That sign says "Kerman". Wait, how did I end up in Kerman? That seems an awfully long way to go for pistachios, carpets, and copper.
I don't know what happened this weekend for the project, I was busy catching up with my friends while I was in LA, but I seem to be getting conflicting views.
Honestly, I'm too busy dealing with the insurance right now to ask questions, seeing as our damn car got broken into (in our parking space at our building, not on the street, or in LA like I'd have expected.)
It could have been worse though. There were plenty of times during the trip it would have resulted in a huge loss to us had someone broken in then. The car has been in the family a while, and I swear it's cursed, this is the 3rd time it's been broken into.
Anyhow, all the post-trip mayhem, combined with the trip, combined with the pre-trip mayhem and deadline hasn't yielded as many photos as I'd like.... But it has yielded a few.
I was hoping to get some full length photos of the finished dresses on Pantea with her jewelry (most of it is antique or vintage) at the Symposium, but my fiance brought back a camera full of, well, not much actually. This is what I get for not going myself.
I suppose we can try for those photos at a future date. I just have to remember to ask.
Anyhow, we do have SOME. These two are from my fiance's camera at the Symposium. I'm kind of sad I missed it....
The left is some mystery cocktail.... My fiance was quite excited about it and how it apparently "Steamed" The right is the thing I'm sad I wasn't there to see. Apparently there were owls and falcons and hawks there.
Now for my fun.
We came into LA in the afternoon. The 5 had been closed due to snow, so we had to take a 4 hour detour. We ended up in Santa Clarita (our first important stop on the list because we got a speeding ticket there we had to appear in court for, oops) at daybreak.
6 hours later we were JUST leaving the courthouse. Don't speed kiddies. It's a pain in the butt, and is expensive, even if you go to court to get community service and traffic school instead.
Onward ho to Los Angeles!
Not pictured, my grumbling stomach and the restaurants and bastani furushis that were ormenting me on the way to my family's home.
So we get to my father's house, blissfully the "we're stuck and aren't coming in until later" texts reached him and my grandmother, so no one was waiting wringing their hands. So we went to sleep for a few hours, in a BED! Hooray!
When the powernap was through we got ready for our respective engagements. My fiance for the Symposium; and I got some fresh clothes on, fluffed up my hair, put on a pretty rusari, and headed out to meet up with some of my friends from when I was at University.
Thai was on the menu. Pad thai, pineapple curry..... I wish I remembered the name of the place, but I don't. I do know however, that it was in Long Beach.
Honestly, the first night was just so exhausting I was lucky I didn't pass out in my food. I went "home" pretty early and conked out as soon as I got upstairs.
I slept for 12 hours I think. I don't really know exactly. I do know however that Saturday morning was presentation. So I was up at 9 getting my fiance dressed, getting the stuff he had to bring packed into the car, and then sending him off with Pantea to the Symposium again.
I went back to sleep after that and woke up later for lunch with my father and grandmother. I got a bit of visiting time in with some other relatives, and then headed out to Cafe M (not a real cafe, but what everyone calls my friend's house since, as Persian custom dictates, he's ALWAYS serving food to guests.)
It transpired as an evening full of competing with our instruments; setar, guitar, tonbak, the table at one point for some reason?
There was also plenty of wine, so that naturally resulted in some impromptu Persian spewing of poetry. I cheated and read from Shamloo:
برای روز تولدم
That's actually all I remember off the top of my head. The poem doesn't translate well either, as that opening line basically states "For today I am born" and the title translates as "Black Calendar"so yeah, I doubt sharing it from the book could help since by me translating it, it just falls flat.
I also read from Sepheri (but I'll include that in the end because that's where I got the name for the post, and there's a song for it)
Most of Sunday was spent running around LA getting everything together for the drive back. My fiance went back to the Symposium to buy himself a gun/dagger thing for his costume, which, despite having a huge "made in Spain" sticker on it, looks like Qajar puked up all over it.
It's the Lion head...Even though we hunted our lions to essential extinction, the motif is still generally popular in Persian art. So I can see how this was a logical choice for his costume.
Thankfully, while we left LA extraordinarily late, we didn't encounter the problems we had coming down. The good thing about leaving so late is that there's hardly anyone on the road. Oh, and because you stay in the city longer, you get to go out and have food at a somewhere that isn't Denny's (not that Denny's is bad, but eating it on the road with only about a day or so break between isn't all that great.)
And now, where is the friend's house?
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