  All that grit just to write in the sand.  Why not use a stick or your finger I wondered.  There was another family with two little girls although they were older, maybe five and seven.  They wore hats on their heads and bathing suits with a long sleeved top.  One wore pink and the other purple.  When the tide left, their father pointed in the sand and they quickly dug for what I can only imagine are sand crabs.

I remembered my own father showing my sisters and me how to find them.  They were so ugly but I liked how their legs tickled my hand.  I could almost remember those days at the beach when I was their age, burying our Barbies in the sand, making sand castles so huge you could sit in the middle of them.  The first thing my father would do was start digging a giant hole with our buckets.  Vanesa and I liked constructing the walls and getting the water.  Sometimes we'd get too much water and we'd have to re-construct the walls again.  I liked sitting in the middle of the castle and working from the inside out.  I would get so much sand inside my bathing suit but I didn't care.  I wonder if anyone would say anything if I brought a Barbie, a shovel and a pail to the beach and construct a giant sand castle all by myself.  I should try that sometime.

This one time I went to E3

There was this one time that I attended E3.  This one time was Tuesday, no it was Wednesday because no one wanted to go on the first day.  I rode the Amtrak train for what felt like the first time with my co-workers and time seemed to fly by.  There was a mother who sat next to us wearing hiking shoes, glasses and a short crop of grey hair who was on her way to Yosemite with her teenage daughter.  She spoke to my co-worker about her son who wants to work in video games.  Only he's a composer and wants to compose music for the games.  Later I found out that the best advice would be for him to strip out music from an existing video game and add his own.  Instead, his mother was told to surround himself with people in the industry that could offer him advice.

Before we arrived there were these NOS girls handing out energy drinks.  What struck me were their outfits - bright blue spandex dresses that resembled something I once put on my Barbie back in 1986.  Only their dresses showed more cleavage and were much shorter than the makers of Mattel could ever create.  As an added accessory, they wore cut out cheap-looking sunglasses to make them look nerdy.  I guess nerds like a woman in glasses.

Once inside it was sensory overload with loud explosions on gigantic television screens of multiple video games.  I got a headache from so much leaping out at me, demanding my attention.  Instead, I checked out the "booth babes" at E3 which were rumored to be hired models and beautiful women, maybe even strippers.  I was not particularly impressed.

In an effort to wrap up this blog I shall say this:  I'm glad I went but I may have had more fun playing Glee karaoke.  Next time I'll bring my cheerleading outfit.

This one time I wrote a Mother's Day Poem

A Poem For My Mother

           

Images flash across the night sky

Full of love and emotion

Spanning three decades

From a mother to her daughter

Your gentle touch piecing together

Strands to make braids

Securing plastic bunnies in place

The romantic sounds of a distant language

Rolling r’s, the tongue soft against lips

Comfort in singing songs of gaviotas

The hum of your red beetle against

The soft rock on the radio we didn’t dare touch

The pink flurry of tutus, wet bathing suits

Driving down road after countless road

Your love is an unending orbit

Unbroken, unwavering and unrelenting

As warm as the rays of the sun

Beaming in your wedding dress

Your arm linked in mine

Forever by my side

My mother you’ll be

This one time I played basketball

I started my new job and had a great first week.  I memorized everyone’s name, told a classy joke, played several rounds of WWE All Stars and impressed people with my basketball skills.  I should say that I haven’t played basketball in years but back in 5^th grade I was the only girl on an all boy’s team and was the worst player.  I had one amazing moment where someone fouled me and I scored a point (my only point) for the season by tossing the ball through my legs called a granny shot.  I attended basketball camp one summer with my sister and learned a few things that stuck with me over the years. 

Fast forward to this past Friday where I tell a couple guys in our QA department that I want to join them in their pick up basketball game.  They asked me if I knew how to dribble and I said yes but I knew they had very low expectations.  I show up on the court with my purple water bottle wearing gym clothes and my hair in a ponytail.  Everyone introduces themselves and they spare me the agony of choosing who they want on their team with a game of rock paper scissors.  The winners are on one team and the losers on another.  I beat my co-worker Romel with a rock against his scissors and am on the winning team. 

The game begins and I am over eager, sprinting from one end of the court to the other as the ball exchanges hands, careful to be open when my team is on the offense and guarding my opponent in the defense.  I should have paced myself better since I got exhausted the more the game went on, my face red with exertion.  I can tell that my team is hesitant to give me the ball initially and when they do I shoot and miss over and over again.  Despite words of encouragement I know I sink to their low expectations.  Even in the defense position, I run into two guys in my attempt to guard my opponent and fall to the ground like a girl.

Finally, the knowledge from years earlier and training sank in and I finally made contact with the backboard, scoring a point.  I can tell that the guys are surprised and beef up their defense against me.  Instead of being wide open I had two guys plot to block me.  My teammates slap me some skin and say “good job” or “nice” and even I am impressed with myself after scoring five points in a row.

We run across the court listening to old 1990’s rap songs on an iPod and I say out loud, “I wish I was taller,” and my teammate Dan responds, “I wish I was a baller.”  I think back to the rest of the lyrics from Skee-Lo from the song I wish and say, “I wish I had a girl who looked good I would call her.”

At the end of the game we all said, “good game” to one another and gave each other five just like when I did in 5^th grade.  Only this time they meant it.

This one time I wrote a music review

There is a raw, primal energy to Dev’s sexy, catchy tunes that was felt at her concert at One Broadway Thursday night.  The crowd pulsed with the electropop beats of her music, especially when she sang her big hits “Like A G6” and “Bass Down Low.”  It was as though Dev brought the sexiness and glamour of Las Vegas to San Diego.  One fan summed it up perfectly when she exclaimed to her friends, “we are rock stars!”

The space itself is expansive with three rooms each with a different motif.  There were painted flames on pillars, giant disco balls hanging from the ceiling and futuristic-looking props.  Despite the size of the club the Dev fans filled the space so that you couldn’t stand still if you wanted.  Everyone danced, swayed, and grinded to the high-energy beats of Dev and the Cataracts and were left feeling like rock stars.

This one time I went to an 18 and over concert

Last night I attended Dev in concert in good ole downtown San Diego.  She's the chick that sings "G6" and "Bass Down Low."  I might have turned up the volume to one of her songs on the radio with the windows rolled down once or twice.  I got in for free which is the only reason I attended given that it's an 18 and over crowd.  I met a guy named Patrick on Craiglist who was looking for a blogger for his promotional company called Neon Vision Entertainment.  I have been wanting to frequent more concerts and thought this was a great way to go plus it would force me to write.  To illustrate how clueless I was at all things music-related I actually googled 'what to wear to a concert' and watched this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaQCpRrHfzw

Despite my best attempts, my attire was not scandalous enough compared to the 18 year olds trying to look like sexy prostitutes.  There was an incredible amount of grinding, making out and dry humping inches away from me.  One girl literally hung on to a pillar while her boyfriend dry humped her doggy-style.  I felt like I was in an under-aged porno except everyone had clothes on.  Pete wasn't surprised since he had been to an 18 and over club 13 years ago but my sheltered experience as a teenager did not prepare me in the least to the throngs of horny couples groping each other with unleashed abandon.

Had I been ten years younger I might have danced along with the crowd, getting as low as I could when Dev sang, "I like my beats fast and my bass down low.  Drop it to the floor."  Instead, I felt like a chaperone at a high school dance, arms folded against my chest, pushing people away from me to create a safe zone.  All the red lipstick in the world could not make me belong with people a decade younger than me and I don't think I'll ever try again.

This one time I went to Santa Barbara

Since having some time off from work, I decided to visit my friend Manisha who lives in Santa Barbara.  I made a stop in Glendale for lunch to see old friends and colleagues from DreamWorks and forgot how spoiled I once was.  It almost felt as though it was an entirely different place than I remember with few familiar faces and so many changes.  For the people that I did know, it felt as though no time had passed and yet the years made their mark on our faces and careers.  Everyone kept running toward their goals and ambitions while I decided to go for a walk instead.

A few hours later I was at a wine bar called Kalyra in Santa Barbara that looked like a tiki room.  Manisha thought it looked like the Elephant Bar but didn’t want to insult the owner.  We opted for a wine tasting and eating basketfuls of their breadsticks.  While Trevor poured various wines we guessed where he was from. 

Manisha looked at his fleece jacket and said, “I bet he’s from Oregon.”

I listened to his accent and settled on Northern California.

“So are you from Santa Barbara?” I asked.

“No, I’m from Northern California,” he responded.

I smiled widely at Manisha.

There was a private event at 5:45 p.m. and we were technically not supposed to be there anymore but we decided to push our luck and stay.  The owner appeared suddenly and he looked like a character out of a novel and I told him so.  He had an Australian accent and a layer of a speech impediment on top of that which made him more endearing.  He told us how he came to own a winery with his brother and that he once wore a wig as a barrister in England.  Manisha asked him all these law questions while I watched decorations being hung for the jewelry show we were crashing.  The jewelry designer liked using feathers as materials for earrings and the owner, Martin, joked that it looked like bait for bass fishing.

The next morning I borrowed a maroon bike from a former roommate from Croatia and pedaled all over Santa Barbara for the first time.  Manisha and I joked that God wanted us to go bike riding since the sun was out despite the rain from the prior evening.  There was a lovely bike path we took and I followed Manisha, watching her extend her right hand to high five the foliage and stand on her bike to touch the branches of trees.  I felt like I was in a movie and wished I had a video camera to document our journey.  We took turns saying hello and good morning to the cyclists and joggers we encountered and made fun of those who didn’t.  “Oh I guess he couldn’t hear us say hello through his thick helmet,” I said.  We sang snippets of songs that had the word spring in them and all I could think of was “spring time, la la la la spring time” from the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Manisha jumped off her bike as we stood at a pier, reading the signs about prohibited items and activities.  “Do you think we are allowed on the pier if we walk our bikes?” she asked me.

I shrugged my shoulders and said, “ask him,” as I pointed to a man driving a state truck.

No one knew officially but said it should be fine.  Manisha informed me that UCSB stands for you can steal bikes so we clutched them in our hands against the cold pier air, her tires clicking like crickets. As we walked, we chatted with the fisherman and learned that the best bait are mussels scraped off the side of the pier.  One man wearing a sand-colored sweatshirt with the hood tied around his face said he caught a one armed crab but threw it back.  I felt sorry for it but he said its arm would grow back with time.  At the end of the pier where the wind was the strongest, there was a group of three men, each with long hair and a beer in hand.  The one with visible tattoos and golden rings on every finger owned a series of tattoo parlors named Precious Slut. 

I said, “I understand the precious part but why slut?”

“That’s my name.  It’s on my birth certificate too.”

“Your legal name is Slut?  Wow, your mother must have quite a sense of humor.  What is your middle name?” I asked.

“Brian,” he responded.

As we walked down the pier, the man who caught the one armed crab said they caught a baby leopard shark but threw it back too. 

Manisha was unconvinced.  “I bet they made that up.”

“Why would they make that up?  We aren’t even wearing any make up.”

“I don’t know, but you can’t believe fishermen.  They always say, I caught a fish this big.” 

I laughed at her logic and chuckled to myself for being there in the first place.

This one time I went to the vet

Today I had the unfortunate task of taking my two cats to the vet.  I have never owned a pet before meeting my husband (unless you count the time I owned two beta fish and a few little African frogs that met their sad demise) so I had no idea what I was getting myself into.  It finally occurred to me when I tried forcing, coaxing, trickery and bribery to get our 13 year old Kitty into her pet carrier.  After my pathetic attempts to put her treats in the carrier I had to shove her in there against her own free will.  I should explain that Kitty does not like to be picked up and does not like to be confined in tiny blue spaces.  She expressed this to me with her claws attached to my neck and a lovely gash on my arm.  I felt like Peter Pan battling against Captain Hook.  ("Say your a codfish!")

I nervously picked up Frankie in my arms (since I didn't want to spent $45 at Petco on a carrier), slung Kitty in her carrier over my shoulder along with my purse and plopped them in the car.  Of course, twenty minutes later, Kitty got out of her flimsy carrier by pushing her head through the zippers and I was afraid I looked like a crazy cat lady.  I had to pull over three times and hold Frankie in my right hand as tightly as I could while driving with my left hand praying that the three of us make it there in one piece.

Thankfully we arrived at the vet safely with no bodily harm.  The only real pain I felt that day was hearing my little Frankie cry when the vet gave her a shot.  I had to turn away and cover my eyes and even then I almost cried.  I felt ridiculous crying in front of the doctor and his assistant but I couldn't help it.  I guess I really care about my little cats, battle wounds and all.

This one time I attended my grandfather's funeral

This past Thursday my husband and I drove to Tucson, Arizona to attend my grandfather's funeral.  When I was a little girl, my family and I made this journey at least once a year during the Christmas holidays.  My father cracked sunflower seeds while he drove and burst out in song to a mixed tape of Frank Sinatra and Louis Prima.  My sisters and I listened to our walkmans and took as many naps as humanly possible.  The road was an endless stretch of desert with scattered cacti that my father would name given that he grew up in the desert.  

The next morning my family and I got ready and wore a dress I have worn to three funerals.  Sadly, I call it my funeral dress.  What I remember most about that day was watching my five year old nephew David attend his second funeral in the past seven months and trying to see things from his perspective.  He seemed proud to be dressed so nicely in his suit and have his hair combed perfectly.  I noticed that he was particularly interested in catching the fallen flower petals from the boutonnieres of each of my grandfather's seven children.  In his hand he clutched red rose petals torn to shreds from so much human contact and was eager to catch the three peach-colored rose petals fallen on the aisle.  There was a large photo of my grandfather smiling behind his black signature moustache and David asked his father, "Papa, where is Grandpa?"  In my head I responded, "he died and they burned his body.  His ashes are sitting in that little container underneath a tablecloth.  That's all that's left of him."

After the service we went to the cemetery where the Honor Guard unfolded and folded a flag with precision while my nephew found little treasures he gave to his mother.  He handed her a red plastic heart and a fallen silk flower from someone else's arrangement.  She said, "thank you mijo," while he smiled at her proudly as someone pretended to play taps on the bugle.

Later that night we went to my aunt and uncle's house and re-watched a video of my grandfather over the years that ended with a karaoke clip of him singing "My Way" by Frank Sinatra.  It was as though he came to life for an instant, his face hidden in the shadows.  He had a scotch in hand as he sang, "And now the end is near, and so I face the final curtain.  I've lived a life that's full.  I traveled each and every highway and more, much more than this, I did it my way."  As he sang, "regrets I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention," I thought about my disappointment that he and my grandmother didn't attend my high school graduation, hoping that was one of his regrets, that he was somehow apologizing after all these years.  I'm sure that everyone had their own interpretation of what he meant by those words.

Hours later my cousin Clayton sets up the karaoke machine and we sang "Chicago" and "New York, New York" by Frank Sinatra.  Then the familiar tune begins of "My Way" and we sang out loud, all of us, changing the words from "I did it my way," to "he did it his way."  Tears swelled in my eyes and a giant knot formed in my throat as we said goodbye to him.

This one time I went to Urbn

Last night I met my friends at Urbn, a formerly abandoned warehouse that has been transformed into a sophisticated, hip bar that opened in November. I was impressed before I even walked in.  It is as if you are suddenly elevated to the top of the social ladder by just being there, by knowing of Urbn’s existence.  The minimalist design with brick walls, granite countertops and a giant fan that looked like it was once an airplane propeller reinforces this fact. 

Aesthetics aside, the true test of a bar is their alcohol selection and had I been a beer drinker I’m sure I’d be impressed.  A chalkboard toted their draught beers with a colorful representation from several local breweries.  Being a hard alcohol drinker, however, I was more interested in their cocktails.  I scanned the draft and classic cocktail menu by drink name and envisioned the characters from the 1960’s period television show Mad Men ordering a Tom Collins, Old Fashioned and Rob Roy.  Even though my tastes are on the contemporary side, I batted my eyelashes and smiled sweetly for the bartender to surprise me with a vodka-based creation instead.  I chuckled to myself at the thoughtful person who took the time to slice jars full of cucumbers, lemons, and limes while he carefully poured Chambord, Cointreau, Citrus vodka and splashes of whatever juice they had available.  He even twirled lemon peel around his finger to garnish my chilled martini glass.  I was impressed before I even took a sip.  The martini was just what I wanted without knowing I even wanted it.

There are moments in my life that I feel like I’m the main character in a movie or at the very least a cool commercial.  I felt as though I was in an alcohol commercial as I sat on an ottoman so large it could have been a bed, chatting with friends, sipping my tasty cocktail, and listening to my favorite music such as Metric and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.  It was that perfect. 

Before I left, I asked the bartender behind the spelling of the name Urbn.  “It’s because we are too cool for vowels,” he said. And even though he’s technically wrong, he’s also very right.

This one time my grandfather died

I was at the Getty museum waiting for my friend Manisha to meet me for a very cultural Saturday evening when I received a phone call from my mother.  She said softly, "I knew you would be upset if I didn't call you since I know you are out right now, but your grandfather just passed away."  I don't know what I said in response but we exchanged a couple of sentences and hung up.  Immediately I texted my husband and I got in trouble from the security lady for talking on my cell phone when I answered his call.  She was nice about it, plus she had no idea that my grandfather just died and my husband was calling to console me.  Part of me wanted to explain so that she'd feel sorry for me or be nicer to people who answer their cell phones in museums but I kept it private.  In fact, I didn't even tell my friend about it just in case it would change the dynamics for the evening.  So I pretended as though nothing happened.  


I looked at art, feeling consoled by the pastels and use of color by the painting Starry Night by Edvard Munch.  I was deeply touched by a series of photographs by Song Yongping.  I'll let you look at the pictures and then tell you what the placard said.


http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/new_china/song_parents.html



The placard read:  Song Yongping, a first-born son, sought to balance his artistic career with care of his invalid mother and father as part of his expected duty. In 1998 he began photographing them in a series called My Parents. Using a confrontational approach to portraiture, these images combine performance with elements of everyday familial life. Karen Smith, a writer and art critic based in Beijing, described the photographs as "...a testimony to family bonds, and a sad glimpse into the lives of the masses caught up in the tidal wave of change in China today." The strength of this work is in its collaborative nature. Song Yongping, while tending to his parents' needs, was given the opportunity to honor them by sharing his art making with them. In recording the eventual loss of his parents in 2001, he created a lasting testament to their lives.


I felt connected to Song Yongping for a moment, as though I was meant to view his photographs at that particular time in my life.  Part of me thought it was too revealing, how could his parents agree to let their son take pictures of them in their underwear, with his father's catheter hanging from his penis.  But as I continued seeing the series of photographs, especially the last one with its chaos and distress, I understood what he was trying to tell me.  I understood how much he loved him and what their death meant to him just from six photographs.  I have no artistic means to demonstrate the loss of my grandmother and then six months later my grandfather but my sad little words.  Sometimes if I pick the right ones in the right order it can be a visual painting.  Here is my crude representation of them:


I remember my grandmother's laugh, the way she would light up when she saw me and the smell of chili powder in their Tucson home.  She loved garage sales and walking in her bare feet, her second toe adorned with a white gold ring.  When I was younger she would play dress up with me and dab me with a miniature bottle of her perfume.  She overused the word "beautiful" and signed her cards with a loopy happy face.  I thought the space in her neck would make a perfect hiding spot for some of my necklaces.  There is a tape out there somewhere with a recording of my grandmother singing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer with my asthmatic sister. Every time I hear that song I think of her.  When I would talk to her on the phone or write her letters she had a way of talking about me as though I was someone very special.  


I remember my grandfather's long black moustache, his elegant clothes and his passion for baseball.  He would always dress up when getting on an airplane meanwhile I opt for comfort in glasses and yoga pants.  He was kind of scary when I was younger, I think it was the authoritative tone from his years as being a principal.  They lived in Ecuador for a year and brought me back an indigenous looking doll that I would play with while speaking only in Spanish.  I still have it.  There was a poster in my grandfather's office that captivated me of Emiliano Zapata with the words, "It is better to die on your feet than to continue living on your knees."


When I was six years old I asked my grandfather, "Grandpa, if you could choose, who would you rather be, a boy or a girl?"  He humored me and said, "well, God made me a boy so that's what I would choose."  I pressed him further, "but Grandpa, are you sure?  You don't want to be a girl instead?"  He insisted, "no, I wouldn't."  I argued with him, "but Grandpa, girls get to wear jewelry and make up and dresses."  I'm told he gave my parents a look and that was the end of that conversation.

This one time I was chatty

I haven't written an entry in awhile so this may very well be a worthless one but perhaps I can pull something out of my pompa to fulfill the request of a friend who asked for the next blog entry.

I was going to write about this random guy I met the weekend before Valentine's day.  My husband and I are stuffing our faces full of greasy cheeseburgers at Bare Back Grill in Pacific Beach at the bar since it's Saturday night and there were no tables to be had.  I can tell this guy is alone and seeking conversation since he asked the bartender if he watched the Ohio State vs. Wisconsin basketball game.  I took this opportunity to keep him company since he was alone the weekend before Valentine's day because I'm such a nice person and sure enough, he opened right up.

"Why, did you watch the game?" I asked.
He smiled and turned to me, his face visibly red against his pale skin.  "Yes, I sure did!"
"Who did you want to win?"
"Wisconsin.  I'm from there."
"As in you used to live there or you are just visiting San Diego?" I asked between mouthfuls.
"Oh I'm just here for the weekend," he said playing with the straw in his water.
"You are purposely here in San Diego the weekend before Valentine's day by yourself?  There's got to be a story somewhere."

He proceeded to tell me that his girlfriend of a year (maybe two?) gave him an ultimatum and he knew he wanted to marry her but he just wasn't ready.  It seemed like her mother was pushing her to get married and he was torn since he cared about her but he just didn't want to be forced into such a big decision.

I also met another guy this past weekend in LA while visiting my friend Michelle.  We bare the frigid air in Santa Monica and end up at Circle Bar.  His friend buys us a lemon drop shot and I start talking to Daniel.  He's about 37 years old and his girlfriend of 12 years gave him an ultimatum.  I had no pity for him.  Our conversation went something along the lines of...

"Your girlfriend dates you for twelve years and just now gives you an ultimatum?"
"Yeah," he says, shaking his head.
"Your girlfriend has got to be the most patient woman on earth!"
He laughs and says, "you are funny."
"So you don't know if you want to marry her after dating her for twelve years?"
"Well she was different."
"What do you mean?" I ask.
"When we dated for six years she used to hang out with her friends a lot.  Recently she's been getting her act together since she wants to get married."
"How old is she?"
"35."
"35!  Her eggs are practically all shriveled up by now!  You aren't getting any younger.  God, I can't believe you don't know after twelve years.  Grow some balls!"
He just laughed and laughed meanwhile home girl is turning grey with her shriveled up eggs in a relationship with a man who doesn't know if he wants to marry her.

Okay last story.  Same weekend, different bar.  I went to O'Brien's before I went to Circle Bar and overheard an interesting story that I simply had to take part.  I literally said, "oh this sounds like an interesting conversation, mind if I join in?"  Okay so I had a drink or two but I can be rather social when I feel like it.

The guy and his friend seemed eager to share their tales with us.
I slurred, "okay start over."
"From the beginning?" he asked.
"Where it's relevant," I said.
"Okay, so I'm dating the sister of the CEO of my company who is 46 years old."
"How old are you?" I interrupt.
"29.  She's 17 years older than me."
"17 years older than you!" I exclaim.  I shake my head.
"Yeah, and I want to break up with her but I don't know if I should find another job first."
"Well, why do you want to break up with her in the first place?" I ask.
"Because she's 17 years older than me."
"Oh you suck!"
They laugh and I say, "okay, here's what you do:  first you have to find a new job and second, you have to break up with her.
"I already tried to make up an excuse because she doesn't want to have kids and I told her how important it is to me to have children."
"Did she buy it?" I asked.
"Well, then she said that she's in love with me and that she'll have kids with me if that's really important to me."
I kept repeating what a miserable person he was for being involved with her in the first place, asked for pictures of her and then offered him my last piece of advice.  "Here's what I would say to her.  I would say, I wish I was ten years older, whatever you say, do NOT say you wish she was ten years younger.  And tell her honestly, I am not man enough to be with you.  That you don't deserve to be with her because frankly you don't.  So at least that way you are being honest."  I'm pretty sure I said it much more eloquently than that but his friend really liked it and he said he was going to use that.

My parting words to him were, "I really like your jacket.  Where did you get that?"
"My mother gave it to me for Christmas," he responded.

This one time I went on a hike

I should preface this by saying that I am not a hiker.  I don't own hiking boots, those dorky hiking sticks, one of those camel packs or a floppy hat.  However, I am married to a man who can create fire by using a brillo pad and a 9 volt battery and can purify stagnant water with a sunlight and a trash bag.  Begrudgingly I told my husband I would join him to hike Iron Mountain this past Saturday.

Despite my repeated sneaky ways to take little breaks, "I have to blow my nose...wait, I need a sip of your Gatorade...my legs are getting sore," we marched continuously in the sun.  The highlight of the hike wasn't the physical exertion but the snippets of other people's conversations.  Those little snippets were gold mines for me and kept me going.

I heard one woman in front of us describe the surprise birthday party she threw for her husband.  "Well, I had his son take him pheasant hunting.  Then I booked his favorite country western band and had the whole thing catered."  What perfect details, I thought to myself.  I feel as though those tiny pieces paint such an accurate picture of the kind of man he is.

There was another group of fellow hikers, three or four young boys around twelve years old with lots of camping equipment strapped to their backs- a tent, ridge rest, canteen, etc.  I asked them if they were going camping.  "No," one boy said with his blonde hair in his face.  "Then why did we bring the tent?" asked the younger boy who was probably nine.  "Because if you are struggling now, imagine how hard it would be if we were actually going camping."  We saw them later as they excitedly saw a stream of dirty water.  "Oh I can use my pocket rocket and filter the water," said the boy carrying a red tent.

A group of women pass us in the opposite direction and I smiled at their camaraderie.  They looked as though they were part of a hiking club.  They had their poles and floppy hats and hiking boots.  One woman had baby blue hiking socks pulled up to her knees and a scarf around her waist.  She looked like she was a character in a movie playing the role of a hiker.

I saw a young boy wearing a boy scout uniform and glasses who was struggling to catch his breath.  I asked him, "so if girl scouts sell cookies, what do boy scouts sell?"  He ignored me as he sipped from his water bottle but the older man that was with him proudly said, "popcorn!"  "Really?" I asked, "I had no idea."  "Oh yeah we sell all different kinds of popcorn that come in these tins."  I felt like my father, making conversation with complete strangers just to feel connected somehow.  My husband felt connected to nature and I felt connected to the world one snippet at a time.

Thinking about pickles...

Today I gave thought to the pickle manufacturer and felt sorry for him.  How does he make any money selling us fifteen plus pickles for $5 when the cucumber farmer sells one for $1?  Plus they have to provide the jar and the labels and the glue whereas the cucumber farmer just plucks them from their vine, dusts it off and voila!  Do they take all the reject cucumbers that didn't grow very much and therefore they get them on sale from the cucumber farmer?  I wonder if some cucumbers feel sorry for the cucumbers that grow up to be pickles.

"Did you hear about Joe?" Buddy asks.
"Yeah," responds Holly with a sigh.
"He was only one centimeter too short, just one!"
"It's just awful.  I don't want to think about him being crammed in a tiny jar with a bunch of other cucumber rejects for the rest of his life."
Buddy shook his head, "it's a terrible way to go, I know it.  There's nothing we can do though.  What can we do?" he asked with his outstretched vine arm.
A tear trickled down Holly's left side, "just hope that no one else we know becomes a pickle."
"Take care Joe," Buddy whispered.  "We'll miss ya."

Say hello to my little friend

Yesterday my husband and I got ourselves a new addition to our family.  We saw a craigslist ad from a family who had a litter of 7 kittens and I liked the little grey one from the picture alone - http://sandiego.craigslist.org/csd/pet/2162161066.html

We got there at 2:05 p.m. and the first four kittens were nabbed in literally five minutes.  One family waited outside the door at 1:57 and took three cats, one for every child.  It was fine actually since my little girl was still there.  She is the cutest thing with her blue eyes and grey fur with little white paws and a white underbelly.  I named her Frankie in part because of Frank Sinatra (ol' blue eyes) and in part because of the little girl from Blue Valentine.  Initially I was thinking of the name Bonnie or some name in Spanish but nothing seemed right except Frankie.  Pete let me pick her out and name her and have her be my cat.

We read how to introduce a new cat to an existing but just bringing her home, Kitty went up to Frankie, smelled her, hissed and hid under the bed.  It reminded me of the story my mom told when I was brought home from the hospital.  My older sister Vanesa kissed me on the cheek as a baby, slapped me and told my mother, "I don't want her, take her back!"

Last night Frankie meowed like a little bird when we went to bed so we scooped her up and let her sleep in our bed.  Bad idea.  Every thirty or so minutes she would awake from her nap and want to play.  I'd pet her half-sleeping and she nipped at my fingers and she would scratch at my arm or lick it with her scratchy tongue.  Not the best sleep in the world but boy is she cute.  My husband Pete slept on the couch partly because of Frankie and partly to be close to Kitty.  I put her on the floor early this morning in case she needed to eat or anything else but apparently I didn't leave her there long enough.  I should have been suspicious when Frankie sat perfectly still on the bed.  She was peeing all over our comforter. Oh the joy of parenthood!

Blue Valentine

I saw the trailer for the movie "Blue Valentine" over Christmas break and it was one of those movies that just spoke to me.  I love talking about relationships, watching movies about relationships, and this was a discussion in a visual form that made me want to see it immediately.  Here is the trailer in case you haven't seen it:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BM0A_yg8XjU

I ran out to see it with my husband and another couple on Friday night and I LOVE THIS MOVIE!

For those of you who haven't yet seen it, I suggest you see it right away and then continue reading.  People think it looks depressing given that it's about a relationship that has it's share of problems and you aren't sure if they are going to make it.  I have faith that they will.  There's something so beautiful in their relationship in the beginning, the way their first date unfolds, the way he rescues her, even the way they look at each other.  This movie takes you back to high school, to your first romance, and holds you there.  They seem so great together onscreen I want them to be a couple in real life (and they very well may be).

The song from the trailer "You always hurt the one you love," plays in my head over and over again almost as a caution.  If I let the little things get between my husband and me, we may end up like Cindy & Dean.  He'll lose his hair and wear a black shirt with an eagle on it and I'll get puffy and start hitting him screaming things like, "I'm the man!"  Okay so maybe not but there's a thread there that exists in every relationship.  It either gets stronger or more frayed.  Hopefully in the end you realize you can work things out "as long as there is you and me, nobody baby but you and me."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvAQ2Q4zKro

My current you tube video fascination

Okay so I should start with a disclaimer, I am not the avid you tube video watcher in the world by any means.  I usually look at them when a friend posts them on facebook or a co-worker ims one to me.  (There is a decent amount of downtime where I work so it's socially acceptable to watch the occasional video).  Having said that, I have watched this particular video of a father and daughter singing a song I had never even heard before, (Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros) probably 30 times since last week.  It's ridiculous!  See for yourself and then I'll tell you why I like it so much:

Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L64c5vT3NBw

Isn't that just the sweetest little video you've ever seen?   There's an innocence to the way she sings the lyrics that I just don't enough of in two minutes and forty-eight seconds.  So I have to watch it again and again.  I love how her arm has to touch her father the whole time that she sings, that she plugs her ear with her little finger to hear herself sing, the simple gesture of her index finger touching her thumb as her father strums the guitar, the face she makes when she tries to whistle the way her father does, and most especially, the words she changes around.  Instead of "moats and boats and waterfalls, alley ways and pay phone calls, I've been everywhere with you," she says, "moats and moats and waterfalls alomaise and pay mon calls, I've pain another where with you."

This little girl and her father transform a love song between a man and a woman infused with a sexual longing with a longing of another kind.  My guess is for a mother since it states that he is a single father raising two little girls.  (Plus you know no mother would let her daughter go on camera with uncombed hair).  She looks off into the distance filled with hope and a child's longing that breaks only when she looks at her father.  I hope they both find the woman that makes them feel at home.

If you want more, here is the original video of the song:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HNY0rx2fw4&feature=related


There's also a cool remix of the song on Grooveshark called Home (ArpLine Remix) by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

The evolution of my title

Okay so a fly never fell in my frijoles (beans) before but my Abuelita (Grandmother) refuses to eat black beans for this very reason.  I thought it would make for an interesting title of my blog.  I also considered "what I am sinking about" with the awesome youtube video found here -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmOTpIVxji8

I chuckle every time and I don't even understand German.  But my husband does!  (You have to say that last line like Chunk from the Goonies.  "Okay so Michael Jackson didn't come over to my house...to use the bathroom.  But his sister did!")  That has got to be my number one most watched movie ever.

I also considered "this one time in band camp" except I was never in band camp but I always start my stories with, "this one time."  My sister was in asthma camp and I was in camp at church in elementary school but then my blog would sound religious which I wanted to avoid.  Who would want to read a blog about "this one time in church camp?"  Not me.

So now that I've finished my first entry that was really all about the evolution of my blog title.  It's a work in progress.  My co-worker told me just to start the blog already so ta da!