It's the Rose Parade

Talking to my New York friends I'm surprised to find out that they don't know everything about the Rose Parade. Many of them all they know is that there is a Rose Parade, but what it is, or why it is special, they do not know. Fortunately, I know what the Rose Parade is and why it is special. As its route is just a walk away from Grandma's house, Mom grew up going to to and I went to it all while living in California and have caught many since then. 

Traditionally, our family would stake out a spot at Allen and Colorado, but those days have kind of passed. Fortunately we've become associated with associates of Grandma's and the spot they stake out. The way it goes is early in the morning the day before the parade you're allowed to put your chairs out and then someone from the crew keeps an eye on the spots throughout that day. I was happy to protect the chairs from 4:30 to 6:30 that night. There's a whole lot of pre-parade cruising up and down Colorado the night before the parade. It's a regular car show.

A note of family business: Cousin Scotty had a one-night layover on his way to Hawaii. Good to see you, Scotty! Or Scott now, probably.

Ok then on the morning of the parade (which is usually on the 1st unless the 1st is a Sunday, then it's on the 2nd, as was the case this year) you get to your spots nice and early because you don't want to miss all the pre-parade excitement along closed-down Colorado and you especially don't want to miss the B-2 stealth bomber fly over. So spooky and amazing, hard to believe these planes are from the 80's. Or 90's. 

Some of the street sights before the parade...

Uh oh, Parade's about to start!

And here we are. The Parade.

And that was it for the Rose Parade. We went home to Grandma's to party with relatives and eat Chinese chicken salad, for which I had the honor of deep-frying the rice noodles. A real coming of age experience.

Also: Did you know that the floats in the parade are 100% completely covered in flowers or other vegetable matter? That's the rule. It's one of the things that makes this a classier parade than most. Also: No musical performances besides bands. That helps, too.

New Year's Time in California

Having finally made it to Los Angeles, we were soon getting down to activities like piling into cars and visiting Uncle Bob. When we found him someone said "It's good to see you, Uncle Bob" and he responded "Well, I'd rather be seen than viewed."

That night a Kogi Truck was in Alhambra.  So Mom, Greg, Owen and I placed a small order there. 

Friday. Friday was rainy and dreary, we were going to go see nature but instead we saw a nature center. WITH A REAL LIFE ALIVE RATTLE SNAKE (and plenty of dead animals).

Then, with the Rose Parade just a few days away, we went to the Rose Bowl and watched the decorating of floats.

For lunch we followed up on a lead from Greg and tried out a place in Highland Park called El Huarache Azteca and it was spectacular. Every single thing that came out of kitchen, from taquitos to tacos, huaraches to sopes, pambazos to tostadas, was perfect. 

Oh and I guess I didn't take a lot of pictures because I was too busy eating and enjoying?

Shoot, you know what I just realized? All that stuff I posted happened on Saturday, not Friday. I could either switch around my photos and text or just power through this. Ok. I'm going to just power through this.

On FRIDAY, for real, we had lunch at Twohey's and I tried the Lil Stinko for the first time in my life. It's a simple little burger topped with raw onion and pickles. This was Twohey's trademark creation back in the day. Trademark creations sure have changed.

And then we rolled up on the Huntington Library to see what was good.

Then, for dinner, Lucky Noodle King!

Ok, NOW, Saturday night, New Years Eve. For real. I met up with some socially-generous Los Angelenos that let me tag along to "drinks" and jazz in Hollywood (no pics, really) and the big Los Angeles New Years celebration downtown in a park that's by City Hall. Listen, I don't live in LA. I don't remember the name of every big park/plaza I go to. 

Ok, that's it for 2016! I should have the next to LA posts up before April!

Christmastime in Chicago

Christmas Eve I got up super super early to catch that 6am flight home to Chicago. I made it in plenty of time for our annual-ish trip to the Rockefeller Chapel Christmas program at the University of Chicago. I think my family would agree I was pretty well-behaved this time. Before that we ate cemitas and went to the bookstore, after it we ate roast and read our traditional Christmas Eve stories.

Christmas morning was good and chill and grown up and we opened our stockings before church. I think Mom got a good deal on Cubs shirts. Did you forget that the Cubs won the World Series? Seems so long ago now, right?

Home from church the real present opening begins.

Ordered Mom some A+ papercut prints from Cindy. But she also got her old original Little Red Riding Hood papercut framed.

Then the big thing of Christmas: I made everyone my new carnitas recipe. Third time was the charm. But so was the second time. And the first time. This recipe is perfect.

I'll admit that I now lose track a little of the days. I know there was a day I went to the dentist. I know there was a day I ate Johnnies. Then one night we had Las Fuentes and after it I think that's when we went and saw the Nutcracker...unless we saw the Nutcracker on a totally different night? It was a version of the Nutcracker set in Chicago during the Colombian Exhibition. It was great. Just like Las Fuentes nachos, which we may have eaten that night.

Then one night we went and ate at this modern Korean restaurant called Parachute (it's famous in Chicago and New York but I'm still saying things like "called Parachute"). It was clear the family was doing me a big favor by humoring my curiosity with this restaurant but GUESS WHAT. Parachute was a gigantic hit, we all loved it! I mean I expected it to be good but I was over the moon about it and Mom liked it so much that she gave me a fist bump at the end. That's how good it was! Pictures didn't turn out perfectly, but here's a sampling of our dinner. So so good. You gotta go.

The next day I went with Owen to Au Cheval for lunch. Of course we had the burger, but we also had their Chinese chicken wings (and a side of their incomparable mashed potatoes and gravy). And while we waited for our table at Au Cheval we picked up a Tlayuda (this is half of it) from Cruz Blanca, Rick Bayless's new beer hall/tlayuda eatery. What's a tlayuda? A pizza-sized tostada. They're going to be big (not a pun) in 2017. We also drove by our neighbor's toy company. Look at that silly gigantic door! Fun, right?

Don't have any pictures of it, but the next night we saw Rogue One (I liked it so much better the second time) and went to an apartment-warming, grandchild-welcoming party thrown by some old neighbors at their new place and it really was nice to catch up with people I used to babysit for now that I'm the age they probably were when they paid me to watch their kids. Then we came home and I made cheeseburgers.

And then early early Thursday morning we went to Midway for our flight to California because it was time to have adventures in California. Of course, our first adventure would be the plane being held hostage (in a way! Don't freak out) for an hour and a half by a woman pretending to have bought a seat for her child when she hadn't. Long story. Maybe you my Facebook statuses about it?

Ok, come back soon for a real fun three part California post!