CicLAvia @ MacArthur Park - April 2012

For our 3rd CicLAvia in April 2012, Maiya and I drove down to MacArthur Park and again brought our scooters.  Maiya had just learned how to ride a bike that week, and I was concerned that she would be a little unsteady with all the thousands of bike riders en the route.  We joined Great Leap, for their performance of "Cycles of Change," bicycle stories directed by Dan Kwong and based on peoples personal stories created in Collaboratory workshops.

 The performance, "Cycles of Change" with George and Danny on taiko and percussion.

These photos tell a story all by themselves.  

I'm going to call it a blog and sign off NaBloPoMo12 #8!  Peace. Out.

Maiya's 7th Bday Mottainai Party

We celebrated Maiya's 7th Bday Party again at the park by our house.  Seems like every year gets bigger, this year about 75 people came, having invited the basketball team, friends from school, old preschool friends, and extensions of family.  I'm thinking that this might be the last year of a party of this size.  Big as it was, we still managed to do a fairly green low-waste party.  Plastic utensils and reusable party chopsticks go in the bucket, Grandpa Larry's coffee mugs, no single-use drink containers, cloth tablecloths, recycled paper plates, hot pots for tea and coffee.  I'm always amazed at how little trash is in the trash can at the end of the day.  The main thing we take home to recycle is the 1/2 gallon juice and 2 liter bottle sodas.

 During arts and crafts time, the kids made Tenegui towels... which they later needed for learning the Mottainai dance from Auntie Nobuko, who came and did a little obon dance workshop, teaching the kids the dance.  It was a lot of fun to watch the kids and parents joining in.

 Then afterwards, we went back home and celebrated Grandpa's birthday at our house.  The kids always bring out the yogurt cups every time they come over.  We just can't get rid of them.

Until next bday, peace out!

(Posted on: 10/25/12)

Mottainai Video Shoot Day 1

By now, I hope you have seen the "Mottainai" music video produced by Great Leap, written and performed by Nobuko Miyamoto, and directed by Dan Kwong. If you haven't, what are you waiting for?  Click above.  Our 2nd environmental video is up to 25,000+ YouTube views in the last 4 months.  I had the privilege of being one of the production assistants, helping with fundraising, marketing, production, craft services, collecting of props (clean recycle trash), stage mom/auntie, donor, and board member.

Here are some behind-the-scenes photos of the first day of the 2-day video shoot, which was shot in April of this year.  We shot all of the storyline vignettes on the first day.  The basic idea of the video is showing the younger generation not taking care of Mother Earth's precious resources, and the wise elders, teaching them about not wasting water, eating all their food, reusing, thinking before throwing things away, and about consuming less.  

 Lots of waiting around for crew.  Here's what we do to stay out of the way.

This was the first shot of the day.

 This is Estela, one of 3 wise Grandmas (Anthony Quinn's sister)

 This is Little Mamie.  Isn't she cute?

 Mrs. Matsuda, sharing how to make a crocheted 

water bottle holder out of grocery store plastic bags.

Multi-generational photo shoot, we had 6 year olds and 86 year olds.

Hanging out in the "green room." 

 Craft services outside on a very hot day.

 Phenomenal director Dan Kwong working with sqiurmy girls, Maiya and my niece Kaylee.

 This is a funny moment in the video.

 Maiya, shy while the camera is rolling, mugs when the camera goes off.

 Upcycled utensil art by Howard Swerdloff.

 Why yes, those are plastic spoon earrings.

End of a 10 hour day, but that was the shorter than the Sunday shoot.

 Stay tuned for photos of Day 2 coming soon.

NaBloPoMo#12.  Peace. No waste. Out.  

Kindergactivism, is that a word?

Some people say that if you bring kids to a political rally, that it's not age appropriate.  Well, we've been bringing Maiya to community events since she was two weeks old (Day of Remembrance commemorating the anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066 in 1942, which led to the incarceration of 110,000 Japanese Americans, including my parents as children and Tony's grandparents), and her first of 6 annual trips to the Manzanar Pilgrimage was when she was 14 months old.

I may not be as active in the API/activist community as I once was, as meetings and volunteer work goes, but we manage to squeeze political awareness and social justice values into most things that we do.  Whether it's going to the Farmer's Market to buy fresh, locally grown and organic fruits, participating in 5K walks in a stroller to help raise money for homeless or the arts,  teaching Maiya about the Nestle Boycott and how it affects her Halloween bag, bringing her lunch in stainless steel containers and cloth napkins, explaining in kid-friendly terms what it means to be gay-friendly, enrolling her in Buddhist summer camp to participate in Japanese/Japanese American arts and culture, or a Japanese language immersion school; we try.

These first pictures are from when President Obama came to our hometown and went to a fundraiser for his next campaign practically across the street from our house.  We went down to the corner to watch the POTUS motorcade with Tony's parents, who were in town for Passover (see NaBloPoMo#9).

Also attended a rally, a few streets away from our house.  Most of the participants were students in support of the DREAM Act, and a whole lot of Armenians about the genocide, something I know little about.  Some were talking about the Chemtrails.  Still others were protesting us and calling for no taxes, no government.  No one was necessarily protesting Obama himself (in the same way we used to villify Bush), more they were trying to get his attention for their causes.

A few days later, we took Maiya to the local School Board meeting at City Hall, also walking distance from our house.  The purpose was to protest budget cuts and to keep the cuts as far away from the classroom as possible, and that meant supporting all the teachers who received pink slips.  We saw Maiya's Kindergarten teacher in the audience, one of many red shirts, including us.  The room was packed and we had to leave the meeting before it was over because it was a school night, but we thought it was important to share this with her.

Here Maiya is reading the book "Mottainai Grandma," 

a story about not being wasteful, in Japanese, to her grandma. 

In a few posts, you'll see pictures of Maiya's participation

in Auntie Nobuko's music video called, "Mottainai."

Anyways, I've just coined a new term... Kindergactivist.  NaBloPoMo#10b. Peace. Full. Out.

Maiya Turns 6 (in Feb!)

SIX:  So Maiya turned 6 in February.  We had the party at a park walking distance from our house.  Mista Cookie Jar came and performed some great music for the kids.  We had seen him perform at a couple of community events and Maiya loves his CDs.  I have always wanted to do a concert for a birthday party, but Joe Reilly and Chic Street Man don't live in town and we don't really know Ice Cream Man (reggae kids performer that we've seen at the Farmer's Market).  You know that thing about invite 6 kids for a 6th bday?  Well we times'd it by 10, and over 60 people came, including 4 kids from Kindergarten.

GAMES:  The theme was not Barbie or Bakugan, it was FRUIT!  So my friend Mickie gave me some suggestions (via Skype from Japan) for games.  You'll see in the pictures we did relay race games with orange on a spoon, banana on your neck, and oranges between your legs. Oh my goodness, how fun is that?  The cake was fruit, and the party favor was reusable shopping bags that fold up into fruits.  

ECO-PARTY:  We did another ECO-party.  It's easy to use dishes and real utensils when you have a party at home, but when you do it elsewhere, you have to lug the stuff back and forth.  I got paper plates made of bamboo and recycled materials.  We brought a bucket so that the nice plastic cutlery and hashi (used at several parties including her 5th bday) could be tossed in, taken home, and rewashed.   I re-used some plastic tablecloths from past parties, and also now have 4 cloth tablecloths that can be washed and used again.  We brought real mugs for drinks. Drinks were by the half gallon (no throwaway one-time use plastic bottles or juice boxes), and since it was cold, I made pots of coffee (not enough though) and brought them in the hot pots.  The nice thing is that we didn't even fill one trash barrel at the park; although I did have to fish out a few forks and hashi.

Here's around 20 pictures to share.  I know it's a lot, but we took about 130 pictures and filled up a video card, so you get the gist.  (If you were there, and you want individual pics of your kids, we have almost all the kids with either a piece of fruit between their legs or behind their neck.)

Happy 6th Bday.  At the time of this writing, Maiya is almost 7.   Oh, the time goes by so quickly.  Peace. Out.  (NaBloPoMo#5)