Like my mother, my Ninang is a post 1965 immigrant, a beneficiary of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 enacted by President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Prior to 1965, the Filipino population in the United States, while growing, was still pretty small. After the 1965 Immigration Act, the quota of Asians, specifically Filipinos, into the U.S. grew exponentially - to 20,000 a year.
My Ninang and my mom go way back to the late 60's when my mom and Ninang first came to the U.S. as a young Navy wife. Although my mother was college educated and could have chosen other people, she chose to marry my dad (who was her on and off again childhood sweetheart), a Navy man and come live with him wherever the Navy took him. In her case, it was San Diego. She befriended several women at the Gateway Naval Housing Complex in Point Loma (off Rosecrans), my Ninang was one of them. A lot of them would get together since the husbands were overseas a lot, providing emotional support to each other; sometimes they would even babysit each other's children. Many of these Navy wives had never been away from home from their friends and families. These networks of friendships soon developed into geniune friendships extending into the compadrazgo system. As a result of their close ties, my mom chose my Ninang to be my godmother for baptism; she is also the godmother to my cousin in San Francisco.
My godmother was one of the few Filipinas I knew that kept her professional career from the Philippines into the U.S. - she was a nurse and recently retired a few years ago. Unlike my mother who was an elementary school teacher, she gave up her profession to raise me and my siblings. My ninang's first husband, my Ninong, was also my dad's best friend. Unfortunately, he died in the early 70's (I must have been about 4 or 5) of liver or lung cancer. She later remarried a much younger man in the early 80's (she was in her late 30's at the time, he was 28 - She was a cougar before her time!). This guy was Caucasian, an oil exec with bank and a talker! My "Ninong" is a pretty nice guy and he makes my Ninang happy. Anyhow, they recently moved back to their Pebble Beach home after having lived briefly in New Mexico for a couple of years. She insisted that we visit them and offered a place for us to stay on their bottom floor. How could we say no?
One the way down, we stopped by the Garlic Capitol of the World, Gilroy to have a little "snack" at the local In-n-Out located next to the Gilroy Outlets. I was hoping to get whiffs of their famous garlic crops, but for some reason, there were no garlic smells permeating the air...
Fries!
Although we had directions from MapQuest to my Ninang's place, they sucked.Bert spoke to my Ninong who gave us another set of directions. Unfortunately, we stopped at the wrong "gate" to 17 Mile Drive. There are about 6 or 7 of them and we went to the first one we saw. Once at the gate, we were allowed in by the gate guard, who was notified ahead of time that we were guest of my godparents. Otherwise, we would have had to pay to get in. Fk! Well, after a few minutes of driving, we realized we were lost. We called my Ninong and he ended up meeting us at the Gate where we followed him to their place. They were so happy to see us, especially my Ninang. Not only was she my godmother for my baptism, but she also served as godmother for my wedding. Even in her late 60's, she's still beautiful. In her younger heyday, she looked just like a Filipina Barbara Eden ("I Dream of Jeannie"). They gave us the whole bottom floor of their house which included a full bath and separate rooms for us and TC, which she really liked.
They had a lot of plans for us this day and despite how tired we were, we went along with their plans to take us all over their little community. First off, we went to lunch at one of their favorite restaurants, Fifi's Bistro Cafe (yeah, I blanched at the name too - it reminds me of a frilly pink poodle or something) in Pacific_Grove, which we learned is a stop off point on the migration routee of the Monarch butterflies. Banners of the town were festooned with the brightly colored winged insects. Now, I don't want to sound like a fkg ingrate, but we were at their mercy in terms of where they would take us. As we were to find out, a lot of their fave places were very ethnically void (ha ha). You could smell the privilege in the air as we set foot into the country club golf courses.
Click to see the Yelp reviews of Fifi's here. My godparents must have been regulars because they were greeted by name and we got really really good service...
According to my godparents, a lot of the restaurants in their area have specials just for locals (think of the "Kama'ina" specials in Hawaii). This wine happened to be on special - $7 for a bottle. Not being a wine aficionado, I wasn't sure if this was really a good deal or what. My Ninang ended up not liking it so Bert and my godfather pretty much finished the rest. I only took a few sips and didn't really drink mine.
Bert's side salad:
TC and Bert shared a light Linguine with cream sauce and Shrimp...
Since we had snacked on fries earlier, and in anticipation of dinner later that night, I wanted to eat light. I ended up getting the Crab Cake Salad which came with a mango vinagrette, slice mangoes, and candied walnuts. It was just the right portion and very very light. I loved the crab cakes - it tasted like they used Panko for the breading, which I really liked.
After lunch at the awfully named Fifi's, we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium in, duh, Monterey. The last time Bert and I were here was back in summer of 1996 when we took a road trip up to the Bay Area to celebrate our 1 year wedding anniversary. Now, we were doing it again 14 years later with our daughter! All I can say is, the Monterey Aquarium kicks major ass on the Birch_Aquarium in La Jolla! First off, it's much much bigger, in fact, they've expanded over the past decade! And second, it's got way better exhibits and massive tanks that house sea otters, sharks, kelp, and other sea life. It's amazing here. One thing that kind of sucked was that it was a lot more expensive than we remembered! It was nearly forty bucks per adult to get in. Sheeyit! There was an area where guests could touch various forms of sea life - below are some purple sea urchins...TC had fun touching a sea cucumber, a sea slug, various star fish and seaweed samples.
About an hour's worth into our visit (we spent maybe about 2 to 2 and a half hours here), I get a call from my sister.
"Guess what..." she said ominously.
"What? Is something wrong? What?" I replied in a sight panic...
"Guess who died?" and, without pausing and waiting for me to guess who died, she blurted out, "Michael Jackson!"
"What the fuuuuuuuck!!!! What?!!!!"
Indeed. I was so shocked to hear such news...well, sadly, not shocked of the circumstances (unfortunately, it's widely known that Michael Jackson was addicted to painkillers). My sister told me he went into cardiac arrest in LA and they suspected drugs to be the culprit. I quickly told Bert who was equally as shocked, as well as Thane, and of course, Superman (who used to be one of the biggest Michael Jackson fans I know). "Is it true?", "What does it say on the internet or on TV?" "What's happening now?". I felt like I was on a desert island because we were in the aquiarium at the time. Plus, I don't have an iPhone like Thane, or internet access like Supe did at his work/home. Later one that night, we turned on the TV at 10 pm and it was all over the news on every channel it seemed.
I feel the need to go off on a tangent...although I am not a huge Michael Jackson fan, I still have fond memories of him and his songs, particularly those from the album, "Off the Wall)". That was the first record I ever received as a gift (the second was the Go Go's "Beauty and the Beat") in 5th grade. I have a picture of myself with my semi feathered hair, striped velour sweater and my baggy string tie pants holding the album cover unfolded - Michael was standing with his hands askance and he had glowing white socks! I thought he looked so cool! The album was what you call a "Gatefold Sleeve". That album had so many good songs, "Rock With You" "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough", "Working Day and Night", "Off the Wall" and yes, even the ballad made famous by Eddie Murphy in his classic routine from "Delirious" where he makes fun of Michael Jackson's masculinity, "She's Out of My Life"...(this is where the line, "Tito pass me the tissues...Jermaine, stop teasing!" comes from).
Even though Michael Jackson's, in his later years, became tarnished with allegations of child molestation in 1993 and a decade later, he was still an extremely talented (and increasingly eccentric) musical genius. My parents had a Jackson 5 '45 that they used to play for us, "Rockin' Robin". We used to love watching the Jackson 5 on TV when we were young. Then, when Michael went solo, that was such a big deal back then. I remember listening to American Top 40 DJ, Casey Kasem spin the newest Michael Jackson singles. This was back in 1979 when Michael's first solo record, "Off the Wall" was released.
Just like the previous generations that knew where they where and what they were doing when JFK was shot, or when Elvis died...the same can be said for the sad and untimely passing of Michael Jackson. R. I. P.
Sting ray and leopard shark...
I forgot the name of this bird - I think it's a curlew...More of the Sandy Shore here. You can even check out their aviary cam!
Overcast that day...
Sea lions on the rocks in the Bay...
There was a fascinating Sea Horses exhibit - this one is the Leafy Sea Dragon, which are native to Australia! It's so beautiful! I quite liked how my photo turned out! It's just a nice as the post card!
Here's a sea otter - TC took this shot with another camera and it's through the glass so it's not so clear. It was otter feeding time! More about the otter exhibit here. Those suckers can get to be pretty big! The aquarium can't give the sea otter's rocks to open their shell fish because then, the otters would scratch up the aquarium glass.
The Aquarium is right next to Cannery Row, which used to be home to many sardine canning factories but instead, is now a street lined with soul-less chain restaurants and hotels, and touristy type shops.
Let's GTFO here! (get the fk out)
I'm not sure where this was but my godparents were driving us around and this was some park by the water. My godfather wanted to show us where he takes his daily swim...wait...a quick check on the internet and a chat with Bert reveals that this spot is "Lover's Point Park", known for it's picturesque views (not the one below, ha ha) of the bay. More on the park here. As you can see, we had some "fun" with the statues...
Of course, we did this while my godparents weren't looking! They were farther ahead walking with TC. They also like taking their daily walks at this park.
This picture is out of order...should have been right after we left the Aquarium...
I don't remember all the places they showed us, but I was in awe of how beautiful it was by the coast. They took us around 17 mile Drive, parts of Pacific Grove, Monterey, and parts of Carmel...Our dinner destination was going to be this place owned by none other than Dirty Harry himself...
