cesar chavez day

Today was Cesar Chavez Day. Apparently it’s only celebrated in a few western states, and only in California do state offices close for the day. And since I work for a California state office I was off today. It’s a good thing I found that out ahead of time this year. Last year I actually strolled into an empty office on Cesar Chavez day and thought, “What the heck, where is everyone?!?” If I didn’t see a facebook status from one of my old coworkers about being thankful for the short work week, I probably would’ve done the same thing this year. Cesar Chavez day– it’s the forgotten holiday.

I don’t even really know how to celebrate Cesar Chavez day. I started by getting an oil change for my car. Then I did some yard work. I suppose yard work is a good way to celebrate Cesar Chavez day, since Cesar Chavez fought for the rights of Latino farm workers. Hmm maybe not. I guess a Korean american doing yard work doesn’t really have much to do with Latino farm workers. Not unless I planted some tomatoes and jalapeños in their honor.

In the afternoon I went fishing with Jim. Despite the fact that I never catch any fish, I really enjoy fishing. Partly it’s because most places we go fishing are pretty scenic. Lake Berryessa was especially nice today. The surrounding hills were all lush and green, and the weather was perfect. It’s such a relaxing environment. It would be a total stress reliever, if I had any stress to relieve.

Jim caught a bass early on, but didn’t have much luck for the rest of the day. I felt a few nibbles here and there but didn’t catch anything. At one point I left my line in the water to take a leak. When I reeled my line in afterwards, my worm was gone. Dahhh…

We ended up bringing the fish to Shanghai town restaurant in west Davis. As we got closer to Davis, the fish started to squirm more and more. It’s as if it realized that it would soon end up on a dinner plate, so it was making one last attempt to escape from its plastic bag prison. We arrived at the restaurant just in time to join the Acacia Thursday small group, who were having dinner there. So we ended up sharing the fish with them. It came out pretty tasty.

Unfortunately we probably won’t be able to have our fish cooked by Shanghai Town again. They seemed pretty annoyed, and they informed us that next time we’d have to kill it and clean it. That kind of defeats the purpose– we brought it to the restaurant because we were too lazy to clean it– cooking it is actually the easy part.