Say Cheese... Now Smile!

Today, Carlene was making fun of Michael in the car because of his childhood diet of "ramen and rice." This sparked a rather hilarious memory of our own school lunches that our dad prepared for us while in elementary school. See, growing up filipino in the very "white" city of San Dimas was pretty interesting... so at first, school lunch, "baon" in tagalog, would consist of your traditional filipino foods... pretty much whatever was leftover from your dinner the night before. But during that age, you want to be the same as the other kids... so Carlene and I would come home wishing we had sandwiches and juice boxes like the other, as opposed to our tupperware of pancit and flat soda in our thermos. Since my dad prepared our lunches in the mornings, he really didn't know what to do when we asked for a "sandwich" so... he grabbed 2 pieces of white bread and slathered some mayonaise on it. TA DA! A Sandwich! :) A mayonaise sandwich.... but hey it was a step closer to Americana. A variation he had on this sandwich was 2 pieces of white bread, some butter and a sprinkle of sugar... TA DA! A really weird sugar/butter sandwich... but it was still good. Eventually, my mom figured that we would need some luncheon meat along with that mayonaise sandwich... so the weird sandwich thing didn't last for long.

OH... also my dad had this variation of an "ice cream sandwich." Any guesses as to what was in it?

Birthdays and girl scouts "snacks" were different too. Remember how parents used to bring in treats for the class when it was your birthday... like a cupcake or icecream cups? Well, my parents did that too... but it wasn't the usual sweet dessert type... nooope. They brought in lumpia. OH yeah... none of the kids in the class liked to eat egg rolls.. but all the teachers just LOVED us for that... they would come barreling down from the faculty room to get some lumpia. But its the thought that counts huh.. my parents were trying and although I probably was cringing at that tray of fried meat at the time, looking back at it really makes me smile and feel so grateful for some terriffic parents.

Bombie once told me that when his class had a potluck and his assignment was to bring in "chips." Tita Lagring got him "shrimp chips." Now... that's pretty bad. ;)

~*~

Today, er yesterday, spent it down at Downtown Disney... ok. Just a note... if you are a Giants fan, don't go to the Disneyland area sporting your gear. Angels stadium is like 5 minutes away.. (Anaheim Angels.. you just won the world series!! Where are you going to go?.... "We're going DOWN THE STREET!") and Disney owns them... so by wearing your Giants hat in that vicinity, complete strangers will start coughing *loser loser* right next to you... or stare at you in a vicious manner. Anaheim fans won't kill you... and I highly doubt that if they win, they'll start turning Disneyland trams over and rioting in the Mickey & Friends parking structure... but you'll be harassed by everyone afflilated with the Mouse.

:) Now on a brighter note, since I was there, they had the Offical Angels Rally and I got a free halo (which is kinda ugly) and those plastic banger noise maker thingies. :) And I had no clue that was all going to be there when I went... Neat huh. :) I'm not much of a baseball fan, but you can't help but get swept up in the excitement of it all... especially if the team is from your area. So... Go Angels! ;)