La Vida Yaya

(Click on the image to enlarge) You will want to bookmark this page for the day you are sitting around wondering what to do. This is especially great when you have family or friends visiting, the kids are restless, or you just want to get out of the house before cabin fever sets in. Well, this chart is here to save the day . . . and your pocketbook. It is a list of FREE DAYS offered by various museums in LA and Orange County. A few institutions are free every day they are open such as the California African American Museum, California Science Center, FIDM, Fowler, Getty, Getty Villa, Paley Center for Media, Santa Monica Museum of Art, and the Studio for Southern California History. What more do you want?? Free parking?? Some offer free parking like the Autry and MoLAA. Sometimes you can get lucky and find free street parking around Exposition Park to access Natural History Museum, Science Center, and the African-American Museum. This  is a good way to explore all of these wonderful

Alma Zamudio-Sanchez is a good friend of mine. In fact, she’s like the sister I never had. We met as first year students at the University of Southern California in the summer of 1993. We were the future generation fulfilling the promise of the American Dream we had so often heard about. We were Latinas who had achieved so much already by simply attending USC and basked in the glory of being accepted into this prestigious university. No one in our immediate families had attended college. For other more affluent students at school, attending USC was the first step in achieving their goals of becoming business moguls, doctors, and lawyers (because attending USC can make that happen). For us, we had already come a long way. Little did I know just how far my soon-to-be best friend had, in fact, already come or would go. She is the 3rd youngest of a family of 12 who grew up just south of the US/Mexico border in San Luis, Sonora. I figured hers was a typical Mexican immigrant story since I

Five hundred twenty-five thousand Six hundred minutes, Five hundred twenty-five thousand Moments so dear. Five hundred twenty-five thousand Six hundred minutes How do you measure, measure a year? In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights In cups of coffee In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife. In five hundred twenty-five thousand Six hundred minutes How do you measure A year in the life? I've never seen the Broadway play Rent but I couldn't help but have it's Seasons of Love stuck in my head today as we paid tribute and laid to rest a true legend in his own time, Francisco Aguabella.  Francisco had 84 five hundred twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes in his life and I can only imagine all that his eyes witnessed in his long life.  How do you measure a life, especially a life so long and well lived? Imagine doing something, being so good at it, and being able to do it every single day. Even if your time on earth was half of what Francisco lived,

It must be a great time to be gay because all around me, there are good gay things going on in the mainstream. I've never had first-hand knowledge of the gay community in general and never spent much time thinking about gays or their social/political issues. Yet lately I've been surrounded by a plethora of what is now positive stories of the LGBT community. I guess it all started last year with the installation of the Brokeback Mountain shirts in the Autry gallery. I quickly learned just how iconic those shirts are to the LGBT community. They're the "red ruby slippers of our time" said the owner of the shirts. We had a nice group of gay cowboys attend the installation opening. I didn't know what to expect when I heard they were attending. When I first saw them, they were lined up wearing their matching blue rodeo cowboy shirts and proceeded to march in to the event. It was a statement. They made such an impression. It was pretty cool. Following that came the