"Well, I'm back," he said.
Or something close to that.
I am back. I graded every paper before Christmas for the first time in 12 years of college teaching. S and I left town early the next day and returned late last night. I've been off-blog for longer than ever before I think and don't even know where to begin.
The long car drive was hard on my back injury and sitting now isn't great. This will likely be short until I can get back into my physical therapy. Something about that electrostim...really numbs the pain.
I will say this: we spent the last two days in San Francisco and I must recommend the Hotel Carlton. The neighborhood is non-remarkable, north of Tenderloin (where I don't want to stay) south of Nob Hill (where I can't afford to stay) and somewhat northwest of Union Square (where I like to stay when I can afford it). The Hotel was renovated two years ago and what we got for the price was unequalled in my experience. Smallish room, yes, but nicely decorated and above all, superb staff-service. Think Nordstrom service, Mervyn's price. With valet parking (highly recommended) it was 105 bucks a day plus tax. Not cheap, true, but there are hotels which charge 44 bucks a day just for a car.
We also had drinks, a crab cake and oysters at Holy Grail, a restaurant just down the street from the Hotel. Very nice. And dinner at Cafe Jacqueline where all the entrees and deserts are souffles. Oui. Made in an open kitchen by a French owner-chef in a restaurant with maybe a dozen tables. Thumbs up, though skip the caviar appetizer (not much actual caviar and the egg and creme drown out the Beluga...it was the only time in my life I've had Beluga, though); instead, save your appetite for a desert souffle. Best of all, Hotel Carlton has a restaurant called Sasha on its first floor; the food is...Moroccan, Turkish, Yemeni? Not sure, but it was absolutely remarkable and also well priced with a Prixe Fixe menu of 35 bucks a person.
I love San Fran. Eat, drink, walk, eat and drink some more.
We also saw the new de Young museum and after my Coit Tower adventure two years ago I had no trouble looking out of the ninth floor observation glass. The art in those buildings is mind-draining good. We also saw the new Asian Art Musuem; I was very moved by their large selection of 1st to 3rd century Buddhas and Buddha-art, as well as by the work of the Fillipino-American painter Zobel. His Icaro is remarkable in person.
We did a lot in two days.
A lot of other things happened on this trip. We New Yeared with our wine buyer friends and drank more champagne in a night than I'll drink in a year. The star was the Billiot, as last year. Much more strange, I saw my father and my entire step family. Most of them I hadn't seen in 15 or more years and that evening deserves an entire post in itself. The executive summary is that I survived (granted, the Patron shooters helped) and it was one kind of pleasant to look at what I have accomplished against enormous odds. You see, I felt compared to my stepbrothers all the time as a teenager, and not favorably. They are both disturbed middle-aged men now, making it in their own way but scraping. And after just a few hours with my stepfamily I can see why my anxiety spiked when they entered my life when I was 16. My stepbrothers pain provdes echoes of my own twenties, except I was in therapy for years seeking any tool, any door, any window in heaven to move forward. And I moved. I don't know if they are moving or not.
I also look younger better than any of them! Small comforts. Time will change that as well.
The highlight of the entire trip, though, was the days we spent with my brother, his wife, and my wonderful niece and nephew. If you had been there, you would know how luck I am, how lucky my brother has been to have the family he has, the one he shares with me now. There was more sanity in that family than in my entire step family (and it's a large one now). My.
A late Merry Christmas to all. I hope to begin blog-reading again, but as I said sitting is hard and I have work to do on my own blog. I've already seen Sandalstraps is going off at full-tilt brilliance as usual. Romy will be my next stop.
Love to all.
t
I am back. I graded every paper before Christmas for the first time in 12 years of college teaching. S and I left town early the next day and returned late last night. I've been off-blog for longer than ever before I think and don't even know where to begin.
The long car drive was hard on my back injury and sitting now isn't great. This will likely be short until I can get back into my physical therapy. Something about that electrostim...really numbs the pain.
I will say this: we spent the last two days in San Francisco and I must recommend the Hotel Carlton. The neighborhood is non-remarkable, north of Tenderloin (where I don't want to stay) south of Nob Hill (where I can't afford to stay) and somewhat northwest of Union Square (where I like to stay when I can afford it). The Hotel was renovated two years ago and what we got for the price was unequalled in my experience. Smallish room, yes, but nicely decorated and above all, superb staff-service. Think Nordstrom service, Mervyn's price. With valet parking (highly recommended) it was 105 bucks a day plus tax. Not cheap, true, but there are hotels which charge 44 bucks a day just for a car.
We also had drinks, a crab cake and oysters at Holy Grail, a restaurant just down the street from the Hotel. Very nice. And dinner at Cafe Jacqueline where all the entrees and deserts are souffles. Oui. Made in an open kitchen by a French owner-chef in a restaurant with maybe a dozen tables. Thumbs up, though skip the caviar appetizer (not much actual caviar and the egg and creme drown out the Beluga...it was the only time in my life I've had Beluga, though); instead, save your appetite for a desert souffle. Best of all, Hotel Carlton has a restaurant called Sasha on its first floor; the food is...Moroccan, Turkish, Yemeni? Not sure, but it was absolutely remarkable and also well priced with a Prixe Fixe menu of 35 bucks a person.
I love San Fran. Eat, drink, walk, eat and drink some more.
We also saw the new de Young museum and after my Coit Tower adventure two years ago I had no trouble looking out of the ninth floor observation glass. The art in those buildings is mind-draining good. We also saw the new Asian Art Musuem; I was very moved by their large selection of 1st to 3rd century Buddhas and Buddha-art, as well as by the work of the Fillipino-American painter Zobel. His Icaro is remarkable in person.
We did a lot in two days.
A lot of other things happened on this trip. We New Yeared with our wine buyer friends and drank more champagne in a night than I'll drink in a year. The star was the Billiot, as last year. Much more strange, I saw my father and my entire step family. Most of them I hadn't seen in 15 or more years and that evening deserves an entire post in itself. The executive summary is that I survived (granted, the Patron shooters helped) and it was one kind of pleasant to look at what I have accomplished against enormous odds. You see, I felt compared to my stepbrothers all the time as a teenager, and not favorably. They are both disturbed middle-aged men now, making it in their own way but scraping. And after just a few hours with my stepfamily I can see why my anxiety spiked when they entered my life when I was 16. My stepbrothers pain provdes echoes of my own twenties, except I was in therapy for years seeking any tool, any door, any window in heaven to move forward. And I moved. I don't know if they are moving or not.
I also look younger better than any of them! Small comforts. Time will change that as well.
The highlight of the entire trip, though, was the days we spent with my brother, his wife, and my wonderful niece and nephew. If you had been there, you would know how luck I am, how lucky my brother has been to have the family he has, the one he shares with me now. There was more sanity in that family than in my entire step family (and it's a large one now). My.
A late Merry Christmas to all. I hope to begin blog-reading again, but as I said sitting is hard and I have work to do on my own blog. I've already seen Sandalstraps is going off at full-tilt brilliance as usual. Romy will be my next stop.
Love to all.
t
Comments
I envy your trip. What an experience!
I went to San Fransisco once, on a trip with my grandfather, who was on a speaking tour. We flew into Seattle, stayed there for a few days, and then took a train through Portland to the Bay area. It was incredible.
We stayed with a former student of my grandfather,a Chinese-American named Peter Lee, who took us into Chinatown and ordered for us in Mandarin (at least I think it was Mandarin). Quite literally a taste of China in the States, made possible, as you know, through the immigration to that area during the construction of the railroads.
As for your step family, it is a mistake, I think, to compare yourself to others. Either you come up short, and then resent their success, or they come up short, and you rejoice (at least a little) in their failure. Either are obstacles to compassion, and it sounds like they need a great deal of compassion. It also sounds like, if I knew them, I would have a hard time seeing past their issues to have compassion for them. It is always easier to love from the outside, when you don't have history. I hold too many resentments in my own life to ever call someone else out on theirs.
Your brother and his family sound like an unspeakable blessing.