Year of the Snake

Confetti against the sky

The 114th Golden Dragon Parade took place yesterday in Los Angeles' Chinatown to mark the lunar New Year. We joined in the fun

The Chinatown Rotary Club had a group of young people carrying American flags. They're wearing red because red is the color of luck.

The sidewalk along North Broadway was crowded. The sun was hot, and lots of people brought paper parasols and sunshades.

Brilliantly colored flags and banners passed.

Lion dancers thrilled the crowd.

Then, the golden snake appeared.

And finally, the dragon himself. Happy New Year!

A bowl of noodles - and temptation averted

Yesterday I made a point of getting out of the office. I was craving a bowl of noodles. I couldn't think of a place near work, but Sawtelle Boulevard is just a short drive away, so off I went to Little Osaka.

Kara kara ramen at Chabuya

Once a quiet neighborhood of Japanese nurseries, shops, and small groceries, Sawtelle is now teeming with artisanal noodle shops, Asian-fusion restaurants, and even a gourmet burger joint. Sprinkled among the older karaoke bars and sushi joints, there are Japanese toy stores, boutiques with edgy tee shirts and accessories, frozen yogurt shops and boba tea places.

Sadly, some of the older Japanese groceries are gone, their windows papered over while inside construction workers put the finishing touches on the newest Japanese fusion gourmet burger establishment.

But in one multi-level strip mall, you can still go buy Shiseido cosmetics, houseware, bento boxes and Japanese gummy candy at the Nijiya Market.

I'm always fixed with indecision when I go to Sawtelle. Do I want artisanal tonkatsu noodles at Tsujita? Or should I still with the old-timey ramen joint, Asahi Ramen? Sushi at the venerable Hide Sushi? Or vaguely frenchified cusine at Sawtelle Kitchen? 

This time, I picked Chabuya, a noodle joint on the east side of the street. It's named after a famous Tokyo Ramen shop, and claims to serve Tokyo-style ramen, which is made with pork and chicken stock flavored with dashi (seaweed and dried bonito stock) and soy sauce, or shoyu. Egg noodles in the broth are topped with a variety of extras - slices of roast pork, called chashu; strips of dried nori, bamboo shoots, chopped scallions, and sometimes a boiled egg. There are an assortment of condiments, too, from sesame seeds to pickled ginger and chile paste.

Ramen is a very casual meal - noodles and soup and accompaniments. In Japan, despite the prevalence of instant ramen with its packet of salty flavoring and the ubiquitous block of dried noodles, real ramen is handmade and each region has its own style. This aesthetic has moved to Los Angeles, thus the odd phenomenon of celebrity "ramen chefs" and artisanal noodles.

Chabuya's ramen offerings included one named "Bruin" after UCLA, and another named after a fraternity - so clearly there is a connection with the university that's just up the road.

I chose the Kara Kara Ramen, which includes spicy ground pork along with the toppings. My bowl came topped with lovely fried crunchy slivered garlic.

 

And then I did something totally out of character. It has to do with this little 6 oz. bottle. The rest of the story is HERE. 

Happy Valentine's Day

We're not making a big deal out of Valentine's Day, and it's in the middle of a busy work week.

But tonight, [The Man I Love] made me a before-dinner kir royal to sip while I sat at my computer.  What a sweetie!

Triple threat

3 folk-art carved wooden statuettes from Zimbabwe

When you're job hunting, you imagine yourself in a lot of different roles.

I work in a specialized field, but even in my field, there are branches, variations, internal specializations. I am in many ways a generalist, but when job hunting, you pick the opportunities that are out there and tailor your application to them.

This is why this week, I am applying to three different openings that seem almost schizophrenic in their diversity.

1) There's a job opening for a position with a local city government, working in my general field of public programming.

2) There's a job opening for a position managing a facility for a major multi-national corporation.

3) There's a job opening for a position fundraising for a local arts non-profit.

These are all natural outcomes of the work I've done in my career. But they are wildly divergent from one another. I feel like I have to embark on a personality change just to transition between writing one cover letter to writing the other.

Crazy!

Weather changes

I hope everyone in the East is staying warm and dry, in the face of the snowstorm.

Here in Southern California our weather has been changeable. Rain was predicted this past Friday, and as I drove into work, heavy raindrops pelted my windshield. I dashed through cold, wet wind from the parking lot to my building.

But then I suddenly looked up from my desk an hour later and the sun was bright out the window.

This weekend, clouds have been scuddering across the sky, alternately blue and glowering. This morning we took a walk in Tuna Canyon, and as we stepped along the trail toward the hazy blue coastline, threatening stormclouds loomed inland.

The hills were bright green with new grass.

You can tell spring is coming when the small flowers begin to bloom. Here, even in the most infertile places, between the rocks. A sign of hope.

Keep following the path. Where does it go?

I met a man who loves his job

My office is closing down, after operating for 54 years in the same building. Our building is so big that we've had the luxury of being able to store everything on-site, so for 54 years we were blissfully ignorant of the complicated policy about the retention of records and documents that my employer has put together over the years, in compliance with laws, ordinances and regulations.

Some records must be kept permanently, and cataloged, so that they may be retrieved in case there's a request. Other records, mostly financial, must be kept for a certain period of time pending audits. Yet other records should be destroyed on a regular schedule - to protect my employer from liability.

With our vast space, we simply stored everything. Boxes and boxes of it. About five years ago, we sifted out the things we were required to destroy, and sent them to a shredding company. We also labelled other boxes with a "destroy-by" date, and shred them on schedule. But anything that wasn't required to be shredded just piled up in boxes, yellowing and crumbling.

But now we're closing the office, we have to do something about this stuff. Some of it's valuable for its historical content; some of it's valuable as artifacts of another time. Some of it must be kept because it's required by law. Because my supervisor has retired, it's my responsibility to make sure what needs to be saved is saved and what needs to be shredded is shredded.

So I contacted D. He is in charge of the off-site storage facility, and he knows what's in every single box of paper in there.

He came to a meeting and explained the whole procedure to us. There's a web-based interface to log in the content of your file boxes, and he trained us to use it. He's even written a manual that guides you through every step. While he was training us, he gave examples of the kinds of records he's been required to retrieve, and talked about the records saved in the vaults. Deeds from 1875? Minutes of public meetings from 1984?  Purchasing bids from 2004?  D. can find them in a minute.

He spoke with a passion that was infectious. Now I'm inspired about organizing our big mess. What was once an almost overwhelming nightmare now seems achievable!

So I asked D. how he got into this job. Had he been trained as a librarian, or an archivist, perhaps?

No, he said. What really got him into the job at the beginning was that he'd joined the army and been assigned as a file clerk. And he really wanted to do a good job with the files. Even now - after having had some more specialized training and knowledge - what's important to D. is that stuff that's supposed to be kept is kept, and that someone can find it when they need it.

Never let anyone tell you that being a file clerk is a dead end. I love meeting someone who cares so deeply and passionately about their job.

Whatever you find a passion for, that's something that can help you succeed.

Job search

When a job application requires you to submit a "writing sample" - what kinds of writing do you submit?

Has anyone had experience with this?

Busy with stuff

I've been busy with a lot of little stuff. More posting later!

Welcome to February

Happy February!  Today we shopped at the Saturday Santa Monica Farmers Market, and brought back a huge haul of delicious produce.

I'm working hard in the kitchen, preparing to serve brunch tomorrow to some guests. There's a banana bread fresh out of the oven, and some vegetables already chopped in the fridge, ready for cooking tomorrow.

A few branches of Acacia in a vase and a bowl of oranges looks nice on the table..