Pink Eye = WMDs

Yes, it is true. I have been slowly assembling an army of cybersoldiers in preparation for robot uprisings and armageddon in general. However, now that I have been demobilized by pink eye, I now believe I should assemble a guerrilla group of bio-terrorist combatants also. I would recruit my two nephews, who transferred the highly contagious virus to me by coughing indiscriminately in my food and my face, all the while staying cute and lovable, disarming me and my better judgment to maintain some distance away from their bio toxic germs. I can't believe I allowed those little fuckers to get me.

Since I am not as cute and lovable as my nephews, my friends are not as disarmed and have maintained their better judgment. Even though I promised not to cough into anyone's food or face, a couple of us made the right decision for me to leave a baby shower early and quarantine myself so I don't spread the infectious disease to the expecting mother and unborn child. In fact, there was another pregnant friend on the scene so I finally left because I couldn't bear the responsibility of something later going terribly wrong. It's not like you can deny spreading pink eye at a party when you're the only one with discharge oozing out of your eye sockets. Thank god I had my sunglasses on. Although no one could tell, I started feeling paranoid. I was reminded of a Bloodhound Gang episode (from 321 Contact) about pink eye. The story was about this school cafeteria employee who had contracted pink eye, yet neglected to wash her hands before she prepared sandwiches, causing a number of teenagers to become ill. She wore sunglasses the whole time to cover her itchy, irritated red eye. But the Bloodhound Gang found her habit of wearing sunglasses indoors, in a dark cafeteria, to be a bit odd. I don't remember exactly how the Bloodhound Gang busted her, but I do remember the moral of the story is to wash your hands frequently... and to never contract pink eye.

Twenty-five years later after watching such an important and informative show, it is clear I have not learned from my childhood lessons. Or perhaps bio-terrorists (ie. children) are far more powerful and deadlier than they were when I was growing up? All I know is that none of my peers growing up ever had pink eye or lice or mono or peanut allergies. But now I have one of the four. OMG. I need to assemble a guerrilla army as soon as possible! In the meantime, I will be an army of one and follow what this guy does.

Children say the darnest things

I heard some great one-liners this past weekend.

I attempted to engage in a conversation about Barack Obama with my 6 and 4 years old nephews. If Auntie loves Obama, the nephews surely will also.

So I described to them how Sasha and Malia are going to get a new dog when they move to the White House.

Christopher announces, "I want to get a new dog. But we have to wait for these (points to dogs Gabby and Sally) to die first."

Nice. Good to know he's a honest little fucker.

I offered to eat the dogs but the boys then shrieked like little girls. Little tortured girls. It didn't sound good.

Then while we started to over-decorate the tree...


...and were looking for hooks to clip the ornaments...


... Elliot announces, "I NEED A HOOKER!"

Awesome. Good to know he's a degenerate like Auntie.

And finally, Christopher makes a racial remark. It's kind of funny so it's okay. Plus, he's just a child. He doesn't know better.

Holiday Update

I'm up north visiting my family for the holidays. So once again, I must be wholesome and pure. That is why I'm wearing a pilgrim hat and showing off pilgrim art, both made by my younger nephew Elliot. Part of being wholesome and pure is immersing in the holiday spirit. For reasons I never quite understood, celebrating Christmas the day after Thanksgiving is a tradition in America. And what is good for America is good for my family. We shall not be exempt from such celebrations.
Here we are at Downtown San Jose. We were suppose to go ice skating, but the rink was closed. So were all the children's rides and the public library. Yes, Downtown San Jose was booty overall. But we still remained in the holiday spirit and took pictures with the many Christmas decorations scattered throughout the main street.

Here is a Christmas tree decorated with pictures of missing children. Above each picture is the word "VANISHED".

Um, can you say downer?

And here is a lovely nativity scene. But where is Baby Jesus? He must be VANISHED. Perhaps we'll find his picture in the tree above...

We celebrated a little bit of Christmas at home too. We assembled this gingerbread house puzzle and glued the pieces together.
There's glitter on the puzzle too, but you may not be able to see it in the photo. We also put together a glow-in-the-dark dinosaur puzzle, but it kind of got messed up when we tried gluing the pieces together. I doubt we're going to fix it. With young boys and an ADD aunt, we've moved on to other activities.
Activities such as Jenga and Twister. The boys liked them okay. I think they'll like them better when they get a little older. I can't wait. So instead we focused on some wooden toys I had also purchased for them. I added a couple of stickers to each and they insisted to add more. How awesome is that?!

Here is Christopher's helicopter:
Also to my delight, the boys have learned to make funny faces!
Speaking of toys and funny faces, I'm going to take this moment to digress for a bit... can someone please explain this to me?
There are two big shelves of stuffed bears at my sister's friend's home where we celebrated Thanksgiving this year. I don't mean to be disrespectful, since she fed me and all, but I just don't get it. I mean, I have seen and heard of adults having huge collections of dolls and stuff animals, but I just don't get it. Of course I had to inquire about her collection. They are specialty bears from all around the world. I certainly appreciate the diversity, but it's a little strange, right? I guess I shouldn't poo poo it during this time of wholesomeness and purity. I presume a collection of stuff animals is part of that. Indeed I complimented her bears and smiled cordially in the most purest and wholesome way, supressing my naturally sarcastic thoughts. See, I'm all about the holidays yo.

Now back to funny faces... Happy Holidays!!

Who bounced better?

Dude, you gotta choose me. I make a great Chinaman face at the end.


But my nephew's performance was excellent as well. Sudden and immediate aggression is always appealing.

It's Chuck E Cheese, Bitch

Wicked picture, huh?

For my nephew's birthday, I treated him to an afternoon of Chuck E. Cheese.

Dude, I haven't been to a Chuck E Cheese in 20 years. I forgot how much fun it is. There is definitely something more appealing about hanging with white trash and immigrant kids than going to the some expensive children's museum that serves organic peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and soy milk for $20. The parents and children are grossly smug. Like you want to slap them in the face. But at ChuckECheese, it's very humble, affordable and fun... and I'm like the richest person there! I felt like we had limitless tokens, a sense of comfort and satisfaction that I have never felt before. I grew up frequenting CEC with about $3 max. It was always spent very quickly.

For lunch we purchased a small cheese pizza, an all-you-can-eat salad plate, milk and beer. I was the only one at ChuckECheese consuming beer, by the way. Before I purchased it, I had to agree to all these stringent rules, like not leave my beer on the table, take it everywhere with you, do not feed to children, etc. So when my nephew needed to do number 2 in bathroom, I brought the beer into stall, as I am a law-abiding citizen. It wasn't the best combination with bud light, but better than without!

After lunch, we played ski ball. I love that shit. In fact, we struck jackpot! The aisle I was playing on starting spewing tickets continuously and non-stop. I thought it was going to go on forever and I debated whether I should walk away... but I couldn't. I started looking around hoping no one was watching me. Everyone, however, was staring with envious eyes. I collected about 150 tickets before it finally stopped. We ran to our booth and counted the tickets immediately. My nephew and I counted together. When we reached past 100 or so, I felt giddy and light-headed.

We won 354 tickets total. We exchanged our tickets for a top, a mini soccer ball and a ring. Yeah, I know. It seems like a lot of effort for some cheap mini plastic toys. They're probably toxic too.

Here's a question: Why do parents allow their children to steal tickets? As my tickets spewed out of that defective but lovely machine and coiled along the ground, toddlers would come from no where and try to steal my tickets! I'm like, hey, those are mine! Then they look at me with fear and run away. Parents stand by silent. I'm like, dude, you need to control your kids. They should thank me for teaching their fucken children for thieves not to disobey the law.

Here's another question: Do you think parents realize that ChuckE is a rat? And his friends are street animals, including a cracked-out bird and a dingy mutt, both likely infested with rabies? I felt like, dude, whoever thought of this theme is laughing his/her way to the bank!

Other games we played: air hockey and fuze ball with hockey players (is that table hockey then?). My nephew was addicted and couldn't stop playing. I was surprised and secretly delighted how naturally adept he was with such games. I kind of feel like air hockey and fuze ball are for older kids, not for my five year old nephew. But he obviously is far more superior in adoitness than other children his age and beyond. I'm not sure why, but I like it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

For Thanksgiving, my sister made four deserts. This is pretty impressive for a woman who grew up in a Chinese family. For dessert, Chinese people usually eat fruit or, if it's a special day, almond gelatin yo.

Chocolate Souffle

Pumpkin pie

Cheesecake (with lemon zest)

And her prized work of the evening...
APPLE PIE (a la mode, bitches)

And a bonus for your holiday pleasure:

I asked the kids to wave around their American flags with pride!
Don't call me unpatriotic, bitches.

Farewell Little Brother

He's first off to Asia, then back to Calgary.
I'm going to miss the little pervert.

Seven years in Los Scandelous. It's an end of an era.

Happy Father's Day

to YIP YEE, the best father in the world. And I'm not saying this because he's my dad. He really is. Look it up if you don't believe me.

Peace out to all the big poppas out there!

Mother's Day

This is the second year in a row that I spent Mother's Day with Lady Simzie, as my sassy mother (pictured above) is in Chicago and I'm in LA and that's how it goes. Single tear...

Still, it is very uncharacteristic of DYY not to celebrate a holiday. Thank god that Lady Simzie is a mom, so at least we can celebrate in her honor.

Here's Nihkil, wearing the SAG shirt I bought for him! We're chillaxing at Santa Monica Beach.
Baby #2 (Jovan Joseph maybe?) is due in July. With one baby and another in tow, Lady Simzie is still the hottest MILF I know.

I know you agree.

Happy Mother's Day to all MILFS. You bitches are hot.

Double Happiness

On Saturday, I went to two wedding parties. Can you believe it? Double weddings in one night. Despite the agonizing thought, I actually had lots of fun. Christy and Peter exchanged vows at the City Club on the 54th floor of the Wells Fargo Building in Downtown, where we were very fortunate to receive free mouthwash in the restrooms. It shoots out from a dispenser. Can you say, swanky? I can. Here's Lady Pun and I doing a toast of peppermint mouthwash for the new husband and wife, who by the way, are so lovely. I am so happy for them. They're honeymooning in Italy right now. Fucken bitches.

The good spirits followed me to Khanum and Syed's wedding party in Mount Washington, at yet another fancy location. A rich and very generous friend's house. The new bride and groom looked stunning, as always. And as always, they partied Bollywood style -- johnnie walker, bhangra and tons of samosas. But no mouthwash.

Finally, I can't even attempt to broach the subject of weddings without giving a proper SHOUT OUT to CuzzieND who married her man in September 2006. Yeah, I'm kind of late in my reporting. Sorry, girl. But check it. We're going to re-live the moment through pictures.

This is my favorite picture of them. They're like, What?

My parents, YY and WYY (Wife of Yip Yee).
You can't tell, but they were ECSTATIC to be at my cousin's wedding.
I couldn't calm their excitement.

Here's Cuzzie after she changed into her Chinese wedding dress. Meow!

New animals in my consciousness

I spent this past weekend in Northern California, celebrating my girl Christy's status as a bride-to-be. And since I was in the area, I visited my family in San Jose and celebrated a non-sectarian Easter with them. The weekend was fun and lovely. Thank you for asking.

What got excited me over the weekend was the new creatures now in my consciousness. For example, on route to Sebastopol (I know, right?) for our new age-y spa treatments, a huge bird that I swear looked like a turkey flew low above our car. I was like, is that a turkey? No one in the car knew. Finally when we arrived at the farm house (I know, right?) to meet Christy and company, another bird of its kind flew above us and Christy announced, "Oh, there's another turkey vulture." I was like, no way! They're actually called turkey vultures! Cool.

To learn more about our new feathered friends, check out this website full of fun facts about turkey vultures, thanks to the Turkey Vulture Society (I know, right?).

On Monday, I went with my sister and the boys to the Monterey Bay Aquarium in, you guessed it, Monterey, CA.

Aquarium photos beautifully taken with love by DYY

I love aquariums! So do my nephews!

I was so excited to learn that the MBA just developed a new sea otter exhibit too!

As you may know from my last trip to Washington state, sea otters became one of my all-time favorite animals. They're just so adorable.

But the creature that stole the show were... the jellyfishes!

I am embarrassed to admit that I don't think I have ever seen a live jellyfish. I now realize that not only do they serve as a super tasty treat in dim sum and other fine cuisines, they are beautiful too!

Here's a close-up picture of one. Isn't it exquisite?

Here's a picture of a group of white ones in front of a black background.
They are very photogenic.

Lastly, here is a cool picture I took of a school of sardines.

I can watch schools of fish swim around a tank all day. It must be the psychedelic stoner in me.

Why hate St. Jude?

So my sister-in-law kindly emails me... but with very, very bad news.

Remember that giant mural of St. Jude on 26th St? Someone had the audacity to paint over it!!! That Jesus-like image (non-christian/catholic folks like me called him Jesus) was a pseudo cultural landmark of Bridgeport/Chinatown. It's been there since I was born at least. Paint me shocked. I swore you had a blog entry about it, but couldn't find it. Anyway, what used to be the Hungry Hound is now a Mexican place...they painted the logo over St. Jude. It's hideous. We can't find our digital camera, otherwise you'd get a pic.

What a travesty. It's not like the perpetrators even replaced St. Jude with something better, like this:

Let's all smoke in memory of St. Jude.
May he live in our hearts and minds forever.

Sometimes simple is sweeter

Christopher totally scored on his birthday gifts. He received clothes, games and tons of toys. All of the board games were boring (since he's still four) but the toys were very flashy. I was jealous. For example, he received:

• battery-powered "Shake N Go" race cars and delux race tracks with flashing lights and loud obnoxious race sounds;
• a remote-controlled monster truck, also with obnoxious sounds;
  
• a complete set of "Home Depot" plastic power tools (interestingly, he received two of the same set... I guess there was a sale at Toys R Us);
• a miniture-size Harley Davidson motorcycle and motorcyclist that operates on an actual foot pump.

Per the recommendation of my sister who said the boys are obsessed with Thomas and Friends, I bought the boys wooden Thomas trains and Thomas toothbrushes and Thomas swimming trunks and pajamas. However, the item that Christopher played with the most is the construction paper I brought along with me:

I taught Christopher how to fly paper airplanes last summer, but we were limited to lifeless notebook paper. So this time I purchased construction paper with cool designs and colors. We already spent two afternoons making and flying airplanes. We even made spaceships by taping two airplanes together and fastening ribbons at the bottom to give an illusion of fire shooting from the engine as it soars through the air. My brother-in-law also joined in on the fun and began folding other types of airplanes. As you can see above, my skills are limited to one style.

Trapped in a Cuckoo Nest aka 4 year old bday party

Everyone knows I adore my nephew. He turned 4 yesterday and today is his big birthday celebration. The theme is Cars from an ostensibly famous Disney movie. I don't know, I haven't seen the movie nor have I read about it in the trades. So I asked my sister (his mother) if kids are going to come dressed as cars. She said no. I thought to myself, what kind of booty theme party is this? Well, actually, I think I said it out loud. Regardless, Christopher and I were excited all day. We love birthdays. I teased him all day that it was really my birthday and my party and my cake and my gifts and my guests. He didn't believe me and responded that the guests are "my people." He also insisted that it's a 4 year old birthday party and surmised that I'm 13. He's a smart kid.

My excitement soon dissipated when the children and parents arrived. The once tranquil suburban San Jose home turned into a 1950's mental institution. I couldn't help but to transfigure myself from a normally outgoing party person into a quiet observer of a scientific social experiment. Let me attempt to explain:

(1) The four-year olds are the schizophrenics. They chase each other around, yell for no reason, and expect others to satiate their demands at once... or they will show you how crazy they really are. They tend to hundle in groups and when they do, they are extremely dangerous.

(2) The two-year olds are the sociopaths. They prefer to play alone and hardly notice each other... until one of them wants the toy of the other and then the blood match is on!! Having no ability to share, they will cry, scream, hit, kick and bite your hand off if you interfere with their primal interests. They look super cute, but I wouldn't trust them.

(3) The parents are the staff. Some are administrators, so they just sit around and complain (likely due to incompetence), and sometimes entertain the patients. These are usually the fathers. The others are the nurses. They feed, clean, and comfort the patients. These are usually the mothers. Both are overworked, understaffed and completely consumed. They often engage in shop talk.

(4) I am the hot Ph.D student who occasionally visits and studies the institution as part of a thesis. Everyone is cordial to the student, but no one can really relate to her. She can't relate to them either. So instead of engaging in trite small talk with the staff, or in a wacky incomprehensible conversation with the patients, she chooses to sit alone with her laptop and pretends to work on her thesis.

Unlike a true mental institution, however, there is no psychiatric medication available at a four-year old birthday party. Curses.

It's official

I am the only person in United States who does not own a cell phone.

I learned today that my brother and sister-in-law purchased cell phones for my parents for Christmas. This is big. My parents are not technological. At all. Let me illustrate:

(1) Their microwave has a dial.
(2) They do not have cable. My MTV consciousness was not developed until after I entered college.
(3) They do not own a computer, and therefore, do not use email or the internet.
(4) They do not know how to leave an outgoing message on their answering machine. They refuse to leave messages on answering machines as well.
(5) They do not know how to use an ATM machine. They must see a bank teller in order to retrieve their cash.

Yes, my parents are total old school immigrants. And that is why my dad said he only intended to use the cell phone on weekends and weekdays after 9 pm because the calls were free! Ah! Thank god they're still keeping it real. I was afraid for a tiny moment.

Barney's not the only one who loves me

Below is a true story, based on an email sent to me by my sister:

-----Original Message-----
From: Marilyn
Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2006 4:32 PM
To: Rebecca
Subject: Cute

Hi, So the boys were watching Barney this am. Barney was talking about things that we love. Then he asked the TV watchers what they loved. So I asked Christopher what he loves and he said - "Auntie Becca" -

----------------------------

There are many morals to this story. ONE: My nephew is a total genius. TWO: It's better to have nephews/nieces rather than your own children because, as you can see above, aunties are considered first when children think of love. THREE: Despite my personal distaste for Barney and most children's programming, DYY can be easily swayed by gifts and/or flattery. Consequently, I now think Barney is... okay.

I love you too, kiddo!

Recent museum and gallery excursions

Okay, I must either be getting older or lamer but I must say... I had a blast at the Huntington Botanical Gardens when my family visited last month. We were suppose to go to the popular Kidspace Children's Museum in Pasadena, but lucky for me, there was a Rosebowl game and so the museum was closed. As a fairly new fan of horticulture, I was in heaven.

Here I am with the special men in my family.
We're striking a pose in the Desert Garden.

Here's another marvelous work of nature.

Here's my dad picking a tiny unknown fruit from the tree... and yes, he ate it. The white people thought we were strange and probably a bit ghetto or foreign, and my sister walked away in embarrassment, but I found it very amusing and encouraged my dad to eat as much fruit as he could pick... we paid a hefty admission fee so I felt it was acceptable. He just ate one though, just for taste and curiousity.

Two weeks later, Tonk and I went to the opening reception of Street Signs and Solar Ovens: Socialcraft in Los Angeles at the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Mid-Wilshire. This exhibition is so so cool. I encourage all my artsy and/or environmental friends to check it out... it runs until December 31, 2006. The exhibit is described as a thought-provoking exhibition featuring artwork created with social activism as its inspiration. The exhibit explores the inventive objects & strategies created by artists in response to the environmental, political and social issues of our time. The objects featured will include protest art meant for public display as well as tools for socially concious living... such as a bicycled-powered blender. I'm totally for real. Another piece I thought was totally cool was Fallen Fruit: A Mapping of Food Resources in Los Angeles. Three artists/activists created map legends of fruit trees in Los Angeles that are accessible and available for picking by the public! When my dad visits next, you know what we're going to do.

We were also able to check out Tigers and Jaguars: LA's Asian-Latino Art Phenomenon on the same night. Unfortunately, the exhibit ended that week, so it's too bad if you missed it here or at LACMA... because it was really rad. Dude, an artist made a low-rider rickshaw. Enough said. I did not have my camera to take pictures, but Tonk took several photos from his camera phone... perhaps he'll share them in a future post.

Finally, a few of us went to the Calavera Fashion Show & Walking Altars at Tropico de Nopal Gallery in Echo Park, in celebration of the Day of the Dead. Since I love love love fashion, as well as Day of the Dead celebrations, and had missed the annual Dia De Los Muertos at the Hollywood Forever Cemetary (one of my absolute favorite places in LA), I knew the fashion show was a must-see. And I am so glad I was right, like usual...

The organizers did an amazing job tranforming the back courtyard into a real professional-looking fashion show runway.

Poli, a close friend of Tonk's grandparents, was jamming! I was so impressed by her artistic vision and dance skills. She was paying homage to her grandmother in this homemade outfit.

A Keith Herring inspired skeleton dancing to Madonna's Vogue.
Let your body move to the music...hey hey hey... C'mon Vogue!

The three women above inspired me to learn how to sew. After all, I do own a classic old school sewing machine. Yeah, it's a paradox.
Anyway, Tonk agreed to teach me. YES!

I'm not generally into goth or death metal, but I was really digging the pinhead dude.

Long Live The Dead!