The Presidents...

Over the past few weeks, our daughter has been spouting off various trivial facts gleaned from her U.S. Presidents placemat (courtesy of Wal-Mart!)

Gems like, "Did you know that James Buchanan was the only president who never married?", or that James Madison was "nearly five feet tall and weighed one hundred pounds" (WTF! I did NOT know that!), and that Andrew Jackson was the "first president to ride on a railroad train".

Tonight at dinner, she mentioned that Andrew Jackson's first Lady was not his wife, but his niece. I wondered aloud why that was and she replied, "Maybe their relationship didn't work out!"

Actually, she's heard me say that line before when she asked why people get divorced or split up.

TC is becoming a trivia hound just like Mommy. She can tell you which presidents were assasinated and who went to Harvard or who didn't attend college.

I tell ya, those educational placements do work! When I was a kid, I just read the cereal box!

One of her favorites when she a toddler was "Flags of the World" (the placemat company is called 'Eat and Learn'). When she was almost three, she recognized the Canadian flag once when we were at the Del Mar Fair. We were sitting underneath a huge umbrella with the Molson Golden label..."Ooh, Canada!" accompanied by frantic pointing .

We have various placemats that we rotate every so often like the holiday themed ones. In addition to the ones we have on American sign language, the World, Birds, and Fruits and Vegetables, Thane gave us a Musical Instruments placemat. Right now, TC is totally into her Presidents, Math, and U.S. Map placemats.

Movie bargaining...

Since we're on the subject of movies...

Last night while we were fast forwarding through our recording of the Oscars, Bert asked me if I would watch "The Departed".

My reply, "Well, would you watch "The Queen"?

Bert's response: "Hey, that's not an even trade!"

Actually, I wouldn't drag him to see that movie. It's just that I have a hard time sitting through violent flicks or anything action for that matter. I'll just wait until "The Queen" gets on DVD and watch it by myself like a loser!

And the Oscar goes to...

Charles Jefferson

This was Forrest Whitaker's first movie role as the hulking steretypical black football player who "crushes Lincoln" in the best movie of all time, "Fast Times at Ridgemont High"!

Best line from the movie (one of two):

"Don't fk with it!!!" (after ticket scalper Mike Damon tries to touch his brand new, bitchin' red Camaro)

In the TV version, he says (and I love this...), "Don't FOOL with it!!!!"

FYI, the other line (also spoken to Damon):

"Hey, you got any Earth Wind and Fire tickets?"

Forrest Whitaker has certainly come a long way from his bit role as Charles Jefferson to portraying fiery Ugandan Idi Amin (Dada!) in "The King of Scotland"(which I haven't seen and probably won't until it's out on DVD and I'm very bored). But seriously, what an awesome achievement! An Oscar! And remember, Jeff Spicoli got one too!

San Diego Chinese New Year Faire

Today we went to the San Diego Chinese New Year Faire in the Gaslamp's Asian Pacific Historic District . We parked at Horton Plaza and walked a few blocks over. We've been going to this event since TC was a toddler. Before parking, we went round the block by the HP parking lot and passed by the Balboa Theatre (which is undergoing renovation). Earlier on Broadway, we passed by the Spreckels Theatre (the same sugar magnate Spreckels as in the Spreckels Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park;TC recognized it from her field trip last year).
and the NBC studios...

and the (fenced off) Horton Plaza Fountain, designed by famed San Diego architect, Irving J. Gill. Behind it is the Horton Plaza Shopping Center. That store used to be Robinson's when it first opened back in 1985. Then it became the ill-fated Planet Hollywood. I don't know what's there now. The foundtain is in Horton Plaza Park, which used to have benches, then the city took them all out because all of the transients would congregate there and scare off passerbies (I'm sure I spelled that wrong!) and (gasp) tourists.

I couldn't find a link to this, but this mural was on our way to the festival; I forgot which street!

At the festival...

The Lion Dancers were making their way down the street to the thunderous beat of really loud drums. A little girl "fed" the lion a red envelope with $$$ inside.

Up close and personal:

The San Diego Chinese Historical Museum on 3rd Avenue.

Adjacent is the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Gate. Behind is the peaceful Sun Yat Sen garden.

A statue of the "First Emperor" located in front of the San Diego Chinese Historical Museum's new extension (across the street). I found out that it opened just last year! Where have I been?

Admission to the museum was $2. Their current exhibit was "Threads of Love: The Art of Chinese Needlework" which was absolutely amazing. Words can't even describe the intricacy of the stitches and the vibrant colors and designs. We got stickers for admission and were also allowed into the original museum so we didn't have to pay twice!

These are the new condos above the new museum. Nice! This area was across from the stage.

This guy (and a woman who isn't pictured) was playing zither and harp music, which TC likened to music from "Avatar - The Last Airbender"! Uh, not quite! We also saw an acrobat and some singers as well as an older man who could mimic various animals (his bird mimicry was the best!)

TC made a Chinese lantern craft for "Year of the Boar". Actually I just noticed she didn't make any slits on this lantern! Oh well! In years past, she made lanterns for the Dog, the Rooster and Monkey (with our help!).
Another view of the festival. You can see the Manchester Grant behind the Kettle Corn booth. I call that building the "Flathead Screwdriver".

Mmmm...Pork and chicken skewers!

This is where Bert and TC got their food (shared an $8 combo):

Here it is: your standard chicken skewer, fried rice and chow mein. I thought it was overpriced, but then again, so is most festival food.

A dragon head along with (hidden) body that was propped near the festival entrance:

One of the exhibits in the original museum:

The Garden behind the museum which memorializes Sun Yat Sen.

This booth sold almond sponge cake ($1 a slice), butterfly cookies, rice krispy treats and buns. The butterfly cookies were twisted and fried won ton skins (.50 each) that had MEGA powdered sugar on them! Messy to eat! I wasn't sure if this was an actual building that Ah Quin lived in or owned:The Butterfly cookie. I ended up tapping off most of the powdered sugar. Last year, it got all over my nice black pants!

We only stayed for several hours. A funny thing that I saw was the sight of this kid's full on butt crack! She was sitting on her father's shoulder's and her elastic pants were pulled down really low! I mean, it was totally hanging out and at eye level! They were standing in front of the stage watching the guy play the Chinese zither. Sorry, no photo! Ha ha!

I saw several parents of my former students. The parents were manning booths. One was at her Chinese society's booth selling lai si, or lucky red envelopes. Another was selling her beautiful cards which incorporated handmade papers, origami, and Chinese coins and calligraphy. Her husband recognized me first and waved me over to their booth. They proudly updated me on one of their sons (he was a genius and a champion origami enthusiast) who recently got a promotion with Dreamworks. Wow! He had given me an intricate beetle origami years ago. The younger son had given me origami roses. The weather, although cloudy at times, was quite mild and enjoyable. It was a a nice way to see Chinese American culture on a weekend. Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Rush

I was flipping the HD channels the other night and came across a Rush concert - Man, that band still rocks! I watched bits and pieces of it and found out later that the concert was from 2004, celebrating R30 (30 years). Ever since discovering FM radio in 4th grade many eons ago, my main musical tastes have leaned heavily towards classic rock, rock, hard rock and various genres of metal. I've always considered Rush to be one of the more intelligent bands out there. No boneheads in that lot!

Rush was one of the first groups I liked back in the early 80's. Their albums, Permanent Waves, Moving Pictures , and Exit...Stage Left rank among my all time favorites. Rush boasts killer musicianship and innovation as well as masterful songwriting. An acquired taste, bassist Geddy Lee's high pitched voice is definitely unusual! I consider him to be one of rock's best bassists. The soundtrack of my life (especially the worst and most akward years of junior high and high school) are filled with great Rush songs. One of my favorites is
"Subdivisions" (from the 1982 album, Signals) , a song about teenage isolation in the suburbs. In my yearbook page, I quoted a Rush song, "Limelight" (written by drummer Neil Peart), which was lifted from Shakespeare's soliloquy from ""As You Like It":

"All the world's indeed a stage and we are merely players...Performers and portrayers...each another's audience inside the gilded cage"

Old Town

In contrast to Monday's dreary nonstop rain and gloodm, today was such a beautiful, warm and sunny day to be outdoors. I took a day off to chaperone TC's first grade field trip to Old Town . The school bus was packed with three classrooms full of kids (some unruly!), 3 teachers and about 20 or so parents. Although we had visited Old Town as a family before, this was different because it was an "educational" field trip and not an opportunity for me to get my ring cleaned at the jeweler's in Old Town, which was our main reason to visit.
This following link has more about many of the places we visited. Below is the Church of the Immaculate Conception; one of my cousins was married there three summers ago.

The original building for the San Diego Union Newspaper:

I wish we had taken this tour instead!

The first stop was the Seely Stable where a costumed docent had the children dress up in various period accessories. For example, TC and a few other girls wore lace mantillas on their heads while some of the others girls had shawls. The boys were either American cowboys with bandanas around their necks or were vaqueros with sashes tied around their waists.

Our very knowledgable tour guide:

Inside the Seeley Stables, there is a ticket booth. This lady was a sourpuss. Behind her was a small theater where the children learned about the "Old Days" from an elderly couple in period costume who taught them songs and showed them toys from long ago. No electronic shit here! Anyways, this lady was upset because she felt the room was too packed and wanted everyone standing along the side aisles to sit down because it was a "fire hazard". Apparently she had been nicked before on this.

This photo is kind of dark, but you can kind of see the elderly couple on the stage. They played the harmonica and piano and basically told stories about the old days, when people actually interacted with EACH OTHER to pass the time (talking to each other, playing games, singing songs, playing instruments) instead of being all into ipods, video games, and computers. All the kids seemed to enjoy singing "Yankee Doodle", "Oh Susanna" and "The Alphabet Song". Uh, excuse me, but could you please play"Super Freak" by Rick James?

If you look behind the trees, you can see part of the freeway, I-5. A train was passing by when I took this photo. This is behind the stables near the blacksmith's area.

A covered wagon commemorating the Mormon Battalion.

I couldn't resist taking this shot:

This was the skit that the children saw earlier with the elderly couple:

Another docent brought out a donkey; it's name was Don Quixote (get it? Don-key?). She was showing the kids that some mean assholes cut off part of it's tail hair several years ago. The docent said that the tail hair was probably used to make a belt or woven hatband and that since most donkeys are docile, it's easy to get really close to them.

Some shots of a new restaurant, the Cosmopolitan, which used to be the old Casa de Bandini. Read about the changes here . When Old Town was bought out by an Eastern Company in 2005, they changed the look of several places, making it quite different than before. Quite controversial it was.

A vine covered wall behind the Cosmopolitan:

The children visited the blacksmith shop after the donkey show (not that kind!):

Below are a "Tyre Stretcher" and a "Tyre Shrinker": The blacksmith demonstrating the use of a bellows:

This other dude was stoking the fire:

Now he's hammering a piece of metal which he shaped into a crook. He dipped it into a vat of cold water to cool it down and had the kids touch the metal afterwards.

Next stop, the Mason Street Schoolhouse:

It was made of recycled lumber, so no two pieces are the same length.

The interior of the schoolhouse. It is lined with numerous flags that once flew over California such as Spain, Mexico, and various incarnations of the the American flag. The one pictured below had only 31 stars. If you look closely, there is a dunce cap right behind the teacher's left elbow:

This was an actual list of "Punishments" for various transgressions. It's hard to see, but "playing cards at school" and "misbehaving to girls" got you 10 lashes!

The Machado house pictured below was made of adobe:

To the right, you can see their kitchen implements hanging on two shelves, which were suspended from the ceiling. It didn't touch the floor so that rats or other vermin wouldn't climb on it. The docent mentioned that up to seventeen people once lived in that house at one time. There were no dividing walls. There was also no bathroom, but a chamber pot instead. So, there was definitely no privacy there!

One of the beds:

The docent also mentioned that this plant (the way she pronounced it sounded like 'chorizo' but I know that's not it) was used to make a type of thatched roof cover on the adobe houses.

You could see the dried canes of that plant underneath the tiled roof.

The outhouse for the Machado house:

There was this huge, old and gnarled cactus behind the house. See the white spots? It's a type of fungus caused by a type of insect. It can kill cactus if left to fester. Women back then would crush these whitish spots between their fingers and it produced a crimson dye called Cochineal which they would use as makeup!

A period garden typical of that era:

I believe this is a poppy?

I liked these dead branches!

I totally forgot what this was about but I believe it was an outdoor oven

The docent was showing where candles would be dipped into cold water before another layer of tallow was added to the wick.

We left Old Town at around 1 pm and got back to the school by 1:30! TC fell asleep on the bus despite the noise! I was hoping we would get a chance to see Whaley House which is considered the "Most Haunted" Haunted House in the U.S. I remember watching specials on this and also reading articles on this house! Pretty scary stuff! I guess they didn't want to scare the kiddies!