peter fernandez' special admirer

why didn't i think of this? sheer brilliance! one of the long beach press telegram's staff members is also a fan of peter fernandez of san fernando city and gave an homage to him a couple of weeks ago.

in case you can't read it this is what the homage (image on left) read, " Photo shows Mike Watkins, of Torrance, with homage to Peter Fernandez of San Fernando City, interpreting a boy who is lost in an oil tower on the beach with a telegram pressed against his long hands, searching for the secrets of life. Taken on July 16, 2008 in the eclectic & diverse lobby of the Press Telegram."

I was also a fan of a recent clipping (the image on the right) which reads, " Photo shows Peter Fernandez of San Fernando City with whiz pianist Alred Amadian interpreting on 'sirelis' meaning love in Armenian & has a peaceful feeling of friendship the world over that is away from a bone of contention, & he typifies an Armenian man with a broad head & prominent nose. Taken on May 4, 2008 at the lively festival of Armenia in Glendale.

i just love that he had to comment on how he typifies an armenian...

Middlesex

i must be on a pulitzer prize book thing. i heard enough people rave about this book so i picked it up right before my puerto vallarta trip and was almost successful in finishing it in a very relaxing weekend. after reading the road, it seemed like this book was a vacation in itself - i found myself thinking like the author and the only other book that was that contagious for me recently was bridget jones' diary, so i probably shouldnt brag about that, but i love it when a book is so inspiring that it catches on to your way of looking at the world. anyway i love the way that the author captures the history of his family all in the context of his story - it was fun to take that journey and got me thinking about my family in that light as well and what kind of skeletons are lurking around on the boat here from sweden....hmmm....i am guessing they are not so juicy as a brother and sister hooking up as did the author's grandparents, but still. the book is written in a sort of dreamy state - it in a lot of ways reminded me of 100 years of solitude in its almost folkloric prose.

throughout the book i stared at the author's picture at the back of the book wondering just how fictional this book is...at one point the narrator in the book describes himself as a faun - look at this guy...faun is he not? anyway from what i gather from interviews and such Eugenides is not a hermaphrodite, but it still awes me because i felt the voice of the narrative so feminine. he seemed to be able to peer inside the mind of a teenage girl so eerily well - as he also did in virgin suicides - and not just the teenage girl, but the way also in which he talks about his family and history.

i thoroughly enjoyed the book, although i must say that he lost me at the end. it seemed like at the end he felt like he needed some action in case this were to be made into a movie or something - or maybe it was bringing the story current that did it. whatever the case from the point the narrator ran away i stopped believing somehow. it didnt ruin it for me in any way, just threw me for a loop i guess. anyway - i more earnestly back this book up than any i have read for a while. and it won't make you want to kill yourself like the road.

20 weeks

halfway done. i recently watched an episode of House of Babies (on discovery health i believe about the miamy birth center) and they discussed pregnant women and their body issues. the head midwife shari daniels made a comment that most pregnant women think other pregnant women are beautiful, but never themselves. i was very puzzled myself the first time i was pregnant because i love pregnant bellies and just thought i would feel like the cutest thing in the world...not so much for me. i know other women who do enjoy it and feel very sensual, but for me i definitely felt the extra weight and tight itchy belly and extra cushion in the back...not the volumptious curvy beauty i had hoped. i am trying to be more conscious this time around about my weight, but also about my body image and feeling better about myself. i am trying to take compliments straight to heart and to feel even sexy when i can. i think pregnant bodies are gorgeous and full of life and potential and should be celebrated, not covered up - so i am trying to share my belly shots again. i can't promise i will feel this way the whole way through, but for now i am feeling okay - sleeping fine and trying to stay away from dairy (see past blog "ode to dairy") and sweets - sweets are a different issue all together and isn't easy when your dear husband comes home with a heart shaped box from Mrs. Fields full of delicious cookies! so i showed excessive restraint by not eating the entire box yesterday, but bryson did sit on my lap and we did enjoy a couple semi-sweet choc chip cookies together with big ol goofy cookie grins. any way - i am trying to enjoy this very temporary time in my life and savor every kick of the baby and every new development. yesterday the midwife was over and i was able to hear the heartbeat through the fetal-scope - such a sweet precious sound!

the most disgusting thing ever

a consistent belly ache led me to the doctor's office yesterday for bryson. he was not a good patient. he acted very much like a 2 year old yesterday i must say. he was not a fan of the scale, the height measurer, the thermometer, the table with the crinkly paper - nope - did not like any of it and he wanted to make sure that not just me and the nurse knew, but the entire pediatric office at Harriman Jones Medical Group...in fact i am pretty sure all of the second floor was aware that bryson did not want to be weighed. at any rate, nothing seemed abnormal, but "just to be sure" she handed me a lab slip to get some stool sample collectors at the lab...i battled between "keeping my eye on things" and "wanting to make absolutely sure" because i knew the stool collection would not be a fun task, but i did take him to the lab and i did pick up the containers and i did wait patiently for 1.5 days until he pooped...and i did regret giving him dried cherries yesterday - i believe some of them ended up in the containers...i hope that doesnt mess up their findings! any way - i had to post this because it was rather superhuman of me to do it all - it took me about 2 minutes to collect it all, which is pretty darn disgusting if you think about an open diaper and 2 minutes of the smell and a little spoon attached to a little container...anyway i had to share this experience, because some things should not be told and this is probably one of them, but on the other hand some things we do out of love that push us to our limits and should be openly talked about and displayed...okay - not that heroic i know - i just collected some poo, but i had to share it okay?

The Pseudo Rebels Breakthrough Performance

i could also say the pseudo rebels only performance but so not as impressive. on saturday night at the mai tai bar in long beach, B Nyce and DPIII hit the stage and spit mad grooves. okay i think that is about as hip hop as i get, but needless to say i was pretty darn proud of them. it took a lot of guts to get up there with the crowd that was there and if you ask me my opinion - they killed it! donny...i mean DPIII pleasantly surprised me with his energy and i knew B Nyce would bring it, but he really pulled it off without seeming nervous at all. If you want to here more psuedo rebels lovin - join the party here

The Road

this morning in a rare moment of reading, i finally finished, The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. this book has seriously taken me over a year to finish. although i am somewhat glad to have finished it, because i truly think Cormac is an amazing writer, i must say that his views are just so bleak and hopeless at times, which is the reason the book drudged on for me. i love his style of writing and the dialogue between the boy and man sort of looming in the book - not hindered by grammer or quotation marks and at times there is confusion between who is talking to whom. i love the mystery behind the plot that the author never truly answers, which beats behind every breath of the character begging the question of what happened. all this to say is that i get it. i get that it won the pulitzer - but seriously...did it have to be so freakin depressing? from what i gather his themes are pretty similar throughout his other works. i haven't read any other McCarthy novels, i did watch No Country for Old Men - in fact, we own it, but it didnt surprise me. i think what intrigued me is that in most books - i guess atheistic books, which aren't necessarily atheistic, but lets just say deprived of any religion - authors tend to emphasize love as the saving aspect of humankind - they blow it up and at the end of the day love will save all of us. love becomes the hope and religion for a lot of authors with depressing themes. i think that His Dark Materials series by Pullman did this and some of Steinbeck (what with the whole breastfeeding a stranger in Grapes of Wrath for instance). anyway - i guess all this to say that McCarthy doesnt really go there with love - he kind of makes love a statement - much like - hey - its all we got in this crappy place. i dont agree with him there - i think it is more transformative than that. he chose the example of a father and son - one of the purest forms of love to kind of expound on and i think that he does admit that in a way, but never does he exaggerate it or even hype it - it is survival love. i am super glad to have finished it. did it change my life? certainly not - i think it was a beautiful piece of work, but certainly not "transformative". would i recommend it to you? i am not sure...i guess that depends on how this review made you feel...i did hear that it is being made into a movie and viggo mortenson is playing the father...seriously i couldn't think of a more boring movie...i will so wait for that to come out on DVD - i am sure they will most likely do amazing things with it, but it will probably battle Old Man and the Sea for most boring movie plot ever...

4 months

our 4 month pregnant bellies - bryson must have couvade's!

anniversary fishing

this is late...but bryan and i celebrated 7 years on the 6th and used a sport fishing certificate. i had never been before and had wanted to, so i was very excited to spend the day with my favorite fishing buddy and enjoy a beautiful boat ride off of newport harbor. the experience was lovely. i am well aware that pretty soon before we know it our lives will become tumultuous once again, so it was lovely to have the day alone staring at the ocean in a contemplative state. it was almost too quiet - too much outside our norm. from the time bryson wakes up to the time he actually stops fighting sleep, he is a constant stream of words and noise. we adore the booger, but quiet is not a part of our lives. anyway, we first fished for barracuda, and i was quite happy not to catch any...they seem rather ugly and i hear they dont taste well to boot. after the barracuda we ended up fishing for bass - i caught a rockfish and bryan caught two striped sea bass. he then cooked me a fabulous anniversary dinner and we dined on shrimp and sea bass freshly caught and he also cooked up a sculpin that someone on the boat gave to him - which was also delicious! i am very fortunate to have such an amazing husband, who consequently is amazing looking and also an amazing cook to boot!

Kentucky Chili

i made the kentucky chili with the help of Dee and her cousin Stephanie last wednesday. i was a little nervous about it - it didnt seem like it would come out too chili-ish...the ingredients included: okra, lima beans, corn, lamb, pork sausage, chicken, chipotle and ancho chilis, tomatoes, and i can't seem to remember what else and the cookbook is all the way in my kitchen and yes i really am that lazy...anyway - you serve the chili over rice and i was quite pleased at how it turned out - just the right amount of spice and despite the 3 meats it wasnt overwhelmingly meaty - and oh yeah...it had bar-b-que sauce in it - duh - that is why i liked it so much! i made it as an homage since we visited bryan's family in kentucky exactly a year ago - i was quite upset visiting because we didnt have any good ol' kentucky cooking - we went out to a chinese buffet one night, we had japanese food another night and his family out there was italian so we had italian pretty much the rest of the time...next time it will be different...i know more about kentucky cooking...i do have to say i finally spoke up and complained the last night and so they indulged me by going to cracker barrel the next morning for breakfast...i know it is like the denny's of the south, but it was GOOD! so there...

anyway - i would cook this chili again - the picture is kinda lame - you can't see the rice and the different colors, but anyway...

4th of July

bike parade, block party, bar-b-que, way too many sweets, balloon madness, bounce house madness, red white and blue everything, friends, family, fireworks, sun, leaving with the firework residue smell - what a great 4th of July!