The weekend is never long enough

Every Saturday I hit the ground running. I wake up thinking of things I need to do, then I grab a pen and pad and write it all down, mentally figuring how much time I'll need to get my list done and still make time to enjoy myself a little bit. Usually, I get just enough but never too much of what I need and want. This weekend, though, feels like a failure.

I realized on Thursday that we were out of trash bags. Okay, I'll pick some up from Target after I pick my mother up for lunch. So my son and I drove for 45 minutes to L.A., picked up mom, and headed to her favorite restaurant - Red Lobster. I spent the whole day rushing around, from Von's to Ross, to Marshall's to Red Lobster, to Target, and then 45 minutes driving back home...without trash bags or toilet bowl cleaner. Grr.

Sunday, it's raining so I figured Costco wouldn't be a mad house. WRONG. It was the busiest I've ever seen it. I actually got road rage in the store trying to maneuver my shopping cart through the crowd. I don't know why people treat Costco like it's an outing, bum rushing every sample table for freebies, blocking the aisles, and getting full off appetizers they have no intention of buying. That's not my idea of a good time.

So my car still needs to be washed and cleaned out, the grass on the side of the house still needs to be cut, I still need to purge my drawers and closet, and I'm still not relaxing because I have a measly 3 more hours until bed time and then another work week. I guess I'll try to get some things done during the week. Next weekend has to be better.

We ate San Francisco

I knew that the food would be brilliant in San Francisco. Especially when I learned that there was a restaurant that specializes in Creole Soul Food – Brenda’s. But nobody told me about the Mexican delights of the Mission District or the burger heaven that is The Burger Bar, located above Macy’s in Union Square, so they were great surprises. It’s a good thing the hills are aplenty in that gorgeous city because we needed to walk off a gazillion calories. I know we brought most of them home with us though. No matter, the experience was spectacular and I plan to do it all over again as soon as I’m able. The best part about traveling to me is the different cuisine you get to try and eat with reckless abandon because you are on vacation, which everyone knows is just another way of saying you’re living footloose and fancy free for a spell.

At Brenda’s I got the Hangtown Fry, which is eggs scrambled with oysters, bacon, and andouille sausage, a homemade biscuit, and hash potatoes, and my friend, Jamorra got a fried seafood basket. We both washed it all down with watermelon iced tea. And the jam for our biscuits tasted exactly like peach cobbler. I couldn’t stop smiling, I was in Hog Heaven. Oh, and we ordered a plate of the most delicious crawfish beignets! Oh, they were to die for! They are the reason why I want to make my next trip to New Orleans so that I can eat and try every beignet known to man, as well as learn (or try to learn) how to make them myself for those special occasions and emergency cravings. I want to be one of those people who are coveted for a specific culinary dish, like my mother is for her potato salad and deviled eggs, and my grandmother for her…well, everything. For every family gathering or holiday, I want my relatives and friends to ask me to make my special dish, whatever that turns out to be. Hopefully, it's crawfish beignets. Anyway, not only was all the food we ate absolutely delicious, we got hearty portions that neither of us could finish nor even really put a dent in. Oh, but I gave it a good try at Brenda’s and the only thing they took back to the kitchen was a few potatoes and a half eaten biscuit. In the Mission District, though, it was Woman vs Food and Food came out victorious L I don’t regret the challenge one bit, either – two cheesy chicken enchiladas, a side of chicken and 3 tortillas, and, on the other side of the plate, prawns, green onions and mushrooms, guacamole, with rice underneath.

The trip was perfect in every way. Our two friends who backed out on us at the last minute, decided it wouldn't be fair to stick Jamorra and me with the entire hotel bill, so they’re both pitching in (one has paid and the other has promised to do so tomorrow). But, as luck would have it, two other friends, along with one of their sons, met us on Saturday to hang out. After disembarking the BART, which we took from SFO to Union Square, we proceeded to walk a block down Powell Street in search of our hotel, dragging our luggage to the best of our ability on the graveling roads and sidewalks. I stopped dead in my tracks right in the intersection of Mason and Turk St.because the appearances of the people ahead of me had drastically changed from sane to insane.I feared we were venturing into the Tenderloin district, well-known for its unstable and violent inhabitants. “What are you stopping for!?” Jamorra yelled at me, not knowing about the Tenderloin. “You gotta cross the street, girl!” It’s funny to me now but then I was in fight or flight mode. We crossed the street and I spotted a couple of women who resembled hookers and asked them where the Hotel Nikko was. “Oh, yall balling!?” they asked us. “The Nikko is the shit! That’s where Lil Wayne and The Dodgers stay when they come to town. Aww shit! Yall some ballers, yall doing it big.” Jamorra is way more cordial and friendly than I am because as soon as they pointed out our hotel on the sane side of the block we’d almost passed, I smiled, thanked them and picked up the pace, while she tried to carry on a bit of a conversation trying to keep up with me. In another instance we were told by a DWP worker that the address of the bar/speakeasy we had made reservations at was in a crack alley in the Tenderloin. Jamorra still wanted to go. At night…in a damn cab! I vetoed that idea and we decided to spend the evening inUnion Square instead. I find nothing appealing about potential danger, especially the kind that involves darkness and crack fiends. And since three random people – two cab drivers and a man on the bus – told us to steer clear of the Tenderloin at all costs, especially after dark, I was okay with missing that reservation. The place doesn't allow picture taking inside, anyway. And speaking of picture taking, the pictures below are just a sampling of our trip but worth a thousand words, nonetheless.

My trip approacheth

And I plan to enjoy myself as though my life depends on it. There is nothing I need more right now than to get away and enjoy myself, actually. My last trip was a year and a month ago (Hawaii), so I'm well overdue for a new perspective and some head clearing optimism. Two full days of adventure, dining, and exploration in The City by the Bay. I'm practically packed already. Lots of comfy shoes for all the walking we're planning to do, scarves, gloves, and fashionable coats for that wind chill. Oh, and a hat for our cruise under the bridge and through the bay. I'm in a good place right now and I'd really, really like to stay here. At least through the weekend.

As usual, I'll let you know how it goes ;)

Oh yeah! And tomorrow's my birthday! How great is THAT!?? :)

Adventures in Parenthood

I went off and forgot my child today. Let me back up a bit. So yesterday I came home from work and the house was dark. I called out my boys name and he didn’t call back, so I immediately whipped out my cell phone and started dialing his number. It went to voicemail so panic began to rain down on me. I called him again and this time he picked up. “Hi Mom,” he said all chipper and nonchalant “I’m just getting out of track practice.”

“Huh?” I said, because I didn’t even know that school had resumed from winter break L On Monday’s, school starts after 9am (bank time or whatever, for the teachers) so he gets himself there in the morning without my help. Thankfully, he remembered that school had resumed and got himself up yesterday, like normal, and off to school like a responsible kid. Well, today, Tuesday, I got up, dragged myself around the house until I was dressed and ready to leave, and then I hopped in my car and left for work, not giving it a second thought. Somewhere around 8am, in the midst of me placing a pancake order with the cafeteria lady at my job, my cell phone started to ring. I noticed that it was coming from my home number. “Mom, where are you!?!?!” my son said, sounding like he’d just woken up. “You forgot to take me to school!”

I truly must be getting old because I had forgotten just that quick that school was back in session. No, wait, I can’t even blame this on old age because back when he was in third grade I mixed up the week of spring break and he ended up missing a whole week of school, in addition to the week of break, behind my absentmindedness. I remember getting a clue when we were in Best Buy one day during the supposed break and ran into one of his classmates who asked him where he’d been all week. I thought the little girl was either crazy or really asking him what he’d done during his break. Then, the following week, we got up, got dressed and drove to the school only to discover that it was completely locked up and (after driving to one of his friends’ houses and knocking on their door at 7am) that nobody would be there for a week because it was, in fact, spring break. My son was so happy when he got back into the car that he couldn't contain his smile. I, on the other hand, was mortified.

I hate you, Monday.

This morning my alarm clock decided to play games with me and didn’t go off. I rolled over thinking it was 5am-ish and time to make my bathroom run then climb back into bed for a quick cat nap, only to discover that it was actually 6:50am, instead! I leapt out of bed and hauled ass, brushed my teeth while making my bed, couldn’t find my gray shell to go with my gray cardigan so I had to figure out something else to wear, and everything else needed ironing. Ugh. My intention was to arrive to work on time this morning, looking well put together and smiling, but that didn’t happen. I barely made it in, 10 minutes behind schedule, and looking like I threw something on. It’s going to take me a while to thaw out and clear this fog out of my head. Meanwhile, I have two tons of stuff to do and people staring in my face looking for me to be chipper. I don’t drink coffee so they’re going to have to wait for nature to take its course. I just want to go home and snuggle up with my pillow until noon. Monday’s should be eased into. I believe it’s unhealthy to shock the cardiovascular system this way. Someone needs to change the law so that we begin our Monday work days at 1pm and end them at 4. Bah.

A different animal

I always say that I don’t get out enough and it’s true. Last night proved it to me. I’ve never been anywhere where my race didn’t matter. Well, among those of my own race, it’s not a major issue. I feel as though I’m part of the group. But everywhere else I’ve been where the majority of people are of another race, I’ve stood out and felt the divide, regardless of any politically correct intentions. Monrovia is a different town. If you blink while driving down the 210 freeway you will literally miss it, but its there, a little strip of a city spanning up a portion of the San Gabriel Mountain’s in one direction, and well before you reach the 10 freeway in the other. It’s nestled tightly in between Pasadena and Duarte, and the culture there is like no place I’ve ever been.

A friend of mines is from Monrovia, and last night after dinner she took me to a bar she used to frequent as a teenager. Although a bit on the shabby side (think Santa Fe deco with armadillos), it wasn’t any sort of hole in the wall due to its sheer size. From the outside it simply looked like a four square building. But I guess the trees kept it secret. Once we were inside, there was not only a large bar like the one on the show Cheers, there was an amply sized dance floor on the left where an incredibly short Asian man was disco dancing his ass off, and another room on the right that took us to a hallway where we climbed a small staircase that led us to the hotel portion of this “bar” that clearly had a large upstairs will rooms for rent. Adjacent to the hotel portion was another room with an entirely separate bar and a karaoke crowd singing badly off-key. It truly was painful to listen to so we went outside to the smoking patio that had a few concrete picnic tables, two gazebos in each corner, and about 5 really old, really big avocado trees. Yes, the place was humongous. My friend told me that back in the day it was the hangout for a mostly black crowd, but after a few too many fights it ceased being the black hangout and became the mostly white hangout. As soon as we walked in she saw a girl she knew; a homely black girl singing karaoke while her white husband cheered obnoxiously from a table situated directly in front of the stage. Only, wait, on second glance my friend realized that the man cheering wasn’t “Alicia’s” older white husband, at all. He was her older white boyfriend. Her husband must be at home. After her song she stepped off the wooden stage and planted her butt right in her older white boyfriends’ lap and took a swig of his beer. Then a 20 something white girl with glasses and a husky voice stepped on stage to sing a Maroon 5 number. That’s when we headed outside to the smoking patio to escape the pain and ran into a few of her high school classmates, all guys, all but one of them was white. The one that wasn’t white, Jessie, I guessed was El Salvadorian based on his phenotypic features (hair, mouth, skin tone), he looked just like the five unrelated El Salvadorian’s that I know personally J and at the end of the night I got confirmation that my assessment was right. Every single one of them hugged us tightly and looked at me like I was potential prey, like they were all wondering “who’s the new piece of meat?!” It’s the look I get when I’m around men of my own race who find me attractive. I have never seen that look in the eyes of men of another race en mass and directed at me like I did last night, and it was quite unfamiliar. Then, to add to this new and unusual experience, none of them behaved or sounded like any white or Latin I’d ever encountered in real life or on T.V., lol. Listening to Jessie speak, I was absolutely mesmerized and I think it made me look very much like a weirdo. Hahaha. He reminded me so much of two black guys that I know. Even down to his mannerisms. Everything about him was interesting. My friend told me that he used to be the finest guy in town and every girl wanted to either friend him or bed him. And he’d bedded plenty without discrimination. He said he was passing out dick like candy, and waved his groin from side to side to illustrate it for us. All three of us laughed. But those days of being the most popular guy in town were far behind him. These days he sits on his grandmothers’ porch with his son and makes note of all the faces passing by that he doesn’t know. He’d just returned to Monrovia recently from a world wind tour of the “Big Pond”, selling drugs, being drunk by 10am, marrying a model, and ultimately realizing that he didn’t fit in, that he felt more comfortable in the tight-knit community where he grew up as a big fish. He’s changed his lifestyle and is happy to be home now, a better and more ambitious father to his 12 year old son. I can see traces of his former attractiveness, what’s left that the alcohol didn’t erase, so these stories are believable.

Throughout the evening, a white guy named Billy kept stopping by us. He was making his rounds as if he was the host of the bar and wanted to make sure everyone was having a good time. He bought us drinks and cracked jokes; he’s a very warm spirited person and he holds his beer with his amputated arm. It’s amazing the dexterity he has with it. 25% of a full arm and he’s waving it around with confidence, using what looks like two fingers on the end of it to grip his beer to his chest, and speaking with it. You know how some people speak with their hands and make grand gestures with their arms? That’s Billy. He sounds like Ty Pennington, the host of the show Extreme Home Makeover, but stands roughly 5 feet 8 inches high and has a beer gut that makes him look 3 months pregnant. His story is that he got his heart broken by his longtime sweetheart, ShaKeisha, moved to Havasu and developed an ugly drug habit. Then one day he kicked the habit, came home to Monrovia, got his HVAC license, bought a house and started a heating and air conditioning business. Every guy in there last night, ranging in age from roughly 22 to 38, either owned a home, a business, or both. But just by looking at them, you could never tell. All night, people were coming up to us and hugging us both, briefly catching up with my girlfriend, sharing pictures of kids on their cellphones.

Then there was the very attractive Latino bartender who is legendarily (is that a word?) faithful to his girlfriend. At first he seems a bit shy, only briefly making eye contact and moving very fast to mix drinks and serve them up. My friend says that she used to think he was gay because no matter how pretty the girl's were that hit on him, he ignored them all and always went on about his business of bar tending. Then Billy told us how his rumored aloofness had attracted some very attractive ladies to the bar one night, who's intent was strictly to bed him and nothing else. They propositioned him with this request, assuring him that no strings need be attached, and he very famously smiled and turned them down. No numbers were exchanged in secret, nothing, which made him even more attractive and a challenge to others. What also intrigued me about him was that he could hear everything! No matter that the karaoke singers were screaming into the mic, the music itself was loud, and the patrons standing around the bar were all yelling at one another, he still heard me mention to my friend that I wanted a cherry in my drink. He wasn't even near me or looking at me when I said it to her. And it's not typical to put a cherry in a cup of water.

Back outside on the patio, I was fishing around in my drink for the Maraschino cherry that had sunk to the bottom of the cup, because I wanted to eat it and toss the drink. When asked what I was doing I said “I’m trying to get my cherry out,” and immediately knew how that sounded. Immediately, a big burly, 6 foot-forever white guy with a full, dark beard chimed in “Oh, I can get that cherry out for you, baby…easily.” I “haha’d” nervously and turned my attention back to my friend and Jessie and Billy. Just 20 minutes later he came back to our circle to hit on my friend, saying he’d heard she was a church girl. “I’m a church boy!” he told her, proving that they had something in common. But once she started questioning him on hymn's and such, he began to ease away, plan foiled, mission abort. It was really a sight to see.

Monrovia is a town where race doesn’t particularly matter. Well I’m sure it matters to some extent, as it does just about everywhere else in the world, but it’s seemingly not as important an issue there. Regular, everyday blacks date, marry, and have affairs with regular everyday whites, and it’s the norm. And it happens a LOT. The community is completely meshed. There is no obvious separation as there is just a half hour drive away to Hollywood, where living is the polar opposite, old traditions are slow to die, and communities are clearly separate. And it’s not even a 10 minute drive away from where I live in Pasadena and have never experienced or witnessed anything remotely close to this racial harmony, further illustrating my point that I need to get out more. I just have to get better at observing people without looking like a weird deer caught in headlights, lol. But don't get me wrong, I've seen interracial couples but they usually fit a stereotype, are few and far between, and the surrounding community doesn't fully embrace them. In Monrovia, nobody stares at mixed couples if they notice them at all, and dark skin is universally attractive. I felt like an Anthropologist last night and I liked it.

This is not a new years resolution

Okay, okay, this year I'm getting serious, Jack. No more excuses, I'm making my health a priority beginning tomorrow. I will find the time to run, walk, jog, aerobicize, weight lift, and get physically fit. I've got the Eye of the Tiger - GRRrrrowr! And this is not a new year's resolution, I assure you. It's just a coincidence that I'm deciding to do this so early in the year :). For real! If you've been paying any attention, you'll recall that I've been worried about my heart health for well over a year now. I tried being vegan, I tried the gym, I tried cutting back on trans fats in order to lower my cholesterol and I tried discussing my cholesterol-lowering alternatives with a short little quack pot of an Asian man who calls himself a doctor. Four flaming failures were the results. This time, I'm moving my health from the back burner to the forefront and giving it adequate attention.

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can RUN and transform my body into a well-oiled, healthy, highly functioning machine. At least I'm amped right now to do so. Let's hope I can keep up the momentum. Black Girls Run will help motivate me (see blog roll on the right).

Last week, a friend and I went for a brisk walk around the Rosebowl and when we were almost finished, I glanced to my left (the golf course was on my immediate right, the street was on my left and above that was a dirt hill with vegetation) I saw a coyote! Yes, not a dog, a coyote. I knew precisely what he was because my son used to be a huge fan of coyotes and I'd seen them hanging around Griffith Park in the early morning. Clearly, this wild dog was searching for food. He'd come all the way down the San Gabriel mountains, past more than a dozen neighborhood's, around Brookside Golf Course, and finally to that little hill across the street from where we were walking. I was only a little bit unnerved. The plan was to divert attention away from me and onto the folks ahead of us, if necessary. Next time I go, I'll be armed with pepper spray and a big stick.

Merry New Year!

I'm so antsy today. Carpe diem, and all that good stuff. My son returned home this morning and I'm toying with the idea of taking us out to eat to commemorate the new year (Jamaican or Japanese? Or home cooked??) . However, I am still broke. It's going to take me a while to get used to not spending. In fact, I didn't leave the house at all yesterday and only went out for a quick spell on Thursday (I had to buy my bottle of New Years cider and run a few errands) just so that I wouldn't be tempted to spend any more money. I found myself in Crate and Barrel about to make an impulse buy, but thankfully, the meter had run out on my parking space and I didn't want to get a parking ticket. So I put my overpriced, unnecessary items back and power walked to my car to go home. Actually, I did leave the house once yesterday - I put on my rain boots and yellow rubber gloves to go do some backyard work. But after about 15 minutes I decided to stop and wait for my son's return, because I was afraid of what animals could be hiding underneath all those leaves. Yes, I am still a pansy. I worked on the front yard a little, instead... in a pair of plaid rubber rainboots, black stretch pants, yellow rubber gloves, and an over-sized black t-shirt :). Yes, a few of the parade attendees walking down my street looked at me like I was crazy, but who are they to judge? They camped out overnight on my street in 30 degree weather waiting for a freaking parade to pass by.

Anyway, the kitchen cabinets are now painted red and they look fantastic. I cleaned my house from top to bottom, shredded a bunch of old papers, watched a couple of movies and a lot of the DIY network, and realized that I didn't feel lonely at all. I was sure that I'd miss my son terribly and be afraid to sleep at night, but I wasn't. I slept like a baby all 4 nights. I brought in the new year to the raucous sounds of campers on my block and the movie "Ramona and Beezus" (I was a fan as a kid so I had to check it out). Then, about 20 minutes into the start of the new year, I went to sleep...feeling safe and sound in my warm, cozy, clean home.

Now I'm antsy and want to seize the day. I might splurge a little on some jerk chicken or some sushi rolls.