Afghanistan exhibit at the Asian Art Museum

This is a wonderful show. Not only is the artwork pretty amazing, but the story behind the pieces is even more remarkable. The items on display were discovered at various times in the 20th century. They were all thought lost in the late 70s due to all of the warfare and strife in the country. The treasures shown in this show were discovered in 2003 to have been hidden in bank vaults! The pieces show various influences from all of the cultures that have traveled, traded and warred with Afghanistan.

Cheng Family Christmas

The family holiday meal is a massive feast held annually at Da Uncle's home. As in most years, extended family are brought along to add a little variety to the festivities. The food tends to be an amazingly eclectic combination of dishes. This year included roast beef, ham, yams, mashed potatoes, cellophane noodles and plain noodles, a shrimp and mushroom dish, quiche, carrots, and some other things I skipped over. Dessert included chocolate birthday cake (we have a lot of December birthdays in the family) and Grace's famous flan. The collection of small children keeps growing (Kai is the newbie this year), and some of the children are not so small anymore! After most of the families with kids went home, Hunter brought out his cello to play a few selections for the hardy few remaining. I wrapped up the evening with a personal slideshow of 3 Uncle and Aunt's photos from their Egypt trip, which were amazing.

Academy of Science

I went to visit this new museum with my sister and her kids. Apparently about a gajillion other families in the area had the exact same idea. The place was completely packed. The building is as impressive as all the reviews say they are. However, I'm going to hazard a guess that the architectural critics were given a special tour. They should try visiting the place with a real holiday crowd. The design is terrible for finding your way around with young kids and strollers. The building is also very loud. Most of the materials are hard-glass, stone, concrete. Throw a pack of children in there and it's pretty much impossible to hear anything. Line ups for the rainforest are long and end up cutting across the main passage from the front to the back. There are two separate elevators to get to the downstairs aquarium and the upstairs living roof (pictured), which are two of the primary attractions. The penguins are stuck at the end of a stone hallway, guaranteeing large packs of people blocking exits during the feedings. Seriously folks, form follows function, doesn't it?

Snow in So Cal

I drove up to Mountain View on Sunday to spend Xmas with the family. We've had some cold, rainy weather in LA recently and the snow level dropped quite low. I didn't realize how low until I saw snow still piled up on the local hills surrounding LA. This photo is from the 5 freeway on the way out of LA. Doesn't look like much if you're from Canada or the Northeast, but this is major for us!

Slumdog Millionaire

This is a great movie! It's set in India and tells the story of a boy from the slums who goes on the Indian version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire". When he reaches the highest levels of the game, he's arrested because the authorities believe he's cheating. He ends up telling them his life story by way of explaining how he knows the answers to the questions. The movie combines a very old fashioned type of story with some very modern cinematography and great Indian pop music to make a story that can't help but suck you in and make you cheer. It reminded me of how it felt watching "Strictly Ballroom". The sound track is amazing as well.

Hatfield's

I went to this restaurant the other day and had a wonderful experience. It's a small restaurant on Beverly Blvd. near the Grove. Decor is minimal. Noise level was pleasant, not deathly quiet but we didn't have to scream to converse. The menu is short but creative. They presented a little 'amuse bouche' when we sat down, which was a little tiny spoon with a little tiny quail egg with smoked trout pureed with the yolk, delish (smoking is good for food!), and a shot glass of cauliflower soup. I had the 'Croque Madam' appetizer which is a little sandwich of grilled buttered bread with prosciuto and tuna in the middle and a little tiny quail egg on top, melts in the mouth! And frankly, buttered grilled bread makes everything better. My main course was duck breast with a quinoa and mushroom, with butternut squash and a whiskey sauce smeared on the plate, quite prettily. The breast was cooked to perfection. Dessert was a lime cream pie and beignets with chocolate sauce, both presented very attractively. The service was attentive but not cloying. Glasses were always filled (but not overly so) and I noted that a group of three were seated at a table set with 3 chairs not four. With the check came a little mini banana cupcake with chocolate frosting for each of us. Nice touch. I rolled out of there feeling very satisfied but not overly stuffed. Definitely worth it for an occasion that calls for a nice meal.

Bloomin' succulent

This thing is over 4' tall, started life about 1' tall. No idea what it is. I had to take the pic sideways for it to fit. There are little white flowers at the top.

In my lifetime

The Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, the year I was born. 44 years later, Barack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States and the first black man to hold that office.

Election Day!

I voted in my first US election today, and only my second election in my life. It was raining when I got up this morning at 6:30a. You know that's way early for me! I wasn't looking forward to standing in the rain and I was worried that the weather would dampen turnout, but by the time I got to the poll (which was across the street) at 7a, there was already a substantial line! Those people had waited in the rain!! That got me really excited! People in line were mostly quiet but many chatted with their neighbours. I told the woman behind me that it was my first election, and she was so excited for me, I got all verklempt. The church hall held 3 precinct's voting booths. Once we got checked in and signed the list, the wait for a booth was short. I was kind of nervous about getting something wrong, so checked my entries twice. I handed in my ballot, got my sticker and left. One and a half hours of waiting and voting. Well worth it. On my way to work, I passed by 2 more polling places with people lining up out the doors. I'm so happy to see this!

The process to get to this point has involved a lot of waiting. Waiting for the CIS to acknowledge my naturalization application. Waiting to get the appointment for fingerprinting. Waiting at the fingerprinting center. Waiting to get the interview appointment. Waiting at the interview office. Waiting for the swearing in appointment (kind of short this one). Waiting to get into the Sports Arena to be sworn in. Waiting in line to pick up my certificate. Waiting for election day. Waiting to get to the polling booth.

Now we wait for the results, and hope.

(Photo above by Danny Moloshok/Reuters, who took these while I was in line.)

Me and Barack!

One of my coworkers bought a standee of Obama, and we've been goofing around taking photos.

Economy 101

I've been having a hard time understanding exactly what happened to the economy. I just didn't get how a bunch of bad mortgages could infect the entire economy the way it appears to have done. A few weeks ago, NPR's "This American Life" radio program had an hour long special describing what happened with mortgages and how they spiraled out of control into the bigger economy. It was an amazingly good explanation. This past weekend, they followed up with a special that focused on the last two weeks leading up to and including the bailout bill that passed Congress on Friday. If you, like me, have never heard of credit default swaps and the commercial paper market, listen here and you will learn how these and other obscure financial instruments have contributed to our economy coming to a screeching halt recently. It may leave you a little more scared even than before, but at least now you'll know why.

I can vote!!

Today I was sworn in as a US citizen and promptly registered to vote. The ceremony was at the LA Sports Arena for over 5800 'swearees' plus their friends and family. I was at the 3rd of the ceremonies that were held there today. Traffic getting there was horrendous. It took me nearly 2 hours from Burbank and I was totally stressed out trying to even get there on time. Directions were minimal and really not well organized. When I finally got to the arena, they had us check in with one of many people seated at a table. These folks take your green card (bye bye green card) and check your appointment letter and then write down the table number where you will go to pick up your certificate after the ceremony. Since I was running so late, they quickly got through that whole deal and I scurried over to get a seat in the auditorium. Lucky for all of us, the judge was also running late because he had to preside over a trial in which the jury had unexpectedly come back with a verdict. The ceremony opens with a representative of the Immigration service asking for the judge to name us all citizens. The judge has us recite the oath and then we are considered citizens. Everyone waves the little flags we were given and cheers. The judge talks a little bit about himself and how his family came to be in California. He is the first Chinese American judge in the US District Court, which is kind of cool. After the judge speaks, we see a video of W congratulating us. Then they show a video of Lee Greenwood's version of God Bless the USA. Then they have a guy sing the national anthem (nice voice) and the judge asks him to also sing God Bless America. Many in the audience try and sing along. The feeling I had during the ceremony was that it reminded me of how the country felt right after 9/11, when we all were trying to pull together, and supporting the USA felt right and not hokey or fake. After the ceremony was over, we all waited until the guests left, then they ushered us out in groups so we could get to the tables to pick up our certificates. They also had blank voter registration forms and you could get your passport application in right there. Outside, there was a table set up by Democrats to register voters so I went and handed them my form. There were also a few people with McCain/Palin signs.

After I got out of the parking area ($15 to park!) I headed to Casa del Mar, where I had invited some friends to gather to celebrate. There were a bunch of people from ballet, some people from work, and some people from knitting or book group. It was neat to get everyone together and we just hung out there and chatted, ate, drank. It was a nice way to end a milestone day!

Tegan and Patrick's wedding

This past weekend, I went up to the Bay Area and Napa for Tegan and Patrick's wedding. I took an extra day off to hang out with Mei on Friday. Friday night I borrowed one of Mei's cars and drove up to SF for dinner with Annette and Deborah and their respective spouses. We ate at Fish & Farm which was terrific, very fresh food, and located just down the street from where Annette and Toshi live. Turns out they (A & D) have a lot in common! After a wonderful dinner, I drove up to Napa where I had a room booked at Hillview Country Inn. Good thing I had my GPS with me, because it was pitch black when I got there and the turn off to the Inn is not lighted! This turned out to be a wonderful place to stay. I had a spacious room, my own bathroom, delicious hearty breakfasts and Al and Suzie, the proprietors, were terrific company and wonderfully helpful with local tourist info. The other guests were fun to chat with over breakfast.

The wedding was at a grape ranch which grows grapes for Caymus winery. Tegan and Patrick completely planned and designed their own wedding in every detail. The entire ceremony and vows were completely personal and Patrick even serenaded Tegan at the beginning of the official proceedings! They planned a treasure hunt to help the guests mingle and meet, and then rewarded us with oysters, caviar and champagne! Instead of the traditional cake, there was a cupcake tower. Because Patrick is a musician, there was a lot of live music as several of his past bands reunited over the course of the afternoon. And for the getaway car, they borrowed a 1959 Caddy, cherry red with original black leather interior! The weather cooperated and provided a warm and sunny afternoon. This has to be one of the most relaxing weddings I've been to and I think a lot of that is attributed to the vibe that Tegan and Patrick created.

Oath Ceremony

is scheduled for Sept 26th at the LA Sports Arena. They are apparently planning to do 6000 people at a time in 3 sessions that day! They really are trying to get everyone 'official' and able to register for the election.

Now, just the oath

Today I passed the exam and personal interview for US Citizenship! Now I wait for the letter telling me when I take the oath, and then I can register to vote. Apparently they are working weekends to push through as many people as possible before elections.

Goodbyes and home

On Saturday we had morning classes with Randall. I think that what I have gleaned from this year's camp is how important it is to be aware of your core and keep it strong. It's what helped me in the partnered pirouettes and it's what the teachers have all been talking to us all week about. Not just for turns, but they are constantly reminding us to pull up when we transition from position to position. Suzanne and I had a very smooth trip home. All flights were on time and trouble free. We even had a a little snack sandwich on the Houston to LA leg. I was pretty impressed with Continental. Sunday will be a day of rest for my muscles and for my brain. Then back to real life, home from Oz again for another year.

Performance Day!

Friday was performance day. We got a late start with a short warm up class and run throughs of the variations and the repertory piece. I'm really concerned about part of the variation which I haven't been able to do solidly yet (mostly because chaines are very hard for me). The rep piece is really coming together and I think we are getting the timing down really well. I'm least concerned about the pas de deux because Ty will help me get through it (like last year with Burr). After lunch there was enough time to go back to the hotel rest a little and get changed. The turquoise leotards are really cute and the skirts are beautiful. The bus takes us to the theatre in the afternoon. I brought my Nikon to try out the 1600 ISO in the dark space. We do run throughs of each piece before we do the actual filming. I try taking some pics during other group's run throughs. The pics turned out to be really interesting. The lighting looks great but my lens is not quite fast enough so there is lots of motion blur, which is kind of neat looking. My run through with Ty for the pas de deux was flawless. During the filming though, I flubbed the balances which are really easy steps! Oh well, this piece is all about the show so I gave it all I had. We'll see how it looks on film. Despite the mistake, I had a great time. Partnering really is too much fun! My run through for the variation was not great. When we film it, I felt like I did really well on the jump sequence and although the turn sequence was not perfect, it's better than I've done it, and most importantly I finished exactly on time! The rep piece works out beautifully. Again, I had a misstep or two however our timing is really good in some of the tricky sections that we had. I can't wait to see the video and see what it really looks like. I know there will be things I will not like on it, but it'll be a learning experience for next year. After the show, we shower and change for dinner at a tapas place called Europa. The food is quite tasty and it's a nice environment. It's so fun to see the dancers wearing normal clothes, hair and makeup! There was a TV on showing the Olympic opening ceremony so we watched parts of that as we chatted and just relaxed. Tomorrow is a short morning of classes before Suzanne and I catch a plane for home. We all can't believe this week has flown by so quickly.

Thursday is magic day

Something mysterious happens on Thursday. I wake up feeling great! Same thing happened last year. None of my sore muscles are sore any more, tired yes, but all soreness is gone. Mentally, I think all of our brains are completely filled. We perform tomorrow and there seems to be so much more to learn. We have Karen for technique and I just love her classes. She has the funniest, best descriptions of how we should or should not be dancing. They really stick in my mind and I carry them into my regular classes. Today we also finished learning the pas de deux. I'm partnered with Tyrone, which I'm really happy about because I was watching the advanced partnering class and he just moves so beautifully. Randall does a magical job again of choreographing our piece. It's not technically very difficult, however it is very fluid and beautiful and allows us to really dance. We are doing it to music by Kossovits. I'm glad the pas de deux is going to be so good. We did a run through of the rep piece as well and Kathy has a great ending for us! I just hope I can remember everything for performance tomorrow.
Update: I forgot to mention when I first posted this that during partnering class, there is quite a lot of time when we are standing around as Randall figures out what we are to do next. During these times, the young guys often will just do some movement, Burr does modern dance stuff for instance. One time, Ty started doing a series of turns ending with a fouette, so I just mentioned to him jokingly, can you do 32, which is the number that the Black Swan Odile does in her variation in Swan Lake and is pretty famous. Well, he immediately starts doing fouette turns, ccounting as he goes! He got to 16 which is pretty damn impressive. He said to me that it was harder than he thought it would be. The amazing thing to me was that he was doing this in a small space surrounded by people, walls, etc and he did not budge from his center at all! This is the guy I got to dance with, and the other young guys were equally talented, so you see why this is usually my favourite part of the week

Wednesday is tough!

It was the hardest day last year and this year is the same. We had another run through of the variation and it does seem like it's coming together, but it's a lot of pointe work and I'm still a little worried about the pique turning sequence at the end. We also had our first partnering class. They got a lot of great young men this year and Randall picked another gorgeous piece of music. It'll be beautiful. Repertory was a little rough because Kathy had to make adjustments to the sequence because one of the dancers bowed out. I think it'll come together tomorrow though. I downloaded the music from iTunes so I can run it through in my head.
Update: In photo, learning pas de deux piece

An easy day (for ballet camp)

Thank god today is a relatively light day. I am so sore. Like last year, I'm using muscles that don't get a consistent work out. Today Randall taught us technique and again, wonderful class. The teachers all give us great tips on improving how we hold ourselves and move through various steps. Kathy's pointe class was tough, lots of slow releves. I was feeling kind of weak today and couldn't get the slow rolling down from pointe working very well. Her pirouette class was great. Like last year, the focus on these turns and the suggestions for how to hold our arms really helps put everything together. Heidi did a wonderful stretch class and the foot class is amazing-I really should do these exercises at home, I can definitely use stronger feet.

Later in the day, Suzanne, Kelly, Joyce and I had a joint photo shoot. Kathy and Randall helped suggest poses and it was so much fun, although again, posing is really hard work. You have to maintain your position, have as much turn out as you can possibly do and look relaxed and happy! It's going to be great having these photos to look back on.

Learning our performance pieces

Today is the first full day of camp. We also learn two of our performance pieces. I'm really feeling the modern class from yesterday. It uses all kinds of muscles that don't get used a lot. I'm doing variations with Danile and she's teaching us the female variation from the peasant pas de deux in Giselle. I'm going to do it on pointe, there are parts that I can handle on pointe pretty easily and other parts that are a little more challenging so I think it's a good balance. The rep piece is with Kathy and it's the Gallop section also from Giselle. There is a lot of moving back and forth and the 2 men have a really fun part in it as well. It's going to be great to learn! The jazz teacher is a member of the Richmond Ballet. It was a tough class! He started with 200 sit ups, 50 bicycles and the Pilates 100!!! No, I didn't do all of those. If I had, I wouldn't be able to move tomorrow. The rest of the class was just as strenuous, but it was so much fun that I stayed through the whole thing even though I kept thinking I should leave early. I know I'm going to be feeling this class tomorrow too! Tonight we had an excursion to Ellman's and I bought a pair of Bloch pointe shoes. We'll see how they work when I can actually use them but initially they felt pretty comfortable and I could get up and over on them pretty easily.
Update: In photo, learning our rep piece

Familiar faces at ballet camp

Today is check in day and there were a lot of people from last year! It's so neat to see everyone. Danile taught us the placement class. There are a lot of people in the 3A group this year. Kathy did the intermediate pointe class and it was a tough one but my feet are much stronger than last year, and I have better pointe shoes. There was a great kinesiology lecture by a professor at VCU. She helped us to breakdown various muscles in our shoulders and back. She also taught the modern dance class. It was amazing and really fun. She took us through a series of exercises that warmed us up to modern movements (more fluid rolling movements, more parallel, less vertical than ballet) and then taught us some choreography that included various oppositional movements, spirals, rolling on the ground. They had a drummer accompany us so when we put it all together, it was a real dance! It helps me to better appreciate modern movement vocabulary when I see it in contemporary ballets.
Update: In photo with me are Kelly, Joyce, Patsy, Cynthia and Suzanne in front.

Ballet Camp round 2!

I'm back in Richmond with Suzanne, Kelly, Joyce and Patsy! We are joined this year by Ronnie. I have a new roommate, Louise from Kentucky. Yesterday was travel day. Suzanne and I went through Houston on Continental while Kelly and Joyce went through Chicago via United. We all did really well. We heard others were not so lucky and had delays and lost luggage.
On the flight from Houston to Richmond, we passed north of a major thunderstorm and the lightening storm in the clouds was one of the most beautiful things I've seen. Last year, I barely got any sleep while at camp. I didn't sleep much last night either, we'll see if the pattern holds. I can't wait to see who is back from last year!

Osteria Mozza

This is one of the hottest restaurants in LA right now. It's Nancy Silverton (formerly of Campanile/La Brea Bakery) with Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich (of Babbo in NYC and featured in "Heat" by Bill Buford). Reservations take a month to get. I went this week with 3 friends and we all universally loved it. The restaurant is really beautiful. It's got the blue-green/brown thing going that everyone is doing now. The bar counter is a beautiful white veined marble and the main room is large and noisy. We ate in a second room that is smaller and much more quiet. The service was at a level that I don't usually encounter in LA but I believe is more common in other cities. We have a lot of 'waiter/something-else' types here.
When we got to the restaurant, I asked the bartender to make me up something Italian-y. She served me a drink made with an amaro (an Italian herbal liqueur), vanilla, citrus and some other stuff, and it was delicious and refreshing.
At the table, we had a hard time deciding what to order. The menu is divided into starters, mozzarella bar, pastas and main courses. The waiter suggested we share 3 appetizers and 2 pastas and then each get a main. The apps were a grilled figs with pancetta, a sheep's milk ricotta with toasted hazelnuts, and a burata with bacon. Each was a wonderful combo of flavours, and often with a surprising taste in the mix. The bacon was some of the best I've ever had and the cheeses were unbelievably fresh.
Pastas were orrechiette with sausage and chard, and agnolotti with butter and sage sauce. This is the first time that I've understood what the big deal is with butter sage sauce. The pastas all had a wonderful chewy texture.
I had duck for the main course. They press the duck so the skin is extra crispy and serve it with a pear 'moutarde' which has the sweetness of pear with a little kick. Amazing with the duck.
Dessert was the 'bombolino' which are little donuts, although I preferred the crispelles which were served with the most delicious strawberry sauce.
The wine suggested by the sommelier was absolutely delicious and paired wonderfully with everyone's food.
We all went home with happy palates and tummies.

Earthquake!!

A 5.8 (approx., this might get adjusted as they study this further) just hit the LA area. I'm in Burbank at work and this was my first experience of one in a high rise (on the 8th floor). Boy did this building shake. The swaying continued for quite awhile after the earthquake stopped. Everyone is fine, some more shaken than others. It's an amazing ride when no one is hurt.

I never know what I'm supposed to do when one hits. I basically froze. Now I know what deer feel like when the headlights hit them.

Fireworks and surprise birthdays

This year's Independence Day fireworks came courtesy of Marina del Rey as well as John & Beth. The latter had a few people over for grilled burgers and brats and interesting conversation at their home on a lagoon in Playa del Rey. The view from their roof deck was amazing (although chilly when you're 3 stories up). After dark, we walked down to the channel to watch the fireworks. We were almost right opposite the launch pad for the rockets. The sky was crystal clear with warm temps (two things that don't always go together at the shore). They did a fantastic job with the display. There was no music (kind of glad, actually) and it was just all 'boom, boom, sizzle, boom', etc. The finale was amazing especially as we could see the rockets going off one after the other from the launch pad.

On Saturday I flew up to Mountain View where my dad had taken my mom last minute to visit with the grandkids and to throw her a surprise birthday lunch. It's not hard to pull off because my mom never remembers her birthday. That could be because it changes date every year since they mark it according to the lunar calendar. We had as many family as were in town at Hong Fu in Cupertino for a delicious lunch. The cold plate, guo tie (potstickers), peking duck and birthday noodles were particularly good. Cake was chocolate fudge with cream cheese frosting from Draeger's, recommended by my sis and definitely a worthy finish. I also had my introduction to Kai Cheng, Hao and Cathy's son who is just a month old!

After lunch, I went with the parents and 3 and Da uncles and aunts to Stanford's art museum (Cantor Center) to take a look at the collection from the New Orleans museum. They are currently homeless (until their regular home can be fixed) so they are touring around the country. They have a nice selection, heavy on the French (who did originally colonize the place after all) but with a few interesting modern touches (a really nice Joan Miro for example). Outside, there is a nice little serpentine wall by Andy Goldsworthy.

Midwestern tomatoes

While I was in Chicago, there was some kind of big salmonella thing going on across the country with tomatoes. I didn't have that much time to listen to or read the news. But while all this was hitting the news, I was eating some of the most delicious tomatoes in Chicago. Some were cherry tomatoes (at N9NE) and I believe those are not part of the problem, but I had a cold tomato soup at Coco Pazzo and uncooked tomatoes in all kinds of other things. They were all exceptionally tasty and tomato-y and nary a health problem.

Gotta come back to Chicago!

Day 2 of Neocon and I'm hearing that there are not as many people as previous years. Really? Seemed like a lot to me and the traffic is terrible. People are always talking about LA traffic, but I've never been in anything as bad as Chicago. To and from the airport, slow crawl all the way taking an hour. Plus taxis here don't seem to believe in air conditioning and it's hot and humid here. In the city, people honking and driving between lanes, completely crazy.

Again today, great food. I went with Becky and Sandra to Frontera, which is Rick Bayless' casual dining restaurant. He has a ton of cookbooks and apparently is on PBS occasionally. The food was again marvelous. I had a mango cooler and we all decided on the special of the day, pork in corn massa wrapped in banana leaf (so like a tamale but different). The sauce was a red sauce and was really delicious. We had ice cream with two sauces, but the knockout was the goat cheese, which was caramel coloured and had the most amazing balance of spices, it was like tasting fireworks. We also had flan which was very creamy but after that sauce, they kind of paled.

Dinner was at Japonais again. This time cocktails by the river with yummy spring rolls and sushi rolls. Dinner was shared plates, 2 different kinds of special sushi, 3 different kinds of rolls, plus a chicken, beef and tuna entree. I was so full by the time entrees hit that I could only taste the beef and skipped the other two. My favourite dessert was the 'Coffee and donuts', which were beignets with chocolate inside with green tea ice cream. After dinner, we hit the Mohawk party. Wow, what a bash. Huge crowd with an absolutely amazing live band that totally rocked the house.

Unfortunately the trip must end, however Chicago has impressed me a lot. I barely scratched the surface of the great architecture here (FLW, Mies' Farnsworth, all the Louis Sullivan). We ate a lot of great food, but there is much more where that came from. Plus there's the Field Museum, Art Institute, and more!! This city deserves a longer stay, for sure. One interesting observation about the city, the people are very warm and down to earth, but the population here is very black and white. Most of the Asians I saw were at the Mart (there was a large foreign contingent here for the show). Becky's colleague also noticed the dearth of Latinos (she is one herself).

I found Neocon itself to be totally exhausting but I came away realizing that what you get here that it's not possible to get at home is the ability to put all of the various manufacturers in context with each other. I really got a sense for what they all think is the future of their industries and hence of how they think our workplaces will look in the not too distant future. Whether or not they are right only time will tell, but there were clear patterns here and I really enjoyed getting that perspective. I also enjoyed meeting various people from the manufacturers who are not located in LA.

Neocon begins

I'm not going to bore you with the show stuff, except to say that there are a ton of people here, the Mart is HUGE, and some women are crazy to wear the shoes they are wearing. Lunch was at Coco Pazzo and really good (the panna cotta was incredible). There was a cocktail party at Martini Park and this is a really cool place. It's quite a large space but it was packed. Drinks were free flowing as were the little mini-burgers. They had a DJ spinning some great music and the bartenders were terrific. When we had to leave, there was a line out the door waiting to get in. We lucked out again in our timing! Dinner was at N9Ne and was good but I wasn't blown away, however I've had so much good food so far here that they had a lot to live up to.

Oh, one more thing I want to mention, I've experienced more weather here in a few days than I have in 20 years living in LA!

Architecture and weather in Chicago

Chicago is home to some great architecture. Sandy and I took an architecture boat tour to see some of it from the Chicago river. It was a great tour, although I would've been very happy without the volunteer commentary. There are great examples of all kinds of architectural styles done up as a skyscraper from gothic revival to international style to post-modern. There appears to be a major riverside renewal with a lot of industrial buildings being converted to homes with river views. Luckily, we took our boat tour in the morning, because while I was having lunch with Pam, there was a major thunderstorm! We saw the rain from the restaurant and it was blowing like crazy and coming in sideways, with lightening and thunder. It was spent by the time we finished eating and the air had that great post-storm feeling-cool relief!

After lunch I met up with Sandy and we walked down Michigan Ave to do some window shopping and to see Millennium Park. This place has been much photographed because of the Anish Kapoor sculpture called Cloud Gate but often called the 'bean'. There is also a beautiful Frank Gehry designed open air theatre with a huge lawn for playing, sitting, throwing a ball. The Cloud Gate was gorgeous. Because the sky was still stormy, its reflection in the mirrored surface was amazing. Just as much fun was seeing how people were interacting with the sculpture. Another major attraction here is the Crown Fountain which is two large glass block rectangles with images of faces projected from inside (apparently via LED lights). Water pours down from the top or from an opening in the images' mouths into a shallow pool. Even on a stormy day, the combination of children and water is irresistible.

After a short rest at the hotel, the evening started at the Vitra party at Japonais, a neat Asian themed restaurant with a lower level lounge and patio looking right onto the river I'd just been on that morning! Next stop was Harry Caray's bar for a light dinner and trying to watch the Dodgers and the Lakers at the same time. It's going to be a very long day tomorrow, and my first experience of the Merchandise Mart.

Chicago!

I had a really smooth flight to Chicago. The security lines at the airport were really short. The TSA folks were exceptionally nice, and the plane was full but I had no trouble with overhead storage space. When we were just outside Chicago, we flew by some weather (we had to fasten the seatbelts) and although the ride did not get particularly bumpy, on the right side of the plane we were treated to the most spectacular cloud formations I've ever seen. One in particular was this ridiculously huge stack of fluffy, cloudy whiteness (massive!) that turned grey and fuzzy near the top and kind of blended in with a thin layer of dark grey clouds above us. I later learned that there was a tornado just south of Chicago and I wonder if that cloud formation had any part of that.

Traffic into Chicago was rough (it was raining off and on rather hard) but after we got checked in, cleaned up and changed, I met Sandy down at the hotel bar for a quick drink (Patty was there too, after a hard 2 hours of shopping) and we went to meet some folks at The Gage for dinner. The food was really good and the restaurant was busy and hopping. We shared a delicious cheese plate (some cheeses from Europe, some local). Barb had the celery root soup with salmon rolls which was surprisingly good. I had elk with mashed potatoes and the meat was amazing, flavourful, juicy but not fat at all. The mashed potatoes were buttery, smooth and delicious. Yummy! For dessert we tried the peanut butter mousse s'mores and the french toast. I didn't much care for the french toast (the maple jelly was good but the crispy rice didn't have much taste) but I loved the peanut butter s'mores, although really I think they were more like Reese's with marshmallow foam. We had two delicious bottles of wine, one a Chardonnay from Mendoza, Argentina and one a Pinot Grigio. We had a great time talking about things both important and trivial, and crushing on the bus boy (he's 21, from El Salvador and in Chicago because he heard it was a fun city).

After dinner, Sandy and I went to Blue Chicago to listen to a really fun blues band. They started with a male singer but were later joined by a woman with a voice that'll blow you out of the room. They sang a few covers, made sure there was plenty of audience participation, and just rocked the house.

The streets were packed as we made our way back to the hotel. What a great intro to a great city!

Book group boards the billionaire's yacht

The oddest thing happened at book group the other night. It started out being a pretty typical meeting. This month was Diane's turn so we met on her 28' boat at the marina. As usual, we sat out on the back and chatted away about the book and then about all kinds of other things, whatever happened to cross our minds. Amy's friend Sue was visiting and she added her opinions to the mix. We must have been making a bit of noise because right after Allison left to go home we heard a shout from outside the locked gate at the entrance to the dock asking to be let in. Diane did so and brought over a good looking young guy with long hair coming to check out the girls making all the noise. He then proceeded to tell us that he and his buddy were on this 90' yacht on the next dock over and had planned a party for some movie they were promoting about an Indian god named Hanuman starring Keanu Reeves but no one came to their party. He said we should all join him on the boat. There were clearly a few of us who were thinking these guys are probably serial killers or something, but enough of us thought 'what the heck' so that we all disembarked from Diane's little boat and trouped over to this gigantic vessel called the Mer Sea. Amy yells up "Permission to board!" and a guy named David gives us the okay. Apparently we need to take off our shoes (?) and we meet David and gather around a table, which seats all 7 of us plus Mark (the young guy) and David, who we are told is a billionaire who is in commodities. By the way, there are 2 TVs you can watch from the dining area. We are poured French red wine (check out the cool Oster electric cork remover they used), we try and figure out what these guys are doing (didn't look like it was set up for a party) and how much if anything they are telling us is real. For example we are told that David has purchased an even bigger yacht, 92' long, which is to arrive shortly and when it does, the Mer Sea will be moved to another spot and the new boat will be christened the Mer Sea Beaucoup. We are shown the sales flyer for this new yacht which has an asking price of $3.5 million dollars. We do not ask if David bargained the sellers down. We are then joined by Lance who gets us going around the table with each person saying the title of the book we would write and what it's about. It's actually a very interesting exercise and we have a lot of good laughs out of our book ideas and titles. We are poured another bottle of French wine (this time I see it's a '95 Bordeaux). Both bottles of wine are excellent. Lance tells us when he first came to LA he made a bunch of 'T&A' movies but now is a presenter for something called 'Beverly Hills TV' which sells only in England. It's all very entertaining and weird and fun, however 10:00 rolls around and most of us have to work the next day, so we take our leave and walk away wondering what the heck just happened.

When I got home, I tried to check on some of the stuff we were told. There is a website for Beverly Hills TV which seems to sell knock offs of celebrity merchandise in England. The Mer Sea has a website of its very own. And there are postings on various blogs with gossip about a movie about Hanuman with Keanu Reeves, possibly Kevin Costner and an Indian star. Apparently Amy tried to Google David but didn't find anything.

Diane's gonna have to let us know when the new bigger yacht sails into town .

All kinds of artists and also food

I had a very art filled weekend. Saturday was the Culver City Art Walk and Gigi, Aven and I went to check it out. The eastern portion of Washington Blvd. near La Cienega has drawn quite a collection of little art galleries showing all kinds of up and coming artists. And some already very well established ones such as Takashi Murakami who had some works at one of the larger galleries. I chatted with a woman artist who's paintings had the most beautiful colours and a sense of space and serenity. One gallery had some works made from straight pins with string to form pictures (remember doing that as a kid?) as well as others with cut paper and paint. There was a lot of use of resin with other materials (over collaged fabric, papers, etc). I've been very drawn to more craft based art, I think I like that 'hand of the artist' thing. I definitely don't see craft technique used in art as secondary to traditional paints or sculpture. The neat thing about some of these artists was that if you saw something you really loved and wanted to buy some art, you could get some pieces for a few hundred dollars. I didn't buy anything, but at those prices at least it's within the realm of possibility. Of course food was a very important part of the day (when is it not?) and we had amazing healthy hot dogs (grass fed beef!) from the "Let's Be Frank" truck, tacos (al pastor!) at a make shift outdoor stand and pastries from the local french bistro.

On Sunday I went to check out the Kara Walker show at the Hammer. My first encounter with this artist was two years ago, where she had a small showing at the Met in NYC. Her theme there was the New Orleans hurricane and flood. I didn't know anything about her but was fascinated by the technical skill in her cut paper silhouettes as well as the provocative subject matter. The show at the Hammer is more extensive including works from early in her career (although she seems to be pretty young). She includes a lot of references to literary and other materials in her works, many of which I'm only vaguely aware of, so I feel like there is a lot I'm missing. However the works themselves are amazing. You just want to keep looking to try and see all the nuances. There is a great little video of her talking about her life and work and she seems like someone I would love to chat over coffee or a glass of wine.

The smell of fresh baked bread...

is filling my home right now. I baked some parmesan bread. I had a ton of left over parmesan from making parmesan chicken for my knitting group a couple of weeks ago and using it to sprinkle on pizza and eggs just wasn't going to get it to go away. Cook's Illustrated's Almost No-Knead bread recipe has a variation with parmesan, rosemary and olives, so I just skipped the last two ingrediants (not a big fan of olives anyway). I also estimated the amount of parmesan. I can smell it clearly along with the crusty bread smell. I'm going to take the bread over to Gigi's for her grilling party.

By the way, my knitting group menu was all from CI as well. I found a salad recipe that used arugula instead of lettuce (more herby, less leafy flavour) and balsamic vinegar (much more palatable to me than regular vinegar) and tomatoes. Turned out not bad. I ate some. Dessert was the same chocolate cake with whipped cream that I made at Mei's in February. There was a little more lift than last time, but still gotta work on that. Still tasted great!

The crazy artists who make Venice interesting

This weekend was the Venice Art Walk. This event supports the Venice Family Clinic which provides medical care to uninsured local residents. The weekend consists of several events. Gigi, Amy and I volunteered on Saturday on the home tour. This was a modern (as were they all) house with a lot of solar technology. As a thank you for our time, we got tickets to the Art Walk itself today. Amy has been on the Art Walk and she recommended that we focus on the food faire first and then pick our walking route by neighbourhood. This was a very good suggestion.

There were lots of great local restaurants offering food at the faire. I had chocolate chili from Cafe Surfas (which is also a great restaurant supply house) and ginger strawberry lemonade from Upstairs 2 (which is a restaurant attached to a wine shop). Amy's mini burgers from the Counter looked and smelled amazing, and Gigi's crepes from Acadie had amazingly fresh tomatoes (probably from the farmer's market). Before heading out to the studios we had cupcakes from Meditrina.

I wasn't sure what to expect from the studios. I've visited other artist studios and I'm usually more interested in seeing how the artists live in their spaces than in the art. Venice has always seemed crowded and hard to get to for me, so I was not familiar with most of the adorable little neighbourhoods that the walk took us through. The highlight for me was a few residences or studios where the work spaces really gave you a glimpse inside the slightly wacked out mind of a completely creative person. One of our favourites was a property consisting of 3 little bungalows all decorated with local art work and painted in intense colours. The owner collected about 10 or 15 different types of things which were grouped in several places throughout the property. He had a working outdoor bathtub and an open kitchen/living room area that we just thought would be fabulous for parties. The whole property was just completely over the top. Another house had mosaic tiles on just about everything, including the front door frame, part of an exterior wall and every pot in the yard. A third studio was the work space of a man who collected old glass and metal parts all crammed floor to ceiling in a dark little studio that literally looked like it was out of an old horror movie. He had several of those glass balls with the electrical discharge running up and down inside (what are those called?) and if you touch the glass, the spark comes to your hand on the other side of the glass! It was just unreal, unearthly, like what planet were we on?

Now I understand that these crazy artists are what makes Venice what it is and makes it so special.

New BCAM

BCAM is the new contemporary art wing of LACMA. Sandy and I went on a private group tour and really enjoyed the building and the artwork. The docent did a really great job of providing some history and context to the various styles of art which really helped to make some of the modern pieces more interesting. For instance, she related the minimalists (Ellsworth Kelly was the example) back to Abstract Expressionism and forward to Pop Art. I really liked some of the Jeff Koons (balloon dog, cracked egg) and Damien Hirst (butterfly mosaics) pieces but my absolute favourites were 2 large scale Richard Serra torqued steel structures. I saw one of these at MOMA last year and I never get tired of experiencing these structures. Outside on the plaza of the new building is a great assemblage of LA street lamps. And now when you go from the new area to the old LACMA plaza, you walk through a new large scale sculpture by Tony Smith called 'Smoke' which is really beautiful in a strange way.

More Legoland & Ranunculus

Friday morning was spent back at Legoland. Neve was even more excited today to go back. We found a different water play area, which was harder for her to enjoy, mostly because there was no way for her mom or dad to be there with her and help her adjust (they could have but would've gotten soaked). Still, she got a lot of fun out of it. She went with her dad on the jungle car ride and apparently enjoyed it so much she cried when she had to get off. There were more amazing Lego creations for the adults to marvel at. After a quick nap (at least for me), Mei and I took Mason to the Ranunculus flower fields. They are in bloom in spring and were spectacularly gorgeous. The fields are not grown for cut flowers but to harvest the bulbs to sell. They also grew beautiful roses and some crazy looking poinsettias (including 4' tall variety with flowers in a big 6" ball of red).

Legoland

This morning was spent at Legoland. A mecca for small children. More than half of the crowd is under 4' tall. There are a few areas that are targeted for the under 3 crowd and in the Miniland, where all of the miniature buildings are, they have installed buttons for the kids to press to turn on music or make little fountains spout miniature water at little Lego people (because for kids Neve's age these are just random buildings). The details in the vignettes are pretty amazing. They've got window washers on one of the NYC skyscrapers, the sea lions that camp out near Fisherman's Wharf in SF are there, and there's a jazz funeral in the New Orleans set. The least recognizable scenes for me were Southern California, go figure. I knew three of the structures (Hollywood Bowl, Griffith Observatory, Chinese Theatre) but the rest, no clue. Neve had a great time at the water splash area. The trick here is the kids need to jump on a coloured circle to get the water to turn on. She wasn't quite heavy enough to make it work and so it took her awhile to get the location specificity, but she had a great time jumping nonetheless.

Liu Fang Yuan (Garden of Flowing Fragrance)

The 3's were in town this weekend and we took in a bunch cultural activities. Last night we went to Disney Hall and heard the LA Phil with violinist Christian Tetzlaff. He played Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D major. The Phil also played 'Also sprach Zarathustra', the 2001 Space Odyssey music. The violin piece was beautiful and the hall allowed for the most delicate notes to be heard really clearly (along with the audience coughing, dropping things, etc.) The '2001' piece was really fun. It includes the organ and when that thing lets go with a few deep bass notes, you feel it in your chest more than you hear it. We were sitting in the Terrace section and had a great view of the percussions, which have a prominent role in this piece.
Today we went to Huntington Library and Garden to check out the new Chinese garden. It's modeled after some famous gardens in Suzhou. There are lots of pathways, pavilions, a small pond with a goose, a duck and a bunch of carp and of course beautiful plantings. There are areas still in need of work. It was well into the 90s today and some of the shaded areas and pavilions made the visit a little more pleasant.
After a delicious Spanish lunch at Bar Celona, we spent the rest of the afternoon at the Norton Simon. They have a wonderful selection of sculpture (Degas dancers and Rodins) plus their Southeast Asian collection is impressive. There was a special exhibition of Krishna artwork which were very detailed and beautiful.

Complexions

This is a contemporary ballet/modern dance company based in NYC. Gigi and I saw them on Friday. They did several short pieces to various styles of music. I loved a couple of the things they did but was less enamoured of some others. The piece danced to Chopin was marred, to me, by an unpleasant arrangement of the music. I love Chopin so that was disappointing. Desmond Richardson, who is one of the company co-founders, danced to a piece choreographed by Taye Diggs, the actor/model. I didn't really love this piece either. Richardson is probably one of the best male dancers around but I didn't feel like the choreography made the best use of his talents. I thoroughly enjoyed the excerpts of 'Moody Booty Blues' danced to blues music, and 'Chapters' danced to Marvin Gaye. These pieces were sharp, dynamic, strong and beautifully expressive of the music. The dancers in the company are extremely athletic with long limbs and slender bodies (for the most part) and the choreography (which combines modern and ballet technique) really shows them off.

March Madness indeed!

For the last 4 or 5 years, I've participated in a men's college basketball tournament pool. I know nothing about college basketball and don't have an allegiance to any of the teams that play, however it's fun to be involved and have a stake in the games. Every year, I'm in the bottom of the pack. This year, I ended up near the top right from the very beginning. Prior to this year, I never figured I'd make it in the top 10 let alone the top 3 spots. This year however I had a chance to be #1 (if Memphis had won). So, now of course, #2 is disappointing! Still, it really is a miracle that I placed as high as that. Just goes to show, ignorance of a subject is not necessarily a barrier to success! Next year, I fully expect to be back in the lower rankings. I will bask in the glow of second place until then.

La La La Human Steps

That's the name of a dance company that Peggy and I saw on Saturday. The show they are currently doing is called Amjad and is a riff on Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty. Wow, what a performance. We both loved it. The performance consists of 5 female and 4 male dancers plus 4 musicians on stage (3 strings and a piano). There are 3 round screens overhead that occasionally shows videos of various images relating to the two original ballets. The music is variations on the original Tchaikovsky scores for the two ballets and is beautiful. This company has a unique dance style. The movements are extremely quick (beats with the foot are mere flashes of movement). Turns are done at high speed. Arm movements are aggressive and sharp. All the women wear pointe shoes and in some cases they are on pointe through most of the performance. There is one man who dances in pointe shoes and his duet with a female dancer is one of the most beautiful pas de deux I've seen. Despite the stripped down staging and the modern vocabulary, this show captures all of the beauty and tragedy of these classic ballets. (Their website is in French.) They are traveling to Asia next and then will be in New York City in November and back home in Montreal in 2009. Definitely worth seeing.

Nothin' like home made bread

I mentioned in a previous post that flour is my favourite ingredient. This weekend, I made bread. The recipe I used is from Cook's Illustrated and is their version of a recipe from the NY Times. The original article is by Mark Bittman (of Minimalist fame) based on a recipe developed by Jim Lachey of Sullivan Street Bakery in NYC. It became a bit of a sensation on the web (I had no idea how many crazed bread bakers there were out there) because it called for very wet dough that sits for a long first rise with no kneading. The bread is baked in a hot dutch oven creating a steam environment that produces the dark crust that you normally need a professional oven for. So of course Cook's did their number on the recipe. Among other things, they added beer and vinegar to the liquids to enhance the flavour. Their biggest innovation is the use of parchment to transfer the wet dough to the hot pot. For this particular loaf I added dried cranberry and toasted pecans. There really is nothing like home made bread. My kitchen smelled amazing all day yesterday. Fresh bread spoils quickly (read the label of a mass produced bread and all those ingredients that you can't pronounce are there to prevent spoilage) so I follow one of my aunt's suggestion to slice it up, wrap it well and freeze.

Los Angeles Ballet

This is a brand new ballet company trying to build an audience in LA.  They started up a couple of Decembers ago with a Nutcracker with an LA flavour.  I went to a few performances last year and the dancers are very talented.  The repertoire is primarily Balanchine with some Bournonville. This year they also commissioned a few brand new ballets.  Last week I went to their latest performance with Gigi and Maria.  The company did Four Temperaments, Tarantella and Who Cares (all Balanchine), as well as a brand new piece by Melissa Barak, who is a member of the company and a former NYCB dancer.  We thoroughly enjoyed the performance.  The great thing that LA Ballet does is they spread their performances around town, Westwood, Glendale, Redondo Beach.  It takes 15 minutes to get to the RB theatre from my home, plus free parking.  All that on top of a terrific night of dancing, what's not to love.  I hope the company continues to build an audience. 

Clear day in LA

This is what LA looks like when the air has been scrubbed clean by the winds. That's Century City and downtown further on. I took this photo from the Getty Center. On the other side, you could see Catalina Island. If it's been awhile since you've been to the Getty (or if you've never been), they have recently acquired a nice collection of modern sculptures which are displayed in various locations around the grounds.

State Ballet of Georgia

I went to see a performance of Giselle yesterday at Royce Hall with Joan (ballet teacher) and Peggy (fellow student). This company was rebuilt with the help of Nina Ananiashvilli who is a renowned dancer with ABT and Bolshoi. She is also a native of Georgia (the country in Eurasia, not the state). She performed the role of Giselle last night and was the primary draw. Her dancing is superb, very fluid, clean, beautiful. The rest of the company were very good but needed a final bit of polish (landings were a little hard, feet not pointed all the way through). We all thoroughly enjoyed it though, and Nina got a standing O and many bravos throughout the night. As usual, she was presented with a bouquet of flowers. In addition many audience members gave her single roses. She moved from one side of the stage to the other in her bows (nice gesture to cover the audience) and gave 'Myrtha' a couple of the flowers (nice gesture to acknowledge your fellow performers even though you are far and away the big star).

Cats on the lot

Anyone who owns cats knows they have an uncanny knack for finding the warmest place to hang out. There is a community of cats who live on the lot (descendants of critters that were brought in decades ago for pest control) and are cared for by employee/volunteers. These two found a nice warm car hood to hang out on on this chilly overcast morning.

My favourite ingredient is flour

I spent the long weekend up in Mountain View to celebrate my and Mei's February birthdays. Cooking seemed like a good way to spend time together without requiring a lot of logistics (to get two kids out the door). Everything we made had flour in it. We made dumplings (shui jiao) from my mom's recipe. Turned out pretty darn good, although we decided the filling needed to be a little saltier and could have used more napa cabbage. We baked a chocolate cake from a Cook's Illustrated recipe, which was sooooo good, chocolate with whipped cream frosting. And finally we made pizza with fresh made dough, which makes such a difference. I love baking and making dough, there is something so satisfying about seeing something double in size all on its own! And since I love almost all dough based products, the eating is fun too!

I also got a chance to visit Tegan and Patrick at their new home in San Rafael. Annette and Toshi were also there for a wonderful dinner and the conversation was amazing, fun, deep, grownup, silly. We were there until quite late and could have continued talking for hours more (if it wasn't for needing our beauty sleep).

Last but in no way least, the kids were great. Mason is fully alert and really curious about his surroundings. He really doesn't like to be left out of the action and wants to be able to see what everyone is doing. Neve is talking a blue streak, loves playing with her various baby dolls and doing puzzles. She's still shy around new people, but I think she remembered me from Christmas, because she warmed up very quickly.

Snow?

Yeah, that's what it looks like, snow. This was in the courtyard of my building. It was quite cold last night, but still!