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November 28, 2005

back to the grind

There goes the long weekend.

Of course, its never long enough, and even so, I still had to contribute time into work. Not as bad as last year, when I was managing a group of 4 -- this year I was more in a supervisory role and not necessarily doing the grunt work, but it still wasn't pleasant to plan my mornings around the fact that I had to attend a status call and play nice with clientele. This is why I never wanted to be in sales and I'm lousy at networking, I don't have the patience to butter up people to continue to work with me or give work to me.

In spite of that, I actually managed to spend a lot of time with the family and actually do some nice things for my birthday. One thing to note is that I happen to share my birthday with Jenn's older brother, so not only do I have an obligatory outing with my family, but with Jenn's family as well, to celebrate a "joint" birthday. It will be my lot from now on (well, since we were married, really) to figure out how to celebrate both equitably. This year, I figured that I'd let my parents take me to lunch and meet up with Jenn's family for dinner (its usually been the other way around). Tiring, but it actually worked out nicely this year.

For lunch, I decided to get my parents to try something new for them -- eating out in the city. I selected Slanted Door -- partially because the Vietnamese origin of its cuisine would be more palatable to my family, and partially because I was curious as to see if it had changed when it moved from the gritty environs of the Mission to the all-new, all-uppity Ferry Building. Since it moved, the hype around it has grow exponentially. It annually makes the SF Chronicle Top 100 Restaurants list and is crowded to the brim daily. You know a place is popular when you get a busy signal trying to dial into the automated reservation line.

The location is really spectacular. Located on the northern end of the building, there are wall to wall windows around the entire space, affording a full view of Treasure Island and the Bay Bridge. Unfortunately, I was not of the same opinion about the food. We ordered the following dishes:

Crispy imperial rolls
Vietnamese crepes
Shaking Beef
Crispy egg noodles
Organic chinese broccoli
Wreckfish

The crispy imperial rolls, shaking beef, egg noodles, and chinese broccoli, while tasty, were no different from what you can find in any Vietnamese or Chinese restaurant. To be specific -- the imperial rolls and shaking beef I have had in many other Vietnamese places. The crispy egg noodles and chinese broccoli, pretty much standard fare for a Chinese restaurant. There wasn't anything really unique about Slanted Door's preparation of them.

The Vietnamese crepe was delicious. Stuffed with bean sprouts and grilled pork, it made for a blend of flavor when wrapped in lettuce and dipped in the vinegar fish sauce blend. My father tells me that this is also a traditional dish, but that the grilled meat inside is a twist to it.

Finally the wreckfish. The waitress told us it was very halibut like in appearance and taste, and it did not disappoint. The wreckfish filet was very flaky, but retained a lot of flavor at the same time. The topper was the accompanying spicy ginger dipping sauce. That served as an excellent balance to the flavor of the fish.

Overall, I guess I was expecting more from a restaurant which has such a high reputation and is generally classed as having a fusion-style cuisine. This is also true of the impression I had when I ate at the old location, some 5 years back. It feels like the vast majority of the dishes are really not too far removed from their ethnic progenitors. At the same time, dishes like the wreckfish and the crepe do show off Slanted Door's strong points: preparation and presentation.

For the evening, we joined Jennifer's family at Stacey's at Waterford. Stacey's is the second in a group owned by Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert. Its not a theme restaurant by any means, but his unique brand of humor shows up in the menu descriptions, such as the following:

Dungeness Crab Cake...with a watercress salad and roasted pepper coulis (You’d be crabby too if you were kept in a dungeness.)

Click here to see the rest of the menu

Stacey's style tends towards more homestyle American, with a few nods thrown in to California cuisine. I personally ordered the Baked Shells, which were very tasty, but I was balancing that with Naomi sitting in my lap for the majority of the meal.

The Waterford location is pretty interesting. We had previously eaten at the original location on Main Street in Pleasanton, which is decorated in a light-colored, airy manner. Stacey's at Waterford looks like its trying to be a romantic destination, with its dark red velvety interior and low lit ambience. That would seem to make for an interesting combination with its type of food. (Consider that I ordered what essentially was a souped up mac and cheese dish).

My sad attempt at playing restaurant critic aside, its always nice to be treated to good food twice in a day.

Posted by spoof747 at 04:48 AM | Comments (0)

November 27, 2005

my gratitude

thanks to everyone who has wished me well regarding my grandmother. i do appreciate each and every one of you who has taken the time to let me know that you care, it means a lot to me.

Posted by spoof747 at 11:50 PM | Comments (0)

November 18, 2005

funeral process

not sure who really is interested in hearing about this, but it helps me work through what i'm feeling right now. So here goes:

We held the funeral for my grandma on Monday. we laid her to rest beside my grandfather up at Sunset View Cemetary in Albany. The service was approximately an hour long. My dad spoke, and both my sister and I spoke. She hates to speak publicly, but she actually has very good "stage" presence. She speaks from the heart and people respond to that. She shared some of her good memories about grandma and got a good chuckle out of people attending. what I had in mind was a little different. I actually chose not to write anything down and to just speak off the cuff. What came out, according to Jenn, was apparently something along the lines of a expression of guilt. Basically, I expressed that I should have visited her more often and I wanted to tell people to let their loved ones know about how they feel more often. Apparently the first message came across more strongly than the latter.

then came the viewing, which as i said, was actually the first time i've seen her in nearly two weeks. i was fairly ok with everyone coming up to view and consoling us on the way out. i was NOT ok when i went to see her. i completely broke down. the next thing i know was that i had two people grabbing my arms and trying to pull me away from the casket. Something about needing to go away.

"Leave me alone."

"Listen to your aunt blah blah blah"

"LEAVE. ME. ALONE."

Apparently it is a Chinese superstition that you are not supposed to watch as a casket is closed. I, of course, only wanted time to grieve and to say good-bye to my grandmother. To my eternal gratitute, Jenn came to my defense and told everyone to just give me a little time. Of course, no time is ever enough time for something like that, so I dried my tears long enough to say a silent "Adieu" to her.

Then we headed out to the plot, but not before I already received plenty of advice which I simplified to "Don't feel how you're feeling" I got a little bit of "Let it out", a dash of "Don't feel guilty" with a sprinkling of "Guilt is the Enemy trying to get in" (that would be the Religious Aunt with a capital R). It was actually a beautiful location. (You could actually see the shimmering waters of the Bay all the way out to the Golden Gate). No sooner did I get out of my car did my sister tell me to apologize to my aunt (one of the people who was pulling me away) for my rude tone earlier. While I was angry at her for even suggesting that I needed to do so, I unerstood that I shouldn't leave things as is, especially since auntie was from New York and leaving that night. I didn't want anything to fester, so I took care of it. At the same time, I'm still pissed because I feel like everyone expects me to be ok sooner than I will be. This is the woman who raised me, babysat me, all the way from when I was a 1st grader to when I left for college.

After the burial came the meal provided by us (yet another Chinese tradition). That was ok, but the advice kept rolling in. I'm just too tired and drained to fight it, so I gritted my teeth, smiled, and nodded to whomever was talking to me.

And the next day, sure enough, I get a call from my dad. "Hey, are you ok?" A few hours after that, I get a call from my sister back out in VA, "Are you ok?" I love my family, but c'mon. Mind you, I was back at work. What am I supposed to say? No? What would a No do? I know all the reasons why I'm supposed to be ok -- all the platitudes, the cliches, all of it. someone even dropped on me the "a better place" line on me (our church chinese pastor). i do appreciate Gregg for going the extra mile. he told me he still might not even be over the passing of his grandmother 9 years ago, and still feels some of what i feel. see, now that i can appreciate, because he shared with me. And not some pithy "it will be ok" thing.

yes at some point, i'm not going to feel the way i do right now, but i don't know when that's going to happen, and its not going to happen any faster if i'm told, "she's gone to a better place" a million times. i appreciate everyone's intentions, but its just a little raw right now.

Posted by spoof747 at 02:36 AM | Comments (1)

November 17, 2005

all alone with my memories

i love my grandmother. she came to the US when i was little. that in and of itself was a story. Both my grandmother and grandfather were caught up in the Vietnam War. My grandmother was in one of the last helicopters to leave Saigon. As she got to the evacuation point in Guam, she knew enough to grab the CB and ask anyone on the line to help her find her son, my dad, who was already living here. All she knew was his English name. This part is still fuzzy to me, but word somehow did get to my father, who was able to get her and bring her here to live with us, based on that one call.

there are many stories like that about my grandmother. sometimes she was larger than life. as long as i can remember, she was a social butterfly, going here and there, hanging out all the time. when she wasn't watching me and my sister, she was headed out to hang out with friends. when i was in high school, she had more of a social life than i did. when i was at church, i'd look around for her, and she would be right in the middle of the crowd, chatting away. i know my dad didn't really care for that aspect of her, but he inherited a little of it, and so did i.

And when she used to cook, man she could cook up a storm! Sticky rice dishes, fish cakes, taro root cake, she made them all. And after I went off to college and would come back only occasionally, she would ask when I'd be back and make sure to make my favorite dishes. She'd also make extra so she could pack it and send it back with me. Even later on, when she lost much of her enthusiasm for cooking, she still tried to make dishes that we all liked. Of course, by that point, she started making the same thing almost every night. I remember that even when she stopped cooking, she knew I liked taro root cake, so she asked a family friend to make it and bring it over so I could have it when I came by the house.

There are those memories. Then there are her idiosyncrasies that I look back on with fondness now. Things that annoyed me so much now seem endearing. Like when I used to study in my room upstairs. I'd hear her slippers on the stairs. Swish swish swish. Then the sound would come right to the edge of my doorway and just stop. She would just stand there and stare at me. Not in a bad way, obviously, but at that time I didn't understand that she was just observing me and what I would do. When I was in a mood, I used to take my foot and close the door in her face. I'd then here a "Hmpf!" and a swish swish swish off to somewhere else. Maybe this isn't a memory that others can understand but its something that i can think back on and smile at its silliness.

Or like when my parents would go out and leave my grandmother and us kids alone. We were paranoid to begin with, but my grandmother was even more so. There was one time when she thought she heard something, so we all went to my parents room, and barricaded ourselves in with some of my parents' heavy suitcases. And I had my trusty little league aluminum bat, just in case. It was funny when my dad came home and tried to open the door to his room. Ok, maybe it wasn't funny then, but its funny now.

But she was one sharp cookie. Keep in mind that she barely spoke 20 words of English, yet once she got here, she managed to figure out how to travel between here and all over the entire Bay Area, by bus, BART, or whatever. When I was a kid, she'd take me out to San Francisco Chinatown to pick up groceries (this was before the heyday of 99 Ranch supermarkets). And she knew exactly where to go. Even when people driving her got lost taking her places, she'd know and tell them how to get there. Considering she couldn't read street signs or really ask for directions, that's pretty good.

I guess I'm a little sad as I'm writing this. Partly from the memories that mix in with my grief, but also, I feel like I should be able to do this with my family. We should sit down and just talk about my grandma and the memories we have of her. I just don't know that I can, given how Chinese my family is. As much as I enjoy this medium, its a poor substitute.

Posted by spoof747 at 11:37 AM | Comments (0)

November 09, 2005

go with God

my grandmother passed away yesterday.

i got a call from my father at work. what he said made me jump out of my seat yelling, "What?" the thing is, my father never calls just to talk, he doesn't believe in that. so everytime i hear my phone and see that its him on caller id, i always have this lump in my throat, wondering about my grandma. even so, when he told me, i still wasn't prepared for it.

she's actually been bedridden for the past few months. over the summer, she was checked into the hospital for a stay that turned into a few weeks, and more or less we got the message that it was only a matter of time at that point. congestive heart failure, they call it. on top of that, i took a look at the list of meds prescribed for her, and it included heart medicine, medicine for alzheimer's, medicine for parkinson's, anti-depressants, you name it. aren't these the drug cocktails that kids take to kill themselves? i know she was diagnosed with alzheimer's at one point, but some of these others were a surprise to me. in any case, for the past year, she's been getting steadily weaker and weaker. she didn't have an appetite anymore and slept for most of the day. when she didn't sleep, she would lie there without the energy to get up and do anything.

so on some level, i know that this is a relief, especially for my parents, who took care of her, and even hired a part-time care nurse for her. my dad only works part-time now, and came home in the afternoons to watch her. with the state of life she was in, one would think that this is good, that her just lying there all the time didn't constitute a "good" way to live. Also, when you factor in what her beliefs (and those of my family) are, she's in a "better place" (or so the cookie-cutter expression goes). And I believe that too.

but the thing is, my grandmother is gone. and my last memory of her is bringing her great-granddaughter upstairs to see her, seeing her face light up and her sitting up in bed without hesitation, reaching out to carry Naomi. she cradled her and cooed to her. she KNEW who she was -- I didn't have to remind her or introduce her. and then as we were leaving i said goodbye to my grandmother and told her i'd be back to visit.

that was 2 weeks ago.

and now i'm flying out to cincinnati on some forsaken business trip that came up quickly in the last week and i'm only going because my boss at the client's project feels that I represent myself well in front of clients and vendors. would it have been much better back at home? not likely. but i'm going to feel like a liar everytime i put on my "client" face and talk to them until Friday. After that, I come back to my real life.

Posted by spoof747 at 11:04 PM | Comments (2)

November 03, 2005

DK is back

Welcome back Dave! You didn't even make a peep about being back and blogging, biotech!

Posted by spoof747 at 10:18 AM | Comments (0)

November 02, 2005

milestones

Yesterday was our 2 year wedding anniversary.

It was interesting to see the different directions that life takes you on in a 2 year timeframe. Obviously 2 years ago, we got married. We spent nearly an entire year planning for this one day, but all came off swimmingly, except for some minor details.

Last year, I surprised Jenn by whisking her off to San Francisco. We stayed in a sumptuous room in the Mandarin Oriental and spent the next day walking around the city. We actually walked from downtown along the waterfront all the way to the Palace of Fine Arts.

This year, I managed to take the day off (which was a feat in and of itself). I told work that I was taking a true VACATION day, instead of the usual "Working from home" day. But with Naomi and with my back limiting us, our day consisted of going to the mall for a family portrait (first formal one of all of us together) and coming home to clean up for the window installers coming today. Man, this even sounds boring to me as I type it.

Jenn obviously is very understanding, and we both agreed that this was the best use of our time this year. At the same time, I sometimes think back to when we were able to drop things at a moment's notice and do what we wanted to do. Or our ability to just decided to take a side route and head to another destination we didn't plan for. Even our propensity to just wander and take in sights and sounds. Given Naomi's age right now, we're pretty much Point A to Point B when we go out. She's been very clear (by her crying volume) that side trips aren't the best thing for her right now. I sincerely hope that this will change at some point. I remember a friend of mine telling me that when he was a kid, his dad used to just drive somewhere with the family and purposely get lost, just to try and find their way home. That sounds like fun -- I only wish that Naomi will enjoy it as well.

Sometimes its just strange to see where your life has been and compare it to where it is now. I can't say that I regret any of it, but sometimes I remember what has gone before and bask in it, especially the things that just can't be done right now. Will we be able to do this stuff once Naomi gets older? Most likely. But right now, the days feel more like a grind. I want/need a break, but that's also something I can no longer do. Even at the position I am at work, since I am responsible for other people, I can't just blow off work at a moment's notice. Maybe if I can just get work to fit back into the 40 hour/week box (ok, maybe 45) then things will be better.

Damn, I need to stop complaining.

Posted by spoof747 at 09:39 AM | Comments (0)