Shepherd's pie at the Pub

A cold rainy night...a surfeit of sweets (and some dim sum earlier in the day)...searching for comfort food...

So off to Kensington Circus Pub in Kensington on the Colusa Circle -- "you can't miss it!" -- with Mei. Good to have a bit of a drive since she needed to try out the Toaster!

Yummy shepherd's pie! Crisp Caesar's salad!


Mei


The sign inside


The sign outside

Celebrating a birthday with dumplings and ice cream

My friend Kris' 14th birthday was yesterday, the 27th, a birthday shared by my Dad (who would've been 82) and old friend Nancy (no age, please). He was driving with his Mom Krisa down from Coos Bay on his birthday and arrived back in the Bay Area this afternoon, phoned and took me up on my suggestion for a lunch celebration.


Kris (aka Kuri, his baby name in Japanese, which means little brown chestnut) and his Mom, Krisa

Clear skies after days of rain, so we motored in the Toaster (see the November 27 post) across the Bay Bridge to San Francisco.

Shanghai Dumpling on Balboa at 34th was our destination; dumplings were on our minds.



Luck was with us: there was a parking one space away. The restaurant sported a sign that informed us it was "CLOSED", but we'd called ahead and had been assured that it was open. So in we went after checking ("we called from Berkeley") to find two other tables of people just finishing.

This place is SMALL! Two little rooms, menus only in Chinese on the plain white walls, no heat, supplies visible on the floor in the back, tables jammed in for parties of all sizes -- from a couple to a large family. Ah...steamed chive dumplings and juicy pork potstickers -- both served with a sauce of black vinegar with shredded ginger, steamed thread bread served with a savory-sweet condensed milk dipping sauce, and fried onion cakes. Cheap and delicious eats!

Where to after dumplings? Ice cream, of course!

Down to Ocean Beach where the big waves were crashing in from way out and past the Park... then threading through the Outer Sunset to a San Francisco Institution: Polly Ann Ice Cream. This was a favorite destination when I first moved to San Franciso in 1983 -- lots of exotic and ordinary flavors too; a complementary cone for the dog (if you had one with you); and a big spinnable wheel marked with not only more than 40 available flavors but also "free" spots (your ice cream was free if you hit one of those spaces). Ah, living dangerously in Ice Cream Land. I'd driven around Noriega and the 20s, then the 30s looking for it with Bianca two weeks ago. Bianca finally spotted it out at the NE corner of Noriega and 38th -- in a new building, but with the same wheel!


The wheel is in the back. Below is a close-up: "Can't decide? Are you 'wheeling' to try for anything?". The catch is that you HAVE to buy whatever flavor the spinner stops at. No forgiveness!



Kris: root beer!
Krisa: sesame seed!
Dianne: ginger!

Yummy!

Happy Birthday, Mr. K! Indeed!

Christmas Eve, Christmas, St. Stephen's Day-Boxing Day 2005

Lots of visiting for Christmas...

The day before Christmas Eve ... Elaine and her six-year-old daughter Maria arrived from Malibu. We played many games of pick-up-sticks (Maria really liked it!):



That evening we watched The Polar Express --

with Guai -- a wonderful preparation for the days to come..."Seeing is believing... but sometimes the most real things in this world are the things we can't see."

Christmas Eve day ... Patty, Allen, and Sylvia joined us (Guai, Elaine, and Maria) for lunch at our favorite Korean BBQ...


Allen and Elaine -- almost 25 years after Bataan!


Patty and Sylvia


Guai and Maria

Later that night, Maria has a brief lesson is getting ready for Santa Claus...that it's important to leave cookies out for Santa Claus because he's so hungry from going all around the world to leave presents for all the children who've been nice. She dressed a plate with cookies, added a ribbon, and went to bed ... but not to sleep! She couldn't sleep all night! She was waiting for Santa to come, waiting to see if he'd eaten the cookies she put out for him!

Christmas morning...

Maria reported in: "Santa came! He ate the cookies! And he left me a stocking on the table!"


Maria and her loot! The beginning of a day of chocolate!

A quick check of email netted a skype-call from Meyen in Istanbul, at the end of their Christmas Day and the beginning of ours. They had a Costco ham (procured during the summer home-leave) for Christmas dinner!


Kevin and Meyen

Then out to Patty's for the day...


The tree before -- with Bruce in the background, Maria and Corina (with the purple hair and red streak) in front...


Bruce with Santa Ella, who had gift cards for everyone for Border's and received many chew toys, some of which she demolished straight-away!


Patty opens a present and starts hoarding wrapping paper!


Corina, wearing earrings from Elaine, and Glenn


Bruce and Corina


Elaine and Maria


The tree after

The day after Christmas, Boxing Day, St. Stephen's Day...A visit at Lisa, Oliver, Deme, Anna, and Rudy's new home...


Anna and her friend Maria


Linda and Patty, looking a bit dour


Lisa, Anna, and Oliver

Good cheer! A time to hang out with friends and catch up!

Degrees of separation

In 1985 I was a volunteer in a community mediation program in San Francisco. I both mediated and co-mediated disputes and worked with mediators as a trainer/coach/observer.

One day I was asked to co-mediate a dispute between two homeowners. The one who initiated the mediation had complained about the house next door, a house that was owned by an absentee landlord, absentee in that he rarely visited the property or his tenants and had no idea whatsover what was happening. Apparently the house had been populated by drug dealers and prostitutes. Also, the backyard was full of overgrown weeds which provided an environment conducive not only to rats but also to small boys in the neighborhood who liked to run through the conjoining backyards. The weeds covered some window wells that the first neighbor felt presented a hazard. The absentee landlord had lived in San Francisco for 20 years and owned the house as investment property. I was there in part because I spoke Cantonese -- the primary language of the absentee landlord.

The mediation had been scheduled earlier, then postponed because the first party was taking the trip of a lifetime: a first trip to Europe for him and his wife in celebration of their 42nd wedding anniversary. They were the first and only owners of their home in San Francisco, had raised their children, watched their neighbors die or move away. This trip was a chance to visit their country of origin, Italy, as well as a break from a lifetime of hard work.

Their trip did not go as planned.

They were on the TWA flight that was hijacked that June. A young Navy man was murdered on the plane. The couple were, ultimately, safe, but traumatized. Their dream holiday became a nightmare that they couldn't forget.

During the mediation, he kept saying, as he brandished his multiple-page list of complaints about the house next door ( some of which dated from five years before), "Nothing's as bad as having a gun held to your head!" "Nothing's as bad as having someone shot right in front of you!"

He was right. Nothing, especially when contrasted to the complaints on his list, is as bad as what he and his wife experienced on that TWA flight from Athens to Greece.

The two parties worked out their differences. They met each other for the first time. They walked out the door not as friends but as two men who'd worked out an agreement about how to move ahead. And they worked through a hijacking and how it changes everything.

Yesterday I thought of the man with the five-year long list, the dream trip of a lifetime, the horrible, tragic way it was interrupted. And I remembered how he was concerned about the neighborhood boys hurting themselves, concerned about his neighbor and that he didn't know what his tenants were up to. I remember how I struggled with the Cantonese in this emotional exchange, struggled to explain that he'd been part of the hijacking, and that nothing is as bad as having a gun held to your head.

Yesterday, the SF Chronicle had a story about the hijacker. He'd been released and had returned to Lebanon. The man I met has died, as has his wife.

But I remember.

Toni and Brandon and Baby and Mac and cheese

Toni worked with me when she was a student at UC Berkeley many years ago. She works in a law firm, has wanted to go to law school for a long, long time and is working hard toward that goal. Baby Aaralynn's arrival in late January might change some of that timetable!

Brandon, Toni's husband, loves to read, stays up on the latest films, and enjoys trying new foods.

We watched Something the Lord Made about Vivien Thomas, a medical technician who worked with Alfred Blalock to develop a procedure that rerouted "blue babies'" arteries.

Vivien Thomas


Alfred Blalock

Great film! Wonderful company! Planning for that Aquarius baby! Lullabies by Lonny? I'm waiting.