Daddy & Me Day

Today was a fun day “off.” I drove to Dentist Aunty’s house and then Dad picked me up. We went to the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens for a Daddy and me day. I planned this about a month and a half ago, during that weekend when Daddy came to West LA. Why so far in advance? Well, the first Thursday of every month is free admission, but I was taking finals last first Thursday of the month.

The last time I went was in 1997 with Mom. Mom and I took individual pictures in front of the Japanese bridge. Today, when I asked Dad to shoot a pix of me in front of the bridge (I really like the Japanese Garden), I thought about how I was standing almost at the same spot about 10 years ago. Deja vu...

We visited the desert, rose, and Japanese garden and then checked out two art galleries and the library. We visited Blue Boy and Pinkie, which brought back memories of Pastor Aunty’s Monterey house. Pastor Aunty had both of the paintings in the hallway where Dr. Cousin, Director bro, and I spent countless hours playing “Kamikaze” and “spaceship.” As a kid, those two paintings scared the bejeezus out of me. No clue why. Just something spooky about them…

See the Gutenberg Bible? This was our last stop. Dad was very excited to see this. :) See the descriptor card for the Gutenberg Bible? It’s so nicely shot b/c Dad accidentally shot with flash. :( The employee that I had approached moments before to ask if it was okay to shoot pixs without flash, yelled, “NO FLASH! NO FLASH!” The Red Hat Society lady standing between us shot my dad the dirtiest look and said, “That is certainly inexcusable!” and uttered something else out of disgust. I was mortified! Dad apologized to the two employees and explained the honest mistake (he switched the battery which automatically tripped the flash), and both of them said it was no big deal, they understood it wasn’t intentional, and “it happens.” Because the employees were so forgiving, I was really annoyed at how the Red Hat lady yelled at my dad like it was her business. That was the last stop of our two-hour adventure.

After lunch, I made the only cousin home swim with me. I haven’t swam for over 5 years! Cousin and I swam for about 40 minutes! I would have swum longer, but I wanted to beat traffic going to Dad’s. My plan backfired b/c by the time I was primped, Gramma was taking a cat-nap and I didn’t want to disturb her since she already gets little sleep as it is (I swear I get my poor sleeping patterns from Gramma...).

Well, we met Dad at the Beijing restaurant near his house. Gramma so rules! She lectured about how the wooden chopsticks have bleach or some chemicals that are bad for us. As she lectured, she busted out something that looked like a pencil bag. I thought, how cool is gramma if she busts out a pair of chopsticks! And of course she did! But they weren’t like any of the ones we normally use. This pair was fancy; the bottom-half is made of metal! Totally made me think of the Joy Luck Club dowry chopsticks. Gramma has the coolest stuff!