California... Again!

Traveling in my car always makes me think of Disneyland. I wonder why?
Well as always the weekend came and went way much too fast, but that's OK I will be repeating this trip yet one more time in about three weeks. Both Abby and my lil sister had been here last week so I was going to skip this trip but expected unexpected changes in my life allowed me to just saddle up the pony sort of speak and one more time ride the highway.

This time I left Phoenix promptly at 11:30 a.m. which means nothing but daylight all the way which also translates into lots of stops along the way for picture taking, eating, resting, and just plain ol' relaxing and enjoying the trip. My travel mug was constantly being filled with Mountain Dew and the ice I put in it lasted almost all the way.

It was the middle of nowhere and it had many awesome things to photograph.



It was a nice enjoyable trip and I finally made it to La Puente. My sister had gone out prospecting for a job while Abby was at a stand still somewhere on the 14 and then the 5 highways so I had to kill some time and since I was hungry from the trip I went to eat pupusas at El Salvadoreno. I had been marking my places on facebook so my niece knew of my whereabouts. After eating I got on the car and decided to text my sister, then as I was about to leave I heard a noise on my passenger door and to my surprise my niece was standing there.

"Do you have room for an ice cream date?" She said, I got out of my car and got in hers and we drove to a Basking Robins for some needed desert. Most of you already know that I have a weakness for ice cream. Ummm yummy! This is when I realize that traffic in Hacienda Heights at 5:30 p.m. totally sucks. A mile stretch took us forever to cross and my niece winded up cheating by leaving the boulevard and going through some residential areas.

Ummm Ice cream... Yummy! Abducted by my niece.
The rest of the night was pretty much a routine of what we normally do on a Friday night. Karaoke at Casa Cabral in the City of Commerce to celebrate my sister's birthday. I think one too many Long Island Ice teas and tequila shots were served because my normally happy singers couldn't even follow a line in the songs.

Bottom line, at the end of the night we all agreed we had had a fantastic time even though I fell asleep in the car the last hour or two before turning in. Fun times!

Weekend in Cali... Part I

But... Can I rest first?

My little sister and I.
So I am driving down I-10 with the cruise control set at 82 mph and I see some lights approaching fast, I expected a fast European or similar car to pass me instead a freaking Yaris passes me doing like 90 something miles per hour.

Still on the same highway, a different set of lights approach fast, this time it has got to be a Beemer, or Mercedes cause it's coming fast and then, a beat up first generation Chrysler mini van passes me doing nearly a hundred miles per hour, what the heck? Fools starting to make me feel like the slow poke of the road. So on a WTF kindda moment I disengaged the cruise control and just lightly tapped on that gas pedal under my foot and in no time my pony was for the first time seeing the road blur pass it. Yep, it is decidedly fast. Needless to say I left Phoenix at 15 minutes to 5:00 pm and got to La Puente at 9:00 pm, but don't panic I did not become the speed racer of the road, its just that California is an hour behind us.

Almost two hours away from my destination I get a phone call, it's my sister asking where I am? "I just passed Morongo" I told her. Hurry up cause Lucio just called and we are going out. So I got to La Puente and my niece was already waiting for me with a coffee (well almost) and after like a whole minute rest and a dog massage we were ready to hit the town.

When in need of a massage I even hire the dog to do it.
A car honked and we knew our ride was here, the horn had that European sound to it and sure enough a nice shinny white Jaguar S-type was parked in front of my sister's house. Oh wow, "You had me at hello". No I would not trade my ponies for a cat but I would gladly add one of these to my garage.

Picked up in a Jaguar complete with chauffer. What a life!!!

In no time we were in the City of Downey at a restaurant called La Perla del Mar. They had karaoke of course which is why we went there to begin with. After a few beers I felt I was singing good which is too much to say as most of the singers there were very, very good. No amateur night here, almost all the guys and girls there really belted the songs out sounding very good.

Singing at La Perla.

We left the place at closing time and then headed to put some gas. A Norm's restaurant was across the street and all of a sudden everybody decided that they were hungry... Eh-Q-me weren't we just at a restaurant. lol

Eh-Q-me! I was demoted to pumping gas. The nerve!
Finally got to my sister's house at 5:00 am. I went to bed and not even 5 minutes later my phone's wake up alarm goes off. My sister comes out of the room and asks, "What is that?", Oh it's just my alarm waking me up to tell me it's time for me to get up and go to work.

Ana, Lucio, and Chely.
Chely and Ana.

An Outing With My Lil Sister

My little sister and I.
So after the outing with my nieces, and after we ate the bionicos, and after I almost took a nap, my sister asks:

Chely: Hey Fide, do you want to go out dancing. I have free passes for the Mayan.
Me: But I didn't bring clothes to go out dancing.
Chely: You look good with what you are wearing.
Me: Huh! (pause) (*thinking* Ha, my sister speaks the truth, lol) Sure why not.
Chely: OK they are good if we get there before 11:00 p.m.
Me: Oh wow, plenty of time.

So since I am wearing the same clothes I wore all day well then basically I am ready.

Chely: Aren't you freshening up?
Me: Who? Me, naw I smell good. lol

I wait for a while and then:

Me: Chely, hurry up. It's getting late
Chely: Don't worry I am almost ready, we will make it on time.
Me: Still hurry up, it's 10;30 p.m.

The Mayan
And so we finally leave, and we get on the freeway, and I remembered that my sister drives like an old lady. Je, je, je, I was right because we got there at exactly 11:00 p.m. And so it's $10.00 for parking. We go inside hand the passes to the fool at the door and (you may be asking yourself why I'm calling this big subject at the door a fool) well, because he said I can't take them it's past the deadline. "But, come on it's only by two minutes" Chely said, but he just looked at her and said no it's past the deadline.

So what to do, what to do?

Me: So, what do you want to do?
Chely: Well, we are here. Let's just go in.
Me: OK

And just like that we walk to the ticket booth and literally had to cough up *cough* *cough* *cough* $40.00 bucks. The way I see it is as a $20.00 fee per minute for being late.

We go in and she gives me the tour. I had been there once before but it was such a long time ago. So it was cool to go through the whole place. The Mayan is an architectural beauty, and there has got to be some stories to that place. Ummm if you don't know what I mean, you can probably Google "The Mayan Theater" in Downtown Los Angeles.

When we got there it was already happening. The salsa was playing loud and clear.
Anyway at The Mayan they play a little bit of everything but Salsa, Merengue, and Bachata are the primary types of music there. We started dancing to some dance music and of course Chely and I can still disco, and so to this day when we dance peoples eyes just shift toward us.

Long Island Ice Tea anyone?
We danced for a while and then we decided to go get a drink. She wanted a Long Island Ice Tea and so did I. They gave us our drinks in this small plastic glass and charged us $10:00 each. Well, so much for a free night, free passes, etc. etc. And people say there is a recession. We drank most of our drinks but we lost them when we sat them down on the stage and we went dancing. We came back to them but there were like ten more glasses around them so we didn't want to chance taking someone else's.

Que rico!
So we continued dancing, and dancing, and then we danced some more. Oh a brief break to go to the restroom but then we came back and danced some more.

Now, only three months ago I would not have been able to dance more that a couple songs but given the great shape I am in right now it truly felt great to be able to dance for a little over three hours straight.

All of a sudden I found myself teaching Chely how to dance Salsa. It brought back memories of years gone by, back in the disco days when I taught her how to do dance disco. Truth be told, she is now way a better dancer than I'll ever be, but never the less I could still keep up with her and that really boosted my ego. Ummm somebody recently told me that 50 is the new 40. In that case I feel like I am 30.

We got to hear only one set played by the band.
After closing time we enjoyed some hot dogs with chips and a drink. And it only cost abut $3.00 so far the best deal of the night. lol

Un perro caliente.


And so, my little sister and I had a great night out together. We remembered old times, we created new memories, and marveled at the fact that we can have fun together. Yep, I am one lucky guy to have her as my sister. Oh and yes, when she was 13 she was a pain in the butt but then she introduced me to her friends and...

LOL -- Wouldn't you like to know. That would be an entirely different post.

When I saw this sign I got a little bit too excited, I thought for sure this is a coed restrwoom. -- Well, they lied. Tha only meant both men's and women's restrooms were usstairs.
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Oh Food How I Love Thee

My sister Chely and my sister Elena both busy in my kitchen cooking away.
My little sister is visiting us and will spend the whole week here most likely jumping from one house to the other. She got here Sunday night and right away we made plans for her to come cook for me. In my last visit to Californian she was telling me about this dish she makes called "Carne En Su Jugo" (meat in it's own juice). Well I found out later that she lied as the carne is not only in its own juice but lot of good and tasty stuff went into it including a home made salsa, and two cans of beans along with a plethora of condiments for flavor and a whole pack or bacon. I'm afraid to weigh myself today, don't really want to know how many pounds I gained. Let me just tell you, it was very, very tasty and Daddy Chef has plans of reproducing it in the near future.

My mom joined the group during the commercials. A great cook herself she was trying to learn something new.
It's a good thing I am walking so that I can burn the calories, because with as many offers and invites to lunch and dinner as I am getting I really need to keep up with the routine. The main culprit (I'll just call her mom) to conceal her identity is finally realizing that just because I can eat a dozen tortillas with my meals which she cooks three times a week for me I can do just fine with say four of them. She is like, but mijo you still have so much food on your plate and then without warning wham, another set of tortillas would appear before me.

My sister, my brother in law, my daughter, all have jumped on the bandwagon of feeding me. (Wow I make it sounds like they are on a case of feed the hungry -- lol) But I am not complaining and or stopping anybody from doing that. On the contrary, both me and my tummy thank you.

And here it is, "Carne En Su Jugo". I was pleasantly surprised at how good it tasted.
So just so you all know, right now I have the rest of my week covered. Today, tomorrow, and Thursday at mom's, and Friday I have a date with my son. Saturday dinner at my house and Sunday... Wow! Sunday is open, unbelievable.

Let me just finish warming these tortillas and I will join you.
I did get a couple of recipes sent to me now the task is just to find the time to try them. At the rate I'm going, that may not happe anytime soon. But I know eventually I will try them and when that happens I'll let you all know how that went.

Here's my plate. This is me getting seconds already.
Afterwards, while my mom watched her telenovelas, we had some coffee, with lemon pie, accompanied by great conversation and more picture snapping. All in all a fun afternoon.
Thank you mom, sisters, and bro in law we must do this again soon.

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Quinceanera X3 Photo Exhibition

The site for the exhibit.
It was a birthday party but it featured our Photo Exhibition. We took 20 framed photographs and they were well received. We have tried not to repeat any of the images we have framed therefore really making them originalz. We do carry the small prints just in case someone wants to order one of the ones we have done but for the most part they look at what we have in inventory at the time and buy from there.

This one was an outside show and I must admit the frames looked really nice under the daylight. Only four frames sold but two of them were big frames so it was worth our while.

Setting up the display area.
Now that I've done five shows I think I know what works and what doesn't and it's time to start applying all that learning experience into future shows. So far I am having fun doing this, it is rewarding to see our frames hanging on our friends and relatives homes but it's time to take this to the next level and maybe start attending church fairs and arts and crafts shows. That is going to be my next goal. I'll keep you posted.



And in the images above you can see how the whole thing looked once it was set up. I was very pleased with the way it came out and we did get very good reviews again.

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The Quinceañera X3

So we left for La Puente, California on Friday at around 5:00 pm and by 11:30 we were sitting at Rambo's enjoying some very delicious tacos. It's cooling down some in Phoenix and the humidity which is common for this time of year has not shown up yet, yey! So I was expecting the same for California. Actually it's usually cool at night but when we got there it was still hot. I slept on the couch with a fan pointing my way and the ceiling fan going as fast as it could.

The next morning we were greeted with hot temperatures and high humidity. The shower actually felt like a sauna, I had taken a white shirt for the party but when I tried it on I started sweating big time, I don't know what material it is made of but it wouldn't breath so I had to change it and wore a black polo type shirt that actually felt a lot better. We Phoenicians can endure extreme heat but for us it is a dry heat. The humidity there is more than I can take, I love visiting but I wouldn't want to live there.

The party went on as planned, there was a good turnout but apparently freeway closures due to a big accident may have prevented for more guests to show up. If that was not the case then they missed a good party and a great time.

We had some great tasting birria with rice "frijoles puercos" and an array of different salsas, I am sorry to say but I had to have doubles. The food was super tasty. To wash it all down some water, sodas, beer, wine, and tequila, and believe I tried it all, but no, I didn't get drunk, I spaced them out throughout the whole afternoon to where I actually enjoyed each drink.













The dancing and entertainment came via ourselves as we started the karaoke machine and we sang mostly all night.


A peaceful moment for reflection was provided by Father Adolfo as he blessed Chely, blessed the moment, and pray for all of us.


We had so much fun, ate great food, had some liquor, sang some songs, and basically just enjoyed a good party. At the end of the day, the birthday girl the quinceañera X3 was happy with the outcome and that's all that mattered.

Here is the Quinceañera X3

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Finally, after a long month of inactivity and funds shortage we finally were able to raise the frame count to 21 pieces and we are now ready to travel this coming weekend to the beautiful City of La Puente, California where we will join my younger sister in her birthday celebration which as per her request will feature a melo-duckworth originalz exhibition and sale.

I really do have high hopes for this one but then again I always do for all exhibitions. It will be interesting and fun to mix it up a bit, being featured in a birthday celebrations has it's pros and cons. The worst thing that can happen is that I don't sell anything which to this day has not happened yet but on the other side of the coin we don't lose anything since we'll be having fun at the party anyway.

I think my sister's idea of featuring us at her birthday party was a good one and I guess we'll soon find out if the idea is going to pan out or not.

Wish us luck.

Mi little sister and I.
Image courtesy of Duckworth Photography

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