We drove up to McAfee Coliseum in Oakland yesterday to see the A’s play Kansas City and to celebrate Rose Luey’s birthday. Lenny DiNardo allowed only five hits in eight innings.
Happy Festivus Eve
It’s too late now, but next year you can order your Festivus pole from The Wagner Companies. They even use 6063-T6 Aluminum, which seems to have “a very high strength-to-weight ratio” and is “very low-maintenance.”
Fortunately or not, I do not seem to be able to muster up any repressed energy.
Happy Festivus.
San Francisco
My friend Pam called to say she was going to be in San Francisco, so Chris and I drove up to see her. Our plan was to meet her at the airport, go somewhere for lunch, maybe go to a museum and consume as much Chinese food as we could.
Pam’s flight left New York the morning the British terrorist plot was revealed, so her luggage didn’t make it. Her trip in San Francisco started at the America Airlines lost baggage office. I was surprised that Louis Vuitton has their own category on the lost bag picture chart (Pam wasn’t using Louis Vuitton).
It was after noon and we were hungry so we went to the closest, good airport dim sum restaurant, Fook Yuen (not Fook Yu) in Millbrae. I hadn’t been there in a while and I remembered it as being kind of grungy but there was a Lamborghini parked across the street and mostly Chinese looking people inside, a good sign. The food was better than I remember or else I was really hungry (just like I remember that sandwich Jambon I had somewhere in Normandy as the best one I ever had). I always like to point out that har gau (??) would probably cost $12.50 as an appetizer in a hoity-toity restaurant.
After lunch, we decided to go to the de Young Museum to see The Quilts of Gee’s Bend. I took 101 to 380 to 280, so we came in on 19th Avenue and it was cloudy. It was just like home.
Chris and I had been to the newly remodeled de Young last October. The old building was my mother’s favorite museum, maybe because when she was alive, the Asian Art Museum was at the same location as the de Young.
I wasn’t sure if I liked the new design. It seemed a little monolithic – at least a monolith that got knocked over. From a distance, with the palm trees, I get an Egyptian feeling from the site.
We walked toward the entrance from the Japanese Tea Garden side so we moved to the path closest to the building so we could see the copper and the texture. The entryway seems to be designed to crush you before you cross a courtyard to enter the building.
At the little sales area near the quilt exhibit, I went to buy a post card to send to my sister. The guy in front of me said to the cashier that he wished he could take some of the quilts home. The cashier told him he could go downtown to some gallery and buy them. I settled for a post card.
Outside, the trees in the Sculpture Garden looked like they were experiencing autumn. We sat outside drinking our Vitamin Water and I was actually cold, like the unverified quote attributed to Mark Twain: “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”
We drove downtown and checked into The Royal Pacific Motor Inn. We decided to walk to Pam’s hotel at Stockton and Sutter.
Every time I walk down Grant Avenue it’s a reminder of my childhood. Near Washington Street on Grant is Fat Ming & Co, a Chinese stationary store that was one of my father’s accounts. Further down the street, Pam bought a backscratcher. I kept thinking of the New York Times real Chinatown story about how it really is on Stockton, but I thought Grant Avenue is as much Chinatown as the greengrocers and butchers on Stockton.
At the southeast corner of Grant and Washington was a little grocery store called the Lucky Corner, another one of my father’s accounts. My family used to go here after dinner when I was a little kid so we could get some candy for dessert and some malted milk tablets for Charlie. Once a tall black man asked me if I liked jazz and he bent over and gave me a Dizzy for President button (a quick Internets search put this sometime in 1963). We made one more stop at the Far East Cafe, because Pam remembered the enclosed private dining tables that had curtains and a doorbell to call the waiter. There was only a single row of “rooms” remaining so we proceeded toward Union Square.
At the Grand Hyatt, there was some deal making going on at registration. Since they were overbooked, they offered Pam a $99 room with a view, but no bed – there was a pull out sofa instead of her $250 room they did not have. They should ask Seinfeld what a reservation is. I told Pam it would just be like staying at someone’s house. We went up to inspect it – it was an additional room of a suite. It did have a view.
After checking in to Pam’s hotel we walked down Stockton to the Apple store. It didn’t seem that interesting to me. I’m waiting for a Core 2 Duo 12″ Macbook Pro.
We decided to go to the Ferry Building for a drink. Besides being a ferry building, the Ferry Building is now the Ferry Building Marketplace – a destination instead of a transit point. There are all sorts of upscale, organic foody places there. We ordered some oysters, an artichoke, some crab cakes, wine and beer at some oyster bar place. All I can say is it was no Oyster Bar at Grand Central.
I shot this pixture so Robert could see the Gelato prices in San Francisco.
After appeteezers, it was on to my favorite restaurant in San Francisco, Yuet Lee. Since we had been eating all day, there wasn’t room for crab with black bean sauce.
I did remember the time Chris and I were supposed to meet Diane and Don and a bunch of people at Yuet Lee. They were over an hour and a half late, so I decided to drink beers until they arrived. Nine beers later, they arrived. After dinner, we went to a former Basque restaurant that was now a hip bar. I was clearly twice the age of the average patron. It was crowded and when a table cleared, several young women that I had been talking to at the bar sat down with me because they thought I was charming.
The next morning, I went shopping for Chinese food supplies. When I came back, Pam was standing in front of our motel on the phone talking to Chris. Skip’s plane was landing soon so we decided to have dim sum for breakfast and went across the street to Gold Mountain. When we sat down, we noticed that Jim Drake was missing so Pam called Jim at home in Philadelphia. I hadn’t talked to Jim for a long time and it was good to hear his voice. We had a good time when we shared our office together at ABC and mocked Fox for trying to be a sports network.
After breakfast, we dropped Pam off at her hotel. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to meet Skip, but it was good to see Pam again.
MRY – LAX – CVG – YYZ
We got here safely but the trip makes me no longer want to do any air travel. All those airline nightmares you hear about came true for us.
I think we were supposed to leave Tuesday, 6:30 AM. At 4:30 AM, the phone rings and we don’t answer it, because who would be calling at 4:30 AM? Then Chris’ cell phone rings and it’s an automated call telling us our flight has been canceled, tough luck bub. Chris calls a human at Delta; they say tough luck bub. She pretends to cry and says we’re supposed to be at a party at 6:00 PM in Toronto. They say tough luck bub, route us – Monterey (MRY) – Los Angeles (LAX ) – Cincinnati (CVG) – Toronto (YYZ). Our 6.5-hour flight becomes 13.5 hours with a nearly 5-hour layover at LAX. We go back to sleep at 5:30 AM.
After waking up at 9 AM, I start thinking about the 5-hour layover in LAX and I called Brian Baxley to see if he wants to have dinner. He picks us up at the airport and we go back to his house. Their house, inside and out, looks as if they’re very poor.
Brian and Ami treat us to Chinese food in Manhattan Beach. Brian says he brought his Taiwanese clients to this restaurant as a business apology. Epic episodes of Brian stories ensue, a stream of consciousness jumping from one topic hooked to another. Chris wonders how his wife can take it. I guess he can’t be like that with her. Brian and Brandon are going up to Wentworth this weekend.
They drop us off at the airport in Ami’s Lexus and at the curb, he starts telling us the story of how he bought it for $7,000 even though he had already bought another one, then somehow the story morphs into an truncated story of the professor who was selling the first car, then city giving Brian a new battery for his lawn mower.
LAX to CVG is a center seat four-hour flight, midnight to 4 AM PDT. I can’t sleep. The stories of the airlines getting back to profitability are true. I’d say there are 5 empty seats. I thought the plane would be empty. Who wants to go from LA to Cincinnati? A lot of people, apparently.
Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport
At Cincinnati airport, our flight lands at a remote terminal, where you have to take a bus to the main terminal. Can’t these guys negotiate a decent landing contract? Who designs these things? The bus to the main terminal looks like a system administrator’s convention – guys in dark pants and sport shirts with phones on their belts. Chris says they look odd to me because these people have jobs.
It’s 7:15 AM in Cincinnati airport and it is busy. We’re walking to our next gate past Brooks Brothers, Johnston & Murphy, Brookstone and a PGA Tour shop. It looks more like Madison Avenue and 44th Street – this is more upscale than most malls.
Our one-hour flight to Toronto departs from gate 49. At the supposed gate, all the doors by the boarding agents’ desks have a letter above them. Once again, I am wondering what the designers are thinking (am I just to fatigued to understand this?) I get an window exit row seat and the flight attendant who greeted me with, “Howya doin? today” (Answer: crappy) asks for confirmation that my exit row seatmates and I understand the responsibility we are taking in sitting in the exit row. I give her thumbs up. She asks me if I understand. I say, “Yes, I understand.” I understand that she has to know that I can understand English commands in case we go down and I have to lift the door out of the way. I understand that I am tired because her airline cancelled changed my itinerary.
At Toronto Airport, we pass through Canadian customs without the agent even looking at me. I smile at him in thanks and it seems that he does not notice me.
Chris and I walk through the terminal looking for the sign for the rental cars that are usually over the entrance to the parking garage. We walk two thirds the length of the terminal to the rental car counters and see there is sign pointing towards where we just came from. At the terminal exit to the garage, across the street, there is a 1.5 inch sign that says “Hertz.” A theme is beginning to emerge.
CN Tower Candidate 2″
The Hertz agent asks if we want a Buick or an Impala. I don?t want to drag down the Buick demographic and the Impala is just one ugly motherfucker. I ask if she has any Ford products.
Moments later we?re loading our black Ford Escape. Chris is driving because I figure that she should drive in Canada. She is asked me what I want to do. I tell her we should go to Bass Pro Shops.
I am trying to get the a/c to work. It is hot and humid. Back East kind of humid. Chuck doesn’t know what this is like. He may know hot.
Bass Pro Shops is built in a sprawling mall that seems to be the opposite of ecumenopolis. All those futurists that saw vertical expansion don’t see all this land.
Moose, overlooking the 400
I am disappointed there are no 250 hp bass boats parked in front that I could have my picture taken with. Instead there are a bunch of ATV?s – as Liz says – summer snowmobiles.
Inside, I head for the lures. I think I will be fishing for pike, because that?s what I?ve caught before, but a lot the Internets references pointed to the UK. So I simply by an assortment of hard and soft baits: tubes, worms, jerk baits, spinner baits, buzz baits, crank baits, top water, jigs and spoons.
Bass Pro Shops, Vaughn, Ontario
It is now 16 hours since we left home; with one more stop for groceries before getting to the cottage. Chris is too tired to drive, and I suddenly realize that this was when I really needed the Provigil and I didn?t have it.
As we drive north, it gets darker and darker. The pilot on the Cincinnati – Toronto leg said that a front was probably going to move in around 11:15 am.
In Coldwater, the IGA parking lot is packed, the store not at all. We are too tired to think about a menu for the week but just get a bunch of things.
Cheap, Plentiful Canadian Gas
There are no 8-liter water bottles in the water section but by the register there are two cases four bottles. We pack the groceries in empty boxes and are on the road to the LCBO (Liquor Control Board Ontario) for some beer. I said to Chris that she told me there were no more stops after the groceries.
Rain beginning on Big Chute Road
As we got closer to the cottage, it got darker and darker. I was tireder and tireder. I kept asking Chris if I was still on the road. Then, of course, it started pouring.
The dock on the road side of the river is down a hill that is probably a hundred feet high. Carrying groceries and luggage down a slippery hill to the boat in heavy rain is not something I was looking forward to doing. Add the humidity and the guarantee that I will get at least 5-10 mosquito bites before we leave the dock caused Chris and I talked about driving down to the Big Chute. I could walk 30 feet with everything to a public dock and load the boat. But it was not that simple. She’d have to take the small boat over to the other side and get the big boat (that has a cover), then go down the mile to the Big Chute. I ended up carrying everything down to the dock, cursing and slipping – but I only got four mosquito bites.
Pebble Beach Summer Dressage Show
Chris won two first place awards and two second place awards in class at the Pebble Apparently, contradicting my initial observations, there is more to dressage than just sitting on the horse while it prances around.
The owner of Simply Roy, Mr. J. R. Rouse, of Pacific Grove and Mountain View, California, gave his full support for his horse and rider.
While her victories are permanently engraved on the Pebble Beach Summer Dressage Show Trophy, at home, Chris now eats her breakfast cereal out of her first place crystal bowl.