The Chronicles of Narineh

Even in my heart of hearts I suppose I knew it was naive to think that President Barack Obama would keep his campaign promise and actually recognize the Armenian Genocide at some point during his presidency. I certainly didn't expect it to happen in his early years in office. But we're in year 7 of his administration now, and it's the 100th anniversary of this terrible event in human history. Countries and governments around the world are standing together with Armenia and with the Armenian Diaspora to commemorate the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide. So, yeah, I thought maybe given all that, this would the year. This would be the moment that the United States, would stand with the international community and recognize that what happened on April 24, 1915 was the start of a systematic campaign to exterminate a nation. I thought that maybe this year, we wouldn't hear bullshit lines about "leaving history to the historians" and "leaving it up ...

Today is Veteran's Day. It is also my grandfather, Ashot Papa's birthday. It would have been his 94th. He passed away this June. He had a long, and except maybe for the last year or so, a very good life. He told great stories and he was a kid at heart. He would seldom miss an opportunity to make a joke. I miss him. It's been a sad summer - too many deaths. Ashot Papa died, two of my college roommates lost their fathers. My great-aunt's brother passed away. My friend's brother died unexpectedly at age 34. Each death was another reminder to not take any one for granted and to milk every moment of every day. So here's to that. On the day we celebrate our Veterans, and I celebrate my grandfather, let's also celebrate life remember to make the most of it.

Goodbye Metsmam. thank you for being a cool grandma when I was little. you let me stay up late when i'd come spend the night at your place on Fridays. i didn't like going over to your place after pre-school because I preferred to drink my juice with my lunch, and for some reason your policy was that we would get our beverage at the end of the meal. i actually complained to mom and dad about this. of course, over the years I've come to prefer drinking after my meal, or at least towards the end. i remember how happy you were when you found out I'd started my period. It was like a big deal for you. i was mortified that you knew. i didn't understand why you were happy. i'm sorry i didn't give you any great-grandchildren. One of the last times you were hospitalized you asked me 'when are you going to have a baby?' I'm sorry. i hope you knew I love you. I know I wasn't the best at showing it.

Tie #4 Originally uploaded by The Chronicles of Narineh Every year my Mom, aunt and cousins and I get together to color eggs. In addition to the usual store-bought coloring kits, we use silk. We mostly use old silk ties. Husbands and fathers donate the ones that they don't want anymore, and we also find some at thrift stores. One year, I donated a silk skirt of mine that I'd worn so much it was falling apart. It was made of dozens of silk rectangles. All with different patterns. Some of the skirt pieces were still around for this year and I have a great specimen of one of them in my flickr set. We tightly wrap an uncooked egg in a piece of silk, sewing the ends & edges closed. Then we steam cook them by the dozens in big pots. The pattern transfers to the egg, and voila, the coolest looking eggs ever! This one is my favorite from this year. I don't know who's tie it is from, but it looks like a Miro or Picasso to me. The white finger-like patterns on the bottom of ...

Downtown LA with Griffith Observatory Originally uploaded by The Chronicles of Narineh There's a peak on Mt. Lee that a single tree sticks out from. This tree is visible from the street. From my apartment. From many places in Burbank. I have had my eye on this tree for a long time. I wanted to hike up and picnic under this tree. So when I found out that there was a trail on Mt. Lee, I was esctatic. I was certain it would lead me to this tree because the descriptions of the trail all said it goes all the way to the top. I decided that my birthday would be the perfect day for this hike. We got a late start, so I didn't pack a picnic, just some snacks and lots of water and we were off! The name of the trail is the Hollyridge Trail. I learned about it from a book called Day HIkes Around Los Angeles . It was a beautiful day for a hike, we had a break in the rain and the air was crisp and the skies were clear, so we had gorgeous views of the city, all the way to the ocean, and of th...

Please enjoy a photo of our President's home state of Hawaii and reflect on the wonder that is today. This photo was taken on August 28, 2008 on Kauai, Hawaii. The sun was setting as we walked along Ha'ena Beach towards Ke'e Beach on Kauai's North shore.

fireworks Originally uploaded by The Chronicles of Narineh June 23, 2007. A year ago today, I was in Luxembourg. It was the National Holiday . The day they celebrate the Duke, the Duchy and all that entails. There were various ceremonies & celebrations scheduled throughout the day, parades, speeches etc. There was a huge televised mass at the Notre Dame cathedral at midday. And finally, at night, over the Petrusse Valley, fireworks! We rushed to get there on time as Joe had been delayed at work. It took a long time for us to find parking, but we finally did. Then we ran all the way over to Ponte Adolphe, thinking we'd miss the show. But we ended up waiting for an hour or so. I think they were waiting for the winds to die down? I don't know. But the show finally started. It lasted a good 30-45 minutes. It was awesome. I took photos of the fireworks, and a few of the crowd. People were drinking, singing, waving Luxembourg flags. The wind sometimes carried the embers over to ...

Eight months ago when I posted last, I really thought things were going to settle down in my life. I don't know why I thought this. I had no reason to expect anything of the sort. At the time, we had just completed a harried search for an apartment and moved in. Joe was scheduled to leave for Toronto in September. We had no plan for how we were going to deal with yet another 8 months of separation. I don't think I had even fully adjusted to being back in the States. Anyway, I think that's why in my last post I sounded so certain that I'd be able to post more often. Things didn't quite work out that way. A year ago this weekend, I was in Luxembourg. We were all excited to check out the Fête de Printemps . This year, I am in Toronto. Getting ready to fly back to LA after a week's visit with Joe. It wasn't exactly a vacation. I was working all week. But we were able to have our life together back for a week, to revel in the mundane domestic tasks because we we...

So, it has been about 5 weeks since I got back. I arrived July 9th. We're finally settled, sorta. We found an apartment and are in the midst of unpacking our stuff. I have been thinking about Luxembourg constantly, wondering how life is moving along over there, and with the friends we left behind. It has been a crazy 4 weeks here, with the hurried apartment hunting and moving and whatnot. Now that things are settling, I'm looking forward to writing more frequently and documenting our last couple of weeks in Europe. We were able to squeeze some traveling in at the end there. I've got loads of pictures to annotate and post to flickr. So stay tuned. I'll be back with more.

My flight is in 7 hours. I should be asleep. This is my last post from Luxembourg, but definitely not the last post about Luxembourg. I still have lots of photos to post and talk about. My day started very early, with Joe's departure at 7:00am. After he left for the airport, I did some cleaning around the apartment. Then I had a lovely brunch with my friends Solenn and Olivier. They made me such a fantastic meal that it has been the only thing I've eaten all day and I haven't been hungry since. In the evening I decided to take a walk in the city center and check out Rock um Knuedler in Place Guillaume. It started raining, and so I didn't stick around to see the show, I walked around Place Guillaume and took in the sight. It was pouring by then, and I, having packed away my umbrella and other rain gear, got drenched. But I didn't mind. I love the rain, and it seemed a fitting last evening in this city. I walked all the way to the Gare, and caught the bus home from t...

the sky. the city buses and the whole public transportation system. Hoegaarden . Fischer bakery breads. the cheese aisles at Auchan. yes i said aisles. plural. the thunderstorms. the city center. the view of the Grund from Plateau St. Esprit. Oscar Wilde's the summer concerts in Place d'Armes and everywhere else. There's always something going on somewhere in Centre-Ville. i've already mentioned the bread. and this, i didn't expect, but it is true... I will miss the smallness. Luxembourg City is such a small town compared to Los Angeles, and the smallness and the sense of community it fosters are quite nice. Charming, even. I don't know, maybe if I'd stayed longer I would have gotten sick of it, but as it is, I will miss it.

I know this analogy isn't going to work for everyone, but it works for me... It's like being promised a trip to Walt Disney World. The whole place, you know, all the parks and attractions, even the cheese-y ones. A good long trip, maybe 2-3 weeks -- long enough to allow you to experience everything you want. And then you get there, and you get only one day. At Epcot Center. And that's it. You didn't even get to see all the pavilions in Epcot. That's what it feels like. Sure, Epcot is cool, and you got to do and see a lot while you were there. And you appreciate that. But you were planning on much more. And it got taken away from you. The reason this analogy has been bouncing around in my head is that it looks like we will be leaving here significantly sooner than we had planned. I am sorely disappointed. I really like Luxembourg, there's more I would like to see and do here. And much more I'd like to see of Europe. I know this wasn't my one and only chan...

I should take a picture and include it with this post. For now, I'll just tell you about it. Those of you who know me know that I LOVE bread. I have found my favorite in Luxembourg. There's a local bakery chain here called Fischer . Their motto is "Fischer... äre bäcker." Which I think translates from Luxembourgish to English as "Fischer... our baker." Anyway, they have this one bread called Körnli. It is a multigrain bread with sunflower seeds, oats, rye and other tasty treats. It is SOOOO good. Yum. I don't think I'll ever buy sliced sandwich bread ever again.

We had taco night this Saturday! It was very exciting, because as some of you may know, we miss the Mexican food. There are no Mexican food restaurants here. We've found a good South American place, but no beans, no burritos, no tacos. As we enjoyed our meal Saturday night, we wondered why it took us so long to do a taco night. We realized it was because we were hung up on the beans. It had been incredibly hard to find pinto beans here. Or black beans for that matter. The most common bean here is white, although kindey beans have been easy to find too. And we had it in our head that we needed beans if we were to have a proper taco night. A few weeks ago Sibyl and I found dried pinto beans and black beans at a natural foods store we visited. But they sat around in the pantry for weeks because we weren't sure what to do with the dried beans. We are used to the canned stuff that just needs to be heated up. Well, this weekend, with taco seasoning packets from my mom as impetus, we ...

there are new photos up on flickr , please to enjoy :) I try to organize my photos in sets, and I try to accompany each set with an entry, but sometimes, it just doesn't work out. This time you get 4 new photosets, one entry. but first... I thought some more about what I said in What's it like? a couple of days ago, and I was reminded of another huge difference I've experienced here. In Luxembourg, you bag your own groceries. It is the best! Not only do you bag your own stuff, but you buy the plastic bags you're going to bag them in! 3 cents each for the plastic bags. Or, instead you can buy an éco-sac for 80 cents and use it all the time, at any store. The éco-sac is a large, sturdy reusable bag. It is about as tall as a paper bag you get in the US grocery stores, but it is about 1 1/2 times as wide. It takes a while to get used to remembering to take the bags with you when you go to the store, but otherwise, it is super-handy, and a very easy way for everyone to redu...

I get most of my news online nowadays, from various sources. I also occasionally watch BBC World, CNN International and France 24 on tv here. So, while I'm not in the States, I am still able to more or less keep up with the news there. It seems the headlines are all about Paris Hilton going back to jail today. There is interesting and even newsworthy stuff going on there, namely how Sheriff Baca tried to circumvent justice and get Paris out of jail. It doesn't seem like the media is focusing on that aspect of the case however. I wish the American media would instead draw your attention to this . The Bush Administration's arrogant, reckless, holier-than-thou, cavalier attitude towards everything is particularly appalling when it comes to the issue of torture. If you read nothing else in this link , read the first and the last paragraphs. Ignore who wrote it, because I know some of you out there don't like Andrew Sullivan. Ignore that he is the one writing it, because it...

A 17 year old girl in New York died of methyl salicylate poisoning. Methyl salicylate is an anti-inflammatory agent found in sports creams like Bengay. She used too damn much sports cream and died. This CNN article quotes her mother as having said "I am scrupulous about my children's health. I did not think an over-the-counter product could be unsafe." Now, I'm sure she is in shock and all, but hello? Too much cough syrup will kill you. Too much Tylenol will damage your liver. That's why they have dosage instructions on the bottles. "Over-the-counter" doesn't mean "safe no matter what." It's like when people say they prefer to use echinacea and other herbs instead of cold medicine because echinacea is natural. You know what else is natural? Arsenic . Natural doesn't mean safe, either. That is not obvious to more people bums me out.

Luxembourg is awesome, really. In a lot of ways. I love it here. The most startling differences for a Los Angelino (not counting the obvious things like the age of the city, the fortress ruins, etc): 1- size The city center (aka Centre-Ville) is smaller than the UCLA campus. I don't have numbers to prove this, but having walked the city, and having walked all over UCLA, I am quite certain. Luxembourg City is probably the size of Westwood. I realize those are really specific analogies, so here are some hard numbers on the country from the CIA World Factbook : Area: 2568 square kilometers (slightly smaller than Rhode Island) Population: 480,222 (estimated, July 2007) Luxembourg City, the capital of the country, has a population of about 80,000. In comparison, the city of Los Angeles (via Wikipedia ) has half the area, but a little over 8 times the population: Area: 1290.6 square kilometers Population: 4,018,080 Luxembourg City is a bustling town though, especially since the weather h...

If you've been checking out my photos, you'll see I've been taking pictures of this tree from day 1 ... ok, day 2 . It looks different every day. I love it. It's one of the many ways I track the passage of my time here. I'll tag them all "the tree" or something on Flickr, so they'll be easy to find across the sets. Here's what it looked like on May 3. I have more recent photos of the tree, I'll post them soon.