Go Grandma, It’s Yo Birthday

The main reason I went to the Philippines last month was to celebrate my Grandma’s birthday. My Grandma celebrated a milestone birthday, her 75^th, and my parents and I came to represent. The party was held on her rooftop terrace overlooking the neighborhood where I lived until I was eight years old. Our old house has since been demolished and replaced by a string of four identical townhouses my Grandma built a few years ago. All of my Grandma’s children and their families, except my dad and Uncle Art, live in this compound.

The lot next door belonged to my great-grandparents, and their house has also been demolished to make way for a new structure. It made me sad to see only rubble and fruit frees remaining from the old house and yard; I remember visiting that house frequently as a child to visit my great-grandmother. My great-grandmother and I got along very well, and she would often fix me sandwiches made out of pandesal and condensed milk in the afternoon. This may sound like a weird thing to eat but it was my favorite food at the time, and I looked forward to eating that sandwich every day. I often think about my great-grandmother whenever I see cans of condensed milk at the grocery store, and remember the times I spent on her lap, both of us moving to the rhythm of her rocking chair while I ate my sandwich. I miss my great-grandmother; she passed away when I was 12 years old.

The neighborhood has changed dramatically since my last visit. The most dramatic change is the height of the homes – back then houses were one story or two stories tall at the most. Now it looks like contest for the tallest building: most of the houses are now two or three stories tall, sometimes even four, with many yards being swallowed up and becoming part of the house. Yards have been replaced by rooftop terraces made of concrete or brick that provide little shade during the heat of the day. However, rooftop terraces can make pretty cool party venues at night, and this is where my Grandma’s party was held.

In a way the party was like a mini-family reunion. I got a chance to meet relatives I never knew I had and got reacquainted with ones I haven’t seen in over 19 years. The last time I saw my cousin Patricia she was only a toddler, and my cousin Gladys wasn’t even a year old yet. Now they are educated ladies, Patricia having just graduated recently from college and studying for her NCLEX certification for nursing and Gladys starting her last year of college at University of the East this month. I also met cousins Benjie, Boggs, and Ira for the first time, after years of seeing their pictures at my Grandma’s house. I caught up with my aunts Anna, Malou, Jing, and Lala, who used to babysit me during school holidays and vacations, and who remember me as a scrawny eight year old kid that liked to climb trees and hated afternoon naps.

Despite the rain showers that appeared just after dinner was finished, the party was a success. Everyone, including the DJ hired for the occasion, moved downstairs where my Grandma blew out her birthday cake. I am already looking forward to seeing her on her 80^th birthday party in 2013.

More pictures here.

Tribute to Princess

Dear Princess,

It’s been almost a year since you’ve passed away and not a single day goes by that I don’t think of you in some small way. Had you lived, today would have been your 10^th birthday.

You were my first real pet, the first pet that I’ve been solely responsible for. I tried my best to keep you fed, walked, and entertained. If I fell short during your lifetime, forgive me. I was trying to focus on some things that turned out not to be very important when I could’ve been spending that time with you.

We never knew what caused your sudden illness. You were so patient, even during the difficult last days when we visited vet after vet, who could never diagnose or understand what was wrong with you. You gave me great joy during the nine years that we were together and you passed away way too soon. It’s become clear to me that that’s the way life is – it’s always the good ones that die too young.

I hope that you are having fun in doggie heaven, going for long walks and sleeping in enormous feather beds like you loved to do here on earth. Most of all, I hope you get to eat as much chicken as you want without getting an upset stomach.

I love you, I miss you, and will never forget you.

XOXO

Mom

So Proud

Today my sister passed the NCLEX exam. For those of you who have no clue what that means, it is an entry-level competence exam for licensure as a registered nurse and/or a vocational nurse. My sister Genevieve has been studying for the exam since January of this year, and all that hard work has finally paid off! Congrats to my smart and lovely sister!

Wishing Gunner a Speedy Recovery

Dear Internet,

My cousin's beloved Rottweiler, Gunner, is sick.

He's lost a bit of weight (12 pounds) and has lost his appetite. He also has a runny rose and has become lethargic. He's visiting the vet tomorrow to undergo some tests.

Please channel your positive thoughts to this dog that loves to cuddle and give wet kisses.

Swishing Around

I realized last Thursday that this past weekend was my last here in LA before I took off for Shanghai, China next Saturday night. It's a work trip, which means a business class flight with almost 180-degree reclining seats, offers of champagne before takeoff, great hotel, and generous meal allowance. It also means hard work and long hours, so I guess it all balances out.

Rene and I spent Saturday afternoon visiting the Tadashi Murakami exhibit at the MOCA David Geffen Contemporary our friends Erin and Jeff. I've been wanting to check out this exhibit since last year, when it was mentioned in an issue of Dwell magazine. Murakami popped into my radar a few years ago when he collaborated with Louis Vuitton for a series of limited edition handbags, which are probably worth more now than when they were first sold. For you designer bag fiends out there, these LV bags are featured in the exhibit and you will have a chance to purchase a limited edition Murakami bag for the low, bargain-basement price of $875.

I liked the exhibit - to me, it was like seeing Hello Kitty characters on crack. The little creatures portrayed in his art were sinister versions of Hello Kitty, My Melody, and that penguin character (can't remember his name). I liked the composition of the work and the colors Murakami used throughout, so I'd highly recommend a visit if you are interested in contemporary art infused with Japanese Anime.

After the exhibit we visited a shabu shabu restaurant in Little Tokyo. Shabu shaub (which means "swish-swish" in Japanese) is a dish prepared by submerging a piece of thin meat into a boiling pot of water infused with sea kelp and other vegetables. The meat cooks very quickly and is dipped in sauce before eating. We had a blast:

Four orders of all-you-can-eat beef shabu shabu please

Ingredients for shabu shabu: thinly sliced meat (check), hot pot (check), four orders of Japanese beer (check) (just kidding). Off to the other side are the vegetables and the sauces.

Erin swishing a piece of meat in the hot pot. It cooks amazingly fast!

Rene and Erin

The restaurant gave free champagne to people who were celebrating their birthday (within 10 days of birthday with photo ID). Since Rene's birthday was on January 1, we got a free bottle of Andre champagne.

A picture of my plate after we quit eating so much meat! We averaged about two plates per person, but I think Jeff and I ate the most. I hung in there until the bitter end.

Saying Goodbye to 2007

It seems like 2007 was ushered in just the other day - now it has to move over and allow 2008 into the room. For me, the last year has come by quickly, and just as I was getting used to writing “2007” I now have to remember to date everything with “2008.”

Right now it’s 11:31 pm, and in about 29 minutes all the countdown shows are going to be singing Auld Lang Syne (which literally means “old long since,” or “once upon a time”) at the stroke of midnight. The only lyric I remember is the first line, which goes:

Should old acquaintance be forgot
and never brought to mind

What does that mean anyway? Does it mean to say that we shouldn’t forget old acquaintances? Or does it mean to say that we should forget the old ones and look for new ones?

Today, in an effort NOT to forget my friends, I spent the day with two old friends Nikki and Rachel.

Rene and I had fun catching up with Nikki and playing the game Rock Band. Have you ever played this game? It is a lot of fun! For those who have never played, it’s a game where musical notes are shown on the screen and the players use a drum set to hit the notes on the screen. The player gets to pick the song they want to play, and at the end of the set they are given a grade, like 75%, for accuracy. Here's a picture of Rene rocking out and a screen shot of the game:

Nikki says that the game could also include a guitar (which she owns) and a singer, and we promised to come back for a Rock Band party and play with a full band. How awesome would that be?!

After pretending to be rock stars with Nikki, we visited Rachel at LACMA, where they were showing the Salvador Dali exhibit. Unfortunately, Rachel was working today and only had enough time for a late lunch and a belated gift exchange. She did, however, manage to get us passes to see the Dali exhibit for free (thanks Rachel!). If you haven't stopped by, you should come and see the Dali exhibit before it goes away on January 6.

Tickets for the exhibit assign times to when you can enter, so we had two hours to wander the museum before we could look at the exhibit. We spent the time exploring the museum grounds. There are a few outdoor art installations outside the museum that we explored, including this untitled cinder block work:

A is for Abby

Next to LACMA are the La Brea tar pits. It's amazing that tar has seeped up from the ground in the heart of LA for tens of thousands of years, forming hundreds of sticky pools that trapped animals and plants that happened to enter. The biggest pit has a statue of a family of mammoth elephants with the mommy elephant getting trapped in the tar. The pit is still active and bubbles up so that methane gas is released into the air. It's a pretty cool place to visit if you've never been.

After visiting the tar pits, Rene and I climbed to the second story of the George C. Page museum. Once there, you can view the tar pits and the museum complex, and look down at the Page museum below. The museum didn't have a ceiling but an interesting rooftop structure made of steel instead, giving it an open-air (and futuristic) feel.

We got to see the Dali exhibit at 5 pm (they assign viewing times due to the crowds), and the most famous piece on exhibit was The Persistence of Memory, which shows melting clocks in a severe landscape. I liked this piece because of its subconcious quality; I always feel like this image is something people see in their dreams. Rene and I learned that Dali worked on a lot of films (including a Disney cartoon called Destino, An Andalusian Dog and Spellbound) and incorporated images of bicycles, ants, eyeballs, pianos, and burning giraffes in a lot of his sketches and paintings. It was an interesting exhibit, a definite must-see before it travels to the Dali museum in Florida.

After catching up with friends and exploring LACMA, Rene and I called it a day and stayed in for the rest of the night. We rang in the new year in bed, in between watching movies and surfing the internet. 2007 has been a good year, and we hope 2008 will be even better.

How I Spent My Christmas Vacation, Part 3 of 3

I always spend Christmas Day with my family. My family is quite large; between my parents, brother and sister, aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, and nieces there are 20 of us. My family is quite close.

It’s nice having everyone get together during the holidays because it means catching up with my nearest and dearest and letting them know how much I love having them in my life. However, it does present a dilemma of sorts during Christmas Day when presents are handed out and opened. With so many people giving and receiving gifts, I find that it’s hard to do the following: present the gift, read the card, open the gift and thank the gift-giver for their present. What usually occurs is a frenzy of gifts being opened at the same time, followed by words of gratitude as the wrapping paper and boxes are being cleared. Sometimes I’d like to have everyone take turns opening their gifts – but if this actually happened I think we’d still be opening gifts three hours later. Given everyone’s plans for Christmas Day (some see a movie in the afternoon and some take a nap to unwind later in the day), I can’t think of any other way to resolve this dilemma. Maybe I’ll find the solution next year.

Here are pictures of Christmas spent with my lovely family:

Lots of presents waiting under the tree

Posing for a picture (from L to R): Dad, Vieve, Sabrina, Gigi, and Jalen

Uncle Art and Aunt Bing with Sid

Samantha and Sid

Sabrina almost buried by gifts

My lovely cousins Gigi and Sharon

Rene showing off his Christmas gifts

My sister Vieve, me, Mom, and Dad posing in front of the tree

Sabrina, Samantha, and Mom with me in the background

Got tickets to the gun show? Me and my gun (er, Play-Doh under my sweater)

You can find more pictures here.

How I Spent My Christmas Vacation, Part 2 of 3

Every year Rene and I spend Christmas in two places: Christmas Eve with Rene's family, and Christmas Day with mine. Luckily our families live nearby so there's no travel involved.

Christmas Eve with Rene's family is a low-key affair. We usually have dinner around 8 pm, then hang out/watch movies/play games until midnight, when the gifts are opened. At midnight, everyone's gifts are grouped by person, and we all take turns opening our gifts. Here are pictures of us opening gifts on Christmas Eve:

Rene showing off his present

Rene's first gift was a 10 million candlepower flashlight from his mom. This is Henry modeling it for us in the house...

... and this is Henry showing off the flashlight outside the house. It looks like we're trying to summon Batman on Christmas Eve.

My mother-in-law Juana opening her gift

Henry opening his gift from us, an iPhone cover

Rene and Henry posing with their Las Vegas t-shirts from their dad

Chuy using his Christmas gift: a food and water bowl set

Me wearing my Christmas gifts (loved the scarf and jewelry from my mother-in-law)

How I Spent My Christmas Vacation, Part 1 of 3

Alas, Christmas is over!

I can honestly say that the work leading up to Christmas – the fretting over what to give, the shopping, the wrapping of gifts – was all worth it. I truly enjoyed Christmas this year, and it was nice having lots of family come over to share a meal and open presents. This feeling was unlike Christmas of prior years, when I felt like I was just going through the motions and focusing too much on the gifts I gave – do they like it? Should I have gotten them X instead of Y? Did I give too much or too little? – are the questions that bounce around my head all day. I finally came to the realization yesterday that focusing on the people, rather than the gift-giving part, is the true meaning of Christmas. Even if I lose all my possessions in the world, nothing can take the place of family to comfort and protect you. I hope this Christmas feeling lasts all year.

That being said, since Christmas fell on the last day of the four-day weekend, it was tough getting up this morning to get to work. My sleep pattern was ravaged this weekend by late nights watching season 3 of Lost (my husband and I refuse to watch series TV until it comes out on DVD because we hate waiting a week to find out what happens next – we like the instant gratification box sets provide) and days filled with visiting malls or wrapping gifts. Thankfully, the malls did not turn out to be the nightmares I had envisioned. If you are willing to park far away and come with a relaxed attitude the mall experience is actually a pleasant one. It would have been more pleasant for me had I worn flat shoes to the mall, but wanting to be stylish, I stupidly wore shoes with three-inch heels. My feet are plotting their revenge.

I had so much planned this weekend for this little blog of mine. I was going to overhaul the design by making the post column wider, putting up a new banner, adding a new "About Me" page, and re-arranging the format of the existing information. Unfortunately, NONE of these planned changes were executed. Somehow my time disappears into a black hole every time a four-day weekend comes around.

On Saturday, Rene and I hit the mall and bought presents for everyone left on our list. We shopped from 11 am to 8 pm. If that's not dedication I don't know what is!

On Sunday, I spent part of the day organizing said gifts. I ended up crashing around 2 pm from hunger and made myself a pizza bagel from pasta sauce and leftover mozarella cheese in the fridge (necessity truly is the mother of invention). At night the whole family dressed up to the nines to attend my sister's graduation from the Nursing Program at LAVC. Congrats Vieve! This ceremony was unlike typical commencement exercises and was more like prom, complete with a DJ and dancing at the end of the night. Here are some pictures:

Dad, Vieve, and Mom posing in front of the tree before leaving the house

Chuy getting into the mix

My brother and Rene waiting for the food to come

Ken and Vieve

Rene and I

Check out the decorations - very prom-like, no? They also hired a harp player to play during dinner time to add some class to the evening.

Vieve and her fellow graduates

Vieve receiving her diploma

Posing with fellow graduates in the background

The whole family posing for a picture after the ceremony