A Busy Weekend

A Busy Weekend

When my wife and I go on vacation, it is usually to San Francisco, our favorite city in the world.  If not to SF, then normally anywhere else along the beautiful Pacific Coast Highway.  Those are my stomping grounds, where I am from, and where I dream to retire.

This weekend we partook in a planned trip to the SF area.  Back in March for my birthday, my wife decided that she wanted to get me some Giants tickets for sometime in the summer.  This inspired some other attractions and the excitement of my son's first trip to our most beloved city.

The Drive:
We live outside of Reno NV a little way, so a trip to the Bay Area is not too far, but far enough to make it not worth taking day trips.  The drive is about 4 hours with good traffic and depending on where you are going in the area.  We packed up and left early Friday morning in hopes to get checked in to our hotel after lunch.  Due to cheap prices, we stayed at the HoJo at the SFO airport in South SF.  While this is a bit away from the sights and sounds of SF, it was cheap and right near the highways to cut north quickly enough.  We also invited my older sister and her husband to come along.  Their hotel was also near SFO, but just a few blocks north of ours.  To top all of this off, a good ol' pal that lives in Seattle was down for the weekend as well for some concert.  Add these things to our already planned events, and it was a packed weekend.

The view from our hotel of the South San Fran sign.  Don't worry, that is just fog, not smog.

The drive took longer than normally because we had to stop often for my 3-year old son to use the rest room and prevent accidents in the car.  On the way down I-80 we pass through the city of Fairfield which, if people are unaware, is home to the Jelly Belly candy company.  We decided to stop and take our son to see the jelly beans.  When we arrived we took a few pics around the place and got there in time to see how absolutely packed it was and the long wait for the tour of the factory.  This inspired us to just take some pictures, hit up the gift shops for the candy, get lunch in their Food Court, and head on our way.

We got back into the car and back on the road for a bit, but once we got past the Carquinez Bridge the traffic was stop and go until we got past the Bay bridge area.  We decided to head south and take the San Mateo bridge since neither my wife nor son had ever crossed it before and it comes out just south of SFO anyway.  After the stops, traffic, and route, we ended up at our hotel around 2:30 in the afternoon.

My son and I at Jelly Belly in my TL shirt.

The Events of the Weekend:
First event of the night was a fancy dinner with my sister and her husband.  My wife picked out a Moroccan restaurant in the Richmond district called "El Mansour."  We met my family there and I was immediately struck by the open design of the place.  It was surrounded by open, small tables and plenty of fabric lining the walls and ceiling.  I had forgotten my camera, so I did not take pics unfortunately.  The service was friendly, atmosphere laid-back, and they even washed your hands for you.  As for the food, I liked it, but did not love it like the rest of my party did.  The Harira soup (spicy lentil) was great and I ordered the chicken w/ onions as my main course.  They also served us some Salade Mohammed V (Moroccan salad) and something called Bastela du Chef which was a sweet chicken pie.  It was tasty, but a strange mix of sugar, chicken, and spices that I was not all too enamoured with.

The best part though was the belly dancer that they had come out during our meal.  As I said, the room was open with the tables surrounding an open floor area where she danced.  With her sparkles and chimes, my 3-year old son could not take his eyes off of her.  He kept talking with her and smiling, then when we gave him some money to give her as a tip, he got embarrassed.  It took some coercing to get him to get up to talk to her, but he finally did.  What was the most hilarious though was when she was done, he kept looking back to where she came from and waving her for to come out.  He told us she was beautiful and he wanted to marry her.  It was great.  My son has always been rather into the ladies, but this took it another step further.


Our belly dancer, Jennifer.  She was beautiful. (I took this pic from their website.)

The next morning we were due up nice and early for our tickets on the boat over to Alcatraz.  On the drive from our hotel to the Pier, I wanted to find an SF landmark that I had never seen before, the Anchor Brewery.  For those that know me, I don't drink much.  The best way to not drink a lot is to be picky about what I drink, and as for beer, Anchor is about the only beer that I allow in my house.  I love the company, the story, and the tasty beverage.  It is the SF brew, so when in SF, make sure to order one.  Luckily, I did find the building and took a pic, but I did not get to go on a tour as you have to book them months in advance and we failed to do so.  It was a large, unassuming building in the Potrero Hill area of SF.  It was nice though to see where they work their alcoholic magic at.

The Anchor Brewery Building.  Oh how I wanted to go in and shake their hands.

While I love SF and have spent more time there then almost any other city that isn't my home town, I had never taken the boat over to Alcatraz before.  We were a bit unlucky in that is just so happened that it was the 78th Anniversary of the opening of the prison, so it was packed all over the island.  I will drop some pics for you guys that I took.  As for being there, it was cool to see, get an idea of scales and everything, but a few things that I had never realized:

1. The island is bigger than I thought.
2. I never realized that there were multiple cell blocks in one big open room.  Blocks A, B, and C were all together, while block D was separated some and contained the solitary confinement cells as well as normal cells.
3. Overall, the main prison building was smaller than I expected.
4. I did not get to experience it as slowly as I would have liked due to my son running around and my wife who gets really anxious around large crowds.

When we got back to shore, my sister and her husband met us at Pier 39 for lunch.  I am not a big fan of the pier area being not really into the main touristy stuff, but since we were there for the prison already, it worked out all right.  I had some delicious fish and chips with the fish battered in Anchor Steam.  That was awesome.

Next we all took my son to the Aquarium that is there on the Pier.  Now, if you know me you know that the Monterey Bay Aquarium is one of my favorite places to go ever, so all in all I was a bit disappointed by the small aquarium there in SF, but overall it was neat.  They had two large tunnel tanks that you walked under for a ways while the fish, sharks, and sea stars crawled and swam all around you.  It was neat, but just small compared to what I am used to.

After that my sister and brother-in-law had agreed to take our son for the night which was nice.  As anyone with a wife and kid knows, alone time with the wife becomes rare after the child is born.  We went back to our hotel for a while and rested until late that evening when my buddy who was in from Seattle was done with his event and we could get together.  We picked them (my buddy and his friend) up all the way north in the Richmond district again, and headed over to the Mel's Diner on Geary.  After chatting, eating, and just catching-up, we drove around the city for a while.  Our buddy's friend had never been to SF, so we took her over the Golden Gate, to Alamo Square to see the Painted Ladies, drove down Lombard, and just around the city.  Unfortunately it was terribly foggy that night, so we did not get to see as much as we would have liked, but it was fun for a couple of hours.  We dropped them off at their hotel and said our goodbyes.  It is nice to see old friends.

The next day we had a couple of prime Giants tickets, but first we all went out for some awesome Vietnamese food at a small place in South SF.  I had some 5-spice chicken and rice that was friggin awesome.  I invited my brother-in-law to join me for the Giants game and he was excited.  I am a huge Giants fan and going to the ball park is one of the few things that I enjoy more than almost anything else in the world.  Live baseball is the best experience for me and my wife had gotten us prime tickets on the Willie Mays Wall, front row near the foul pole in fair territory.  My bro-in-law was is not a huge baseball fan, but had only been to one game in his life before when he was young, so it was about time to head to one of the nicest parks in the major and have fun.  We had dogs, Anchor Steams, and snacks as my G-men took down the Rockies in a 9-6 final score on an 8th inner homer to center left from Hunter Pence.  It was a good day to be a Giants fan and a beautiful day to be at the park.

The view from our seats.

My sister picked us up once the game was over and took us back to our hotel.  Their weekend was over so we exchanged pleasantries and they left to go home.  We stayed one more night and left in the morning.

The Drive Home:
Overall the drive home was rather uneventful, but we did stop at Jelly Belly once more to do the tour.  A Monday morning was much less packed than a Friday afternoon, so we got right in.  It is nice to have jelly beans around because they work well as incentive for a 3-year old.  It didn't take long though once we hit the road to find out that for some reason my AC in the car was not working so well.  Damn, it appears to be time for a recharge of AC coolant.  It was cooling well enough for the drive, but barely.  Finally we reached home and had were able to settle down after a fun and exciting weekend.

God damn I love you SF.

It Takes A Lot of Pain to Make You Grow

I have made, as we all have, a large number of mistakes in my life. One of these revolves around a person that I hurt many years ago and how I wish I would have had the chance to make it up to her somehow.

On a freezing winter night in January a few of my friends decided to throw a bit of a bash at their house since their parents were away for the weekend. We were in college and of course took this offer up. Our parties were never big and crazy or anything, mainly consisting of some alcohol, occasional drug use, some sex, but mostly just friends hanging out together, blasting music by Tool, Nine Inch Nails, and Smashing Pumpkins, and holding some of the best casual video game tournaments around. We would beat the shit out of each other on Mario Golf, Smash Brothers, GoldenEye, F-Zero, or whatever the game flavor of the week was at the time. 

This particular gathering started out the same as most, but this party had a few other people as in fringe members and acquaintances, friends of friends if you will. One of these people was a girl named “Tina” who was a friend of a friend that I had met once or twice, but never really had a chance to talk with. This time though, with me being a single guy, her being a single girl, we starting talking and had one of those evenings that most of us have been through where we meet someone, become so infatuated with them, and just talk with them most of the night.

Early that morning, like around 2 AM or so, a few of our or friends head to their house to do mushrooms, a couple of our friends passed out watching TV or something, and Tina and I stayed up talking on a small couch. She decided to turn out the light, said she was tired, and wanted me to cuddle her so she could sleep a bit. Of course, this was no problem for me at all. Tina was not only smart and interesting, but quite lovely as well. She was skinny, blonde, blue-eyed, and had a certain honesty that I found intriguing. 

Well, needless to say, cuddling turned into making out and making out turned into heavy petting. After a couple of hours Tina said that she needed to head home and since she had been drinking, I offered to drive her. I was always the designated driver in the group. We exchange numbers, emails, and that was the end of the night.

Over the next couple of weeks we would call each other, get together for dinner and more make-out sessions ending with us giving each other orgasms, and that was about it, no sex. It was simple and fun until I had to fuck it all up.

See, I have that problem where I think that every woman in the world is amazing and beautiful and therefore fall in love with pretty much every girl I meet and think that we would be perfect together. This curse, I will say, has gotten me a lot of friends, gotten me laid a lot in my past life, but also left me with a lot of remorse for people that were hurt in the process, sometimes due to my selfishness, but many times just do to our misunderstanding of love, sex, life, and whatever else. Basically…just due to that thing which we call youth.

I had been single for a couple months after ending a long relationship, then a short rebound relationship, so I thought that maybe it was time to try again. This girl blew my mind at the time and thought that I loved her. I asked her if we could be together, instead of this simple dating/fooling-around type of thing that we had going on now. At first she was reluctant, citing that she was afraid to jump into a relationship. She had also gotten out of a long-term relationship recently with her high-school sweetheart and the only guy that she had ever made love to. This was understandable, but about a week later she relented and decided that we would be a couple.

At last I had this wonderful creature as my “girlfriend.” Looking back, it is silly to me how much titles mean to for certain things at certain times in our lives. This was the first girlfriend that I had who was not only smart, fun, and beautiful, but who I would walk down the street with and other men were jealous of. This is not to say that she was the “hottest thing in the world” by media’s standards, but she was striking. To a college guy, even a smart and modern guy such as me, little things like that still mattered to some extent, even though we pretend that they don’t, that we are so much more evolved. Even though she would not have admitted it, I have the feeling that she also loved the appeal of dating me, a rather respected community member who was also in a popular local-scene band. She had a weird obsession with musicians in general. Like I said, that is an assumption, so take it for what it is worth. 

Tina and I went along as normal, but overall it was not a terribly exciting relationship. We just hung out, listened to music, played games, went to band shows, made each other cum, nothing out of the ordinary, but nothing was really progressing either. I see now that it was actually rather stagnant as a whole, but I didn’t complain because it was simple and fun.

Then a day came where Tina went to the doctor to get her normal, womanly check-ups. A couple days later she calls and tells me that she needs me to come over to talk to me about something. She seemed upset so I told that I would be right there and rushed out the door. When I got there she was sitting outside waiting for me, had me come in with her, and she told me that she needed to be held. I was scared, but putting the pieces together in my head on the way over I kind of had an idea of what the next conversation was going to be about.

Tests had come back and she was told that she had a certain sexually transmitted disease. No, it was not one of the major, life-threatening ones luckily, but it was something that she would carry with her for the rest of her life.

She told me about it, and then told me that she felt horrible, she was glad that we had never had sex, she knew who gave it to her since she had only had sex with one guy, and that she would understand if I wanted to break up and that maybe it would be a good idea. Then she asked me if I wanted to leave…

Goddamn I was a scared, punk-ass kid. We lay there, holding each other for 20 minutes or so and I just could not think of what to say or what to do. She had given me an out, almost telling me that I should dump her and leave, but I knew that was the wrong thing to do. I cared for this girl and wanted to support her. I kept turning these back and forth ideas over in my mind, trying to think of questions, trying to think of ways to ask permissions, but really I think that what I was doing was stalling. I see now that I had already decided to run, but I was trying to find a way to justify it as correct and to not hurt her feelings any more than she was already hurt today. 

Finally, after what seemed like forever of us in silence, I said that I thought I couldn’t do this. She just said okay as if she already knew that was the answer. She walked me to the door, kissed me, and said goodbye.

I sat in my car for a while before I could leave. I felt awful, selfish, and just plain dirty, but I also felt that if she wouldn’t have told me it was okay to go, then I wouldn’t have done it. Maybe it was what was supposed to happen? Maybe we were meant to be together at all? It was sign. 
Those ideas were all bullshit, but sometimes we tell ourselves little lies just to make it through the day. We do things that we know we shouldn’t, and find ways to rationalize or justify them as if we made the correct decision. 

I could not stop thinking about her, the pain and guilt that I had, and the pain and guilt that I caused her. I tried to call her the next morning and she did not answer. I went to work that day and tried calling her over and over. I wanted to see her, drop to me knees, and beg for forgiveness for the wrong that I had done just the evening before. I realized that I really did care for her and to care for her meant being there, supporting, and helping her through her troubles in life. I fucked up.

I was a train wreck at work. I spent my time just trying over and over to get a hold of her with no luck. Finally I asked my boss if I could take off early because of the state I was in. Being a pal and able to see how frustrated and upset I was, he let me take the evening off.

As soon as I left work, I drive right over to her house, but she was not home. That is when I started getting scared. Did she do something horrible? She didn’t have any plans for the day that I knew of and I did not know why I could not find her. I called some friends and no one knew where she was.

The next morning I got up to find that she was online, on chat. I pinged her and asked her if she was okay and where she was all day because I was dying to get ahold of her. She said that she had called her sister, who lived a few hours away, and she had come down and they spent the day together. I asked her if I could call or come by to talk to her and she refused. She told me that I could say whatever I wanted to say there to her.

The conversation didn’t last long, but it was basically me telling her how fucked up I was, how sorry I was, and how all I wanted to do was hold her and be there for her. She told me she would think about it and get back to me soon. She also said not to try to contact her until I heard from her. 

This next chunk of time was spent with me beating myself up mentally for causing more pain to another human being than I had ever set out to do. I was young, stupid, and selfish. While it was not malicious, it was still mean and heartless. I never wanted to live through that feeling again and if this is how horrible I felt, I just thought about how awful she was feeling, and it all started back up again.

Needless to say it took a few days to hear anything from her. She had sent her reply via email and my internet was out for a week. Finally I asked a good friend to check my email for me over the phone and therefore had to confess my entire story to him. He checked and read me the email which was basically her chewing me out for being an asshole and telling me to fuck off, and to stay out of her life. I was terribly upset, but at the same time there was at least bit of closure to the situation. 

EPILOGUE:

That was the last contact I ever had with her. She not only stopped talking to me, but also accused all my friends of being douchebags and stopped talking to all of them as well. Yeah, it was a little silly to blame them for my mistake, but I see that as maybe she was so hurt that she didn’t even want to hear my name or events of my life. That may be a bit egotistical to think that I was that important, but it is all that I can really come up with while trying to reconcile what happened to myself.

This event spawned a series of events in my life where I decided to stop dating for a while. I was tired of hurting people or causing pain, so fuck it. Even if I liked a girl, I felt like I needed to be choosier and wait for the right girl. After some time this just made me feel pretentious and uptight, so I lightened up on the rule some, but that choice helped me on the path to where I am today with wife, child, and even career. 

It was one of those moments where I learned from my mistake and in the end I feel as if I am a better person because of it. I like to believe that when we are caused pain, we grow and come out stronger on the other side. This is one of the cases where I caused the pain though. While I no longer have trouble sleeping at night because of it, I do still often think that I wish I could make amends. I would be self-serving though, and therefore I do not pursue this thought for she asked me to stay away. 

The only way I can show her the respect that she deserves is to follow her wish and hope for a day that she will reach out to me, but recognizing that I do not deserve that courtesy from her.

Shifting Places

There were 8 of them at one time.  4 girls and 4 boys.  One of them is my father, number 4 of 8.  The rest were aunts and uncles.  Only one time in my life can I remember all of them in the same room together.  My cousin and I talked about this once and realized that at their mother's funeral was the only time that everyone was gathered together in our lifetime (memory).  For some years now that has been the only time that they would be too.

The third oldest was my uncle Eric who was taken rather suddenly some years ago.  I say sudden in that it all happened within a few weeks, but at the same time; we were given a chance to say our goodbyes, which is a privilege that many people are not granted in this world.  Some of us chose to be in the room when they shut off the ventilator.  I was one of the few that wanted to be there for a number of reasons.  One was because I feel that as much as we can control, we should try to never let people die alone.  They are facing death, the scariest thing in the world alone; why not try to send them off amidst loved ones if you can? 

While we were not particularly close, many in the family did not want to be there, including his wife and children.  None of my cousins wanted to be in the room either, so another reason I went was to be the sole representative from my generation of the family.  While watching a proud man die with dignity is not something that we should feel "honored" to be a part of, it was an experience that I will forever remember and be glad that I made the decision that I did.  It is one of the few times in my life that I have seen my father cry.

Where 8 once were, 7 remained.

Not long after that, the 5th in line, my aunt Helen started losing her battle with cancer.  The final months were hard and she was in a lot of pain.  In the last couple weeks she stopped seeing all of the family except one sister which she allowed to come see her at the hospice home.  In those days she said she did not want anyone to see her as sick as she was at the time, but remember her for the cheerful person she used to be.  Open cancer sores are not something that anyone would want to see anyway.

Her battle was on and off for many years, but her body could no longer hold out.  She and I were never terribly close either, but she was an interesting character from what I remember.  I attended the funeral, not the burial though as the wake was at our house so I decided to go back to the house and help get things ready. 

We were now down to 6 of an original 8.

Since that time, the 7th in line, my aunt Christy, has fought and beat her battle with cancer, at least for now.  My father was diagnosed with terminal pulmonary fibrosis, which I have gone into in past blogs and will go into a bit more later, the 6th in line, my Uncle Fred, has been diagnosed with it as well, and the youngest, #8, has also fought with cancer.

We just learned that my aunt Ro, that little number 8, is losing her battle and losing it fast.  We all thought that my father would be next as he is not expected to last out the year, so this is a bit of a shock.  The two oldest, who happen to be the healthiest of them all, are going to fly out to see her next weekend, but we fear she may not make it that long.  She asked all of us to write letters to her two sons, telling them more about her as a person.  I feel horrible that since she moved away when I was rather young, I don't have too much to say to grant her wish.  I have never even met her two sons, my two cousins, but I do wish them well.

She was able to talk to my father a bit today over the internet.  It is too bad my parents can't make it out to see her one last time, but life is like that sometimes.  She is fading, deaf, and hooked up to all sorts of machines.  She was able to tell my Dad not to worry because she would see him in Heaven, which made all of them start crying.  It seems to me that she really implied a "soon" there due to his declining health, but did not say it.  I am glad that she didn't.  Nothing gets to me more than seeing people face death.  You see true human spirit at that time and while utterly frightening, there is something in it that I feel makes the rest of us stronger.

My father is in a state where his fibrosis is so severe that he is on constant oxygen and has had pneumonia 3 times already this year.  They say that the next time he has to go into the hospital; he is probably not making it out.  Any morning he could wake up and have to go in at this point.

We will soon be down to 4.

...

It is weird to me.  Not death as a whole, but until right now, this moment that I am typing this, I have come to this realization that for me the death of my family's elder statesmen seems like one of my last links to childhood.  Like I mentioned before, we were never really close, but we were together quite a bit when I was little.  I am now 31 and it seems that while I am a complete adult in many ways, those final strings to the tapestry of my childhood are fading away, leaving room for me to weave new ones with my son and my wife's family. 

I am now one of the elders, been around the block for quite a while, and there is an entirely new generation below me of nephews, nieces, and smaller cousins.  Their lives are so new and I hope that while some of us are not close, they still can have positive memories of me from their childhood.  I hope that I can continue to live a life to be proud of...

...and I hope that someday newer generations will look fondly of my generation as we looked fondly to the one before.