Catching up (part deux)

Monday, the 15th was a gloriously warm day. I could hardly contain my excitement at walking in SF on a mid-November day in a t shirt and skirt (no stockings!). The week started out slow, not too much new until Wednesday when Texarkana came to town. This isn't my friend, Texas, who lost the bet regarding the Giants and the Rangers, this is another colleague who also happens to be from Texas, is also a Tea-bagger and claims Obama is a communist (sigh). I had invited Texarkana to join me and two other colleagues for dinner. Picking a place to eat was may early week challenge.
me: what do you like to eat
him: chicken fried steak

This would be a challenge. Chicken fried steak is akin to fascism or tea bagging in San Francisco. You won't find it. That said, upon doing a little open table research, I did find Town Hall, a venerable SF restaurant, with upscale comfort food. You can find a pork chop or a steak on the menu, just prepared a tad different Texarkana chose the wine, "fisticuffs" (for real - check the link). There were a couple of issues we were dealing with: 1) business - the them vs us (field vs home office) and 2) red state vs blue state. The wine was a perfect fit. It was delicious. Thankfully all went well. Our business discussion was productive and we helped educate Texarkana such that he left feeling more knowledgeable and more attuned to our goals (those which pay him in his US greenbacks). Of course no evening would be complete without at least one political dig and at the end of the evening the gloves came off and he did start in on Obama. I did my best to stay true to myself without throwing myself across the table to throttle him when the "C-word" came out (communist).

Thursday night I took dear Dale to see Cavalia for her milestone 60th birthday. We ate at Momo's first. I had a french onion soup and crab louie and honestly, I was too engrossed in my cheese to even notice what she ordered. Cavalia was amazing! We marveled at how happy the horses were - not an ear turned back. The gymnastics paled to what the horses could do. I loved how the trainer could get the horses to line up and rest their heads on each others backs with what must have been the most subtle of all cues. This was in fact one of the best shows ever for its performance, relevance and beauty. It wasn't cheap, but it was worth every penny. The vision of the Lusitanos resting together will forever be burned in my memory.

By Friday, fall had arrived. The temperature had dropped to the normal high 50's / low 60s. The morning air had the fall chill and the light had changed. There was "that smell" indicating the season had changed - no more Indian summer. And by Saturday, the sky opened up and dumped. I was driving about 15 miles to Neo's house where he was hosting about 45 people (in his 2-bdr bungalow) for a food-sharing and wine tasting dinner. I was sadly solo once again. But as this was my second event at Neop's at least I had met a couple of the folks before. I wished that John could have been there. We were all sharing our recipes and admiring each others unusual dishes. There was one: Israeli couscous with mint, pine nuts, lemon and ... not sure, but delicious. Someone else made polenta toasts with wild mushrooms. I had felt inspired earlier in the day and pumped out two different fall cupcakes: persimmon eggnog with a salted caramel butter cream and then a pumpkin cupcake with a tangerine/ginger cream cheese frosting. I met a former baker who very graciously told me that even though he was a baker, he resents baking now, however my cupcakes were an exception and he thought that they were fantastic. He ever so gently broached that they could be commercial - I shuddered, "been there, done that."

Sunday afternoon I was preparing to head over to Charla's for book club. I headed up the hill to pick up Sue. Through the turned-up volume of the radio I heard a chunka-chunka sound. I slowly turned around and as I was doing so, a car pulled up along side of me, "you have a flat tire." UGH. Well, a few months ago the BMW guys told me I needed new tires, I guess this was a sign - an expensive sign, and an unfortunate sign during a short, holiday week. Sue picked me up as I was marveling at the flatness of my tire. I don't think it could have been more flat. Book club provided a lively conversation and we agreed on two new books for our next meeting: Just Kids by Patti Smith and the The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls - date tbd. Getting 6-8 women together on the same date has proved to be a challenge, however I discovered a tool, called Meeting Wizard which allows you to pick a bunch of dates and have your attendees select their available dates. It saves all of the back and forth, excuses, reasons, etc for who and why people aren't available. If only everyone would use it...

playing catch up

yikes. Where did the time go. We're rounding the bend, nearing the end of a jam-packed year and frankly, I've lost steam. I keeping doing a little different, but finding it hard to keep up. The night after I had dinner Texas, Sarah and I got together for dinner at the Melting Pot in Larkspur. I was thwarted on my way over by some horrific traffic. I landed, at the landing, about 15 minutes late. I was certain that I would arrive on time, getting out of work a few minutes early. Sarah and I had salads and then shared an anemic artichoke and cheese fondu. Anemic as there was hardly a ramekin of artichoke hearts stirred in. That's not to say that it wasn't cheesy-good, but it wasn't exactly an artichoke fondu.

On Thursday, Veteran's Day, I raced home from work to make two-dozen cupcakes for a work pot-luck. I was under tremendous pressure to produce. One of my colleagues had become known for her baked good after having finished baking school at Tante Marie's. Charlotte's pasteries are world-class, delicious and gorgeous. Her standards were high and I had to be creative. I decided to use the persimmons from our tree. Remembering the creativity of the cooks on Cupcake Wars, I started scouring the cupboards for interesting ingredients. I used ground clove, ground anise, ground in a little orange tea, plus the usual "pumpkin-pie" spices: nutmeg, cinnamon, and ginger. I made a caramel and worked that into a butter cream frosting to put on top.

During the pot luck, Charlotte came over to me and raved about the cupcake telling me I should be very proud of myself. She LOVED the frosting, thought it was fantastic and thought the flavor was really good - interesting flavors. I love the creativity. I was inspired.

On Saturday, I hooked up in Marin with my junior high school best friend Joanna. We met for lunch at the Cheesecake Factory in Corte Madera. There was something about getting together with my friend in Marin, where I just felt I needed a glass of wine. I was surrounded by kids and dogs, and Juicy Couture. Marin is just not the place it was when I grew up. Money, money money - everyone had money, but today people show it. My dad started the trend. Jo and I had a great time. We've surpassed the "getting back in touch" stage and moved into a new, natural stage of our friendship, where we're not just catching up on the last decade, but where we're catching up on just the last month or so. After lunch we wandered around the mall. Dogs and babies surrounded us. Before I knew it it was 4 p.m. and I was late to get home. I told John I'd be home in time to go out with him that night. My friend Shannon was coming into town from the tri-cities area of Washington state, Kennewick.

Upon her arrival and after a few minutes of hugging and ooing and awing over our newly renovated yard, we walked down to Sidebar restaurant. Shannon was just happy to be eating at some place other than a chain like, say, Cheesecake Factory or Red Robbin.

I was telling Shannon the story of how I was outed as a liberal when I was in Birmingham and our bartender came over and was fascinated by the story. "I love this!" He wanted to hear more. When, but in CA, can you tell the story of being outed as a liberal and a waiter has to hover like he's in your dinner party? It was entertaining. Our waiter was originally from the mid-west and found it oppressive and too conservative (no surprise) and ended up on this end of the world. For the rest of the evening, he was our new friend.

Sunday was a beautiful day. The sky was bright blue and the temperature was going to be in the 80s. I don't care if it's global warming, global weirding, or just California sunshine - the weather was fabulous. We rode our bikes down to Beer Revolution. I love the owner, Rebecca. She's super cool - tatted up, dark hair, super friendly: I know you! I've seen you here before, she hollered at me as I stood in line. John and I decided on a flight of 6 different beers for $15 bucks. We sat out on the deck and sipped at our offerings. I fell in love, and I mean love with the Chocolate Pilsner - I had to let everyone at our table try it (nope - didn't know them) and they all loved it too - not bitter, not sweet, just delicious. For some reason I seemed to have a magnet on for funny people (not ha ha) and this guy sort of glommed onto us. He was okay, except he kept drinking and kept talking and finally, I hit my yakker max and let John know it was time for us to hit the road. But that was not before John had run around the corner to get a fried oyster po-boy with some sweet potato fries. Yum!

After lunch we hopped on our bikes and made our way home. I was H-O-T and we were now late for dinner at Kirsten and John's house. We had to quickly shower, shave and shine and hit the road for another social event (Damn - we were busy!).

Gloating Glory

The work week came and I had to prepare for a visit from my TX colleague, the one I had the bet with during the World Series. I had created a virtual shrine on the exterior cube walls, so as he entered our floor, the first thing he'd see was the homage (if you will) to the World Champion Giants! The VP of my group, also a Giants fan, told me to decorate away, go crazy, decorate my door too! I was inspired. I gathered as much propaganda as I could - pages from the daily papers with images of people in the streets, hugs, cheers, and of course, pennants and orange pom poms - anything and everything went on the cube walls so that when Texas entered the building, he'd feel some Giant love.


Texas entered on Tuesday and said, "I expected more" (insert cartoon sound here - wah wah). Then he totally poured water on the whole thing by saying, "you know, I probably go to more Giants games each year than Rangers. I actually like the Giants".
Me: big sigh.
Oh well, it was fun, and my shrine still lives a week later.

Dinner that night with Texas was terrific. We went to Le Colonial in SF. A year or so ago we had eaten there and although we had a gentleman's agreement that we would eat at different places each time he came out, he just had a hankerin' for French/Vietnamese food. We shared the following: Mien Xao Cua - Stir fried glass noodles with Dungeness crab, Laughing Bird shrimp,
egg and scallions, an order of Xu Bruxelles: Pan fried Brussels sprouts, Portobello mushrooms and crispy shallots with a sweet chili sauce, and an order of Vit Ngu Vi Huong: Seared 5-spice Pekin duck breast, with crispy Brussels sprouts and tamarind ginger sauce.

Texas and I couldn't stop saying, "Oh. My. God. This is SO good", as we were each telling tales the other would interrupt with that statement. We kept laughing over the deliciousness of the meal. It was just crazy good - and Texas doesn't love the sprout!

I had wanted to bring the leftovers home to John for his dinner. I mean, there's always something left over - but not tonight - nary a sprout was left on the plate. Poor John. After I got home we sat down together to watch a little t.v. He came into the living room with a plate of something. "what's that?", "something from the freezer." "oh, I'm so sorry. I really wanted to bring something back for you, but, well, it was just, SO good." Oh well, next time.

pot Luck

The sky opened up on Sunday and with that an idea emerged: Pixar exhibit at the newly renovated Oakland Museum of Art. After a hearty breakfast we drove down to Oak street. there was anything but a light rain and after we zipped up our rain jackets, we emerged street level to find a line down Oak and around the block. People were huddled under umbrellas (we didn't have one), waiting for the museum to open.

Apparently I had tapped into the collective consciousness of all of Oakland - this was clearly the place to be on a dreary Sunday. We assessed the line, felt our legs getting cold and wet and unanimously aborted. Next stop: Lucky's.

John said we were "going ghetto" - not exactly - but Lucky's isn't Safeway, nor is it Trader Joe's and it certainly isn't Whole Foods/paycheck. That said, this is probably the nicest Lucky's around. We needed to bring an appetizer to Kaya's for a pot-luck. This crowd is probably the most low-key, down-to-earth group of people I know (and love). Nothing snotty here - just plain 'ol good people. Now... what to bring. I reached deep into my early childhood memories, certainly not upscale as we were growing up (early in my youth), and I remember: weenies wrapped in Pillsbury dough (with ketchup and mustard). Yum. Then I thought, fried shrimp - well, I was kind of thinking catfish, but catfish can be challenging, so shrimp it was. I was also thinking, "rain, cold, football... fish 'n chips!" As we were waiting in line, an older black dude was pondering the same, "I really want fish 'n chips today - give me some catfish!"

Um, wow, was my brain truly in sync with the rest of Oakland? How random was that? So we started chatting him up and sure 'nuf - football and fried fish. We settled on cod and home we went.

I made a beer batter and plunked those bad boys in the vat of hot oil - YUM. I made a home made cocktail sauce (that was new too) and yum-me!

That evening we schlepped our Fry Daddy and a pound of shrimp over to Kaya's and chowed down on those little weenies and fried shrimp. Good times.

Now that was different

I walked to my car in the MacArthur BART parking lot after a long week of work on Friday. I turned the key in the ignition and the lights on the dash started going crazy. There was barely a whrrrr of the engine. "CRAP". I tried again, and again.
Nothing.

AAA arrived within 15 minutes and jumped started the car - ah! just the battery. I drove to Tiburon and stopped at the super market before going to Diana and Harvey's for a Paella dinner. I got to my car and ...
Nothing.

Rather than calling AAA I flagged down a guy in a giant truck. After a few tries (apparently maneuvering a Jumbo truck in a near empty parking lot requires a certain skill) , he got his truck close enough to my car to give me a jump.

After dinner at Diana and Harvey's (a fun event attended by former High School classmates, none of whom I'd ever met in my life), my cousin Rebecca's husband Joe jumped me. This provided hours of humor for the whole family - my car battery is in the back of the car - therefore requiring that I get jumped from behind. Joe giggled endlessly.

We got to George's in San Rafael - now the new, New George's, without the "New" to see John play with American Drag.

Then Harvey jumped me from behind.

In the morning, Saturday, Dale picked me up so we could ride (horses). That afternoon, Dale jumped me - from behind.

I made it to the gas station to get the new battery and learned that my "cost per wear" was equivalent to making money on the battery. I couldn't recall ever getting a new battery in the 10 years I've had the car - apparently the life-span of a batter is 3-5 years. I definitely came out ahead on this deal. Plus - I am now an expert on jump starting a car - front, or back.

Giant Monday

Most of us at work could hardly contain our excitement on Monday. Even our VP said, "go home early to watch the game", so I caught an earlier bus home. Of course by this point my TX pal stopped texting. At the 7th inning, when Renteria slammed in that 3 run hommer I couldn't help but send a text - the silence was deafening. At the end of the game John and I jumped up and down and screamed so loud the cats nearly tore a hole in the couch trying to run away from the insanity. We were ecstatic - unable to contain our joy.

Tuesday I pinged TX - "no congratulations?"
"They didn't play well. It was like a little league game"
"sour grapes"

Wednesday I got into the city at 8 a.m. Our building sits on the corner of Montgomery and Market, right along the parade route. I had never been to a parade before - not like this - not when the Niners won a super bowl - Never. This was going to be a great day. The energy of the fans coursed through the city as a dense crowd had already gathered.

I pinged TX again,
"surprised I haven't heard from you"
"I'd rather re-take Congress than win a World Series any day"
"Can't hear you over the noise of the parade"
"you're a bad liar. the parade doesn't start for two hours"
"the crowd gathered early. Gotta go. You're distracting me from my joy"

My 10 a.m. meeting ended quickly and my colleagues and I had blocked out time for a "meeting" from 11 - 1. At 10:30 we were already suffering from " fear of missing out" syndrome, so we hopped the elevator down the 28 flights. The crowd must have been 50 deep and I'm just not good in crowds. Thankfully our lobby is slightly elevated - in fact, just enough for me to stand safely inside and just above everyone's heads. As the parade passed I could see the faces of the players. Although being inside made me feel insulated, I still enjoyed the event, especially as Bochy rode by holding up the World Series Trophy. Fifty years in the making and finally a World Series trophy.

As the parade passed I went outside. The crowd lessened and I could still feel the joyous energy. Black and orange ticker tape covered the streets like a fine dusting of snow. I stood outside for about 10 minutes just enjoying the buzz of the crowd. By 5:30 as I headed home, the streets were still filled with people in their Giant's gear. This must be what it's like to live in NYC when the Yankees win - everyone in their garb - all part of the same tribe. We were all one that day - all Giant's fans united in our love for the city, the game, the players and the team.

Rainy Day

It was a good day to come down with a cold, if ever there's a good time to get sick. It had rained the night before and the rain Gods weren't ready to depart our fair city just yet - besides, it was time for another baseball game.

I ran up to the barn and spent quality time with Miss Petunia and then headed home. As the sky darkened, and the ground became damp, my nose followed suit (not the darkening part). I popped Severe Cold meds, grabbed a box of Kleenex and pulled the blanket up around my neck as I stretched out on the couch. It was as if someone had put superglue there. I simply couldn't get up. And so there I stayed, as glued to the couch as my eyes were to the T.V.

The text messages started arriving from Tx - it wasn't a great day for the giants, but I knew there was more to come. Besides, we were up by two.

Then came Halloween. As the sky cleared, so did my cold, so John and I went for a hike up in Redwood Park. Normally in the fall, we see brown, but as we had had some early rains, we were delighted to see the bright green mosses adorn the trees. We headed up Stream Trail and found that the lady bugs were already gathering. This is an annual occurrence where the lady bugs gather in the same spot every year.


Millions of them huddle together, normally in the dead of winter and hibernate until the spring when they fly away. Strangely, it was in the high 60's, and the lady bugs were about two to three months early. We watched them huddle for a while and then continued on our way.


That night, I once again found myself on the couch - eyes glued to the game. Never, in my entire life, have I been so engrossed in baseball. But this year was different - the team was different, everything was different. I appreciated the strategy, the offense and the defense of the game. It finally made sense to me. That's not to say that I don't think that there are about 120 games too many in the season, but this was pure fun - especially since the Giants took their third game and were now just one away from winning the World Series - after more than 50 years in SF - could they really bring it home. Oh, and the text messages from Tx - well, my colleagues cell phone battery must have died, 'cause it got really, really quiet.

After the game, I headed down to my neighbor's house where he hosts an annual neighborhood party. He gets a ton of kids so he invites his adult friends over to join him. I brought my four bags over as I didn't have a single visitor. That's what happens when you live just slightly up a hill - a blessing in some ways. The neighbors and I talked about the joy of the game and our thoughts on the upcoming election - who would be our new Mayor? Who were "you" voting for and why? What would happen in Washington. It was all good though when the evening came to an end.