Chicago - Revisited
I was looking at a photolog site, and was reminded of my last trip to Chicago. Wow, I can't believe it was a year ago already. That was definitely a fun trip, although technically it was a business trip. Yeah, I did work during the day at a trade show, but even that was fun, meeting customers from all over the country, and getting freebies from other vendors. It was just me and a guy named Randy from Chicago working the booth.

At night I was on my own. It's different when you're traveling by yourself, rather than with a large group of co-workers. I wandered by myself up Michigan Avenue and down side streets. Stores closed a lot earlier than I thought they would, so I was usually back at my hotel room by 8:00 or so.

I spent one night hunting all over for the Billy Goat Tavern, which was recommended by the guy next to me on the plane. What a dive! Cheezborgers and chips. No fries! It was great! Another night I caught a cab and had dinner at a restaurant in "Greek Town." Caught another cab back to what I guess is downtown to find a jazz club recommended by the hotel concierge. I must have walked a mile trying to find it. Turns out he gave me the wrong directions. I finally found it, paid my cover, found a seat, and waited for the music. Slowly it dawned on me that the entire club was one huge lesbian birthday party. Oh well, I'm cool, I thought, I can still hang out and enjoy the music. I was a bit disappointed no one tried to hit on me.

Here in California, we have Japan Town (or Little Tokyo), Little Saigon, Koreatown, Chinatown. In Chicago, I saw Greek Town and Polish Town. We've got a lot of frou-frou restaurants catering to food snobs. They've got a restaurant dedicated to Weber Grills.

Scooter was on the Cubs last year. So he asked me to get him a baseball autographed by Sammy Sosa (I guess he's a Cub?). I searched all over town, and finally found a baseball with the entire team's autographs (rubber stamped). It was ten bucks. Scooter still thinks they're real autographs.

Happy Birthday, Scooter
I'm surprised Scooter didn't fling himself on our bed demanding birthday presents. Instead I found him and Fluffy watching cartoons.

Spent the morning doing tons of laundry and screaming at Fluffy. Scooter and Guido went out to spend the birthday $$ from Grandma on a skateboard.

That afternoon while Fluffy and I made Fimo flowers, Scooter practiced outside. Fluffy is so funny. She ran off to "see how the boy is doing with his skateboarding." This is what I hear from the back door:

"Are you okay?"
"Okay, I'll be right out!"
"buzz buzz...doctor...buzz buzz...hospital...Mom! Scooter needs you!"

He was okay. But now he hates skateboarding.

We had dinner at Shiro in Pasadena. You know you eat out too often when your six-year-old knows the difference between moose, mouse and mousse, and she can spell souffle.

They actually do have pretty sophisticated tastes, which is very nice for the rare occasions when we deviate from the norm of Rascal's, Curry House, Souplantation, and El Burrito Jr. Shiro does NOT cater to kids, so instead of macaroni & cheese, they enjoyed ravioli stuffed with shrimp mousse, smothered with a shiitake/shimeji mushroom cream sauce, and lobster/scallop/seabass springrolls in yuzu sauce.

It was technically a Mother's Day dinner, but the waiter stuck a candle in Scooter's ice cream, and he got his third Happy Birthday for the weekend.

Happy Pre-Birthday Scooter!
Fun weekend!

Friday after work I went to pick up Fluffy from softball practice to take her to basketball practice. As a surprise, the coach arranged for the ice cream truck to swing by the park and he treated the team to ice cream. So Fluffy had ice cream for dinner, and then we went to Adventure Plex to work it off, her on the basketball court and me on the machines. After practice, we had a REAL dinner at Panda Express with a few teammates.

We all had haircuts Saturday morning. It saves us time, and our hair guy gives us a little discount because we all come in at once. And we get the added benefit of playing with Riley the dog.

Guido picked up Scooter to whisk him off to his baseball game. As soon as Fluffy and I were done, we raced over to Ralph's to pick up a special order of birthday cupcakes to surprise Scooter and his team.

Although they lost, it was an especially good game for Scooter, because he hit a home run! The team sang Happy Birthday to him, and we all had cupcakes. I think he was pleasantly surprised by the overall turn of events.

That afternoon, after Fluffy's game, they both went over to play with Andrew, Caitlin, Steffani, Sarah, Connor and Sean.

We ate dinner at Ruby's and Scooter got his second Happy Birthday song.

Ole!
The fourth graders are on a field trip to Olvera Street. Scooter tells me it's supposed to be very crowded since Cinco de Mayo was yesterday. He's been on field trips to places like the Getty and the Long Beach Aquarium. But this is Olvera Street - downtown L.A., crowded, no hablamos ingles, a breeding area for all the infectious diseases that have crossed the border illegally. My only memory (and a quite vivid one) of that place is of a street vendor sauteing onions and hotdogs while hundreds of flies buzz around and land on the food, and the same hand that cooks the food also scratches a nose, runs through the guy's greasy hair, handles the money, swats at flies.

Side note - Mexican-born co-worker says the vendors will try to rip off the little white kids from Torrance.

Soccer Time
Scooter practiced with his friend's club team. I think that pretty much killed his desire to join a club. Those guys were so good, they just blew him away. He says he wasn't intimidated, but I think he was. Whenever something becomes a little more challenging, he gives up. Hate to say this, but the kid is kind of a quitter. He must get that from his parents.

Values
A friend asked Fluffy what her favorite part of her road trip was. I assumed it would be the Jelly Belly factory or riding a mud wagon drawn by horses or panning for gold. But instead Fluffy said the best part was seeing her grandparents. So it was definitely worth driving the extra one or two hundred miles, skipping Sacramento, and spending an extra day on our trip.

I'm not big on tradition or familial duty. But I am glad that we made it to see Gung Gung in the nursing home. Scooter and Fluffy were the first grandkids to visit him, even though we live hundreds of miles away. And even though Guido always complained every Christmas about having to take his parents to Sacramento to put flowers on the graves of relatives buried there, I'm glad that we did. Scooter is the only grandchild who has ever paid his respects.

What goes around comes around.

The Usual Weekend Stuff
Both animals had baseball practice on Friday.

I can't even remember what we did on Saturday. Oh yeah, I rode my bike around the neighborhood, nearly killing myself as I biked UP the hill by the little league field. I thought I was going to pass out. I was weaving back and forth trying to move forward and not fall off. Ha! I didn't have to get off and walk. And I had a nice ride down the hill after that. Wheeee!

That afternoon both animals had baseball games. This season Scooter has had a batting average of zero. Okay, maybe that's a slight exaggeration. But he always jumps back whenever the ball comes near, and then it's a strike. Many sessions at the batting case have not helped. I finally offered him money for this last game: a dollar if you hit the ball, and a dollar for every base you make it to on that hit. I got to the game a little late and he informed me that I owed him money. Seems he and Guido ran into the West High baseball coach at the cages before the game and got a few pointers. I am sooooo glad he finally hit the ball!

As soon as the games were over, we sped over to Laser Storm to play with the Coyotes and Crows. It was a lot of fun, even though we suck big time!

From there Fluffy went off with Caitlin and her family to the Fiesta at OLG. And wouldn't you know it, she "won" a goldfish. (This is how we got our first one: The carnival was packing up and they were trying to get rid of all the goldfish. They offered one to 2-year-old Scooter, who of course wanted it. That night Guido had to run out and buy all the stuff that goes with the FREE goldfish.)

Sunday morning Scooter and I went biking again. It was HOT. That afternoon Fluffy and I had to meet the Navajos at Michaels to get our potlatch stuff. More work.

We took Guido to Coyote Cantina for his birthday dinner. It's his new favorite place. Very nice, comfortable neighborhood place.

In between I did a few loads of laundry. Scooter remarked how I hardly do any housework these days. I should slap his head. He's turning into his father.

I noticed Scooter has a put a little more meat on his bones. He's been eating like a pig. Guido usually puts very strict limits on how much he lets Scooter eat, but recently I've been letting Scooter go for it, as long as he doesn't make himself sick. After all, he's a growing boy! He's still far from fat, but not the scrawny little Scooter we're used to.

My Boyfriend
Here's another one...

In preschool, Scooter fell in love with the new girl. I asked what she looks like, and he said, "Like you!"

Village People
Someone at work mentioned a street in Downey where all the houses on the street are really tiny. I said, "You mean it's like a village of midgets?" That got Belinda going. She thought I was weird to come up with the word "village." Maybe I read too many fantasy novels. I could picture it in my head. A street lined with little Victorian houses, each one home to a dwarf family. Looks like a village to me.

I had a journal. It was filled mostly with nonsense. So I threw it away. Before I had a chance to copy the really good stuff into another journal. So I have to write these things down before I forget them. When I'm old, and my children have left me to entertain myself in my own mind, I'll have these things to remember...

Fluffy calling her preschool teachers Mr. Jeremy "Mr. Germy" and Mr. Frank "Mr. Fink."

Scooter, who pronounced the TR sound with an F instead, and trying to say dump truck. Hee hee hee! (1-1/2 yrs)

Fluffy, when she heard that there were coyotes and bears at camp, exclaimed, "Coyotes?! Bears?! I'm not going!" But when asked, she didn't even know what a coyote was. (5 yrs)

Scooter, asking if those two little granny ladies in the bathroom at Macy's were idiots. (2 yrs)

Fluffy, singing every night while she blow dries her hair. (always)

Scooter, asking if maybe we're already in heaven and don't even know it. (5 yrs)

Fluffy, lying on the bed and saying, "Tickle me!" (6 yrs)

Scooter, saying he can't wait to see poison ivy so he can touch it! (9 yrs)

Fluffy, calling her pediatric rheumatologist Dr. Bernstein "Dr. Bernstein Bears." (4 yrs)

Scooter, telling me he's going to live next door to me when he grows up so he can take me to Souplantation and invite me to BBQs on the weekend. (4 yrs)

Fluffy, saying that the driver in the car next to us wasn't paying attention to driving because he was too busy saying to his girlfriend, "Oooh, you're so cute." (4 yrs)

Scooter, giving me a ring, announcing that we are married, and saying now we have to dance. (3 yrs)

Dr. Scooter
It's funny how little snippets of past events will pop up in my head and refuse to leave. This happened last year:

Scooter, brandishing a pair of pliers and chasing Fluffy's friend Thea through the house, calling to her, "Let me remove that for you!"

No idea what he was planning to remove, or from where. It's like walking into the middle of an ongoing conversation.

Hallelujah!
I really need to be more effective at using my digital camera. I could have caught these places on our road trip:

Jack Ass Hill

Glory Hole

No kidding! These are real places!

California Road Trip 2004 - It Ain't Over Til You Camp in a Tornado
We got back to Torrance on Friday night. So what did we do the next day to cap our Spring Break? Hopped back in the car and went camping just north of Malibu!

We're idiots.

California Road Trip 2004 - Part 2
On Wednesday, we left Sonora and drove west through Lodi, headed for...the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield! We passed a winery on the way, and had to stop to buy some wine. I tasted, while Scooter and Fluffy sniffed the wines. Spent way too much on mediocre wines, but at least I can say I stopped at a winery, which was on my wish list.

The Jelly Belly factory is awesome. If you're ever in the San Francisco area and can afford to kill a few hours, head out to Fairfield, about an hour northeast of the city. The tour took about half an hour. It is definitely set up for the kids' enjoyment. Everyone on tour has to wear a goofy hat. There are big windows at knee level so the kids can look down into the factory. They also have TV monitors above to focus in on certain processes. At the end of tour, you end up in the tasting room (candy store). I tried Tabasco jelly beans. Whoo hot! And you can try every flavor of Bertie Botts' Every Flavor Beans. The spaghetti was very interesting. Of course, you can also BUY any and every flavor you want. We walked out of there with way too much candy!

Traffic heading into the city was pretty good. (NOTE: With three or more people in the car, you can drive in the car pool lane and you don't have to pay a bridge toll.) Of course, once we got across the bay bridge, I couldn't figure out how to get to the grandparents' house (Guido's parents). Since the earthquake, they've torn down a lot of ramps I just took for granted.

Pau Pau (Chinese grandma) fed us dinner, and then put us all to work. She just got new carpet in the house, and everything had been stored downstairs. She had Scooter and Fluffy carry all her encyclopedias (which no one will ever use) and books back upstairs. I washed dishes, checked her vacuum cleaner which wasn't working (just needed to change the bag - duhhh), vacuumed all the fuzzballs off the new carpet, and then re-routed all these extension cords (what is it about old people and extension cords?) she had under her bed.

The next day, we took Pau Pau shopping on Clement Street (the equivalent of Chinatown, just as crowded, dirty and smelly). I think we went to just about every store, and after that she wanted to go to a couple more stores on Geary. Since she doesn't drive, whenever we visit, she always makes us take her to stock up on, basically, everything. Good thing we have a big car!

After lunch, we drove down to Pacifica to visit Gung Gung (Chinese grandpa) at the nursing home he recently moved into. It's kind of far, so Pau Pau doesn't get to visit him everyday. The setting is very nice. It's set kind of against the mountains, but also very close to the ocean. In spite of its location, it isn't cold. As far as facilities go, this was a pretty good one. Everyone greeted Pau Pau by name when she came in, and it was a bright, bustling environment. The nursing homes I've visited before were all so depressing. We spent about an hour and a half and headed back to town.

That night Pau Pau put us to work again. This time I had to call the cable company, crawl behind the TV to check cables, and check more outlets and extension cords.

On Friday morning, Pau Pau filled up our cooler and car with all kinds of Chinese goodies and snacks, and we headed home. I was so tired from staying up too late the night before. We made quite a few stops just to shake the sleepiness from my head. But once the iced tea kicked in, we were on our way. We took 99 again, because it's just so much more enjoyable than 5. We had the CD player blasting and we sang all the way home.

California Road Trip 2004 - Part 1
For years I've wanted to take a road trip. Just throw some clothes in a bag and hop in the car with no definite plans. Well, with two kids and limited time and finances, it does take a little planning, but we finally made it!

It all started with Scooter's "Walk Thru California" program at school. This guy came and held this fun, interactive event with each 4th grade social studies class. They "walked" through California history, starting with Native Americans, and ending more or less with statehood. I was so jazzed after seeing it, I just had to take a trip myself.

So on Easter Sunday, I threw a bunch of clothes, food, drinks, maps (lots of them) and the kids in the car, and we headed NORTH. There isn't much to see between here and Fresno, which is where we stayed the first night. I love driving on the 99 rather than the 5. So much more to see. Peaches, apricots, grapes, pistachios, walnuts, almonds, oranges, plums. Way more options for pit stops, too.

Being that it was Easter Sunday, there wasn't a whole lot to do. We stopped at Trader Joe's just before they closed, and stocked up on bread, meat, cheese, and fruits. Dinner that night was sandwiches while we watched cartoons in the motel room. (Did not know this when I booked the motel, but we were in a bad part of town.)

Monday morning, we filled up the cooler with drinks and ice and headed for Hwy 49, which snakes through Gold Country. Our destination was Sonora. Along the way, we stopped in Coarsegold and Mariposa, went through a couple of museums (walked down a real mining shaft), visited the oldest (and still working) courthouse in the state, and walked around in downtown Mariposa.

The next morning, we headed for Columbia, an old mining town which has been restored and has fully operating stores and restaurants. We rode a mud wagon, which is the economy version of a stage coach, through town, and panned for gold. There was a real blacksmith, and they actually held classes at the schoolhouse. The workers dressed the way they did back in the days of the gold rush.

We were about to head back to Sonora and at the last minute I turned the other way and headed for Angels Camp, another mining town. The countryside is absolutely beautiful, with rolling hills, oak trees, bridges, lakes, grazing horses. Lots of falling down barns, which I love to photograph. Drove up to Mark Twain's cabin, which is really just a chimney now (although it is being restored).

One thing to note - these towns are really small. We walked from one end of Angels Camp to the other in about three minutes.

We were going to go on to Sacramento to see the capital the next day, or continue north on Hwy 49 to see more mining towns, but I figured the kids had enough to fill up their heads. So the next day we drove West toward San Francisco.

Squeamish - Easily Sickened
Geez, I thought this journal was going to be easier to maintain than this. I never seem to have time to just sit down and empty my brain of all the wonderful things going on in our lives. I can't remember a thing now.

So Scooter has all these vocabulary and writing assignments. The latest word is "squeamish." Define, write a sentence, and draw a picture. So he draws a funny picture to accompany this: "My sister got a squeamish look on her face when her cousin vomited on her foot." Got a lot of laughs. But Fluffy wasn't very happy about it.

Finished our science fair projects (or should I say MY projects), barely making it in time. Every year I say we are going to start early and have everything done with no stress. Ha! I stayed up late last formatting their work on the computer, printing everything out. Got up early this morning to finish. We were gluing things together this morning before we left for school. No blue ribbons for me this year. I mean for us. I mean for them.

Nikon Coolpix 5400
Well, we finally got our camera back. Actually, we got a new one! I kinda killed the old one when an entire bottle of saline leaked in my backpack, all over the camera. (That's why there are hardly any pics from Tahoe.) The warranty/repair people, who are not real Nikon people, couldn't fix it, and that turned out to be a good thing, because they sent us a brand new camera in its place! I will check it out this weekend at WTLL opening day and maybe I'll have some new pics to upload! Yeah, yeah...

Snow Summit
Spent the weekend in Big Bear, skiing at Snow Summit. We had to get up sooooo early, so we could leave the house by 5:00. We packed everything the night before, but we still left late. Typical for the Bunnies.

The skiing was okay, but not spectacular. Even though I bought lift tickets on-line and scheduled lessons by phone, it still took almost two hours to pick up our tix at the window and rent skis. The ticket window guy told me to keep the skis overnight and pay for them at the end of second day, and we would be charged less than the daily rate. WRONG! It was the same price. But it did save us the hassle of waiting in line for another two hours on Sunday morning. Oh, and for anyone planning to rent equipment there, the boots SUCK! I finally got high-performance boots (and believe me, I'm not a high-performance skier) just so I could have something that fit. Of course, they cost more.

Snow Summit has only two beginner runs. They have some low intermediate runs at the top of the mountain in the "Family" area, but to get there you have to ski down an intermediate hill, and when you're done, you have to ski down a looooooong run to get to the bottom of the mountain, and it's a bitch! No way Fluffy could have done it. So she was stuck skiing in an area that was way too easy for her, just because it would have been too hard to get to and from the family area. Very poor planning on Snow Summit's part.

Guido, Scooter & I skied the family area, which was fun, once you got past the hard part. There are some fun bumps that will send you flying if you take them fast enough. And because it's hard to get to, it wasn't that crowded. Too bad they closed it early (no reason why, just because).

As much as I love skiing, I don't think we'll do southern California again. Snow Summit & Bear Mountain are supposed to be the best resorts down here. But Bear Mountain had the roughest snowboarders, and Snow Summit didn't have enough easy runs. Oh yeah, we must've seen about 20 or 30 ambulances taking injured people away. I think I saw one person get hurt at Bear Mtn. Don't know why there were so many injuries at Snow Summit.

Now that I've got Scooter & Fluffy hooked on skiing, I'll just have to save up my moolah so we can spend more time in Tahoe next season! Or if I win lotto, we can ski in Utah or Colorado. Or Canada! Yeah...

Sizzler
I sent the following email to Sizzler headquarters. Wonder if they'll care enough to respond.

My family and friends skied all day Saturday and Sunday this past weekend, and dined each night at the Big Bear restaurant. On the second night, as we ordered, I remarked to the order-taker that it was the best Sizzler we had ever been to. How ironic! That second night we had the worst service ever!

We had two booths, back to back. A few of us had the salad bar, and we had to use the same plates for salad, pasta, and dessert, because our waitress wouldn't even look at our tables so we could flag her down for new plates. I wondered out loud if she was busier than the other waitresses, who managed to check on each of their tables, but my husband said he watched her stop and chat at length with customers at other tables, but purposely stayed away from us. She finally came by and left two plates at our table when we were gone at the salad bar, and she never came back.

As far as we could tell, our waitress didn't notice when we got up to leave. Maybe she did notice the penny we left for a tip.

And the worst part of the evening? My little boy asked if the waitress ignored us because we are Asian.

Care enough to comment?

Enjoy Your V.D.
Guido is probably right. Why do I bother writing this. Nobody reads it.

Gone skiing for the long weekend. Happy V. D. to anyone who reads this.