Fatherly bias

Glendale offers swimming classes in the summertime to residents - for a nominal fee, I might add. We signed up both girls for several sessions. S is pretty good for her age (4.5) and is in a class with 6 and 7 year olds. She still has to work on her technique, but she can actually swim 10-15 feet, unassisted.

I watched the class go through its routine, and I was proud of S's confidence and comfort in the water. I'm sure my pride was even more pumped when I noticed one of the boys in class swimming as gracefully as an anchor, while my princess seemed to glide through the pool like a dolphin.

It's the little things that make you appreciate what you have. I won't trade that for anything.

Drowning in "culture"

I have visited LA many, many times and I don't mean as a tourist. I had done grocery shopping, both at the chains as well as the mom & pop Arme stores. So it wasn't like I didn't know that shopkeepers and the people they hire converse in Armenian as their main trade language.

I have to preface this post by reiterating that I grew up on the east coast and, although fluent in Armenian, I conduct business in English. Unless I know that the person across the counter does not understand a word I'm saying. I get it that the person who has opened a deli and sells lavash or ghormeh sabzee may not necessarily be as comfortable with English as I.

But my recent experience at Supercuts has stuck with me. Like many people living in Glendale, I need to get my haircut from time to time. I don't need a fancy-shmancy salon to cut my hair. The Puerto Rican lady around the corner in NY did a great job and I figured Supercuts would be as good. Being new to the area, I looked up the nearest location on the web. Glendale Ave in Glendale (the double whammy), less than 3 miles from our home.

Let me back into the data here. Of the almost 200K residents of Glendale, 46% are non-white. If we then say that half of the rest are Armenian, we can safely asy that at least 25% of the city's population is Armo. Even simpler, if a while guy walks into you store, there's a 50-50 chance he's Armo.

So there I am walking into Supercuts and giving my REAL name. Odds are looking better for Supercuts lady to guess my ethnic origin. I get a copy of last decade's Sports Illustrated and start reading about how Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France.

"Armodad, jahn?"

I lookup, thinking that a friend/relative that I haven't seen since I was 8 has come into Supercuts and has recognized me. This was pre Halloween Freakout, but it could happen. It's the haircut lady! Quick, quick. Do I know this woman? Did she recognize me from my blog picture (LOL, ROTF)?

Nothing's registering. I get up and walk to the chair. She has obviously engaged me in Armenian, so what do I do? She asks me how I want my hair cut (in Armenian). I tell her number 3 on the sides and even out the top. I had to force it out in Armenian. What the hell?! I double check the sign on the door: "SUPERCUTS" not Armocuts, not Supermahz, nor anything like that. Whatever, go with the flow, dude. This is Cali...

Don't want to get into the conversation, but luckily it was minimal. I missed the Puerto Rican lady who speaks very little English. "You like numero tres on side. ¿No?" Then silence for 10 minutes. "okay". Love it!

The Supercuts lady actually does a good job, but she's not done. She takes a fistfull of jell and is coming towards me.

Armodad: No jell, please
Supercut Lady: No jell?
A: No
S: ok

She then wipes of most of the jell on a towel and then runs her fingers through my hair before I can say anything. I wonder if she would have done that if this had been NY, Boston OR if I was not Armenian. My guess is probably not.

What is up with that, people. Anyone care to comment?

Freaky Halloween story

Everyone has been telling us about Halloween on Kenneth Road. "It's huge!", "a big deal", "tons of people" they said. So I got 5 bags of candy instead of the usual 4. The 5th being a bag of Whoppers which I like. We're ready to go with S dressed as Cinderella and G as a frog. I decided to stay home and dole out the candy.

As a side note, Halloween is my least favorite commercial holiday. It's not because of the candy, the scary masks, or the death-centric theme of the whole day. It boils down to the fact that I'm a lazy bastard and don't want to get up every 2 minutes to answer the door bell. ESPECIALLY, when the older kids make no effort to get creative with their costumes; and I'm even less tolerant of the slackers who just show up with a pillowcase and a Freddy Kruger mask. At least wear a fucking striped shirt to show me you care. Horizontal stripes, you moron!!!

Kenneth Road on Halloween is like the Vegas strip on a weekend. No joke. A lot of scary/ugly looking people walking around with their kids. I even saw 2 Elvises (or is that Elvi). Needless to say we ran out of candy. I was going to go out trick-or-treating with S again just to get some more candy. Not to give out, silly, but to keep for me!

The road was packed. People drive here to go trick or treating. That's really lame! C'mon folks. Too cheap to make your own neighborhood attractive for ONE evening? So there are cars all over the place and this guy is blocking my driveway just as our guests are leaving. When I approach the car to ged rid of him, he says "Hey Armodad! How are you doing?" It's someone who I hadn't seen in over 10 years. We were good friends growing up in Boston, but then he moved away and I moved 3 times after that. What are the chances of that happening? Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaky!

... OK, so he's Armo, too, and I now live in the middle (Northwest actually) of Armoville, CA. I suppose the odds aren't that off (7:5, maybe 5:3). Happy day after Halloween. Go wipe the chocolate off the keyboard.