Day in the life

Today played out pretty typically with how my life is this summer.

Alarm went off at 5:50 AM and I rolled out of bed, trying not to disturb Saorichan. With all of three pairs of pants and about five shirts that look more or less decent for work, it doesn't take a lot of time to get dressed in the morning. A quick check in the mirror- hmmmmm. I picked up a beard trimmer to keep my ragged facial hair from getting to long (as I start to look like a 19 year old trying to prove something) but I need to clean up my neck, so, shave. 

Feed both the cats, slam down some off-brand honey nut cheerios ("its a bagged cereal in a box disguise!"), and mom rolls out of her room and we dive into the microconvertable for the five-minute drive to the RAPID bus stop. The RAPID bus goes straight to downtown from this park and ride on the edge of Phoenix, and for a limited window, it runs about every ten minutes. What makes it annoying is that to get a ticket on the bus you have to pay the exact fare, which is $2.75. So I had to go to the bank and get a ton of $1 bills and a fat roll of quarters since I pay that one way fare about five times a week. The ride is quick, a little over half an hour in the fast lane, and I read or listen to music. It's a commuter bus.

I jumped off before the main station- its faster to walk than to take light rail in. It's about a 20 minute walk to the office, and I meander through side streets, parks, and parking lots. I arrive about two minutes before 7:30. Right on time.

I've been working on two projects- one of them is a large multi-specialty clinic that will be going up in Illinois, and the other is a willed body storage and processing building. This one is going up in Arizona. This is a really interesting facility as it where cadavers and animals will be stored and embalmed (and possibly plasticized a la  bodyworlds) for use as teaching devices for medical students. Its a building that the client wants to be very quiet and subdued, as discreet as possible, and I also want to make sure that its form is suitably understated and distinguished for the human dead. Especially as body doners may potentially come and visit the facility. So its the more fun design project. 

Saorichan met me for lunch, and we took the light rail up to eat at Pane Bianco, of the Pizzaria Bianco fame. They make their own bread and serve up a caprese sandwich with fresh mozzarella, tomato, and basil. It's expensive, but its one of the best sandwiches in Phoenix. 

Normally, I catch a ride back to Ahwatukee with my coworker David, and we make great time in the carpool lane. Today, though, he was back in Mexico for his birthday, so I had to leave early and make a mad dash in 110 heat to catch the RAPID bus back. It was standing room only, but it was a unique experience to stand at the front of the bus while zipping along the freeway. 

Mom picked me up at the park and ride and drove me straight to hot yoga. Saori was already there waiting for us. She had packed my yoga bag for me and we got dressed (or undressed or whatever) and went into the hot room.

Yoga was miserable. It was their special "flow" class, just an hour instead of the normal 90 minutes, and more intense workout. They also cranked up the heat. It was noticeably hotter than the typical temperature, and I made the mistake of sitting in the hotter side of the room. It was a grueling workout and the heat and humidity made me nauseous and lightheaded. It's something that can be overcome with better preparation and more practice, but I think I like my workouts better without the artificial heat and humidity. Like running. At least there's a cool breeze of the moving air over by body when I run. So I'm going to do that instead. Saori is pretty hooked on Yoga. This class was her favorite.

After yoga, mom dropped me off at home first and went back to pick up Saori. After everyone showered, Saori and I grabbed a snack of leftover pork on some leftover rice. We watched some TV and went to bed around 11. 

Breakfast for Hipsters

Today, feeling much better, I took Saori out to breakfast at Winslow's Home. Located in a small old building with a large patio in the front filled with small tables, this is the epitome of affluent midwestern hipsterness. It's nominally a cafe, serving breakfast, lunch, and brunch, but it also offers a lot more. They carry a limited selection of locally grown organic produce (probably from urban gardens), delicious and expensive baguettes, a variety of locally made hummus and other kinds of casual dinner party foods. But they don't stop there. They also sell a bunch of kitchen and home goods of the type one sees at upscale or trendy kitchen stores,  in addition to sketch books, Danish educational toys, and retro toys and games for adults.

It's kind of like "Stuff White People Like" in a cafe format. I must say that the food was pretty good. I ordered the french toast with bananas and crumbled bacon ($6) with a side of a fresh squeezed glass of OJ ($3) and Saori got the Blueberry pancakes and a coffee. Everything was pretty good. Not the best food I've ever had, but pretty darn tasty. I like being there, I like being enticed by shiny, retro, ironic, sustainable, home and office objects, so I really can't fault it. In fact, they had a really cool method of storing bikes against the side of the building. It's basically a bucket with very thick walls curved in a certain shape such that when you put your bike in place in one of the notches, it rests against the other notch by its own weight, and voila, the bike becomes a piece of artwork on the building. I'll have to get a photo next time.

The rest of the day we spent in studio, where I realized that I have tons and tons of reading for my "Reconsidering the Margins" class, which is actually a lot more about social urbanism, especially in the history of St. Louis. We actually took off from studio early, and went out to the St.Louis Mills outlet mall to do some shoe shopping. I'm in need of some cold weather boots for tromping around in the rain and snow, so we hit up a few places to get some ideas of what is out there. Afterwards, we came home, ordered Papa Johns Pizza and watched Monty Python's Meaning of Life, which is actually more bleak than Brazil. Anyway, it was a very nice evening.

The Socialites

Tomorrow will be the last day of the second week since we came to St.Louis. In that time, we have hosted not one, but two dinner parties, and also our former ASU professor whom we took out to dinner in the Loop. I've actually gotten to enjoy throwing get together's at our place. I like showing off our apartment, our prima donna cat, and I like not having to worry about being sober enough to drive home. I think entertaining is a good skill to develop.

Today we hosted several new classmates who literally moved into St.Louis yesterday. We picked up a bucket of chicken and some sides, and they brought beers and salads. There was enough booze and food to go around, and it was nice to compare notes on the city and on school, and to just chat and toast the success of a new semester and a new return to school.

It made me really glad we moved here a week and a half before we had to, as it gave us time to explore the city, get official stuff done on our own pace, and even do a road trip outside the city to see Hermann and its wineries. While I do miss that paycheck, its been nice to have the time to really get settled in.

Tomorrow is begins the two days of orientation and the two weeks of pre-semester workshop, the content of which I cannot even begin to guess. It feels odd to be going back to school after three years of working.

Today we went to the mall, the Galleria mall of Brentwood, which is pretty nice, equvilant to Chandler fashion square in Phoenix. We stopped by the Gap, Forever 21, Urban Outfitters, J Crew, H&M and a few others, but I successfully avoided buying anything, and Saori succeeded in replacing a shirt that went missing in the move, so it was a pretty successful trip.

Game to Game

Yesterday at lunchtime, Mexico was playing France, so one my Mexican coworkers and I went to go watch the game at a sandwich shop called Tortas El Guero ("Blondie's Sandwiches"). Saori and another one of my coworkers, Kiyomi, met us there and we at great sandwiches and watched the game along with a small but vocal crowd rooting for the Mexico side. It was a great game, Mexico delivered, leaving France, the runners up of the last world cup, on the brink of not even making it to the round of 16.

That evening, Saori and I picked up Mai from her apartment and took her to Kiyomi's house for Korean-style BBQ. Kiyomi's backyard is fantastic, tropical, lush, overgrown like a jungle with interesting things everywhere. Their entire house is kind of like that. In the middle of the backyard, there is large wooden covered pavilion that is mostly screened in, with a big table in the center with old wooden folding chairs, cobwebs everywhere, and hanging pendant lights. After a round of beer, our hosts set up a large cooking station in the middle of the table, which is essentially a large frying pan on top of a propane stove. We then proceeded to fry up shittake mushrooms, sliced green peppers, onions, Japanese squash, thin-sliced beef and jumbo prawns. Everything served with a kind of rice that has more wheat or barley in it, so its a bit like a cross between grits and regular short-grain rice. Delicious. After we'd eaten our way through most of the pan, Kiyomi brought out soba (wheat noodles) and fried them up, and then I regretted having eaten so much before. The yakisoba (fried noodles) soaked up the flavors of the cooked meats and veggies. Good stuff. For dessert, Kiyomi brought out a Japanese dish, shaved ice with condensed milk and sweet red bean paste.

We ended up talking past 11, and then we took Mai back to her apartment where we said goodbye. She'll be on a jet to Japan next Tuesday, while we'll be on the cruise. It was a sad moment, but we said "mattane" (see you later), not "sionara" (goodbye).

This morning I got up at my usual time to go into work, but the US was playing Slovakia, and when I tuned in, we were DOWN by a goal, so I had to stay and watch and lend my psychic support to the US team. Even my little brother Taylor, who is rarely up before noon, texted me to see if I was watching. It was a tense game, the Slovakians fought hard and tackled player after player after player. It was almost like the US team had never played a European team before they just looked unsophisticated in that regard. A very sleepy Saori made her way to the living room and watched with me. After a thrilling comeback with two goals to tie the score, the US scored again, but had that victory snatched from them from a terrible call from the ref, ending the game in a draw.

Play by Play

It's been another busy week, where I have been having difficulty to find the half an hour it takes to sit and write a blog posting. However, the World Cup has been fun to watch- I race home for lunch and Saori has the Univision channel up and we catch the end of the first half and the beginning of the second half of whatever the third game of the day is.

Sunday was a hard day of work for Saori. One of her long term patients was a 30 year old quadriplegic, E, who had been crippled after an accident in his early 20s. Apparently a very outgoing guy who still enjoyed the Scottsdale nightlife and socializing with friends and family. After hearing so much about me from Saori, he wanted to meet up for drinks at Trader Vic's. We were going to get together last thursday, but the other caretaker had something come up and called it off. However, he neglected to tell E, who had taken the several hours it takes to get ready to go out on the town, and so he called up his parents instead and they went out together. It would be the last time they saw him. The next day, he collapsed, and by the following morning he had left this world.
It's another quiet reminder that life is a ephemeral gift, and every loved one, and every moment is dear.

Monday, reminded of the value of friends and family,  after work we joined mom, Tay and Grandma at "Cheuvront", a "wine bar," to celebrate Tay's friend's birthday, where we had somewhat-off "blackberry mojitos" and really good "flights" of wine and cheese "pairings" until we were so "sophisticated" that we were having difficulty "operating" doors.

Tuesday was relatively free of engagements so Saori and I took the time to hit up the grocery store to stock up on stuff for the cruise and to get a roll of quarters for laundry. The cruise ship will only allow you to bring on a bottle of wine per person, plus a small amount of soft drinks, so we picked up some tonic water and cokes. If I can find a fresh lemon or lime, a tonic water does not cry out so strongly for some gin. We did a few loads of clothes at the apartment complex when we got back home, and filled out our cruise "FunPass" which included fun questions like "who do we notify if you get hacked to bits by machete welding drug gangs?" and "what is your credit card number so we can charge you $34.18 for each can of soda you drink on board?"

Wednesday, yesterday, we went to my friends' apartment for a small going away party. One of them, Mai, is a Japanese girl who is going back to Japan after not being able to find work in her field of industrial design out here in Arizona or California. What strikes me as more sad is the fact that she really did love being in Arizona. With my recent blog posting on souvenir in mind, I asked her what she was taking with her, and she pulled out a small bronze Arcosanti bell.

Novelty Dust

Where did the weekend go? Why am I so tired?

Saturday morning, Suki got me out of bed early to feed her, and I whomped back into bed for a little more shut eye before heading into the office. We have a major set of documents going out next week and I needed to get a jump start on coordinating some stuff with our electrical and air conditioning engineers, so I went into the office. 

It's kind of nice to be at the office by yourself. I brought my speakers to play whatever music I wanted, and wandered around in my sandals. When I'm there alone, the silence is just too creepy, so I like having music. Anyway, I called it quits at 11 to go check out the USA vs England World Cup match. Originally, I wanted to go watch it at the English pub, the George&Dragon, but driving by, I saw that the crowd of people had actually spilled out onto the sidewalk from their outdoor patio and so I opted to watch in my own little pub, the Couch&Samsung.

With rabbit ears, we have a pretty good signal from ABC, since we don't have cable. However, since everything switched over to digital broadcasting, the game came across in HD, as good as anything you'd pay for.

It was a good game, the US held it together against the UK and in return, the UK essentially gave away a 1-0 game to a draw. I'd invited a friend over to watch it with me, but unfortunately he called around halftime and then showed up just after the match ended. There was a communication gap, and he thought there was 90 minutes left in the second half. It was all good, we watched the recap and analysis, and just talked. He'd brought beer, salsa, and chips, so we dipped into that stock a little bit before he left. 

I left shortly after to go pick up my Grandma from the airport, which was inexplicably packed on that Saturday afternoon. I don't have any idea of what was going on in town that might account for the crush of people. Waiting for her to arrive, I browsed through the Arizona Highways gift shop, doing some pre-departure souvenir hunting, but honesty it was all trinkets and crap. Petroglyph tee shirts, novelty shot glasses, copper and turquoise jewelry, tequila flavored suckers with worms.

What is the best AZ souvenir? I guess it really depends on how you see AZ. Here's what I'll be bringing to St.Louis:

• weathered skin from so much time in the sun (hope I'm not unwittingly packing skin cancer)
• a small Navaho pot I picked up at the heard museum
• a large bronze Arcosanti bell
• some CDs of a Tempe-based, all-Japanese rock/punk band (Toybox)
• numerous metal and acrylic water bottles
• several tons of desert dust that settled into everything

Anyway, I picked up Grandma and we drove to mom's house way out in Ahwatukee where mom made us dinner. I stayed until around 9 and took off back to Phoenix. I swung by the apartment to pick up some beer, and drove down to my co-worker Raun's house for his birthday party. That was a lot of fun, he'd set up a projector and speakers in his backyard, so people were playing RockBand. I stayed there until around midnight, and drove myself home. 

Today, I got up and drove to Tempe to meet mom and Grandma for breakfast at Harlow's Cafe, one my favorite "Eats" in Phoenix, at least as far as breakfast goes. Got a really spicy chorizo burrito plate. I hope I can find good Mexican food in St.Louis. Afterwards, we drove to Fry's Electronics to look for cameras for Grandma and netbooks for mom, or at least to look at prices. After that, we drove up to Kierland Commons in north Scottsdale. 

Nothing I really need there, I ended up picking up two books for our upcoming cruise, The Master and Margarita, a Russian book mom and Tay recommended, and Main Street, one of the bitter satires of Sinclair Lewis. For me, Lewis seems to sit between Ayn Rand and Kurt Vonnegut. His protagonists are always characters that fall from idealism into a compromised world. Where Vonnegut satirizes with laughter and buffoons, Lewis seems only to find bitterness. So, light, fun reading for the cruise. Along with the bubbly, uplifting Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health, I'll have plenty of lighthearted entertainment to while away those carefree hours.

I headed back to work afterwards, and got a few more hours of work in before heading back home and collapsing into a nap. 

What's great for a snack and fits on your back?

Today I was up pretty early after Saori left for work, so I ended up getting some laundry done at the community coin operated laundry room downstairs. It's not killing me so much right now, but once school starts, having our own laundry machine will be fantastic and free up so much time. Bumming through the Netflix instant streaming listings, I found the original season of Ren & Stimpy, a cartoon we 80's kids grew up with. I'm sure its a generational thing, but there was a lot of really surreal programming for kids then. Ren & Stimpy, Rocco's Modern Life, The Adventures of Pete & Pete. It seems like what followed was much more direct and less esoteric. The legacy of the oddness and boundary pushing Ren&Stimpy show was just gross out stupid humor, although some of the same animators and staffers would go on to work on Dexter's Lab and Spongebob Squarepants. Ok, we're not talking Masterpeice Theater, but the early seasons of these works have endured and I would really hold them up to anything being currently aired on Nickelodeon.

And while I'm on the topic, why did so many American animators suddenly decide to imitate the look of  anime? Samurai Jack was the first example I saw, and really that took more inspiration from brush paintings and the whole thing was so stylized, it was really a style unto itself. But look at what they did to Batman Beyond, Teen Titans, Ben-10, etc. People just assume that the movie The Last Airbender is an Asian import- in fact, its based on Nickelodeon cartoon series created to look like a Chinese anime series. It's probably cheaper to animate this way, and studios unwilling to take a risk on originality stick with the look of the hot imports.

I submit these two clips: the first is of the "American" version of the animated Batman series. The second is of the new "fake Anime" versions. Which is better?

Anyway, after folding laundry, I fixed a small frame displaying a gilded carved Chinese wooden panel, and hung it above our headboard. Afterwards, I drove to mom's house and she took me out to the park and ride to learn how to drive stick.

I've never touched anything other than an automatic transmission before, and my feeling is that most of the cars I will be driving in the future will also feature an automatic transmission. However, it's always kind of bugged me that I don't know how to drive stick. I feel like people look at me and are surprised that I don't know how to drive stick, and it's always been something that's intimidated me. What if there's an emergency and I really need to drive someone else's car? I'm sure the rest of the developing world drives stick shift cars, so what my guide/driver gets shot while we're in Somalia? As the pirates and militants close in, I turn confidently to the other terrified passengers and say, "sorry, I don't know how to drive stick." Ok. An absurd example, but it still seems like a skill set I'd like to develop. 

I sort of got the hang of starting the car and taking it into first gear and from first to second. Only killed the car a few times. I'm taking it pretty slow since I have the time to learn- if I really wanted to learn quickly, the best way to do it would be to drive from mom's house to some other destination that puts me in very uncomfortable situations. We did that for about an hour, and called it good.

It was about lunchtime so we grabbed a bite to eat at a relatively new BBQ place off the Warner-Elliot loop called Hawg n Dawg. Got a platter that included pulled pork and chopped smoked links and they were both pretty tasty. Fed the two of us with decent appetites for less than $10. 

Back at mom's house, I pulled down the terrible drapes over the entry door and installed wooden blinds for her. She says I'm getting to be an expert at blinds installation. It's not quite rocket science, as the custom blinds she orders are pretty much idiot proof and pretty forgiving in terms of overall tolerances. The entry/foyer does look a lot better.

Aztec Fridays

Yesterday on my recession Friday, we started off with a breakfast at our local Jack-in-the-Box, which was kind of nice as the uptown one on central made an attempt to upscale itself with high, cafe-style tables by the front windows. Next stop was the giant Fry's Electronics, the big box store that for some reason looks like a Aztec temple. It's beyond kitch, with the giant fake stone snakes, and the life size tableus of natives bearing consumer electronics, but the whole thing is so surreal and arbitrary, I actually find it much more preferable to the typical steaming piles of stucco I see everywhere. I'm sure I'm reading too much into it, but the fact that its an electronics store in the form of a temple strikes me as commentary on consumerism as nearly religious worship. Make sacrifice unto HD.

[Actually, I am reading way too much into it. Apparently, Fry's Electronics attempts to theme most of it's stores. There's a "pre-1960's Indianopolis 500" theme in Indiana, an oil-derrick theme in the Houston store, and oddly, stores that use an Alice in Wonderland motif with life-sized characters. Aztecs were a native group in Mexico, but as we're in Arizona, I don't see how they could make the connection. Saori was wondering where do you even find contractors who carve giant foam sculptures.]

Anyway, after Fry's we went to PV mall to look for a swimsuit for Saorichan. We had mixed luck- she found a suit she liked for a price she didn't so its off to the internet for some comparison shopping. I picked up a new hat, and we wandered through the various stores. PV seems to have stablized itself. Last time I was there about a year to two years ago, there were a lot of shuttered stores, and it seems like there were only one or two closed storefronts.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the indoor mall typology is on its way out the door. The retail trend which follows the financing trend is that they are being supplanted by outdoor malls. Typical form is a "district" or short pedestrian street lined with boutique retail, dining, and entertainment surrounded by a lake of parking and the entire thing ringed by a chain of big box retail stores. If you're in Phoenix; Desert Ridge, Tempe Marketplace, Mesa Riverview, San Tan, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

We finally got around to watching our latest Netflix disc, Chungking Express by Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai (In the Mood for Love, 2046), which tells the story of two Hong Kong cops and their love lives. Tony Leung stars as one of the cops, and there was another Japanese actor I saw in John Woo's Red Cliff who played the other cop. Apparently shot in two months while Kar Wai was editing another much larger epic, this is a much simpler, lighter movie than his other works. The story centers around a food stand which sells everything from fish and chips and chef's salads to pizza, where the two cops, who never actually share the same screen, come to eat and relax. The story is okay, its more about the characters and their relationships. Singer and model Faye Wong is a lot of fun to watch as she plays one of the food stand staffers who secretly loves one of the cops, and she is constantly grooving to the same song, "California Dreaming." I liked it more than Happy Together, and 2046, but I didn't think it measured up to In the Mood for Love.

The style is great, his camera loves the culture and city of Hong Kong, its internationalism, its frenetic pace and neon signage, the packed vegetable markets in the tropical heat and concrete, the incredible density and labrythine urbanism, even the griminess. It makes me want to pack up and head straight to Hong Kong. American filmmaker Quinten Tarintino geeked out over this movie so much, he introduces the film, and actually created a line of special US releases to make sure that the film would be exposed to US audiences.

Thinking about Tarintino, it makes me wonder if there are "filmmaker's filmmakers," or possibly, "architect's architects." Can they be judged in the same way? Or is it only valid to evaluate and compare works? Tarintino might camp out at the theater to see the latest Wong Kar Wai work, as George Lucas might to see a Kurosawa film, or John Lasseter (Pixar) for Miyazaki (Ghibli), but so would so many other people. The cinema is so accessible and directly experienced that it makes me think that the reasons the Tarintino's and Lucas's go to the movies is not so different why you or I go to the movies.

Fundamentally, maybe its not so different with architects and architecture. Yes, if Tadao Ando designed a gas station a hundred miles from my house, I would drive to go see it just because it's Tadao Ando's work. Like a movie, architects and designers would be interested in the details and craftmanship, but I think really at the end of the day, what is most compelling is the spaces that are created, and I think everyone really does appreciate architecture in that same way, whether or not they even notice it. Perhaps people like being certain places and its just that industry people pay closer attention to the causes of what makes a space nice. There's differences of taste, and also of ambition of course. Scottsdale Fashion square mall has a nice atrium, you could say the sliding glass roof and ambient daylight and bridges are nice architectural features, but no one but architects will pay close attention to them. But people pay money to see Gaudi's unfinished Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona, which is a space that grabs you and shakes you. Designer or no, most people say "wow."