Tomorrow

Tomorrow I'm leaving for Paris. So today I should be getting ready; packing, cleaning house, reorganizing my ipod playlists, brainstorming stuff to tell the kids. But I'm not doing any of those things; right now I'm blogging, and later there is dim sum, and then after that Batman.

I might stop to buy some underwear. It's time.

It's surprising how much you have to prepare teenagers when you're going to Europe with them. I've just blitzed them with jetlag information, but they won't believe it until after the trip, when they're back at home, and they realize they comfort shopped and bought a bunch of crap with their money and managed to not taste a baguette. Because they slept through the days.

We're going to the Louvre and the Musee d'Orsay, but we haven't briefed them on the art yet, and it's stupid to go to those without preparing. Art, out of context, is a snore. Also, my generation doesn't give a rip about most of content before Impressionism.

So this will be my fourth time at the Louvre; I've never seen the Mona Lisa and frankly I'm not planning to.

What I am planning to do is go to the modern (contemporary?) museum in the Centre Pompidou, the Arab World Institute, and the Picasso museum. I am also planning on eating mussels.

Still not packing.

My cousin had his senior recital yesterday, although it was really more of a debut. He did Chopin, Gershwin, and Copland in recital. MY COUSIN PLAYS COPLAND. And he plays the isht out of it, too, jolin. That was the classical side of the recital; he also song a bunch of songs at the piano, one with two guitar playing friends, and a jazz choir finale/encore. I am immensly proud of him. It was very impressive, and afterward, there was food.

When I walked out of the theatre, a crowd had gathered around the food. They were all afraid to be the first to serve themselves. I do not have this problem.

Oh, the food. There was a lot of food, but the time we got out it was cold, and we're pretty sure that the lumpia was spoiled, but it was still way fun. I had pansit, adobo, tofu w/veggies, and pungent shrimp. And lechon. The best was the dessert table, which is very unusual for a filipino party (to be fair, it was a filipino AND chinese party) I had leche flan, which was good, and there was a layer cake that was one layer passion fruit and one layer mango, which was frosted lightly and then topped with a passion fruit sauce on one side of the cake, and mango sauce on the other side. That was the bomb.

So my cousin is off to college. If I were him, I know exactly what I'd do; I'd gig and gig and gig and gig and learn that polish that comes from gigging a lot. I would join a Gospel choir. I would major in jazz piano performance and learn about studio engineering, and then go on to an MBA. I would take guitar lessons. I would find a good rhythm section and become part of their lives. I would practice every night after dinner in the dorm lounge so everyone could adore me.

My cousin has to live his own life, so I won't bore him with advice that doesn't make any sense to him. I wish I could email my 15-year-ago self and tell him to not be so lame.

I have to publish this baby, and then it's off to lunch.