A Weekend in the Life of Moi

Here’s what a typical weekend looks like for me and my hubby.

Friday night: am on the phone with my mom and dad till about 8 PM. Had a quick dinner at L&L Hawaiian and headed for Home Depot to pick up supplies for our weekend Home Improvement Project. Browsed Borders and got a new book (Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky). My mom and dad have teased that I never go anywhere without buying something – this time I used a gift card – so this purchase does not count! Got home by 11 and watched reruns of SNL before going to bed.

Saturday morning: met up with Jojo’s family for a family trip to the Griffith Park Observatory. The place was super crowded with families and with school kids on fieldtrips. It took a while for all of us to find parking and after the usual picture taking we headed inside. We lined up to purchase tickets for the “Centered in the Universe” show at the Samuel Oschin Planetarium. We find out that kids below 5 years could not see the show – which meant my three nieces (Maddie, Sydney and MJ) could not get in. We debate about who should stay with the kids, but soon discover our debating was for naught since the show was sold out. The next show was at 3:15 PM and we were not planning on hanging around for another 4 hours. Instead we explore the exhibits (like the Hall of the Eye, Hall of the Sky, Edge of Space, etc). Around noon, we decide that we’ve had enough of space exploration and head out for lunch.

All the ladies overlooking the Hollywood sign (can you see it behind us?)

It's the guys turn ... (everyone except for my brother-in-law, Lee, who had to work).

Jojo and Meredith in front of the Observatory.

Overlooking the city of Los Angeles (the view would have been better if it wasn't so foggy!)

Since we all live in the South Bay and are rarely in the LA/Glendale area, we were all excited to have lunch at Max’s (located across the Glendale Galleria). Max is a popular, fast-food fried chicken place in Manila – here in LA they glamorized it up by making it slightly high-end and calling it Max’s of Manila. We drive over and find it packed with people. After we were told there was a 45-60 minute wait, we drive over to Salu-Salo Grill (another Filipino restaurant) nearby. Salu-Salo Grill is actually a nice bright and modern Filipino restaurant (a far cry from the usual turo-turo or cafeteria style Pinoy places). We ordered bilaos (flat, shallow woven baskets) of inihaw (grilled) and prito (fried food). We also had bulalo (bone marrow) soup, lumpia shanghai and crispy chicken for the kids. Lunch was capped off with halo-halo. My brother-in-law, Jojo, surprised us all by treating us to the meal since he recently got his bonus and wanted to share that with everyone.

Saturday afternoon/evening: We went to the Galleria after lunch but found it was a little tough going shopping with the entire family and the kids kept wandering off. After walking around for an hour we headed home. Jojo and I ran errands – picked up dry cleaning, shopped for groceries, re-filled Jojo’s prescription at CVS, and then joined the family for Mass. After mass, we all had dinner at Golden Pheasant (a local Chinese eatery ) - a family favorite. After dinner, we had dessert at my sister-in-law’s place - she had refugiados (cheese strudels) from Porto’s a Cuban bakery.

Sunday: Went shopping for a gift for my sister-in-law (her birthday is next Sunday), picked up some brown rice from Trader Joe’s, and had a late lunch at Chipotle. We headed home to tackle our Home Improvement Project. Today we decided to work on our front door / doorway. Because of the angle of our doorway, the bottom part had warped (since it is exposed to the sunlight and even rain). The top part still maintains it’s dark mahogany color but the bottom is streaked with lighter shades (and is even peeling in some areas). In order to make it even, we need to strip the paint that is on the door, sand it to smoothen the surface, paint it with varnish, wipe off the excess varnish, and paint it with at least two coats of sealant. Sounds easy, right? NOT. Again, I am so not cut for manual labor. Neither is my computer-techie hubby. We first lather on the paint remover. The fumes are nauseating and if it happens to come into contact with any part of you – it stings like hell (really super painful). We had to wear protective glasses and latex gloves. Once we accidentally dropped a huge blob of the paint remover on the glove and actually saw it eat thru the rubber material. By the end of the day, Jojo and I had red marks all over our arms and we were dizzy from the smell. After lathering the paint remover, we let it dry for 10 minutes, then scrape the wood. The paint does not come off. We repeat the lathering, drying and scraping process at least 3 more times. Afterwards, we had to sand the wood with sandpaper to smooth out the surface. It was tiring work and my right arm was pretty sore. We started working before 3 PM and finished two and a half hours later. We decided to call it a day – painting the varnish and sealant will have to wait till next weekend) - since it was still bright outside we washed Sander and Rave. When it got too cold to stay outdoors, we headed inside to do laundry and make dinner.

Home Improvement Project

Sunday evening: after dinner Jojo is watching tv and I’m working on my blog, but before bed we have a mountain of laundry to sort, iron, and put away. Sigh. Just another typical weekend.

Our guest bedroom doubles as our laundry-sorting center. Here's Jojo getting started on the laundry.