Bye Bye Karim

May 30, 2006

The goodbyes just keep on coming, with the next one to good friend and former co-worker, Karim Helmy. Karim is bound for med school this fall, and is closing out work at Genentech and packing/getting-rid-of his belongings in SF this week. He was lucky to snag some tickets to go see some World Cup soccer games in Germany, so he's heading off for travels to Germany through June, and then onto Croatia and Egypt as a last-hurrah before school starts.

In addition to some farewell activities at work, Team Canada also wanted to take Karim out for dinner before he took off next week. So, Will, Wendy, Abe, Karim and I headed over to Yo-Yo Sushi for dinner last night (ha! been jones-ing for sushi at this place all week!). Yes, we do like this place, as it's good, cost-friendly, and the sweet Korean family that runs it always shower us with extra goodies (this time it was edamame, chicken katsu, potstickers and moshi ice cream!).





So, good luck to Karim, the ladies of Genentech and SF are sad to see you go...

Olivia's New Digs

May 29, 2006

The rest of Memorial Day long weekend was dedicated to my very pregnant sister, Angie, who is expecting twins (a boy and a girl!) in July.

SUNDAY

On Sunday morning, I drove down to San Jose to help out with their garage sale, an effort to get rid of their space-sucking material goods. Olivia's godmother, Terrina, had taken Olivia away for the day to keep her busy, and mainly keep her out of our hair while we sold all her old toys. The day was pretty mellow and there was a steady traffic flow of bargain hunters in the first couple hours, and then it slowed to very little haggling at the end.

I headed back to SF for dinner with Will and his college buddy, Kareem, who was in town from Santa Monica. Along with Kareem's friend, Ray, we went to the Mission for dinner, and ended up at Maverick (as Yo-Yo Sushi was closed...). Maverick is a great little place, and was opened by two former servers at Sociale, one of which is Michael Pierce, who is also the wine director and who is always on hand to help with vino questions and recommendations.

For dinner:

Appetizer
- Cincy BBQ ribs (Baby backs, barbecue sauce, coleslaw)
- Clams casino (Littleneck clams, smoked bacon, shallot, parsley, and bell pepper butter)
- Baltimore Crab fluffs (Fried lump blue crab meat fluffs, micro celery, tartar sauce)

Entrees
- Bea: Creekstone Farms grilled ribeye steak, with Idaho potato stack
- Will: Roast pork tenderloin, with braised baby fennel, sweet onion puree
- Kareem: Pan-seared Ahi tuna
- Ray: Lamb sirloin
- all: side of their sweet Mac n' cheese

Dessert
- Will: Bread pudding
- Kareem: Milk and cookies (freshly baked)
- Bea: Late Harvest Viognier Rosenblum Sonoma

Wine
- Mourvedre Terre Rouge Amador 2000

The restaurant was closing shop, so we ended the evening with a trip to Hobson's Choice, for one last drink to close out the catch-up conversation.

MONDAY

On Monday morning, Will and I hopped in Lavonda the Honda and headed back to San Jose for more pregnant sister duty, this time, to help paint the new bedroom for Olivia. With the twins on their way, we needed to move Olivia in to a much smaller room, and in order to convince her to do that, we promised that we would paint her a princess pink room. Angie also used the negotiating tactic with 3-year old Olivia "...and your new room will be closer to the TV!". Sad, but it worked like a charm.

So, upon arrival, we set out to move some furniture, tape up the room, and started painting with Jack and their friend, Stephan. Olivia was intent on "helping":




Angie finally managed to convince Olivia to go for a car ride to do some errands, and from then, it was pretty quick work for the first coat, with Will and I using the rollers, and Jack and Stephan doing the corners and edges. In between coats, Jack and Stephan got Will and I hooked on Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch" show that follows five different crab fishing boats and their crews, fishing for Alaskan King Crab in the Bering Sea. (These damn reality show marathons keep getting me hooked! First "Top Chef!" and now "Deadliest Catch").

While we were painting and watching crab fishing, the neighbors in Angie's cul-de-sac were preparing for their Memorial Day neighborhood bbq. One of the neighbors brought in two bouncy houses for the kids:

For the big kids

For the little ones








We stayed for the neighborhood bbq, which was really nice and well-organized, and a big taste of suburbia (yikes! run!). At the end of the day, we finished painting Olivia's room, moved most of her belongings in, and she was very excited about her princess-pink bedroom. Phew!

Anna's All Grown Up!

May 28, 2006

The Saturday of Memorial Day long weekend was spent in honor of our favorite little Swede, Anna, who was graduating with her degree in sociology from San Francisco State University. Her fake-imitation Swedish family all congregated at her department graduation ceremony:

- Wendy
- Gail
- Shaun
- Elizabeth
- Caroline
- Me

It was a gorgeous day, and we arrived at 9:15 am in a courtyard on SF State campus, where they were serving up Tully's coffee and mini-Jamba juices.







Anna receives Academic Achievement honors for her GPA of 3.6 or greater...yay Anna!

Here's a short video clip of Anna walking at graduation during the ceremony:













The ceremony took about 1.5 hours and it was so great to see Anna graduate and look so lovely in her purple gown...we're so proud of our little girl [sniff!]. After the ceremony was finished, Anna and her fake-imitation-Swedish family headed over to Park Chow in Inner Sunset for brunch. The post-brunch schedule included a short cat-nap, some minor barbeque panic (when we discovered that our propane bbq had gas valves that were completely eroded), massive party prep (by Anna, Elizabeth and Caroline), and some major chicken skewer production (by Wendy and I). I think we made around 80 skewers in three combinations of ingredients:

- marinated teriyaki chicken, green/yellow/red peppers, red onion, mushrooms
- green/yellow/red peppers, red onion, mushrooms
- marinated teriyaki chicken, bacon, pineapple, red onion





Anna's grand party scheme included yellow and blue (Swedish colors!) leis that were given to each party-goer. Each lei had a picture of a famous personality attached, and the idea was to sit across from your "match". I was Paris Hilton and my match was her little chihuahua dog, Tinkerbell (worn by Chevy). Hilarious!



Anna had decided that she wanted to do a sit-down dinner for 30 people...wha??? That's a lot of work! Anna and her Swedish girlfriends, Elizabeth and Caroline, had done a tremendous job of tranforming Abe's long garage into a Swedish dining hall:





The girls had printed out a two-page list of Swedish drinking songs, which they "taught" us to sing througout the night. Hands down, the favorite tune was "Hellyan Gor" and it was pretty evident that the majority of us would never be able to speak Swedish very well. Did you know that the Swedes don't pronounce their "k"'s?

The list of Swedish drinking songs...Hellyan Gor!















It was a hilarious and fun night. In retrospect, we can conclude that:

- Swedish is hard to read/pronounce
- Chicken skewers are yummy and great for feeding a lot of people
- What are Swedish "snaps"? Vodka, saffron, lemon peel (ick!)
- Abe's garage makes for a good dining/party hall, you just need balloons and candles!
- Abe's garage has great acoustics