My Daughter The Blogger

I suppose that it was only a matter of time before the beautiful Miss de Ville started her own blog chronicling her impressions of life in LA with irreverent commentary and arty photography.

3 Guides and a Girl
Armed with a selection of guide books, good shoes, a collection of cameras and a terrible sense of direction, a single girl decides to see everything worth seeing in Southern California. 
From the bizarre to the beautiful, the quaint to the quackery, no sight is safe.

I love her photography
 

and of course I enjoy reading about Los Angeles from her perspective

The Spadena house on Carmelita in BH is a really superb example of storybook architecture. Also known as the witch’s house, this spooky building is smack dab in the middle of a bunch of colonial and neoclassical monstrosities. I drive by on my way to work and it always makes me smile. As a kid, I lived a few blocks away and I distinctly remember that you couldn’t trick or treat there (they had cops outside the gates) which, frankly, is bullshit. Fun fact: this is the house Alicia Silverstone walks by in her pouty, epiphany scene in “Clueless”.

My beautiful girl turned 26 today....where did the time go....

Metal and Mother's Day

 Recently, I've been paying a lot of attention to this

and this

especially after last week's correction and I will have much to write on the subject of precious metal prices soon.

But, today I'd much rather ponder the flowers, lemons, limes, herbs, tomatoes and strawberries from my mother's garden where I had a wonderful lunch yesterday

Here's a recent photo of my mother with her sunhat in hand

and her formidable expression

Unlike Maxminimus, who wrote such a lovely tribute to his mother for Mother's Day,

I'm incapable of doing the same because sadly my writing skills are sorely lacking.

But what I can write about my mother is that she truly is all that and more

and I am very lucky to have her.

 

I hope that all of you were able to spend a lovely Mother's Day with your families.

Sunday At Home or Creating Order Out of Chaos

Like the rest of the world, I can't stop watching the videos from Japan.
This one from the BBC shows when the tsunami first hits the land
It's truly frightening to see the unrelenting power of the tsunami.

As for the report that radiation has leaked from Japanese nuclear plants is going to cross the Pacific and hit the west cost

It is admitted that the first plant has melted down, and 6 more nuclear power plants in Japan are in danger. If they fail, this situation could get even worse. Japanese authorities are distributing potassium iodide to its population for thyroid protection.

For U.S. populations, we can hope that most of the radiation will disperse into the ocean and never reach us, however, with the U.S. West Coast in the direct path of the jet stream from Japan, it is a good precaution to stock up on potassium iodide or natural iodine from kelp, which can prevent the absorption of radioactive iodine, the most common complication from radiation poisoning.

OK, so I didn't run out and buy potassium iodide
Instead I took a clue from Faux Fuchsia and went out to brunch
which is something that I rarely do
But when life brings you circumstances that you can do nothing about
it's good to spend time with your brood

and enjoy a bloody mary
and catch up on what's going on in the lives of your children and their significant others

Since the weather was warmish we sat outside and enjoyed the sun.

Later in further FF style there was some gardening

specifically cleaning up my wildly growing mint, parsley and cilantro

and of course some cooking

with Chicken Chasseur de Ville for Sunday dinner

which was super easy to action

OK, so I admit that it wasn't real poulet chasseur because I left out the mushrooms and the cognac

but it was tasty anyway

Here are the basics

Saute some chicken ( I used organic boneless chicken thighs) in a little butter and oil

remove chicken from pan and add chopped red onion, chopped roasted red pepper, chopped garlic and cook vegetables until soft.

Add one can of chopped tomatoes (I used the no salt added kind) and some red wine and bring to a boil

Return the chicken to the pan and add some fresh parsley, basil and a bay leaf

Cover and cook in the oven for about 30 minutes

Serve with asparagus and hot baguette

There is something so calming about domestic activity

because when mother nature, who's not your friend by the way, brings you chaos

organizing your home, a reasonably achievable goal,

brings you at least some semblance of order out of chaos.

Tiger Mom Does Davos

Well once again it's that time of year....
yeah you know, the Davos World Economic Forum,
where the best and the brightest get together to ski and party discuss and debate the new world order economics and world affairs.
This year we have a Larry Summers vs. Amy Chua smackdown on parenting and education.

Ms. Chua seems to be this year's hot Davos celebrity
like Bono and Angelina Jolie have been in the past
In Davos this week, Ms. Chua shuttled busily from one klieg-lit event to another, as much in media demand as any penurious head of state or gauzy movie star. A separate publishing phenomenon might explore the reasons her thesis has chimed so loudly with Americans. My own theory is simple. The engaging Ms. Chua has captured in perfect synthesis the two things middle-age Americans now fear most—China, and their own children.
But in spite of being this year's Davos "it girl", she didn't best Mr. Summers in the debate.
Why A students become academics and C students become billionaire donors

Challenging Ms. Chua's academic achievement oriented parenting he asks
"Which two freshmen at Harvard have arguably been most transformative of the world in the last 25 years?" he asked. "You can make a reasonable case for Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, neither of whom graduated."

He goes on to explain
The A, B and C alums at Harvard in fact could be broadly characterized thus, he said: The A students became academics, B students spent their time trying to get their children into the university as legacies, and the C students—the ones who had made the money—sat on the fund-raising committee.

As I said in my previous post about Ms. Chua, I'm all for serious study.  How else do you learn?
And I agree with her that achievement leads to self esteem, not the opposite.
But I also believe that intense academics need to be blended with a healthy dose of other activity be it sports, art, or whatever.
My son just scored a 99th percentile grade on his GMAT exam
and he did it without having been raised by a Superior Chinese Tiger Mother.
Well done my son.