Three Shows and a Late Night

Was woken up yesterday morning at 8:30 by B, calling to let me know she'd left her costume at home (yes, the one I told her to put in her bag last night). So, DH got home from dropping her off and had to turn around and go right back to the ballet school.

She danced in (and we watched) the pre-ballet show at 11:00 (she's one of the teaching assistants), then we had burgers for lunch and took her back to the ballet school for the 2:00 show.

Voci concert tonight from 8:00-10:00, then a bunch of us went out for some well-deserved food and drink. I finally arrived at home at 12:40 am--it's been a long time since I've stayed out that late!

Girls' Night Out

B is a little annoyed that M is "stealing her dad" for the weekend (after a nearly two-week trip, she saw him for about an hour last night), so after sending the boys off on their Boy Scout ski trip, she and I had a fun evening together. I picked her up from musical rehearsal at 5:45, drove her friend home, and headed out to California Pizza Kitchen for dinner. After dinner, we wandered through the Gap (didn't find any clothes she liked), Barnes and Noble (she bought three books and a new sketchbook), and Crate and Barrel (that stop was for me--picked up a new gravy boat). Last stop of the night was Loard's Ice Cream, our local ice cream place.

She already has tomorrow night's restaurant picked out :-)

Hei, jäkkä däkkä düüdi aadi oodi aadi üüdi ambo

Current mental soundtrack: "Announcement III", by Jaako Mäntyjärvi

Long day is finally over! DH is in Crete this weekend (he finally made it there after having his original flight cancelled because of a transportation strike), so the kids and I got to travel together all day today.

We left home at 10:00 this morning to get B to the pre-ballet class she TAs for. While she was in class (10:30-11:30), M and I had coffee and breakfast across the street.
Next stop was M's fencing class from 12:00-1:30. B and I ran some errands, and picked up lunch at Costco.
At 2:00, we returned to the ballet school for B's afternoon rehearsal (2:00-3:00). I also got to stay and watch, since I'm one of the stage manager crew, and we were instructed to take notes today.
We got home at 3:30, fed the dogs, packed our bags, and were out the door at 4:05 to meet up with my carpool.
The three of us, plus two other singers from my choir, made it into the city pretty quickly. We met up with two other singers, and had dinner at Taqueria El Castillito, our usual stop before San Francisco concerts. The "super nachos" are enough to feed a family, and very tasty.
Concert warmup began at 6:30, and the concert at 8:00. It went quite well today--the, um, "interesting" things that happened in yesterday's concert didn't recur. The kids had their own role: Mäntyjärvi's "Announcement IV" refers to unaccompanied minors in the audience, so at the appropriate moment in the piece, the entire choir pointed to M & B, who fled the room! They had a great time acting this out:

Under health and safety regulations, unaccompanied minors are not allowed in this performance except by written permission from the composer. Unaccompanied minors will be removed and may be destroyed.

The encore was Mäntyjärvi's "El Hambo," which satirizes Swedish folk dancing, the Swedish Chef, and who knows what else. I brought a wooden spoon to dress rehearsal on Wednesday, since I just couldn't imagine the Swedish Chef without cutlery ("bork bork"). This evolved into banging the spoon on a pot held by my neighbor, since we weren't able to do the clapping written in the score (no time to memorize the piece).

For the post-concert reception, I made a lemon poppy seed bundt cake. My fellow carpooler baked a lemon bundt cake, and someone else brought lemon bars. I guess we were all in a lemon mood!

Happy Holidays!

Gong xi fa cai, and Happy Valentine's Day!

DH did make to to DC on Thursday, and today he arrived home safely. I picked him up at the airport this afternoon, and discovered that he and I had bought each other identical boxes of chocolate (See's one-pound Nuts and Chews). Great minds think alike!

After the airport, we went to the Tech Museum in San Jose to see the Star Trek Exhibit. The kids have really gotten into Star Trek this year: we started the ball rolling last spring when we insisted they watch a few episodes of the original series before going to see the new movie. M has watched all of the original series now, and I don't think B is far behind. The exhibit was fun--we had our picture taken on a replica of the original bridge, although we declined to pay $28 for it at the end. They also had a transporter set up, and we watched ourselves disappear on the monitor. Lots of props and models, and a long timeline of happenings in the Star Trek universe. I hadn't realized before seeing the timeline that Star Trek: Enterprise (the one series we didn't watch) occurred BEFORE the original series in the timeline.

By the time we got through the exhibit, we were hungry and tired, so didn't stay to explore the rest of the museum, although it looked interesting. After some discussion, we agreed to have dinner at The Fish Market in San Mateo, since it was on the way home and we hadn't been to a branch for quite a while. (It used to be one of our favorite restaurants when we lived in San Diego.) The wait for a table was 45 minutes to an hour, but DH got us on the list upstairs at The Top of the Market, and we had a delicious seafood dinner in honor of the two holidays today.

Anniversary Dinner

Nineteen years today--DH and I celebrated with dinner for two at Chez Panisse. Fabulous food, as always!

Starter
   Pizzetta with leeks, Lucques olives, and fontina

Entrees
   Quail with figs, chanterelle mushrooms, & corn
   House-made spaghetti with shrimp, shell beans, and chervil

Desserts
   Blueberry, peach, and plum cobbler with plum ice cream
   Noyau crème anglaise with Suncrest peaches and blackberries

Quiet Quiet Quiet

The kids left on Monday for a road trip with DH's parents. They are headed to Minnesota to visit relatives.

DH and I are trying to decide what to do with our temporary empty nest. Tonight we went to dinner at O Chamé in Berkeley, since I had a gift certificate (thank you, Voci!). We walked around 4th Street a little, then headed home. We have tickets for the 12:15 am showing of Harry Potter tonight--we haven't stayed up that late for many, many years. I hope we can stay awake!

This weekend we have a bunch of things planned. On Saturday morning we are going to a brunch to meet a potential political candidate--we've been assured it's not a fundraiser, although I'm sure our name will end up on lists for the future. Saturday evening we're going to dinner at the home of DH's postdoc, with hot-tubbing to follow. Sunday we're heading in to SF to meet my sister, have lunch, and do some shopping. I have been scouring web sites and stores, trying to find the right outfit for my high school reunion next month. I have a little black dress that will do for the cocktails & dinner night, but the previous night is a get-together at a local bar. I've been looking for something casual but elegant--hard to find! The dresses I've seen are either too dressy (B and I found a lovely one last week, but it's more suited to a garden party than a casual tavern) or too unflattering. Maybe a skirt and nice top would be easier to find?

Almost a Teenager

M turned twelve today. I can't believe he's only a year away from being a teenager! We spent part of the day at the San Diego Zoo with both DH's family and mine. We managed to sneak a birthday cake into the cooler this morning without M noticing, so we were able to thoroughly embarrass him at lunchtime with our singing.

Dinner was at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants: Fidel's, in Solana Beach. B and I split a chimichanga with an extra side of rice. I'm afraid to climb on the scale after all of the food I've been eating this last week!

Clueless in Berkeley

DH and I went out to lunch today with our friend F (the one with celiac disease). We went to a place that we've been to many times before. F ordered chicken fajitas, with corn tortillas. DH emphasized to the waitress that F was allergic to wheat, and she wrote it down on the order form.

Lunch took forever to arrive--it's never been this slow before at the particular restaurant, even when we've arrived with large groups of people. A different waiter put the food on the table, and left before we noticed that they had included flour tortillas, not corn, with F's order. It took another ten minutes to get the attention of our waitress, and the following conversation ensued:

F: I ordered corn tortillas, and these are flour.
Waitress: I made sure to tell the kitchen that you're allergic to wheat.
(pause) Is flour made from wheat?
DH & F: Yes!
Waitress: I'm sorry, I think that's the only kind we have. Would you like some bread instead?

SuperAlto's Walking Tour of San Francisco

M & B have been wanting to ride the cable cars for a while now, so we decided to have a mini-vacation today. The itinerary I came up with worked pretty well, so I thought I'd share it (in case any of my readers ever want to try it). Things we didn't do today (but have done in the past or looked interesting) are in brackets [].

First, we drove to San Francisco, and parked in the Sutter-Stockton Garage. Sundays are cheaper than the rest of the week--three or more hours is only $7.50. When you exit the garage, take the elevator down to Level 2, and take the pedestrian exit on Bush Street (past the motorcycle parking area).

Turn right on Bush St.

Take the next left onto Grant Ave. This takes you through the main tourist area of Chinatown, and continues on to North Beach (Little Italy).
[If you're hungry for either Chinese or Italian food, these are good places to stop for lunch.]

Bear left onto Columbus Ave.
[As you cross Vallejo St., you'll pass The National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi, established in 1849.]

Turn right onto Stockton St.
[After you pass Washington Square, you can turn left onto Filbert St. to visit Saints Peter and Paul Church, founded in 1884.]
[Or, you can turn right onto Filbert, and follow the signs to Coit Tower for a nice view of the city.]

Continue down Stockton St. until you reach the waterfront. There are a number of things you can try here:

• Check out the touristy shops & carousel at Pier 39


• View the sea lions at Pier 39 (Hint: don't go down the tourist part of the pier: instead, go down the wooden pier that parallels it on the left, towards the little lighthouse with the palm trees.)


• [If the weather's warm, don't bother waiting in line at the Ben & Jerry's you'll see by Pier 41. There's another one further down Jefferson St. that has much shorter lines.]


• For the classic lunch of clam chowder in a bread bowl, head west along the waterfront, past Pier 43 1/2, until you reach Fisherman's Wharf (at Taylor St.) We dined at Nick's Lighthouse, and enjoyed our lunch, but the other restaurants and stands looked just as good.


• [For burger lovers, there's an In-N-Out Burger on Jefferson St., between Jones & Leavenworth.]


• [For the world's best chocolate milkshakes (and possibly the world's longest line for ice cream), Ghirardelli Square is the place to go. Continue along Jefferson until it ends, turn left through Aquatic Park, and cross Beach St.]

To return to your car, make your way to the cable car turnaround at Hyde St. & Beach St. Look at the long line of people buying tickets and waiting to get on the cable cars. Ignore all of them, and walk a couple of blocks up Hyde St. You'll see brown "Cable Car Stop" signs along the street. Pick one (not the first one, if there are already lots of people waiting), and flag down the cable car when it comes by. Have $5 ready when the conductor asks for your ticket. Get off at the end of the line (or a little before, if you want to walk around some more).

[Union Square has lots of upscale shopping--I always like window shopping there, but I usually don't buy too much stuff. DH likes the Apple Store at Stockton & Market.]

Fun in SF

Today we took a day off from work for a mini-vacation. We started off the morning at the DeYoung Museum, where there's a special Dale Chihuly exhibition. I've always loved glass art: once upon a time, when we lived in San Diego, I even tried taking glassblowing classes at UCSD. I don't think it's the right artform for me--I'm a person who likes to think about each step before taking it, and molten glass is too fluid to allow time for contemplation.

I thought all of my photos were going to be blurry, since they don't allow flash photography, but a couple turned out pretty well:





The second half of our mini-vacation was our anniversary dinner, delayed from Monday night. Well, actually we had an anniversary lunch today: dim sum at Yank Sing. Very tasty, as always!

Amazingly enough, all four of us enjoyed the day. Both kids loved the museum (B had been there before on a field trip), which surprised me. I expected that getting the kids up early during summer vacation to go to an art museum would cause some complaints. I'm happy that I was wrong :-)

Power Outage

Current mental soundtrack: "Farewell Song" from the Sound of Music

Today was another scorcher: 108° at our house. We spent the afternoon running errands: orthodontist for B & M, toy store for B (going to a birthday party tomorrow), drugstore to get ibuprofen for M (since they put a much stronger wire on his braces today), fencing class for M, UPS Customer Service center to pick up the XBox. (RRoD update: the box has returned, but we haven't plugged it in yet).

We got home around 5:20, and discovered that the power was out. We threw on swimsuits and headed to the swim club for an hour or so, where DH joined us. After our swim, the power was still out, and the recorded message at PG&E said it would be out until 8:00-10:00 pm. Of course, this was a day when I had planned ahead, knowing I would be coming home late and not wanting to cook in the heat, so I had three-bean chili sitting in the crockpot, not cooking. We decided to go out to dinner at Chow's. After a brief visit to the Apple Store, we came home to brave the darkness. As we drove home, we saw exactly where the edge of the power outage was--one block east of the kids' school. No lights to the west.

I've decided that I can live without lights for a while, but worrying about the food in the freezer (all that Costco stuff) and being cut off from the Internet was much more annoying :-)

Sunny San Diego

RRoD update: Did you know that UPS can't reschedule delivery of a package until after they've tried to deliver it? Micro$oft sent me a notice last week that M's XBox is on its way back to us. Unfortunately, they scheduled delivery for this week, when we're all in San Diego. Even though I had the tracking number, I had to wait for them to try to deliver it (twice, because they tried a day earlier than the scheduled delivery date) before they would consent to reschedule it. They kept asking me for the InfoNotice number they had left on my front door, even though I kept telling them I wasn't home to get their notice. Of course, now I won't be able to leave the house on Monday until they deliver that box!

We are having a whirlwind vacation week in San Diego. First couple of days were spent with DH's parents, who only have dial-up Internet (in case you've been wondering where I am). We went to the beach (Oceanside), Mulligan's (an amusement park in Temecula), and the San Diego County Fair. We are now at my parents' house (with decent Internet access). We've been with them to the San Diego Zoo, and are going to the beach (Del Mar) tomorrow.

Today was the day of eating. On the way to the airport to pick up my sister, we stopped at Tommy's for lunch. Knowing what was coming up, I "only" had chili fries and water--no burger. Next stop (midafternoon) was DH's uncle & aunt's for a barbeque. I had a sliver of B's burger, some baked beans, and some fruit. Unfortunately for me, three desserts showed up after that, and I HAD to try all three. Two ice cream cakes, and a homemade cake. Last, but not least, my parents treated us all to Peking duck and crab at Emerald Chinese Seafood Restaurant. Whenever we go there with my parents, DH, kids, and my sister, we always order two Peking ducks (because we REALLY like Peking duck). Every time, the wait staff is astounded by this display of gluttony. I can understand enough Mandarin to translate what they're saying to my parents as they place the order. It's usually something along the lines of "TWO Peking ducks? Are you sure? That's a lot of meat!"

Oh, and we went to my favorite fireworks-watching spot this evening, La Jolla Shores. They have a nice fireworks display at La Jolla Cove, plus on a clear night you can see a bunch of other shows up and down the coast. Tonight was rather hazy, so we only saw one other show over the hills (and there was a tree in the way of my view), and heard a couple of explosions from the Del Mar Fairgrounds. We, and a lot of other people, forgot to check the tide charts before setting up our chairs, so a lot of people ended up jammed up against the sea wall as the tide came in.

[Anna Banana, I'll work on your meme tomorrow!]

Mmmm, Duck

Last night we (belatedly) celebrated DH's birthday by going out for Peking duck. We ate at Ton Kiang in San Francisco. Excellent duck, and we also like the way they serve it there. With a whole duck, you get a generous number of steamed buns (still not enough for B's taste, though), and they serve the meat and skin together. We've eaten it at other restaurants where they just serve the skin as a first course (with the little buns), and bring out the meat as a second course, chopped and cooked with veggies.

Tonight's dinner won't be as exciting; Costco hamburgers for B and me, as DH is going out to a business dinner, and M is still at camp.

Spring Break, Day 1

Today B and I flew to San Diego to spend a couple of days with my parents and sister. We got up bright and early (5:15 am), and arrived in San Diego around 8:45. We went straight to the San Diego Zoo and spent the morning there. We are not usually early birds, but this turned out to be a good time to go. There were no lines anywhere, including the panda exhibit. Although the baby panda was doing its usual stuffed-animal imitation, one of the adults was actually awake and eating bamboo.

For lunch, we decided to skip the overpriced burgers at the zoo, and headed Jasmine for dim sum. We had too much to eat, as usual.

Aches and Pains

On Fridays, our office goes out to lunch. Today, I was enjoying a nice bowl of minestrone at Orso in Berkeley when my cell phone rang. (I never give out my cell phone number, so when I do get a call I know it's important.) It was M, complaining that he didn't feel well. So, off I went to pick him up from school. He had chills and aches, so I made him a cup of tea, gave him some children's Tylenol, and let him sleep on the couch. After a 30-minute nap, he felt well enough to have some lunch. He's been lying on the couch ever since, with occasional forays into the kitchen, and a second dose of Tylenol at dinnertime.

Whenever anyone in our family is sick, I become obsessed with handwashing, to the point where my knuckles are usually cracked. I guess it's time to stock up on hand lotion again...

We also gave Otto a bath tonight. It wasn't on the schedule, but when I opened the garage door after dinner, something smelled horrible. Like rotting fruit. Like the pear I gave Otto a couple of days ago and forgot about. So, DH very kindly dragged the whole winter home (a grape bin, 48" x 48") outside and hosed it down, then carried Otto into the bathtub. I used the handheld shower to spray him down with warm water, and he actually seemed to like it! I then let him soak in the tub for a while--it helps tortoises to poop if you soak them, and we hadn't given Otto a bath for ages.