Almost three years ago, on January 4, 2009, Glenn and I went up to Three Rivers, CA to visit Mike, Josie & Viviana. Here are a few pictures from our trip!

Thanks for your hospitality Mike, Josie & Viviana! Hope we can come visit again sometime soon!

Carrie Ceniseroz birthday party. Circa… late 60′s?? At Loli & Ray’s house in Monterey Park.

My husband Joe took thousands of slides over the decades of his life. For a little while… maybe late 60′s / early 70′s? he also shot some Super-8 movie film. I just had a little bit of it transferred to video and here’s the first bit of that… more to come!

The music is by Zapac, here’s his page on ccMixter:
http://ccmixter.org/people/Zapac/profile

You know, being one of the world’s great carnivores, you’d think Thanksgiving would be one of the greatests holidays for a dog like me.

Not so.

Oh, I’m down with the eats. But when selfish people get involved, those of us who happen to walk on four legs often get the short end of things. What should be a celebration turns into just another day of captivity and isolation. It’s a sad state of affairs.

Anyway, as you can see above, I did at least get out of that stinky kitchen where that mutt “Princess” hangs out. The lady’s got this knarly security barrier that keeps me from attacking the wall directly, but I’ve solved it. All I have to do is nudge one of the chairs out from the table, then hop on the chair seat and from there to the dining room table top. Then I can use the length of the table as a runway and make an impressive, if I do say so myself, leap over the gate. I took a bag of treats with me, lounged by the fireplace, and made a bunch of trades on eTrade.

The lady and the boy went out to some decadent event at “Hernandez Pavilion.” I’ve posted a couple of surveillance videos below. Yes, I have my sources. They will not be revealed.

Next time: take your dog!
It’s better for us… it’s better for your carpet that I might not pee on.

Hoping for a better deal at Christmas,
I remain,
your faithful property manager,

– Tiki.

St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church.  We celebrated the 50th anniversary of the church on October 9, 2011. Joe and Glenn (2 weeks old) and me moved to Monterey Park in July of 1955.  The land where the church now stands was a horse stable.  The beginning of the church was in an empty machine shop which was at the end of my street.  We would sit on folding chairs and brought our own cushion to kneel on as the floor was made of very hard cement. I am one of the founding members.  We have come a long way from the machine shop days.

The altar looked really beautiful and I think that this pictures don’t really do it justice.

We didn’t get to the cake in time to take a picture before it was cut.

Connie Ortega—-one of the founding members.

Sheila, Chris, Connie,Rosemary, Al

Denise

Father Cavanaugh was one of our Pastors

There was a very good turnout for the event.

At the very left of this picture is Tony Frumento, on the right (with the sunglasses) is his son and grandson.

Maria Hunt                                                          Dolores Sunda

Lots of dancers, including Father John

"Oh boy, this is good!"

Ame is SO cute! And she’s already 1-year old! Bob & Rachel had a party for her yesterday. Roast pig, mango cheesecake, and a pinata, oh my!

Lots of guests helped Ame celebrate her birthday and she got to eat her very first cupcake! Wow! Mom and dad and the grandparents were appropriately proud of beautiful Ame’s 1st birthday!

Yummy mango cheescake----yummmmmmmmm

Piñata time

"My first cupcake ever-----how fun!"

Aunt Sheila & Ame's grandma Rosemarie

 
It was Stacy’s birthday on Monday, and Raul organized a birthday brunch today at Casa de Salsa in Claremont. It was a really nice time and to my surprise, Casa de Salsa is the place that used to be Griswold’s Old Schoolhouse… the place where Joe and I enjoyed so many Sunday brunches and and art-fairs-in-the-park.

Happy Birthday Stacy!

If you’ve been over to the house, you might have had some of Glenn’s iced tea. Here’s a little video he made on how to make it.

He says he forgot to say that after 2 hours you just pour it through a fine tea strainer… and then sweeten if you like…

The boy came over yesterday, and - can you believe it!?!? – I actually convinced the lady that he should take us all to the park (finally!)

We went to Bicknell Park in Montebello, CA. It’s a small, nice park in the middle of a big golf course. It’s also home to the Armenian Monument:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montebello_Genocide_Memorial

In the video above you get to check out the park, and in the one below you get to see the monument.

After paying a moment of respect, I felt the urge to grasp life while you can, so I tooled over past “the edge” of the park and did some off-roadin’ as you see in the video below.

Finally, as you’ll see in the bottom video, I had to take off my tourist hat and put on the TPS (Tiki Protection Services) hat to deal with some trespassers. I know, I know, they might look harmless to you, but I have found in my years of experience that it’s really a domino effect of property management. If you tolerate a little “harmless” trespassing it won’t be long before you start to see petty vandalism, maybe they steal some pomegranates from your front yard, whatever… the next thing you know, the safety of your land and your persons is in jeopardy.

This is why I have a zero tolerance policy. If some people think I’m too aggressive, so be it. That’s the price of freedom.

Hi guys! My niece Cathy made her annual California pilgrimage this weekend. Partly to celebrate her mom’s birthday… and, of course, to attend the Air Hockey Finals at Hernandez Pavilion. The birthday had a ginormous, to-die-for cake and the action at HP was edge-of-your-seat all the way. It was so nice to see everyone. The little girls are SOOO cute!!!