Happy Mother’s Day.

Oops. I missed a couple of days there. I’ve been very busy with people and to be honest, blogging just slipped my mind until it was too late. So maybe I’ll give a short rundown of events.

Friday, May 7
I got more information on the child support issue. It turns out that the payment I received was to pay off arrears from 1999-2004. I found out that he’s only court ordered to pay me $50 a month, but on this first check, he voluntarily chose to pay me more. That’s interesting. There’s more info, but it probably wouldn’t be wise for me to go into detail here. Let’s just say I think it’s a good thing.

On Friday night, I also decided to have a casual dinner party for family and friends. I downloaded the free Epicurious Ap for my iPhone – it is awesome. You can browse through all the recipes, then add whatever you want to your Favorites. And what’s even better is that you can add recipes into your shopping list and the ingredients all get combined & separated into categories – like dairy, meats, produce, etc. It is seriously the most convenient thing to ever happen to grocery shopping since online ordering. (Although I’ve never actually used that function before.)

I also peeled and cut a butternut squash by myself for the very first time. I didn’t realize until I had to do it for a recipe that Filipino cooking almost never calls for butternut squash. Which is probably why I never had to do it. I had no idea that you actually have to use a peeler. I was so proud of myself that I had to take a picture with my phone:

I ended up making Six-Spice Steak with a Ginger Soy Sauce, paired with a Wild Rice & Butternut Squash concoction of deliciousness. I think I did pretty well… considering I fed 8 grown men, 1 woman, and my monkey. I also burned myself twice on the oven rack – due to a dysfunctional oven mitt. Oh well.

Saturday, May 8
I woke up with a brainsplitting headache. I really should figure out why this keeps happening to me. In any case, it took me quite a while to get out of bed because of it.

Then in the afternoon, Francis and I went to see Iron Man 2 – which was a lot of fun. It was definitely good for the kind of movie it is. I mean, nobody goes to see Iron Man to be mentally stimulated. I liked it because I love Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johanssen, and Gwyneth Paltrow in just about everything they do. And Francis really liked it because it’s a Marvel movie.

In the evening, I met up with a couple of friends and had an outing in Hollywood. We went to The Grove, where I saw this little cream-colored pomeranian wearing a set of pink shoes. It was seriously too adorable for words. I would’ve taken a picture with it, which I seriously did consider, but it already had a crowd around it. I ended up just admiring it from afar. I also considered buying Penny a set, then thought better of it. She would just find a way to kick them off anyway.

Then afterwards, we went to this cafe called Solar De Cahuenga. I had the most delicious Portobello Panini – it was a Portobello mushroom, layered on top of seasoned hummus, with Ciabatta bread. Then I had some of my friend’s “Savoy” Crepe – strawberries, nutella, chocolate syrup, whipped cream, add bananas. Imagine the tastegasm. All in all, it was a quaint little place with good food. We ended up staying there until 1:30 in the morning talking. Good times.

Today
Today is Mother’s Day. It’s been a leisurely day so far. I had breakfast with the family, and later on we’ll be going to meet up with more family for dinner. Thank you to everyone who greeted me! And Happy Mother’s Day to all the brave, amazing mothers out there too!

Pictures in an Exhibition

I’ve been paying a lot of extra attention to the LA art scene lately. All signs are beginning to point towards an increasingly unified scene, which is weird because that’s exactly what I’ve been complaining about ever since I got back from London. And just last week the topic of LA’s art scene being “broken” came up in conversation.

But according to a bunch of articles I’ve been reading recently, like this little ditty featured in The Huffington Post, it all seems to be changing. It’s not a bad thing at all – if anything, it’s perfect timing (due to some specific art-related ventures that I’m not at liberty to discuss quite yet).

On that note, I wanted to take this opportunity to link to a few valuable LA art scene resources – ones that I’ve been keeping tabs on for a variety of reasons, from news, to basic information, to events, to new artist discovery, etc. If you’re interested in art – you should check them out:

Fecal Face- This site features mostly San Francisco-based art, but it does have a few links to things happening in LA. It also has some great interviews. My brother told me about it a few months ago, and now it’s become one of my daily-visited sites. I like it a lot because the artists they feature tend to be just in line with my taste. That, and it’s called Fecal Face – what’s not to like?

For Your Art – A Los Angeles- based site that highlights current exhibitions & events, galleries, news, and other art-related information. This is a great resource if you’re looking for an exhibition to see over the weekend or near future.

Downtown Los Angeles Artwalk – The downtown LA artwalk happens on the second Thursday of every month. It’s a great opportunity to visit all the contemporary galleries in downtown, plus it all takes place a few blocks from MOCA. If memory serves me correctly, MOCA has a discounted entry fee on this night as well. Last time I went to this, a performance artist asked me on the street if he could use my hair as a medium for his piece. (I didn’t do it because of time constraints, but under normal circumstances, I totally would have!) The site also has news, events, gallery listings, etc.

These are just a few for now. I want to put up links to some noteworthy galleries & events also, but it’s getting late and I need to catch last night’s episode of Glee before I go to bed. I’ll save those for next time.

By the way, if you don’t have the time or patience to go through these sites, but are still interested, then they’re all on twitter too!! (Did I mention I LOVE Twitter?)

Swimming in a Fish Bowl