San Francisco: Chinatown and a Li'l bit o' Nothin'

San Francisco

November 2012

Chinatown

Walking around Chinatown is almost like walking around a place not part of the U.S. My husband and I began our married life in Yokohama, Japan, which, incidentally, has a Chinatown, too, and I felt as if I had imperceptibly stepped through a liminal port into a world far away from my own. And yet, it was so familiar. Though I do not read many kanji (the Japanese word for Chinese characters), they are a comfortable part of my consciousness.

The pouring rain that had put me off adventuring (see previous post) had decided, at last, to leave the area for a good stretch of time, and I thought I would make a run at the local scene before it decided to return. So I left the hotel, umbrella in tow, and struck out to find something unique, I hoped, for lunch. I’m not quite as adventurous as some of the famous foodies who run around the world looking to eat things unimaginable to vast majority of humanity save during a severe shortage of food, but I didn’t want to settle for anything I felt I had already eaten within recent memory either.

Deja vu. Fish mongers with their fresh catch (smelled fresh anyway), produce stalls with exotic fruits and vegetables, apothecaries, tea shops, and general dry goods, frequently punctuated by the sight of a purveyor of fine baubles aimed at wide-eyed tourists (who seemed to be conspicuously absent while we were there)—all seemed as normal as they had when we were living in Japan. Meanwhile, the occasional whiff of cigarette smoke teased my brain until I realized that the tobacco fumes were dancing with the aroma of patchouli and ginseng. It is said that the sense of smell is the most powerful at invoking memory. I believe it.

As in Japan, I noted a number of establishments that required either ascending or descending a flight of steps from street level. And, as in Japan, if I couldn’t tell what they were about, I instinctively avoided them. I’m not a glutton for trouble, after all, just mild adventure. And I was not in the mood for Dim Sum, which is meant to be a social experience as much as a menu offering. I wanted something warm, soothing, interesting, and vegetarian as my personal preference then dictated.

I must stop a moment here to discuss the word “synchronicity,” which, by general definition, is a particular moment that requires a person be available at just the right place, at just the right time, for just the right opportunity.

As synchronicity would have it, I had wandered into a small but busy street that appeared to be in the middle of Chinatown. I had nearly determined to go back to the first street I had entered to have lunch at a Thai restaurant (of all places), when a shop window caught my eye. There was a menu, and I could read it, and the dishes looked interesting. An attractive Chinese woman came through the door and invited me in to have lunch. Of course, I don’t mean she invited me to be her guest, but she pointed out to me that they were listed as one of the top ten places to eat in Chinatown. Interesting, as there was hardly anyone inside, but then, as I said, the tourists were all at home, having celebrated Thanksgiving and returned to work or school.

Why not? I had never had “Hong Kong Clay Pot” cooking, and I had been looking for something new, hadn’t I? Bingo. A vegetarian dish consisting of tofu, gluten “meat,” broccoli, and a few assorted veggies, simmering in what appeared to be a cross between a broth and a sauce, brown and bubbling in a clay pot (not unlike a deep fajita dish) when it arrived in front of me. Synchronicity. I am so easy to please sometimes.

I don’t recall doing much more in the afternoon that day. I imagine I window-shopped. I know I passed by schools, a hospital, parks, and professional offices, and I did purchase some fragrant jasmine tea from a sweet, shy gentleman who spoke little English. As far as I was concerned, the afternoon had been a success. I went back to the hotel in the later afternoon, because I could. I watched anything I wanted on television, because I could. I put my feet up and browsed the internet, because I could. I know it’s been said before, but it must be said again. Occasionally doing absolutely nothing is highly under-rated. Would that I could grab a bit of “do-nothing” time during the average week at home. Minus the guilt, that is.

Join me next time for Tea Time with Kenny…

 

I Left My Blog....In San Francisco

San Francisco, CA

November 2012

It’s always so much better to get thoughts down as they occur, but there are times when this is simply not feasible. Like when you’re carrying an umbrella,  shopping package, purse or small backpack, you’re waiting for the cable car, multi-day pass in hand so that you don’t have to fumble for it while sitting, or possibly standing, on the moving car for the conductor to see that you do, indeed, belong on the vehicle in the first place. There is not much access to writing or recording implements in that case, due to the lack of a third, or even fourth arm/hand combination.

So. That leaves us with the slight challenge of remembering the feelings, sights, sounds, thoughts, observations, etc. that we attempt to recapture days (or even longer) later in the effort to re-create for the reader, who may (or, let’s face, may NOT) be interested in helping you to re-live.

Enough of the apologetic introduction. On to the experience. (One thing for which I do feel the need to apologize, however, is the lack of visuals. I simply MUST get my camera together and in good working order so that I don’t have to do without again.)

The first half day of our trip to SF was gorgeous. We arrived in the late morning, west coast time, the weather was fine, the sky mostly blue, and the temperature was only a wee bit on the cool side. We caught a taxi from the airport to our hotel, treated to the incredible energy of our disarmingly self-deprecating driver the whole way. He ran down a list of English/Irish Pubs for us and where those might be found, though I had already done a bit of online research from the familiar surroundings of home. We chatted about families and place of origin, and before we knew it, we had arrived. Two bits of pertinent information: 1) It’s amazing how taxi drivers can both get you where you are going in record time and not get pulled over by the authorities for recklessness in the process, and 2) We never did make it to a pub during the trip simply because we had so many other choices staring us in the stomach.

We checked into our hotel early. The Renaissance Stamford Court Hotel was very accommodating, and honestly, if you had to get stuck in a place with no possibility of going anywhere else, this would be a perfectly acceptable place to get stuck. Gosh, I sound like a reviewer, which I'm not, but I do think that a great service or product deserves a pat on the back and a shout-out.

First stop after check-in: Café de la Presse, a fantastique (heh) 1930's bistro serving true French cuisine. My post-Thanksgiving nutritional resolutions were absolutely wrecked. Even though we didn’t order any wine.

We sat outside in the mostly fresh air. My husband had Steak Frites (steak & fries), his general favorite, while I ordered Confit de Canard Maison (a REALLY AMAZING leg of duck, which as of this writing is a featured image on their lunch menu page). Both were exquisite, though mine was “the bomb”. I won’t even describe it as anyone who has a tendency toward weight gain and/or high cholesterol will need to run to the gym immediately. I don't dream of many dishes after I've left them—I'm more of a live-in-the-moment sort of person—but this would be one of them.

Suffice it to say that any discomforts or inconveniences I may have suffered leading up to this point in the trip were entirely mitigated by this meal.  Our waiter, a very cute 20-something young man with both a perfect American accent and a perfect French accent was terribly smooth for someone his age (probably because he is French), not in a smarmy way at all, but in a calm, collected, accommodating way. The way a waiter should be. And I already told you he was cute, so…smooth.

We never did get to have a breakfast there, but that's okay. There's always next time, oui?

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Next up: Adventure at the antiques and collectibles emporium across the street on the verge of Chinatown.

The Culture of Quiet

Long time, no blog.

Well, everyone should take an extended break now and then, right?

How do you like my new, pre-fab template? I'm kind of digging it at the moment. I'm sure it will change at some point in the future, but I was in the mood for it as soon as I saw it.

My husband and I are "traveling" this week, so I thought the background fitting. Actually we're in San Francisco for a conference that he's attending, and I'm enjoying myself just hanging out in the hotel. Not doing anything much. For one thing, I didn't really come here to go sight-seeing. Playing the tourist only goes so far with me. For another thing, it's raining sideways today. Bright sky will, on occasion, peek through the wet, gray mayhem, but generally, it is quite wet and very windy. Our cab driver last night told us that they've been waiting for a good, solid rainfall since the beginning of October, and now that the rainy season is nearly over, they're getting it all at once.

Lucky me.

Well, I'm not really that broken up about it. As I said, I'm not very tourist-y myself, and I love down time. It helps to recharge the battery. If you're reading this, chances are you're an introvert, and you'll understand exactly what I mean. If you happen to be an extrovert, however, don't worry—that's just how we roll, as the saying goes. You extraverts throw yourselves into the path of as many people as you can on a given day and that energizes you. That's okay, too.

Anyway, sipping mint tea at a big bar-table in the hotel lobby while listening to Christmas music being piped in overhead is not entirely unenjoyable. All the normal rushing around to get things checked off of my To-Do list; hopping in and out of the car in the race to thread the ever-shrinking needle of time; housework that needs to be done by someone, anyone, in order to keep the boat above water. All that stuff is absent from this day.

Am I upset that I won't be running up and down hills, along the longest winding road in the world, and between one bit of culture and another? No. I will not. Not as long as there is a place to sit still, enjoying "the culture of quiet."

Well, what do you know?The sun is out. I may yet take a chance that the brief sunshine will last long enough for me to go grab lunch at a lovely little French bistro not far away.

Hey, we all have our temptations.

That's the Ticket!

I hate paperwork.

I mean I really hate it. I loathe, detest, despise, abhor, hold in abomination, execrate it. Okay. Enough of Roget. (I can't expect to teach the fourth grader how to use the thesaurus if I'm not willing to pick it up myself.) Anyway, I think I've made my point. I just hate paperwork. It is one of the most baneful inventions known to mankind, much like the internet which we're all using right now. And like the internet, it is here to stay.

However...I am happy to report that I have discovered a way around it in at least one area of life.

You know all those parenting and education websites, so full of altruistic purpose and on a mission to make parenting somehow accessible, meaningful, fulfilling, and, well, easier? The ones with those lovely chore charts for parents, labeled or unlabeled charts, full-color or black & white charts, choose your preferred theme, etc.? The ones you need to go hunting for in the first place and spending time and ink (money) printing out in the second place, and never quite seem to get around to using in the third place? Yeah, those.

As well-meaning as they are, they are just another form of good old-fashioned paperwork. Ugh. All they do is remind me how utterly inept I am at filling them out, staying on top of them, remembering what they were for in the first place, and where we might have lost them along the way.

NO MORE. I have arrived! I stumbled upon a little trick similar to one used by a home schooling group in which we participate each week, and I am willing to share it FOR FREE(!) with the whole world.

My two youngest children have been waking up with their alarm in the morning, getting dressed and having breakfast, making their beds, tidying their room, picking up a bit around the house—all without being asked—and completing even more homework than I've asked of them.

So what is this "magic bullet?"

Tickets. The kind you get at carnivals and as door prize tickets at fundraisers. And money, too, so I guess this system is not entirely free, but at least I'm not the one you'd be paying.

Each chore or correctly completed assignment earns the child one ticket, which she diligently and happily stores in a little ziploc baggie under a magnet on the refrigerator. At the end of the week, they can redeem their tickets for money or small prizes.

In the beginning, I had three little baskets of inexpensive goodies such as games, notebooks with pens, art supplies and whatever else I thought might appeal to them. There were three different levels of these prizes, and they were happy. Then we graduated. I told them that they could save up their tickets to get money. If they could handle the agony of waiting to build up 200 tickets, they could exchange them for a twenty dollar bill!

That idea proved to be so exciting that my 10 year-old asked how much money she could get for each ticket (getting the gears going in these young minds is a desirable thing). We worked it out so that each ticket is worth 10 cents, but I wouldn't work with anything under five dollars. At least, that was how it worked until I decided that maybe making them wait to accumulate 50 tickets was asking too much of their childish natures. So, I've been making occasional trips to the bank to take out money in denominations of 10, five, and, most importantly, one dollar bills. Lots of them. This way, I can be prepared each Friday to make the trade, even if they've only managed to earn ten tickets.

The system has, happily, been working nicely. Without any chore charts or other paperwork to muck things up. When the girls finish a task, they ask for the ticket. In the baggie it goes, and we're done. Next assignment. Repeat.

This week we've had a ticket epiphany. They both received a doll for Christmas and have fallen in love/lust/obsession with the American Girl dolls with their mind-bogglingly pricey accoutrements, and my husband and I have been holding out for months, pleading too expensive, no room in the house, too many toys already, etc.

Well...they are now collecting tickets to purchase the above-mentioned items from their own earnings. No withdrawing money from bank accounts, just good old-fashioned work, saving and scrimping, foregoing more immediate gratification for the sake of the end goal.

And no paperwork.

Spirals

Life happens in waves, swirls, and especially spirals.
We learn a lesson and assimilate parts of it,
only to forget some of what we learned.
Then we come back around
to the same point on the circle,
to the same lesson,
to relearn what we forgot.
Only it isn't really a circle,
which, in its own way, is static.
We see that what we've really come to
is the same point on a different plane,
a different depth.

The previous lesson is reinforced,
the lost remembered,
and new material introduced.
And we begin the process again,
going ever deeper
with each passing of the original point.
If we're paying attention,
our understanding and experience
bring us to much richer depths as well,
and the spiral has not been wasted on us.

Girl Scout Cookies

Well, yesterday we picked them up. All 231 boxes of them. My industrious Junior Girl Scout immediately set to work, with the help of her six-year-old sister, putting together the individual orders in bags of all sizes. She carefully marked each bag with its future owner's name and the total amount due for the cookies since, of course, Girl Scouts don't collect any money until the boxes are being handed over.

All very well and good; I cannot fault her for being on top of things right away.

My house, however, groans a different tune. I realized when I looked round the corner from the kitchen where I was making dinner that my living and dining rooms have become The Cookie Depot. There is a motley assortment of bags and boxes all over the floor, as far as the eyes can see or the feet can trip. Now, this would not ordinarily be a problem, but it so happens that tomorrow evening we are having friends over for dinner, and the next day will see another friend coming to spend some time after having been away for quite a while. And the soonest we can really begin to distribute the cookies is, of course, the day after the second visit. Sigh.

What can I say? Nothing, really. My scout sold more than any other girl in her 20-girl troop. We applauded her for a successful cookie season. We want her to feel proud of the job she has done, and to complain about the spread of carbohydrate happiness at this point would only seem to negate a portion of all that praise. So, we'll step around cookies, help her collect and keep track of her funds, and say nothing much. It will mostly be over and done by Monday anyway.

But oh, the timing of it all. I'm sure our friends will understand.

Coffee, Antiques, and Homeschooling in Leesburg

Since August my two younger daughters and I have been coming to Leesburg for a weekly class that the older one is taking as part of her home school curriculum for this year. A 45-minute trek, one way, for us could have made the weekly trip a real ordeal were it not for the fact that we have found so much to do while we are there.

I usually try to get in some work with the K-1st grader while the other is in her class. In the beginning that meant going straight to the fantastic, truly state-of-the-art Rust Library in downtown Leesburg. But then we discovered King Street Coffee, a delightful little coffee shop right on King Street (of course), populated by antique furniture, works for purchase by local artists, and friendly regulars, people we feel as if we have come to know despite the fact that we really haven't.

My guilty secret here is that every week at King Street Coffee I buy a sugar cookie and whole milk at 10:00 a.m. every time for no other reason that that my six-year-old asks for "the usual" when we go there. I buy coffee in a mug for myself, and I even have my own little punch card that will entitle me to a freebie the next time I'm in there. The owner, Kimberly, is quite friendly and accommodating, and the six-year-old asks to go there every week, even though she is usually too "shy" to speak to anyone.

We take small puzzles, books to read, cards for games, and we just sit there. Right there, with the puzzles, books, and cards, you have some very important learning tools.

Through puzzles, we learn spacial relations and attention to detail; we learn about color, art, and composition; we learn patience and the satisfaction of a job well done. Last, but certainly not least, we have a chance to work together and enjoy one another's company doing something relaxing, which is no small feat in our busy schedule.

Books, of course, teach whatever you want them to teach. Reading and writing are the first items that come to mind. Beyond that, the sky truly is the limit. Today we learned about cheetahs, pandas, and how obnoxious a bossy, if fictional, sibling can be (and, hopefully, to avoid being one).

A good game of cards can teach a few things as well. Not to worry, we haven't pulled out any pennies or nickels, so gambling is not what we're learning here. Strategy, however, as well as facility with the basic digits, paying attention, a little bit of memory work (One does have to remember what cards have been played by one's opponent, after all, and to guess how many she might be holding.), and taking turns are on the agenda.

Who says that just living life is not an education?

As for history, we have recently begun taking delight in a local antiques shop on Route 50, not far from my older daughter's class. The owner is incredibly friendly and helpful, even setting aside for the girls any coveted American Girl Doll items that happen to pass through. I have always loved antiques, but at the moment, I am especially fond of them. They are a part of history, after all.

We have observed, up-close and first-hand, the peculiar "honey pot," the wooden box-like contraption that served as a personal, ensuite toilet (chamber pot) in the days before indoor plumbing and septic or sewer systems.

I saw a beautiful old hand drill last week that I had a feeling I should have bought then and there. I was right. It was gone this week when I was finally ready to buy it. I'd like the girls to get into old-fashioned wood working this summer, and I would like to do it without resorting to electricity, which can be dangerous in so many ways for young ones. I'll have to keep looking and be prepared to buy next time. Come to think of it, I didn't see the old school desks when I was last there, either. Sigh.

There are tea carts, dry sinks, buffets, mechanical playing-card shufflers, old glass ink and medicine bottles, old fashioned, outdoor water pump handles, and various and sundry old tools and cooking implements, books, and magazines. Old china sets, drink ware, and marble-topped tables just beckon for someone to claim and love them. I wish I could. Alas, my house is not big enough for people and antiques to reside side-by-side without someone or something ending up broken and kicked to the curb.

Old and not-so-old bedroom sets that I would love to purchase for one of my under-sized rooms claim that they have my name written all over them. I have yet to see my initials anywhere, I tell you, and it makes me want to cry. Not really. I do have more self-control than that. For now.

Recently, I bought a set of eight martini glasses that came from the estate, I am told, of a retired military man. He passed away early last year (Memory Eternal—the Orthodox Christian way of saying "God rest his soul."), and the antiques store found itself awash in rooms full of cherished items collected from around the world over the span of a long military career. He had retired 40 years earlier.

My husband's new old martini glasses were but a dent in the collection. We had been looking for something a little different from the bathtub-sized glasses that nearly fall off the shelves at us in the major chain and department stores, and these fit the bill nicely. They appear to be from at least as long ago as the 1950's, though I have not been able to find any information or photos online that could give me a clue as to their identifying features and age. I can tell that they are glass, not crystal, and we do like them, which, in the end, is all that really matters. I hope the gentleman who once owned them would be happy to know that they are being used and appreciated long after he intially purchased them.

That's one of the things I like about antiques. They connect us to people and places past. We'll never know them, but we have the connection all the same. That connection is one of the reasons I like Leesburg so much, too. And it seems that my children are learning their lessons after all, if their eagerness to return every week is any indication.