A Russia without a revolution

A few days ago, I watched part of the Opening Ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Sochi. While I was watching the retelling of the history of Russia I was tweeting about what I saw as the glaring omissions. There was no Revolution, no Lenin, no communism, no Soviet Union, no Stalin, no Cold War. While some of my tweets were poking fun at their expense, many left a bitter taste in mouth. Except for Tchaikovsky, whom I love.

Yet sitting half way across the world in my adopted country where the trajectory of Russian/Soviet history had landed me, I couldn't help but feel a little affronted. I was being denied the piece of Russia that had been imposed on me.

I've never been a very big fan of the winter games. So it was by mere coincidence that I watch speed skater Olga Graf become the first Russian olympic medalist of these games. Later, and once again by accident, I saw the team skating competition. The Russian ice dancers performed to Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.  It was beautiful.  It was uplifting. It was a crowd pleaser. And it was amazing. And with President Putin watching, the Russian won their first gold medal in the team competition.

When Evgeni Plushenko thanked the president for bringing the olympics to Russia, there was something reminiscent of Soviet era, state sponsor athletics and propaganda machines at work. But I know that these games also belong to the people of Russia; the ones that never defected and survived from the inside of the Iron Curtain. They are the ones who ultimately deserve this moment.

In reality, the omissions of the opening ceremony were there, in me. And the history is there in every shot of Putin and in all the coverage of Sochi. I just need more time to forget the revolution and enjoy the ballet and the games.

Happy Constitution Day (an email invite to happy hour)

It's Constitution / Citizenship Day which of course means one thing, we got to celebrate. So let's wrap ourself in the American flag and sing songs of freedom.  I'm going to stop before this turns into a Bob Marley sign along or Tea Party rally.

It's been a while since we paid tribute to our favorite but obscure holidays and we have some making up to do. I mean, pretty soon it will be election season and "we are political animals", if I can paraphrase Aristotle (Nicapedia, 2012!)  By the way, Please donate to Nicapedia, you can now pay in booze via paypal. But we should celebrate by drinking our whisky rations. Or tequila, I mean, I'm not going to judge.

Help me pick a spot on dtla for this Friday, because we love democracy, and we'll see how high we can score on our citizenship test; the elementary kind not the USCIS kind. See you there, fellow American! 

And then I give a deadline and contact info.  And that is how I write a happy email. .

Never the 710

I grew up in a city north of Los Angeles. No, not the Valley, never the Valley. I grew up in a beach city not in a forsaken valley. Eventually I moved to LA for school and I lived in the Westside. My sister and I became roommates and she heavily subsidized my rent. I got a job in freaking Montrose, that's in Northeast LA, three freeways! No, four freeways. I needed a job, I couldn't complaint.

Then I got a job in LA right outside downtown LA. It would take less than thirty minutes to get to work. But then my sister got a job in Pasadena and started bitching about the commute. Only two freeways. And she relocated and since she subsidized my rent and offer me the same deal, I moved too.  I was only a bit resentful. We left the Westside with its cut throat parking, and its many malls, and its lovely temperate weather, and, yeah, I'm not quite over the move.

We moved to South Pasadena. No, not Pasadena. Never Pasadena, South Pasadena.  Kidding. Pasadena is not bad, just the Valley. This little slice of perfection calls itself, Mayberry. They're very confident about their community. You know that kid that banned cursing for one day or something. Yeah, he's a tiger from South Pas. High School. The city also prides itself on having great school district. It does. I'll vouch for them.

So I'm living in this amazing community paying one hundred dollars to park on the street over night. Yup, one hundred to park on the street, that's how you pay for city services there. And it turns out that the city votes. Aside from being a perfect city, South Pas. is also well known for its opposition to the expansion of the 710 freeway. Yes. The 710. That's how we say freeways down in So. Cal. In one of the greatest showings of nimby-ism, the city's voters consistently coalesced to keep their beautiful craftsman homes intack. The houses are really pretty. They're always filming around the neighborhood.  Good looking houses. If you want to run for office in South Pas. and even think about contemplating the expansion of the 710 they will vote you out of office. They will also vote you out of office if you mismanaged the capital improvements to the city's only middle school. This is all true, by the way. It is the only place where I've had to stand in line, IN LINE, for a local election.  I stood in line to vote people out of office for "thinking" about the 710 and for mismanaging the capital improvements to SPMS.

I eventually moved out of South Pas. My sister got married and my subsidy disappeared. And I moved to LA, mostly because I got a nice discount because I rent from my brother-in-law. Alto Mundo is his rental property. It's not the high life one would expect with a name like Alto Mundo. It's my fault. The name is based on geography not "the life."

I've lived in this area about 7 years now. And after so many years of living in Northeast LA, the 710 expansion has once again invaded my place of residence. One of the alternative routes being proposed, because the South Pas. route is a non-starter, goes right smack through my neighborhood and the lawn sides have sprouted yet again. The 710 is coalescing my community yet again. And as always the message is very clear, never the 710. Never.

During this election cycle, I'm voting by mail.

Things I meant to remember

Do you remember Queer Eye for the Straight Guy?  Well, the one thing I took away from it is that you should keep a wine diary so that you note what wine you like drinking when you're drinking and make appropriate decision in the future based on those notes.  Such entries would say, I like the 2007 Zinfandel because it is “jammy” and has little tannins just like I like it.  I'm guessing that entries like, "All good, especially the whites," aren't helpful when you're trying to pick a wine to give to a friend and you realize that you didn't keep the tasting notes, and don't really remember if the white was aged in French oaks and is buttery or in steel vats and cold and distant like your soul.

Well, I am finding myself in such similar dilemma.  That example about the whites, yeah, that's on my notes, as are a series of really happy to really sad faces, :D - :'(  that weren't put to proper use in the assessment of the wineries I visited.  To be even more honest, I only wrote notes on two of the nine places we visited.  We did not visit all of them on the first day, either; so do not judge me cruelly. It makes my wine diary inadequate, but when judge in the light of other people's wine tasting experience, I am at least a step ahead of the people who don't even keep a diary, those philistines.

I am currently looking through my wine collection after a very productive wine tasting outing.  I bought a lot of white wine and I am planning to give one to a friend who mentioned that they like sweet white wine.  Crap, I do not.  Based on my tasting notes, I do not know if I bought sweet white wine.  Based on my preferences for white wine, the ones I probably have are of the cold and distant variety due to their harsh upbringing in the steel vats.  However, I wrote a clever note on the card that is going to accompany this wine and hopefully my words will move the drinker to enjoy it.  The second option is for my friend to drink this wine only after having drunk one or two other bottles of wine that they like.  By then, the wine will be superfluous and the experience will be regrettable but not traceable to the wine not being sweet.  Maybe I will add that recommendation to the note.  

I am currently looking, or supposed to be looking, for a wine that I did buy that is jammy.  A jammy zinfandel.  I know I bought one.  But I bought it on the second day after we had a bunch of generous pouring and second tastings, and by the way, I'm a member so HOOK IT UP.  Yeah, it was a great vacation.  But back to my search, I'm going to have to guess which was the jammy wine that I bought because I said, "Yum, jammy," to the person who gave us a our tasting.  I remember saying that but I do not remember to whom I said it.  More importantly, I do not remember what winery I was at.  So, I'm going to have to write a note saying that I think this is the jammy zinfandel that I mentioned to them, but in case it is not, I recommend this as the second bottle of wine they drink.  And I don't think it's a good idea to write a note like that.  It leaves itself open to interpretation and judgment.  Why doesn't she remember whether this was the jammy one?  Was she drunk?  And down a slippery slope of judgements and accusations and paranoia.  

Maybe I should buy a wine diary or not offer to give people wine.

Two rabbits, one horse, one slip and one fall

I like to run.  I like running on trails the most.  If I had to pick between a road or a dirt road next to the road, I pick the dirt road.  When I was in high school, I tried out for cross country and track; I didn't care much for track.  I liked running outdoors and not in a circle (ellipsis).  I loved running on trails or fire roads just as long as nature was around.  I saw my first owl in high school while running on a trail next to the high school.  Those are some scary birds, by the way.  For me, trails are an escape.  They may begin one block away from busy intersections but can make the city fall away and be forgotten in no time.

I started running because my sister ran.  My oldest sister got a C in PE and it was unacceptable.  The only non A in her high school report card. So she tried out for track and field and found out that she was a good 800 meter race. I was in middle school during all this so when I got to high school myself I also went out for x-country and loved it.

Now I run around the Rose Bowl. At the Rose Bowl you can run around the perimerter and its adjoining golf course. But this is chaotic. People don't know that there is a running ettiquette so running around the perimeter is a dodging exercise through human obstacle courses. But there are trails around the Rose Bowl and north of the Rose Bowl, and south of the Rose Bowl. Yes, there are some running clubs that need to enforce the running rules a bit better but for the most part these trails are not as trafficked. And you get a sense that you are communing with nature; I've seen squirrels, rabbits, deer, crows (after the station fire), ducks, a variety of other birds, and a small mountain lion.  I can't truly confirmed the mountain lion since it was a quick view, back out, and run the other way ordeal.

Anyway, I recently started running again and have resolved to run on trails. I had worked myself to a nine mile long run this past Saturday, and thought about doing loops but decide to go for it and headed towards Brown Mountain in the Angeles National Forest. There are two ways to get to the top of the mountain, throught the mountain face or the El Prieto Trail. I seldom run the EP trail because it feels never ending eventhough it is not as challenging as the Brown Mt. fire road, which is longer and slightly more challenging.

About the EP trail, it is a single track trail, through a canyon, it's slightly flatter, and it is shadier than the BMt. trail. So I go on the trial and I'm rhapsodizing in my head about the beauty of nature and what I'm going to write in this blog.  How I'm bummed out that I'm not seeing any rabbits but glad that I'm not encountering less desirable animals.  I'm stopping to take in the scenery and catch my breath, and drink some water.  I also start panicking a little because I'm starting to get that claustraphobic feeling I get when I run this trail. I hit 4 miles on my GPS watch, about a mile into the trail, which by the way, is hillier and sunnier than I remembered it, and I stop. I listen. I can hear the wind. I'm loving mother nature, I'm congratulating myself for doing this, I'm contemplating my blog entry, and after taking it all in I start to head back.

A mile up hill is a challenge. A mile down hill is not; you think. But I get to this point where it's a sharp turn plus a steep downhill.  And the downhill is not solid dirt but more like loose dirt/dust. I start to slide, and I think that's fine because I know what I'm doing except that I lose my footing and land on my butt. My right butt.

I am okay physically, but my ego just gorged itself on humble pie. I bounce up because the fall is not that bad and more than anything, I want to make sure that I was out of sight from the hikers I had just passed. I was. And I'm ashamed.  I tried to console myself with Confucius quote, "Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." Yes, Confucius was consoling me, must I add the straight faced emoticon?

I kind of took it in stride, because I'm thinking runners high was involved. It is my belief that sometimes, you just got to get your butt kicked. Saturday was as good as day as any. On the way back I saw two rabitts and a horse which made the outing a success since I measure success by the wilderness experience.

Oh, one final thing, when you fall in the forrest, and no one is there to see it, you still fall, it still hurts (your pride), and you do make a sound. Mine was, "ahh."

Why this again?

My favorite Woody Allen movie, I'm a huge fan and if you want to complain about him go ahead but don't do it here, I don't care about how you feel, is Another Woman. I get it. I mean, it speaks to me in ways no other movie has ever spoken to me. If you don't want to watch the movie because of your feelings for Woody Allen then watch Wild Strawberries by Ingmar Bergman. In the Allen movie, the main character mentions that feelings make her uncomfortable. Yeah, well that's my sentiment about people letting their feelings be know. Writing this is borderline uncomfortable but I'm getting by. Anyway, blogs are the equivalent of over-sharing, specially when blogs are really an excuse for a journal that you want to make public. I've tried to blog in the past but felt so uncomfortable with the self-censoring and the questioning of whether I was over-sharing of over-skirting that I did three entries and posted one. But I'm giving it another shot. And brace yourself because I'm going to give away the ending of those two movies. Life should not be about regrets and shutting down, it should be about possibilities and starting fresh no matter where you are in life. That is why it is my favorite movie. It is about hope and conversion (change).

I'm not giving blogging another shot because of the movie. Don't get me wrong, I love the movie. It's my favorite movie ever. No. I'm doing it because I've been reading a blog and I really like it, and I want to do something similar. The writer of the blog is inconsequential. But the arc of the blogger is not. The blog has evolved to be a more perfect description of the blogger in spite of the fact that it went from a "this is what i did today" type of blog to a "let me share my short story fiction with you" type of blog. The fiction and non-fiction of the blog are a bit pedestrian, at least for my taste, but the blogger itself is very intelligent and it shows. And the more they write, the more it shows. I want to see if this blog will track my growth, my change, my hope, even if I'm writing about something that does not relate to hope, change, or growth. Even if I'm writing about running.

So, I've been thinking about what I want to write and what I already write. So I want to write about Mr. Woody Allen's movies, plays, short stories, and music. I want to write about running; me running and other people running, and elite runners. And I want to write about work.

Allow me to explain what I mean about work. I work for a non-partisan political organization. That means that we encourage political participation but we can't tell people who they should participate on behalf of. I've drank the cool aid. I believe in the higher principles of democracy, one person, one vote, to be cast without coercion or intimidation. And I'm not going to tell people who to vote for. Don't get me wrong, I've picked sides. I am someone's loyal bases and someone else's loyal opposition. At the voting booth. In my professional life, and in my political theory life, people (including me) should make the decision and pick sides that best represents those decisions. If I wanted to sway people to my way of thinking, I would work for a party, a candidate, a partisan organization, but I don't, because I can't fully commit to one side, even if I consistently support them with my vote. So what I mean about writing about work, I mean the every day. The small crisis that happen, like when the coffee ran out and our executive director sent out a email in a panic even though he was on a plane, far from our crisis and had coffee available to him. Or like the time that one of our organizational partners said that they don't understand technology, don't know what Chrome or Firefox are, and they use Explorer as their web browser. I find this discovery fascinating for two reasons, one, we are trying to figure out how old our partner is (she's ambigiously young looking), and two, the grant that funds us to work collaboratively has a technology deliverable. Is this irony? No, but it's amusing to me.

Aside for having an outlet for all my musingly mundane observations, I really want to cultivate my voice. No, not this voice. My carefree, email voice. At work, I write pretty formal emails or very matter of fact emails. It is a lot of, dear colon and sincerely or please and thank you. And then there are my, let's do happy hour and join our running group. That's the type of voice I want to plant, cultivate, grow, reap, sow, harvest, etc. Here is a snipet:

On Thu, Mar 24, 2011

Hola Gente,

On Friday, April 1st we'll be having a happy hour to celebrate [name removed for anonymity purposes] birthday. Like stereotypical Latinos, we'll be celebrating loudly and late (her birthday is actually on the 27th if you want to wish her well on the actual date).

We haven't figured out a place yet so if you have any suggestions, please send them my way. I'm suppose to coordinate with one of [same anonymous coworker] non-work friends to figure out what works best, especially for us who are no longer in our 20s and have given up pretending that we are, and of course, for those of us who are still in denial.

I'll send you more details next week.

Gracias.


On Tue, Mar 29, 2011

Hola Everybody,

After much discussion about ghetto-meters, too Mexican versus SUPER Mexican, and I'm-not-Mexican-at-all-so-please-translate-to-Pan-Latino-Spanish-please, we finally deliberated and picked a place. [And then it descends into a ridiculous yet informative invite that I don't care to share.]

I dream of a blog written in that voice. So there you have it, I want to blog because I was inspired. I want to blog about things I like without telling you what to think, and I want to blog using the voice I write when it's not related to work. Let me know what you think, unless the comments you leave are derisive of Woody Allen, because I'm not PBS, I'm not making a documentary with some sad subsidy from the government and viewers like you about the man, and again, I don't care, I still think he's a genius filmmaker.

Ideas for a blog

Ideas for a blog

What the hell was I thinking?
I went into this whole blog idea because I really enjoy writing happy hour emails and running group emails.  I was told that they were very amusing and that I should write a blog.  I once cited myself in one of those emails, “(Nicapedia 2011).”  In the past, I have tried to keep a journal, a blog’s low-tech cousin, but every time I would end up in this horrible dark place that I did not care to venture without pepper spray.  So when the idea of a blog would get brought up I would readily dismiss it.

But then the information age came knocking at the door of Alto Mundo, what I call my house.  If I am allowed a tangent, Alto Mundo was the name of the house where my grandfather grew up.  It was on a cliff.  I live in a back house in Los Angeles, not quite at the top of the hill.  My brother’s house, also in LA, would actually be more appropriate property for the name, but I thought of it first! If he must name his house, I suggest, La caida del plomo, which is the name of a pass on the way to Managua.  From this tangent comes a great lesson, invest in a English-Spanish dictionary.

But I digress. The first information age product that arrived in Alto Mundo was Twitter.  Yes, email was already there, as was the Internet.  Facebook came later, but quickly became the middle child of the bunch even before the arrival of Google+.  Google+ is very impressive.  But as the oldest, Twitter is where I often found myself putting all of my hopes and expectations, and guess what, it wasn’t dark at all.  There are a few post about parking that I am not proud of, mostly because of the profanity, but all in all, the post have not moved anyone to call me and ask me if I was okay and needed someone to talk to.  So I succumbed to the peer pressure (suggestions, honestly) and armed with my own concoction of hubris signed up for a blog.

I thought it was point and click
After I signed up and quickly wrote an about me that I am already contemplating changing, I realized that I needed to customized the look and feel of my blog.  What really said “The Nicatator” to me and would say it loudly to its readership.  I wrongly titled my blog after my first entry only to realized it much later in the customizing process.  I honestly do not know what I opted into or out of.  I know that I picked my red curtains because they remind me of Twin Peaks and the place where Agent Cooper goes to in his dreams.  By the way, I live in or near a neighborhood called Garvanza, and it creeps me out.  But aside from the background I was completely lost.  Really, where are the little question marked icons that explain everything? This is harder than I thought.  If my blog look keeps changing, bear with me, I am trying to find myself in templates and images not tailored for The Nicatator.  Maybe I can look for something with lakes and volcanoes or something blue.  

I may need an editor...I need an editor
I did ask a friend to read my first post.  She has a blog and was one of the people that suggested I write one too.  She liked my first entry.  She did not let on what it was going to take to develop a blog.  But I cannot blame the short comings of my blog on a friend.  I can say as a disclaimer that my writing could benefit from editing, pro-bono editing.  Let us be honest, I am not going to pay anyone to proof-read my nonsense  or makes-sense.  I am aware that my writing may need polishing and that my syntax and grammar a soak, a pre-rinse, and perhaps two cycles, but it is a blog, and as I mentioned before I put all my hopes and expectations on Twitter.  The blog is like my imaginary, not so good looking, child that needs braces, it would help, a little.  But braces cost money and really, how much would it help.  

“My English not so good sometimes” - The Nicatator
My claim that English is my second language has become the raft to which I cling from in the icy waters of bad grammar and syntax and spelling and whatever other mistake I make.  Because I work with colleagues who were born in Spanish speaking households this fact is not always acceptable.  I think that is the waste that bulls make.  I did not just grow up speaking a language other than English, I lived in a country where everyone spoke a language other than English, I watched television where all three channels carried programing in a language other than English and I attended school where the only language that I was taught in was not English! I did not go to the store with my mother and see signs in another language, I did not flip through children’s books in another language, and the only time I heard people speak English was when I heard music in English.  And We are the World, Beat it, What’s Love Got To Do With It, did not provided enough exposure for me to understand English.  And while my colleagues may have grown up in predominately Spanish-speaking households, in my country the word for bus, bus is actually pronounced with a Spanish sounding U.  There was no anglicize or miss-pronunciation, actually there was but you pronounce it Spanish.

My blog is an imperfect blog.  I leave you with some ideas for a blog and some blog names that I documented on Twitter: “ The Nicatator Manifesto: A blog about the things I like and don’t like, and the things that make me angry” (too dark but very honest); “coffee and wine” (I am not really sure why but it is possible I was having wine); “Guts and Black Stuff” (as homage to Nelson Muntz from The Simpsons except that I had some copyright and licensing doubts); “Daytime Drinking: a blog for the Nicatator to rant about everything as if she were drunk during the daytime hours.”  And that is who I am.  Also, did I mentioned that I started my "creative" writing writing about happy hour?