entrance to the japanese gardens

today we went to mariachi divas at the huntington gardens. since twiddle thumbs's little sister plays with them, it was mostly a family affair. twiddle thumbs invited a co-worker and so he and i were the 2 that were not family. it was a closed event limited to huntington library members. they've been having a serious of summer events for members and tonight was the last one. i was surprised at the turnout. it was truly packed. as we waited to meetup with the others, this elder lady started talking to us. she was nice and cute and sounded foreign so i forgive whatever racial tones her words had. she said that whenever there is a latino event, the place gets packed. i can't recall her exact words but twiddle thumbs and i both made funny faces at each other, like "what did she just say?!". you must understand the context of course, it's all white! you could count on your fingers how many latinos were there and it was all friends/family of the performers i bet! there were some asians and a few other non-whites but that's about it. i'd say asians were the strongest group of non-whites there. funny enough, most of them were asian men with white women and their half children. this is the new face of half families. the old face is the one i'm used to, white soldiers with asian war brides.

bridge at the japanese gardens

once twiddle thumbs's co-worker arrived, we went to the desk with the guest list. i didn't hear exactly what twiddle thumbs said but the lady thought she was in the divas because she led us to their "backstage" room. she didn't give us an entrance sticker like everyone else either. we just kinda laughed once she left and we realized what happened. just because she's latina and said "mariachi diva", the lady thought she is one! then i and her co-worker must be her roadies! we were carrying collapsable chairs for sitting in the lawn. she must've thought we were carrying costumes or instruments. twiddle thumbs wasn't even dressed in a mariachi outfit! i'm telling you, that's how white it was there, that she thought twiddle thumbs was a performer.

zen rock garden

i haven't been to the huntington library and gardens since i was in high school. the place is huge. they have various gardens including a very nice japanese one. i wanted to maximize the opportunity and brought along my nice camera to roam around and take pictures. no one else wanted to go with me so i dashed off by myself, hoping to get shots before it got too dark. this was more of a pre-sunset performance and the gardens were going to close earlier than what was listed earlier as the days are getting shorter. i was worried it would get too dark but i think the light was just right. i really like the japanese garden at the huntington. apologies to those who like any other japanese gardens in america. i haven't been to very many but they always seem small and don't really capture the mood. it's hard to capture the mood i realize. but the key thing to me is vastness. you must be able to walk around quite a bit before you get into the mindset. the one at the huntington does just that.

hypnotic flowers at the huntington

afterwards most of us met up for dinner at pf changs in pasadena. i have always eaten at the one in long beach and i must say that the chefs and bartenders at the pasadena location need work. long beach tastes so much better. later i realized that i had lost one of the badges on my bag. it's a "v" (for vegan) that i got from peta. it had a nice clasp on it that appeared sturdy so i must've gotten my bag stuck on something and yanked it off. i often just swing my bag from my side to my back as i walk around so that's probably what happened.