94117, San Francisco

San Francisco's Holiday Wreath

Dear ——–,

As if one Thanksgiving dinner weren’t enough, we had two this past weekend. But all of it was good eating. On Thursday, Geoff and Steven got us an invitation to Becky and Dave’s Russian Hill apartment with a glittery view of Coit Tower. Becky and I discussed life after journalism as she served silky cheese from Cowgirl Creamery and roasted pears and cranberries on a cookie sheet. We started Saturday with lip-smacking pastries from Tartine and then got to cooking. Bryan and I decided to make truffle mac and cheese with parmesan and gruyere. We also wrapped basil leaves and prosciutto around dates. A swarm of other friends tended the turkey, braised brussel sprouts, mashed potatoes and tossed salad. We laughed a lot, drained several bottles of wine, and worked off maybe 1% of the calories by playing Wii at the end of the night. When we left, we were feeling thankful for good friends, good cheer and a good holiday.

90712, Lakewood

Cake pops to welcome Saif to L.A.

Dear ——–,

More than a year after they got married in Turkey, Kimi finally welcomed her husband Saif to Los Angeles. The two of them met in Baghdad as they worked together in the L.A. Times bureau. Somehow, Saif’s brother got approved for a visa first and has been living with Kimi since March. (Kimi wrote a great story about the situation, which I told her could be a sitcom if it didn’t have such an undercurrent of sadness.) Friends hosted a party in Lakewood for Saif with mint juleps and a spread of tasty treats including the red, white and blue cake pops that Kimi made. Arriving in the U.S. with no sports loyalties, Saif got assaulted throughout the night by various guys trying to convince him to become a Yankees or UCLA fan. He recognized me from one of the videos Kimi sent in June. “Michael Jackson,” he exclaimed, remembering that I had mourned the Gloved One’s death. I asked Saif how he liked L.A. so far.”Great food, great weather, friendly people and Kimi is here,” he said. “What could be better?”

90027, Los Feliz

Umami Burger = Yum-ami Burger!

Dear ——–,

We were waiting all day for dinner at Umami Burger. Bryan suggested we meet up with his friend Hans there. The Los Feliz location used to house one branch of the tony tapas place Cobras & Matadors. I wondered whether its replacement with a burger joint — even if an upscale one — was a sign of the times. Still, I’m always up for a tasty burger. I knew it was going to be good when the neon sign at the front of the store said “how fun” because the c in “chow fun” was dark. I ordered the house burger; Bryan ordered the truffle burger; Hans ordered the “manly burger” (which had beer-cheddar cheese, onion strings and bacon lardons!). We also got a side of triple-cooked fries. All hail the fifth taste, umami, also known as savoriness, meatiness, or the reason MSG is so frickin delicious! The burger flavor was deep and satisfying; there wasn’t too much bread. I burned my tongue on the first fry, but, after waiting a minute or two, I savored their perfect balance of outside crispness and inside mush. No wonder the place was packed.

92310, Goldstone

The 26-meter research and development antenna at the Venus site

Dear ——–,

You know you’re in the middle of nowhere when the next exit off the freeway is “Ghost Town Road.” I went on a field trip today to Goldstone, where massive antenna that are part of the Deep Space Network talk to and receive signals from spacecraft in outer space. The site was in the middle of the Fort Irwin Army training site, which is in the Mojave Desert. We passed some tanks, a model Iraqi village, and a couple of burros on our way to the massive 70-meter “Mars” antenna. This antenna got its name from its first mission, tracking Mariner 4, which returned the first pictures of the Mars surface. When we visited, this antenna was tracking Voyager 1. It was crazy to think that the spacecraft was 10 billion miles away from us and sending back a signal at one billion-billionth of a watt. Sometimes rain or sudden high winds can affect the quality of the reception, but luckily there’s not much weather out there.

92108, San Diego

Eagles fans, getting our hearts broken

Dear ——–,

My co-worker D.C. told me I couldn’t call myself an Eagles fan if I didn’t see the Birds play live. So today Bryan and I drove down to Qualcomm Stadium to see them play the Chargers. I wish it had turned out better; I could almost taste the comeback. But, man, was I happy to see a whole corner of the stadium rippling dark green. I can’t believe how many people were walking by in McNabb, Westbrook, Jackson and Cunningham (!)  jerseys. While Charger fans weren’t as hostile to visitors as Raider Nation — the guy next to me even said, “Nice catch!” when Jason Avant reeled one in with one hand — we did see a couple of fights. Some hard-looking homies who were drinking beer in our no-alcohol family section taunted a six-year-old Eagles fan until he started crying. The kid’s dad got angry and said he would see those guys at the exit. The homies started pounding their fists in their hands. As we left the stadium, we were glad to see the family had hustled out.

90717, Lomita

Vampire Weekend rocks the VFW

Dear ——–,

This show probably lowered the average age of visitors to the Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Lomita by a good 30 years. I don’t know why Vampire Weekend chose to play this venue — or a wine bar in Visalia for that matter –but it was really cool to see them in a cozy setting that reminded me of a high school mixer. A girl was selling t-shirts and posters under a bingo board. The PA system was playing oldies (e.g. “Build Me Up Buttercup”) before the show. We guessed that very few of the more than 200 people cradling cans of Corona and singing along to “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” had been to this small town in the South Bay before. In fact, Vampire Weekend’s lead singer even said something like, “I’ve never been to Lomita before.” I had — though I don’t remember why. This town’s strange salty, loamy smell stuck in my memory. My friend Scott had the very unusual distinction of actually having visited this VFW post before. In the late 80s, he came for a baseball card show and remembered balking at the price of a Mark McGwire card.

SAT 2SP, Enceladus

Raw, unprocessed image of famous plume crowning Enceladus

Dear ——–,

Yes, I made up the postcode. We’re in the Saturn neighborhood, looking at Enceladus, the planet’s second moon, which has mysterious jets at its South Pole. This icy moon is the reason I was a little MIA for the last two weeks. The Cassini spacecraft, which is one of the projects I work on, was taking its deepest plunge yet through the heart of the plume. Thankfully, the encounter went off without a hitch and scientists are digging through the details. (I helped a scientist blog about it.) I love that scientists know that there are water vapor, organic molecules and salt in the plume and that it emanates from fissures dubbed the Tiger Stripes. I mean, I can practically taste the spray. The fun part is figuring out how the jets are generated. There are suspicions there is an ocean under the icy crust and a heat source. If so, Enceladus would have the right conditions for life. Not my kind of life, though. I’m a wuss about cold and it’s -305 degrees Fahrenheit at the warm spot on the South Pole!

A Break from Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

Spreading love on the internet

So Cyndi, a friend from my grad school days in the UK, honored me with an Honest Scrap award. I tried to figure out via Google where this award comes from, but its origins are mysterious. I can’t even figure out where the sign comes from. Does anyone know?

No matter. There’s so much snark and bitterness on the internet that when an opportunity comes to share some love, I’m all for it. (Seems like a lot of the recipients are women. Are woman bloggers more likely to share the love?)
Here’s how it works:

1) Say thanks and give a link to the presenter of the award.
2) Share “10 Honest Things” about myself. (Is this the scrap part?)
3) Present this award to 7 others whose blogs I find brilliant in content and/or design, or those who have encouraged me.
4) Tell those 7 people they’ve been awarded HONEST SCRAP and inform them of these guidelines in receiving.

So, this will obviously take longer than the typical 150-190-word posts I’ve been doing here. I’ve taken care of #1 above. Cyndi’s blog Junius and Pippi Take the Cake is really fun and is even included in the blog network “Triangle Mamas.” I’d like to be part of a blog network some day. I guess I’ll just have to satisfy myself with being a blog solo artist for now.

10 Honest Things

1. I love bad TV. Don’t get me wrong, I love a lot of “good” TV. (I’m a devotee of Mad Men and Friday Night Lights.) But I have also watched a lot of episodes of the Real Housewives of [Fill in the Blank]. I am also addicted to MTV’s True Life documentaries. After trying to figure out how to describe the shape of our sun’s region of influence and eccentric orbits of moons during the day, I like to come home and switch my brain off.

2. I banged up my first new car within the first few days of getting it, scraping the corners on cement walls and the like. I never drove that much as a teenager, so when I got my first new car at the age of 25, I was a pretty gimpy driver. Of course, I was living in San Francisco at the time, so I blame all of the steep hills and tight parallel parking spots. I still hate driving.

3. I don’t like beer.

4. I don’t like sushi. I know everyone else likes it. But I find I swallow it about as fast as I can. If I’m doing that, I’m clearly not savoring it the way I should.

5. I leave cups all around the house. Some of them are partially full of water. I’m constantly trying to stay hydrated, but I forget about the cups afterward. This drives my husband a little crazy. I blame my mom. She does this, too.

6. I got really discouraged about writing sophomore year of high school. We had a really tough English teacher who had strict rules about what made good writing. The harder I tried to follow the rules, the more stilted my writing became. On one of my final papers, she literally wrote in the margin that she could not finish reading the essay. I still have a complex about this.

7. I like scrapbooking and paper crafts. I bought a Crop-A-Dile tool after I saw an infomercial. It’s probably not very hip to admit this. But there’s something about working all day on a computer that makes me want to cut out bird shapes, punch eyelets and add glitter to pieces of patterned paper.

8. I pronounce my name Jah-Ree, but if we’re sticking to the true Mandarin Chinese transliteration, it should be something like Jah-Ray. There were just too many years of grade school in which people had such a hard time with my name that I ended up going with Jah-Ree. It’s what I answer to now, though if you say Jah-Ray with a Chinese accent, I’ll answer.

9. Of course, if you’re speaking Chinese, you’re probably calling me Xiao Mao, which is the nickname my parents gave me. It means Little Fuzz Ball. I had a lot of hair as a baby.

10. When I turned 30, I started wearing loafers and gave up wearing impractical shoes. I think it’s just part of turning 30.

Now for the blog shout-outs:

1. That’s a Girl’s Car: Sarah inspired me to get my own blog in the first place.

2. A Million Moths: Esme takes beautiful pictures.

3. Run of Play: Brian attacks football/soccer with panache.

4. Spicy Salty Sweet: Leah’s food blog makes me drool.

5. Live from Los Angeles: I met Gretchen at a journalism conference in Florida and now she gives us her saucy Southerner’s take on Los Angeles.

6. Puck Boy Chronicles: Steve, a former LA Times colleague and sometime ski pal, tackles ice hockey.

7. Hsinchu Asked: Susannah, another former LA Times colleague, applies her wit to Taiwan.

90026, Echo Park

The Crystal Method play a "secret show" at the Echoplex

Dear ——–,

My friend Sarah got free tickets to a secret show by the Crystal Method at the Echoplex on Saturday night and invited me to come along. When we showed up at the door, she said, “This is my +1.” That struck me as the perfectly ambiguous term for a partner-in-crime in our current age. It could be a husband, a wingman, a sister, a not-quite-official-yet girlfriend. When we got inside, the Crystal Method had just started their set and the faithful were huddling close to the stage. As the bass thumped so hard it vibrated even the baby hairs at the top of my forehead, I appreciated how house music is one of those genres that can include rock, metal, grunge and hip-hop. The crowd got really into it, dancing as if they were out of their minds. One person pumped a stuffed tiger up and down in the air with the fat, dirty beats. The scene reminded me of what I’ve read about ancient Baccanalian frenzies. There seems to be a limitless, timeless human need for release.