December 2006 -- San Francisco and Christmas

Hi all!

December was a fun month this year (it usually is just by virtue of Christmas but this year was extra special). The week of December 9th, Edo and I went to San Francisco for a national American Geophysical Union conference that he attends annually. We arrived on the Saturday afternoon prior, and Uncle David picked us up from the airport where we immediately went to his friend Bill's house to collect the Aerobed we would be sleeping on; then we stopped by the market on the way home to get some sushi because we were all hungry! Considering that it came from the Castro version of a Harris Teeter, it was damn good sushi.

That night, we went to a party celebrating the 10-year anniversary of David's friends Jim and Sam. Everyone was really nice; the tree was gorgeous, and the food was great! There was a ham, amazing empanadas, and desserts aplenty -- not to mention the copious whites, reds, champagnes, and possibly even beers that were available.

The next day we awoke fairly early and went for breakfast at a restaurant called the Squat and Gobble, which has very good value for money and the food is very tasty. Afterwards, David was kind enough to drive us all over town

(really... ALL OVER TOWN.. I think we covered all seven square miles in one day) to see all of the sights, architecture, and a panoramic view of the city from the Observation Tower at the new Modern Art museum in Golden Gate Park. For dinner, Edo took David and his roommate/friend Dale to dinner at a restaurant in the Castro called Catch. I wasn't feeling very well so I sat that one out.

On Monday morning Edo had to go to the conference to present his poster session and do some schmoozing, so I stayed home for most of the morning relaxing. David and I went into Union Square around 2pm to visit the new mall (I never picked San Francisco for a town that would have a mall but it's very nice). We had lunch at the Coolest Food Court Ever and then David went home while I met Edo outside the Virgin Megastore. Edo and I had a coffee in Union Square and then we went home and cooked a risotto for David and Dale. We really enjoyed having a quiet dinner at home with them; we stayed up chatting and eating until David finally decided that it was past our bedtime so we went to lie down.

Tuesday Edo was working again so I hung out in the morning relaxing, and in the afternoon I went for a walk in the Castro and for a lunch at a place called Fuzio. The food all sounded amazing but I ended up getting minestrone and garlic bread which was very good. After I ate a bit and walked around a couple of shops, it started raining so I headed back up to David's place and then went into town to meet Edo again. That evening we met up with one old friend who moved from Duke to Clemson, and two guys who Edo knew from Torino and had dinner at a place called Lulu. The food was really good! We were going to try a place called Azie but the wait was long (our own fault: we didn't make a reservation) so we went to the sister restaurant next door which had a slightly shorter wait and a bigger bar.

Wednesday morning Edo went to the conference but came home around 2pm, and we headed down to the Monterey Peninsula. We stayed in Carmel-by-the-Sea in a romantic little cottage-style hotel. By the time we got down there it was almost time for dinner so we went to a place called Merlot! and he had seafood spaghetti while I got penne with roasted vegetables in pink sauce. We also had a cup of mushroom bisque which was delicious (better than mine....grrrr) and a dessert each -- profiteroles for me, flan for Edo.

Thursday we drove down to Big Sur and Nepenthe which was beautiful! There was very little fog so we had good visibility and we decided to eat at the restaurant on top of the hill. Mediocre food, extortionate prices, and a view that you can't find anywhere else. It was worth it. That area is probably one of the most scenic in the entire US.

After lunch we headed to Carmel Valley which is the wannabe Sonoma/Napa and has lots of up-and-coming wineries. We visited several of them, tasted their wine (including port from the barrel!), bought lots of it, and then went back to town.

Then we went back up to Carmel which is this cute resort town that looks like a Thomas Kinkade painting (in fact, he's painted Carmel... and he has a gallery there). We also walked to the beach which had an amazing grey hue because by then the fog was starting to roll in, and it was getting late in the afternoon so it looked very surreal. After I make my first $$ couple million, I am totally moving there.

That evening we had dinner at a place called Forge in the Forest. We shared shrimp dumplings steamed with spinach, a bucket of steamer clams and mussels (the mussels were practically the size of cornish hens... I don't know where the chef found them. I'm wondering if they were raised near a nuclear reactor!) OK the mussels weren't that big, but they were large enough to cut with a knife. Definitely not bite-sized. After dinner we shared a wonderful creme brulee. I've decided that my measure of whether a restaurant is really good or not is the creme brulee. And this was a really good one!

Friday was time to head back to San Francisco but not until we'd visited a few other spots on the Peninsula. We took the 17-Mile Drive up to Monterey, driving past Pebble Beach and seeing lots of pretty impressive real estate. When we arrived in Monterey, we walked past Cannery Row and went to the Aquarium.

Dale was kind enough to give us his season passes and we were able to enjoy it all for free. The Aquarium is amazing; if you ever have the opportunity to visit it, I highly recommend it. We had lunch at the cafe there. Again, mediocre food, extortionate prices, and a view to die for! And again, it was worth it.

On the way back up, we stopped by San Juan Bautista and visited the Mission there. In case you've seen the film "Vertigo" by Hitchcock, the Mission is the scene of the climax of the film.

It's a cool town anyway; hasn't changed very much in the past, oh, 150 years or so. It looks like a town from a Spaghetti Western (I swear, Claudia Cardinale is hiding out there somewhere) but this time when we were there it seemed a little less so because there were Christmas decorations everywhere. At least the Mission itself was as stark and Catholic as ever :)


When we arrived back in San Francisco Friday evening, we had dinner at Bill's house.


He made us a wonderful dinner complete with Prosecco, brie and crackers plus a goat cheese dip for appetizers, pumpkin ravioli in a butter sage sauce, and pesto-covered salmon with salad for the main course. Everything was so delicious! For dessert we had coconut cream pie, and Bill was kind enough to give Edo and me a copy of his book.

Saturday morning we headed back home to Raleigh, and a few plane delays later, we arrived around 11:30pm. It was good to be home!

Christmas was lots of fun too, as always. We went to a party on Christmas Eve held by some of our friends from Mexico, and many different countries were represented at the party. There was even a pinata to smack!

Christmas Day we went to Mom and Dad's house and hung out with the family. It was nice to see everyone again. Unfortunately I had my wisdom teeth out the Tuesday before Christmas so I was fairly limited in what I could do and eat, but I still had a great time.

Thanks to everyone for helping make December a very memorable month!

Nadine West Howell 11/1/1919 - 11/24/2006

The day after Thanksgiving, my grandmother passed away. After waging a battle with Alzheimer's disease that lasted for several years, her body decided to stop functioning in much the same way as her mind had done, albeit much more quickly. The roller-coaster ride of this disease seemed for a long time far more enjoyable for her than for the rest of the family. She was the one at the front shouting and laughing while the rest of us spent much of the time feeling a bit sick. But when the ride stopped, as it inevitably had to, she had deteriorated mentally and physically to the point where just about everyone close to her was ready for her to move on.

I'm not one of those people who sugarcoats a person's personality or attitude once they have died. If I didn't like them living, I don't suddenly start to feign admiration for them once they leave. I've heard people at funerals speak so highly of the recently deceased that you'd think the person was a saint, even though the same people a few months earlier were complaining that said person was a real asshole.

So I'm going to give an honest account of my grandmother's life from my point of view as her granddaughter. Naturally that means that I missed a large chunk of her life before I was born and my idea of who she was is therefore skewed. But for sure know this: when I speak highly of my grandmother, and I will, it's not out of "respect for the dead" (like the dead give a shit), it's because she was genuinely a wonderful person and the consummate lady.

Grandmother was born in Turkey, NC which was -- and remains -- basically a crossroads that produces a lot of turkeys. Clever name, huh? Anyway, I don't know a lot about that period of her life because I've forgotten a lot of the stories she used to tell me about when she was a child. I know she had parents and a couple of siblings, but that's about it. When she was 18, she married my grandfather and at some point they ended up in Goldsboro, where Dad and my uncle were born. She worked for decades as secretary of the high school which meant that Dad couldn't really get away with anything no matter how hard he tried; she always found out. Her job combined with her participation in the First Baptist Church of Goldsboro where she worshipped until her mind no longer permitted it meant that she knew pretty much everyone in Goldsboro. Goldsboro, NC is a city; it's not a huge place but it's not a tiny town where everyone is guaranteed to know everyone else either. But everyone knew Grandmother. Everywhere I went with her we met at least one person who not only knew her enough to smile and say "hi", but actually stopped, asked about the family, said something to me like "oh, you're Tiffani? It's so nice to meet you! You're just as sweet as your grandmother said you were" or something along those lines. I remember this happening from the time I was around 4 until adulthood.

My grandmother was exceedingly polite to everyone she met but had the unfortunate habit of drawing attention to her own svelte figure by way of backhandedly insulting her family members' weight problems. I suspect that her vanity caused her to ignore the sometimes lasting effects that this had on others. That is the only truly negative characteristic that I can remember of my grandmother. (Vanity, by the way, is something she gave to me. Neither of us can walk past a mirror without smiling) Not that she didn't do other things that drove us crazy; she was a Mom, after all ;) But most of the things that drove us crazy we could at least acknowledge were done out of love. She was unbelievably stubborn, a hereditary trait that apparently sits on a dominant gene because every Howell since has been cursed (or blessed, depending on the circumstances) with this particular characteristic.

She was truly selfless with regard to her family, sometimes to a fault. She remained faithful to her late husband from the day he died until she joined him thirty years later. This chagrined the rest of the family who didn't believe that sacrificing one's own potential happiness was necessarily the best way to honor someone's memory. I never knew my grandfather, but given the attitude of his children, I would suspect that the first thing he said when he saw her again last week was "good to see you Nadine. Why the hell couldn't you move on after I left you?" to which she probably replied "Watch your mouth, Ed. 'Hell' is such a vulgar word".

Grandmother surely knows that her family is suffering for her loss and I'm sure she would take that pain away if she could. She is undoubtedly finally aware of the pain that her disease caused all of us for years while her body was still functioning even as she looked through us, her beloved family, like we were strangers. That's "the nature of the beast", as they say, but it doesn't make the beast any easier to live with. It doesn't make it any easier to die with either, except perhaps on an intellectual level. Still, knowing that she's finally whole again, and no longer just a shell, does provide some comfort.

The funeral was very short, grave-side and included only family members and her three best friends. After the funeral, the family ate lunch together at one of her favorite restaurants, McCalls. The private, quick funeral was specified in her will; it was her final gift to us... true closure, without all the bells and whistles. She probably knew that a public funeral would've involved much of Goldsboro (she was vain, remember?) and would've been stressful to the family. Even though the funeral was small, she'll be missed by many, possibly thousands.

Rest in Peace