SON MIS LOCURAS

Full moon over Lake Michigan and Navy Pier as seen from the Hancock Tower Observatory.

This photo is completely silly, but how often does your food smile at you?

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a churrascaria fan.  The Brazilian-themed all-you-can-eat restaurants are a big favorite of mine.  Visits to such restaurants in D.C., San Francisco, and New York have helped us hone our sense of the best. 

Until tonight, that was Fogo de Chao in Los Angeles.  Chicago’s Texas de Brazil, although part of a chain (like Fogo), may have unseated Fogo as the best churrascaria.  I say “may have” because we’ve only been there once, and thus can’t say much about the consistency of service or dining experience, but the meat is excellent, the salad bar (which we don’t ever really bother with, had chimichurri and cheeses to think twice about) is good, and the service is impeccable (thanks to Eric who knew a lot about Malbecs).  Other things to note:

• They have a wine rack that’s two stories high and encased in glass.  That lets you watch the wine-getter, a woman who’s suspended in a harness and who does elevated backflips, twirls, and generally dances around in mid-air, as she awaits the order to retrieve your wine;
• The ambiance is diverse.  In addition to a packed restaurant of locals, we saw an Amish family enjoying the salad bar and a guy wearing a t-shirt that read “Got GPS?” dining with his ate-like-a-vegetarian partner;
• While the picanha and flank steak disappoint at other places, they were perfectly done here.  They tasted as good as I always hoped they did at the other places.

Sorry for the lack of photos, but tonight was all about the dinner.  I had no interest in picture-taking.

I’m not one of those people who has plans while on vacation.  I don’t buy tour books and then develop a detailed schedule ensuring that I see everything in the books.  My vacation plans get developed more like this:

Remember bakery I saw on the Food Channel, Google it, then go there for breakfast.
 

Decide to take a long walk back to the city, happen to walk by Wrigley Field, then take a tour of the ballpark.

Overhear the bartender near Wrigley Field talking about how the Cubs are out of town today, but that the White Sox are home, get on the train, go to White Sox game.

The first weekend of my vacation had me visiting my college roommate in Normal, Illinois.  A few fun facts and a few observations:

• In Normal, a wrong turn leaves you smack dab in the middle of a corn field (and dealing with “Children of the Corn,” “Signs,” and “Field of Dreams” flashbacks);
• The Beer Nuts factory is not open on Saturdays;
• Illinois State University used to be a teachers’ college, with The Fighting Teachers as its mascot.  I want a retro t-shirt with that on it; and
• When you wake up really late on a Sunday morning, it is completely appropriate for a not even three-year-old to mock you with a bright “Good Morning.”  You just have to laugh when she looks like this.

A trip to Chicago is on the horizon.  I can’t wait. 

Sure, August isn’t exactly the best weather time to be there, but hey, I’m looking forward to watching the Olympics in different sports bars and just wandering the town.  As long as there’s no freak summer storm, I think we’ll be fine. 

Oh, and suggestions for fun stuff to do are always appreciated.

I received a random e-mail today from a student I worked with earlier this year.  It was really nice. 

I just wanted to let you know i am very thankful for “taking us under your wing” and giving us that great advice, thanks for answering aaaalllll of my questions and always having that fun spirited personality!! when we were at the meeting the first day i felt like jack must have felt (this is my titanic example don’t laugh) when he has that dinner with rose and this lady (I totally forget her name lends him a suit and tells him he can borrow her son’s and takes him under her wing and gives him all of that great advice) . . . well hopefully you remember . . . .  

Awww. 

While I’ve never quite seen the role of me played by Kathy Bates, I’m sure glad the student chose to think of me as Kathy Bates in the ”Titanic” role as opposed to her in the ”Misery” role.

This weekend’s getaway was to Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Things I learned while there:

• Coyote Cafe’s much touted mojitos are not Santa Fe’s finest–that distinction belongs to those at the bar at the Inn of the Anasazi;
• It is best to run around the streets where the fancy art galleries are after 6 p.m.  When everyone’s gone, it’s easier to play with the art; and
• Hand-crafted Pez dispensers are kinda cool and a bit creepy.

The full album of photos here.

I’m not a huge Justin Timberlake fan, but the man did an excellent job hosting the ESPYs tonight.  His song and dance routine running through the year in sports was laugh out loud good. 

I won’t ruin the show for those watching Sunday by revealing winners here.  Instead, I’ll leave you with the question that kept me amused all night–why did so many non-award recipients in attendance dress to the nines?  It’s a sports-themed event!!  We were two of four people in the whole theater who got into the spirit and wore sports team jerseys. 

Underdressed?  Perhaps.  But, definitely more in the spirit than the women in super short cocktail dresses or the guys who thought that gold satin suits were a good idea.

–Tickets to next week’s ESPY awards.  Oh yeah!

“It’s too ghetto.”

That was the quote from one young woman talking about a public pool that had been in the news this week.

Except that it’s not a new sentiment.  Years ago, when I was a young denizen of L.A.’s public pools, I often heard that feeling expressed.  In my circles, it always engendered the “chusma” debate. 

“Solamente nada allí la chusma,” elders would say as we tried to get friends to go “swimming” with us at Little Bear Park in Bell or Salt Lake Park in Huntington Park or the high school pool in Bell or Norwalk Park in Norwalk.  In other words, they were saying, “my kids can’t swim there, only the really poor and ‘ghetto’ swim there.”

For over three decades, that sentiment has irked me.

So maybe it wasn’t always swimming.  But when you’re a little kid, you call floating in the wading pool’s six inches of water, “swimming.” 

Back then, we didn’t mind the shouts of “Everyone out of the water!!!” when the pool attendant discovered the one kid with chicken pox who decided to come to the pool.  I don’t even think I realized the ridiculousness of the situation until over a decade later.   Much later, when I was 18 and caught that ailment.

We didn’t even really mind having to get out of the pool 10 minutes after we’d gotten in simply to kick the chlorine around the pool.  Human mixers—that’s what we were.

We also didn’t register the danger flagged by the no diving sign on the gate around the two-foot-deep wading pool until years later when we were in high school sitting next to the one kid who did it and cracked his head open.  He was on the Academic Decathlon team.

The neighborhood pool is also where we took swimming lessons.  Nevermind that my first time off the high dive, Mrs. Kamiyama said she’d hold me over the side by my hands until I was ready to go in.  Shortly after I was hanging there she said, “You’re too fat, sorry” and she let go.  Belly-flopping off the high dive made me much more unwilling to go back to the pool than did the “chusma.”  I didn’t go back to that pool until almost ten years later when I was forced to take swimming lessons as part of P.E.  The full expunging of my childhood trauma came during those high school years when my friend, Linda, threw the innards of whatever we’d dissected in first period biology into the pool before second period swim class.

In the years between the belly-flopping incident and high school, I eagerly awaited summer swimming at the Norwalk pool.   My mom, sister, and I would take a 40-minute bus ride, walk half an hour to my aunt’s house, and then pick up cousins Reggie and Gloria and my Tía Rosalba.  After another half hour-long walk, we’d arrive at the biggest pool I’d ever seen.  At 9 a.m., we had free swim.  The kids went into the pool while my aunt and mother sat in the bleachers. 

Sometimes we’d swim for hours.  Other times, it was just a half hour or so.  I never realized why our swimtime sometimes got cut short.  I assumed my mom and aunt had had enough of the sun as we sat cooly in the pool.  The Times’ story makes me wonder if maybe my mom and aunt sensed something amiss in the pool and decided it was safer if we just sat dripping in the park just beyond the pool’s gates. 

And then I think, “No, didn’t a photographer just get beaten up in Malibu last week?”  There the story didn’t cast the aggressors as “ruffians” or the beach as getting “too ghetto.”  Those folks were just surfers protecting their beach, as well as Matthew McConaughey’s privacy. 

I’d like to think that the public pool is still a place where kids can enjoy the sheer glee of playing in the water and calling it “swimming,” even if they don’t really learn how to do that until much later in their lives.  I also hope that knuckleheads aren’t making it a different place, one where parents should legitimately be scared to send their kids. 

Most of all though, I hope that parents don’t think themselves so much better than the places where they live that they’d rather deny their kids some summer amusement just to make themselves feel less chusma.

Then again, maybe I’m just remembering the world the way it was when I still believed they put red dye in the public pool.  

Things that made me happy today:

• Wearing my PF Flyers;
• Maintaining my 34 pound weigh loss;
• Being able to do 100 push ups and 80 pull ups; and
• Estelle’s “American Boy.”

Things that scared me today:

• Johnny Depp in the Willie Wonka movie, again; and
• How easily I walked out of the restaurant with the plastic check tray in hand.

I always throw my heels onto the floor when I get tired of them.  Guess this just shows how much more some people care about their shoes.

or not. It’s been a hot one this weekend. Morning, noon, and night have been the same (or at least that’s what the car’s thermometer says). Ok, maybe not exactly the same, but cooling off only means going from over 100 to just above 90 degrees.

When the woman who’s been running next to you on the treadmill every morning for over five months leans over and asks “Where’s the ON button?”

Pobrecita.

The Lakers loss as viewed from outside the window of the Pasadena yogurt shop with all the tvs.

The good ticket karma continues. 

• The Dodgers won;
• I sat five or so rows behind Steve Garvey (the reason why my favorite number is 6); and
• The people watching was fabulous.

The photoset is at flickr.  Preview below.

If you have ever wondered what a marathon session of Food Network grilling shows gets you, evidence of what five hours got me is below. 

Chimichurri grilled skirt steak sandwich with grilled onions

Grilled pineapple with cinnamon sugar crust with grilled banana and vanilla ice cream

Yesterday was one of those days. I don’t have them often, but when they happen, I just shake my head and wonder, “How did I find my way here?”

There I was, sitting at lunch, trying to decide if I’d have a piece of baked eel sushi as a follow up to my spicy tuna roll when my partner’s cellphone rang. She took the call and, before we knew it, our evening was planned. We were going to help a friend out and be messengers for the night. Our task, deliver a check to a fancy dinner. That’s all we knew. “Call such and such number and things will be set up,” said the voice on the other end of the line.

Always ones up for an adventure, we made the call to such and such number and found out we’d be having dinner with Al Gore. It’s always fun to see Al speak, so we figured we’d have some stuffed mushrooms, chicken satay, and a drink as we enjoyed our evening out with 200 other people. People watching is never a problem for these two messengers.

While the evening out went against our general rule against going to the westside, we plodded along Wilshire to our destination for the evening. Turns out, the dinner with Al Gore wasn’t for 200, it was a backyard dinner party for about 80. And, Arianna Huffington was there too! I think it’s because I’m a blogger, but seeing her was almost better than seeing Al Gore. In this regard, I share a friend’s secret crush on Arianna. “She’s wicked smart and a confident independent thinker who just says what she thinks,” my friend says.

While I didn’t actually get to talk to her (or Al for that matter) or get any pictures (I kept the camera in the back pocket of my suit pants—no crazy photog in me), I did manage to grab some evidence of my evening with Al and Arianna. Here’s a picture of the purloined placecard settings. Yep, that’s mine too. I tell you, this messenger even had her own place at the table.

But wait, the luck didn’t stop there for me yesterday. As I was driving home, before dinner with Al and Arianna, I received another phone call. This one equally unexpected.

It was from a client. A client I rarely speak to, but who, for whatever circumstance, has me on his list of people to call when he has tickets. I’ve never been invited to use his tickets before, but because Wednesday seems to have been “see if Laura is available at the last minute day” I received an invitation.

Want to guess the event?

Lakers game against the San Antonio Spurs. Floor seats, under the basket.

I hope that lottery ticket pays off too. This may be my lucky week (even if it has me feeling a little like Forrest Gump—you know, working my way into places where I’m really not supposed to be).

I have a pretty good memory.  I mean, I remember almost every class schedule and teacher I had from kindergarten through the 12th grade.  But certain memories elude me.  Among them, a memory of my first date. 

This realization dawned upon me recently as I heard the story of one of our niece’s first dates.

To start, her story goes, she didn’t know it was a date.  As many a girl does, our niece thought she was just ”hanging out” with a group of friends who wanted to go to a movie on a Friday night.  One boy was paying special attention to her, but in her mind, that didn’t mean she was on a date.  Nevertheless, she accepted the attention and was soon hanging out mostly with him as the group made its way to Target, the parental pick up spot of choice.

While our niece and her young suitor wandered around the store, she reached into a bin of m&ms and snagged her finger on something.  Whatever it was, it cut her.

Her suitor, wishing to be a gentleman, expressed concern, but also told her he didn’t like blood.  She tried to shield her finger from him, but when the depth of her wound finally freaked her out a little, she showed it to him. 

The boy fell.

Hard.

Onto his face. 

Apparently, he really did have a violent reaction to the sight of blood. 

His friends tried to help him.  His parents arrived.  Other parents arrived.  He was finally taken to the  hospital.

Our niece was brought home.

In the next few days she found out he’d needed 14 stitches to close up his chin and the area around his lips. 

Although I feel bad for the boy, I am glad my niece has a memorable first date story to tell.  And, because our family is full of storytellers, and others who appreciate stories, I’m glad someone will remember even if she doesn’t.

I’m amused by the things you learn when you step back from things you focus on too much.  For example, although I try to be a diligent blogger and update the blog every few days (because I don’t want to lose any of your attention), my highest traffic-volume days have been every single day over the past two weeks–when I haven’t really updated the site.  The reason–the purple trees are blooming and I wrote about it last year.  For those of you who didn’t find me by googling “purple trees” or “purple blooms” or “purple flowers” or “pasadena purple blossoms.”  Here’s what all the fuss is about.

I’ve never been much of a photographer.  My shots are almost always crooked, out of focus, or just plain bad.  I mean, on family trips, taking pictures of exactly the same thing, from exactly the same spot, with exactly the same camera, my sister’s pictures always came out better than mine.  I guess that just explains why I got the sports gene.

Digital cameras have, thankfully, freed me from some of this photographic deficiency.  My current camera’s small size allows me to take it everywhere and just play.  Here’s a shot I liked from a recent walk.  Can you tell what it is?

I really hate when saying it in English completely changes the meaning.

I was arguing with a friend today about how old children are when they start to remember experiences they’ve had.  I argued for six being the right age, based on my own early memories.

“I remember getting my first bed when I was about six.  I was so excited,” I recalled with a smile.  “That lasted all of about one evening, because then my mother told me I had to start making my own bed.”

This weekend I received the announcement for my 20-year high school reunion.  I’m a pretty faithful reunion-goer, and it’s a local event (Queen Mary), so I quickly made my decision to attend.  Then, because I know it’s always best to have a small group of people to share a reunion with, I sent out an e-mail asking who was in for our night of remembrance.

Reunion angst is a funny thing.  The responses I received described the need to lose 40 pounds before September, the worry of not having anyone to talk to, and a fear of returning to teenage routines, “Can you imagine the story, Woman Aproaches Friends at Reunion, Asks ‘Why Don’t You Like Me?’” one friend wrote.

High school wasn’t the high point of my existence, but I also didn’t hate it.  I’m hoping people show up, because I do treasure the shared experiences I had with these people who shared space and time with me for four years in the late 80s (and my hair looks soooo much better now). 

With parents and their funeral plots?  I have actually had to say, “No mom, I will not take a short detour so we can visit where you’ll be buried.”

This little milkman freaks me out every time I see him.  Where’s his other eye?  The “he’s winking thing” just doesn’t work for me.

Cindylu over at Lotería Chicana posted recently on her relationship to the nopal. I don’t have a nopal story of my own, but I have a favorite nopal. It takes up all of a hillside on the road home, near Rose Hills.  Every time I drive by I am reminded of what it is to be big, bad, and prickly.

For over thirty years, my mother hasn’t been able to watch CBS.  This means she’s missed the likes of “Murder She Wrote,” most of “Dallas,” and most recently “CSI.”  The main reason for this void in her life is that the wood-console, big box, Zenith, 26-inch, that she got on layaway at Kmart, didn’t have a television antenna with a good enough signal to allow her to watch those shows without developing a headache from the poor picture quality.  That and the cable company in her neighborhood won’t bring cable into her apartment complex without charging more than the television itself is worth.

In any event, the switchover from analog to digital transmission of television signals scared her.  She wasn’t sure if that meant no more television and she didn’t want to spend the money to get a new one.  No more television meant even more lonely afternoons.  At least before, “la O-pe-rah” was on a channel she could watch.

Because my mom is daring when she’s with me, while out running errands this weekend, I convinced her to use her coupons for a digital converter box.  She was hesitant, “pero si no trabaja, que hago” she asked.  The fear of the future was overwhelming and it didn’t matter that I’d promised to buy her a new tv if the old one stopped working.

We hooked the converter up midday on Sunday.  All told, it took about half an hour for all the signals to take hold.

The first thing my mother watched on CBS was Lorena Ochoa win this weekend’s LPGA golf tournament.  The blue skies hanging over the golf course were bluer than anything my mom had ever seen on this television.

She marveled at the brightness of the colors, the greenness of the greens, the fluffiness of the clouds, and giggled nervously at the prospect of another decade with her big box console. “Parece nueva,” she laughed as she watched her first ever golf tournament. Although golf isn’t her game, and she’s never watched a tournament, it was the perfect thing to watch through a new tv.

The television wasn’t the only thing that looked and felt new.

“Te imaginas, treinta años sin el canal dos, me siento yo también como nueva.”