New Year's friends
Jan. 5th, 2006 08:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rootbeer1What a great time we had with our friends Bill (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bearbeat) and Joe, visiting from the Boston area over the New Year's weekend.
qbear, bearbeat and Joe
We picked Joe and Bill up at the SFO airport late Wednesday morning (since we'd taken several days off from work) and stopped off for a hearty lunch at Gunter's, our favorite airport-adjacent diner, then came home to relax, catch up and exchange presents before dinner. We presented B&J with some CDs, including my big homemade shoegazing opus, and a big cookbook for Joe, The New Best Recipe. We then heard fromalpenhorn that he wasn't feeling well, so he and sflonestar wouldn't be able to make it for dinner that night. It was a shame, as qbear outdid himself in the kitchen, serving up a pork roast, pork gravy, truffled mashed potatoes (incorporating a bit of cream cheese, per Joe's suggestion), roasted Brussels sprouts, biscuits and butter, and roasted butternut squash. For dessert I'd made a layer cake, with jam in between the layers instead of frosting, so after that we all fell into a sugar-and-carb coma and went to bed early, after watching Peewee Herman's Christmas Special (for the third time this season).
Thursday morning we motored down to the Castro for brunch at Orphan Andy's, running into various folks we knew on the street, then off to Tower Records, where we used our Christmas gift cards to get the new Fall and Franz Ferdinand CDs, plus a greatest hits compilation of the Beta Band, and DVDs of State Fair and The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. On the street we ran intosflonestar, where I unfortunately and untactfully said he'd missed a great dinner the night before, and then our neighbors Regi and Mike. Mike has had some health issues recently, so it was good to see him up, about and doing better. We'd planned to go to SFMOMA that afternoon, but we were bushed, so we stopped at Twin Peaks for the view and then came home and napped instead, and made plans to go up to Calistoga on Saturday for the mud baths. (We'd done it once before, six years ago, and Bill and Joe were keen to try it.) In the evening we trekked down to Glen Park to sfgarry's Hannukkah party, where we enjoyed latkes in the company of chriskomater, cthelarger, foodpoisoningsf, gabecentric, robotronjohn and Garry's various other erudite friends. Highlight, for me, was the dreidel gambling with gelt (chocolate money), and the lowlight being the first person to go bust and lose all his chocolate money. The conversation and slivovitz flowed and we wound up being some of the last people to leave.
rootbeer1 and qbear on Twin Peaks
Friday we met up with friends of Joe and Bill's for lunch at the Franciscan restaurant, in Fisherman's Wharf. Joe had introduced them, years before, and they had gotten married and now had two very well-behaved boys. The wife schemed with Joe to surprise the husband, and it worked -- he had tears in his eyes, he was so glad and surprised to see Joe and Bill. After a lunch of chowder and crab cakes and such, we found that the valet parking attendants had locked our car keys in the car. Protesting to the valets accomplished nothing, so Jack and Bill took a cab home to grab the spare keys, while Joe and I stood guard to make sure the attendants didn't try to use a slim jim tool to open the window (which would have damaged the car). (If they'd tried to break in to our car to move it, in order to move the SUV parked behind us, I would have called the cops.) After we retrieved the car, we came back to the house to rest, and then went to our favorite Chinese place, Eric's in Noe Valley, for dinner. We also called and canceled our appointments for mud baths in Calistoga, since the heavy rains were causing flooding in Napa.
Saturday, New Year's eve, we took off in the car and alarmed Joe because everyone knew the words to "Everything's Archie" but him. We sang along in the car until we reached our alternate Calistoga experience, the Kabuki Hot Springs, where we partook of the waters and watched the naked men until we were hungryfor sausage, when we checked out (narrowly missing pauliebearsf) and grabbed some sushi in Japantown. Then we were off to SFMOMA to catch the Chuck Close and Kiki Dee Smith exhibits that lowfatmuffin had recommended, but we were a little disappointed in both. The Close exhibit was all about him, and the Smith exhibit was unsavory in a fairly amateurish way. After that, we tried to hunt down some authentic SF burritoes for Bill, but the places we looked were closed, and we wound up at El Toreador in West Portal for huge platters of Mexican food. After that we stopped by the traditional New Year's party of keanubear and Greg, where we schmoozed and enjoyed snacks and Appletinis with urso, tardis, progbear, hardybear, albadger, bigjohnsf, pauliebearsf, arkanjil and Richard, dhpbear, buffcub on DVD, etc. The night was clear and we were able to see the fireworks downtown, which is atypical, what with the fog and all.
Sunday morning I made a cheese-and-egg casserole to fortify us before headed off to Davies Hall to see the SF Symphony perform an odd new year's program of Viennese waltzes and Broadway showtunes. After that, we stopped by the Lone Star (where Joe and Bill had never been) and ran into various folks we knew, includingbearringsd, beg1n, iahklu, canowhupass, wetinsf, and a pair of cute British bears I knew from online, who were visiting SF. After an hour we headed home, and I began cooking the traditional Southern New Year's good-luck dinner: black-eyed pea jambalaya, served over rice, with greens, fresh bread, and courtesy of Joe, luscious eggplant parmesan. keanubear and Greg joined us, and we agreed we were all so freakin' lucky now that someone at the table was bound to win the lottery this year. After dinner, we still found room for brownie sundaes. (Our collective New Year's resolution: not to worry so much about diets.)
Monday morning, we took Joe and Bill to the airport, stopping off at Gunter's for a fortifying breakfast, since their airline (Delta Song) no longer serves any kind of free food onboard. After we dropped them off, we agreed afterwards that they set a standard for houseguests -- clean, helpful, generous, good-humored, funny, smart -- that will probably never be equalled. (We've long called them "the east coast version of us", and if that's true, then we're doing pretty well ourselves.)
bearbeat) and Joe, visiting from the Boston area over the New Year's weekend. qbear, bearbeat and JoeWe picked Joe and Bill up at the SFO airport late Wednesday morning (since we'd taken several days off from work) and stopped off for a hearty lunch at Gunter's, our favorite airport-adjacent diner, then came home to relax, catch up and exchange presents before dinner. We presented B&J with some CDs, including my big homemade shoegazing opus, and a big cookbook for Joe, The New Best Recipe. We then heard from
alpenhorn that he wasn't feeling well, so he and sflonestar wouldn't be able to make it for dinner that night. It was a shame, as qbear outdid himself in the kitchen, serving up a pork roast, pork gravy, truffled mashed potatoes (incorporating a bit of cream cheese, per Joe's suggestion), roasted Brussels sprouts, biscuits and butter, and roasted butternut squash. For dessert I'd made a layer cake, with jam in between the layers instead of frosting, so after that we all fell into a sugar-and-carb coma and went to bed early, after watching Peewee Herman's Christmas Special (for the third time this season).Thursday morning we motored down to the Castro for brunch at Orphan Andy's, running into various folks we knew on the street, then off to Tower Records, where we used our Christmas gift cards to get the new Fall and Franz Ferdinand CDs, plus a greatest hits compilation of the Beta Band, and DVDs of State Fair and The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. On the street we ran into
sflonestar, where I unfortunately and untactfully said he'd missed a great dinner the night before, and then our neighbors Regi and Mike. Mike has had some health issues recently, so it was good to see him up, about and doing better. We'd planned to go to SFMOMA that afternoon, but we were bushed, so we stopped at Twin Peaks for the view and then came home and napped instead, and made plans to go up to Calistoga on Saturday for the mud baths. (We'd done it once before, six years ago, and Bill and Joe were keen to try it.) In the evening we trekked down to Glen Park to sfgarry's Hannukkah party, where we enjoyed latkes in the company of chriskomater, cthelarger, foodpoisoningsf, gabecentric, robotronjohn and Garry's various other erudite friends. Highlight, for me, was the dreidel gambling with gelt (chocolate money), and the lowlight being the first person to go bust and lose all his chocolate money. The conversation and slivovitz flowed and we wound up being some of the last people to leave.rootbeer1 and qbear on Twin PeaksFriday we met up with friends of Joe and Bill's for lunch at the Franciscan restaurant, in Fisherman's Wharf. Joe had introduced them, years before, and they had gotten married and now had two very well-behaved boys. The wife schemed with Joe to surprise the husband, and it worked -- he had tears in his eyes, he was so glad and surprised to see Joe and Bill. After a lunch of chowder and crab cakes and such, we found that the valet parking attendants had locked our car keys in the car. Protesting to the valets accomplished nothing, so Jack and Bill took a cab home to grab the spare keys, while Joe and I stood guard to make sure the attendants didn't try to use a slim jim tool to open the window (which would have damaged the car). (If they'd tried to break in to our car to move it, in order to move the SUV parked behind us, I would have called the cops.) After we retrieved the car, we came back to the house to rest, and then went to our favorite Chinese place, Eric's in Noe Valley, for dinner. We also called and canceled our appointments for mud baths in Calistoga, since the heavy rains were causing flooding in Napa.
Saturday, New Year's eve, we took off in the car and alarmed Joe because everyone knew the words to "Everything's Archie" but him. We sang along in the car until we reached our alternate Calistoga experience, the Kabuki Hot Springs, where we partook of the waters and watched the naked men until we were hungry
pauliebearsf) and grabbed some sushi in Japantown. Then we were off to SFMOMA to catch the Chuck Close and Kiki lowfatmuffin had recommended, but we were a little disappointed in both. The Close exhibit was all about him, and the Smith exhibit was unsavory in a fairly amateurish way. After that, we tried to hunt down some authentic SF burritoes for Bill, but the places we looked were closed, and we wound up at El Toreador in West Portal for huge platters of Mexican food. After that we stopped by the traditional New Year's party of keanubear and Greg, where we schmoozed and enjoyed snacks and Appletinis with urso, tardis, progbear, hardybear, albadger, bigjohnsf, pauliebearsf, arkanjil and Richard, dhpbear, buffcub on DVD, etc. The night was clear and we were able to see the fireworks downtown, which is atypical, what with the fog and all. Sunday morning I made a cheese-and-egg casserole to fortify us before headed off to Davies Hall to see the SF Symphony perform an odd new year's program of Viennese waltzes and Broadway showtunes. After that, we stopped by the Lone Star (where Joe and Bill had never been) and ran into various folks we knew, including
bearringsd, beg1n, iahklu, canowhupass, wetinsf, and a pair of cute British bears I knew from online, who were visiting SF. After an hour we headed home, and I began cooking the traditional Southern New Year's good-luck dinner: black-eyed pea jambalaya, served over rice, with greens, fresh bread, and courtesy of Joe, luscious eggplant parmesan. keanubear and Greg joined us, and we agreed we were all so freakin' lucky now that someone at the table was bound to win the lottery this year. After dinner, we still found room for brownie sundaes. (Our collective New Year's resolution: not to worry so much about diets.)Monday morning, we took Joe and Bill to the airport, stopping off at Gunter's for a fortifying breakfast, since their airline (Delta Song) no longer serves any kind of free food onboard. After we dropped them off, we agreed afterwards that they set a standard for houseguests -- clean, helpful, generous, good-humored, funny, smart -- that will probably never be equalled. (We've long called them "the east coast version of us", and if that's true, then we're doing pretty well ourselves.)
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Date: 2006-01-06 05:06 pm (UTC)Hope to see you soon.