Home For The Holidays

This Thanksgiving I went home to San Francisco for the first time in several years. I had decided to drive up so that I could bring my dogs with me and have a car available during the long weekend.

The Drive

I knew that traffic would be bad on the 5 on the way from San Diego to San Francisco so I set a goal to leave before noon. (I had some work I needed to finish before the long weekend, otherwise I would have left first thing in the morning.) I wrapped everything up from home and was on the road early – 11:45am! Hey, even 15 minutes early is an accomplishment for me.

I loaded up the car and started off on my drive. San Francisco or bust! I usually let the dogs sit up in the front seat with me but due to the length of the trip and my guilt about being a bad dog mommy, I decided that for this trip I’d put the pet gate up behind the front seats and blockade the dogs in the backseat. Mika was not happy about that… not happy about that at all! She whined and whimpered incessantly hoping that she’d wear me down and I’d let her up front. About 45 minutes into the drive I couldn’t take her whining anymore and decided to stop to get a sandwich so I could get away from the awful sounds of a dying dog. I had this crazy delusion that once I got back into the car and on the road after the quick pit stop that she would have calmed down and given up on the whining. Nope, it persisted.

Mika Struggling to Get Up Front

We hit traffic about 20 minutes later … and that traffic didn’t end for the next four hours. Yes, FOUR HOURS! Guess how far I got in four hours? 145 miles. Seriously. I stopped again at that point and tried not to get too down about the fact that I should be halfway home by now. The dog whining had died down a bit by now. Possibly because of the crazed look I was getting in my eyes from being stuck in the car for so long and making so little progress. Maybe Mika started getting scared that I would “forget her” at the next rest stop. Aww.. I’m kidding, I’d never do that. Where was Kona during all this? Sitting quietly like the little black angel that she is. Of course.

The traffic lightened up when I finally got to the boring, smelly, farm part of the 5, and eleven hours later I finally made it home to my dad’s. Yay!

Turkey Trot

On Thanksgiving morning I was signed up to run my very first Turkey Trot! My friend Christina and I were going to be running the Turkey Trail Trot in Golden Gate Park sponsored by my alma matter – Oh Lowell High! (If you’re a Lowellite did you hear the Lowell Hymn in your head as I said that?) When I originally asked Christina to run the race I didn’t think to register right away, and once I went back to register a week later the course was full! Ack! Christina talked me into running as a bandit on the course which I felt fairly guilty about .. but she had a point, the race was in the park and I could have just been running in the park.

I saw on the website that a lot of people dressed up for the race. The costumes ranged from turkeys to Indians to Pilgrims. I decided to make a modest effort to be festive and put my hair in Indian style braids. AND I wore a yellow running shirt. You know, a Thanksgiving color! Well, kinda. There were a lot of great costumes among the racers on this race day. There were several people in full body turkey costumes, dozens of people with turkey hats, a few people dressed like Indians and Pilgrims, a cute couple dressed like peas and carrots, and a funny pair dressed up as a turkey and a chef with a big fake knife!

Turkey Trail Trot 2009

The course was 5 miles (not the 5K I had hoped for) and started from the Polo Fields in Golden Gate park and lapped around a larger grassy loop up and down into picnic areas. I haven’t been training or running very hard since my marathon a month ago and was a bit nervous to be trying to go all out on a short distance. The pressure was off though when I found out that I couldn’t register and have my finish time tracked. But then … when Christina came to pick up her race number the night before she found out about a “secret” registration link which allowed you to register for only $10! You wouldn’t get a shirt but who cares! I immediately signed up and thought about how all races should give that option. I almost never wear race shirts and have donated almost all of them.

This excitement was quickly dashed on Thursday morning when I showed up to pick up my number and it wasn’t there. Did I have a print out of my race confirmation? Of course not, I’ve run dozens of races and never had a problem, I had never even though to print it. So okay, back to the bandit plan.

My goal for the race was to run a sub 8 minute mile. That had me aiming for a finish time of around 39 minutes. I’m disappointed to say that I finished in 42 minutes .. BUT .. my GPS watch tracked the course at 5.24 miles not 5.00 miles, so over that distance my pace ended up averaging out to 8:01. Perfect! I’m embarrassed to say that around mile 2 a turkey flew past me, but I did managed to cross the finish line well ahead of the peas and carrots!

Side Note: Interesting - I got a snarky comment on my blog late last night from someone with a private profile going off about how being a bandit is equitable to being a thief. While I see his point to a certain degree he's not totally correct to bash me for this race because #1 I DID register online but my registration got lost. And #2 Because I wasn't registered for the race I didn't take any water, food, and I didn't even cross the finish line. There have also been numerous races that I've registered for but haven't run for one reason for another... so not that I've registered for this race and not run it in the past, but in the running universe I have paid more than I have taken.

Commenter said...

"Christina talked me into running as a bandit on the course which I felt fairly guilty about .. but she had a point, the race was in the park and I could have just been running in the park."

And would you have run the very same coure in the park if there was no Turkey Trail Trot occurring? Race bandits are thieves, plain and simple. The course is designed to accomodate 1,000 runners only. You did NOT pay for the insurance, the permits, the portapotties, the refreshments, etc for the event. Nor did your participation contribute to the donation that went to Lowell.

Any event can happen in public space--concerts, picnics, sporting events. If they all charge a fee for admission, does that give you a right to simply partake in the events without paying, especially when the events have sold out or have restricted entries?

Race bandits are thieves.

Turkey Lunch

After the race I went back home to shower and change and my dad and I headed out for lunch and to go see the movie the Blind Side. I was hoping that the California Pizza Kitchen near the theater would be open but it wasn’t. Neither was Chevy’s. Big sad face. Luckily Max’s Opera Café was open though so we went there. In honor of Thanksgiving they had a special menu that featured Thanksgiving dinner! (And a very limited menu outside of that.) Since it was only lunch time I wasn’t ready for turkey so I ordered a veggie wrap – but then at the last minute asked if they could add some turkey to it as well. Dinner was great and the movie was great as well! Very touching and a great story, even more heart warming to know its based on a true story. I totally recommend seeing it!

Turkey Wrap @ Max's Opera Cafe

Lunch w/My Dad

Thanksgiving Dinner

My dad and I had planned on going out for Thanksgiving dinner and I searched on OpenTable.com to find the perfect place. A number of places were offering special “Thanksgiving” dinner packages and we ending up choosing the restaurant First Crush near Union Square. The restaurant was packed when we got there at 6pm! The restaurant was really cute and everything on the menu looked great. I had been planning on having turkey for dinner but after looking at the menu I knew I had to go fish all the way! I had mushroom soup, pistachio crusted Hawaiian walu fish, and crème brulee for desert. My dad had hmm… I can’t remember what he started with (probably because I was too busy shoving food in my face), we shared crab cakes, and then he had a shrimp and cheesy risotto as his entrée. I tried to get him to split some of the dessert with me to share some of my guilt but he passed. More crème brulee for me!

After dinner we headed back home (on the Muni! I roughed it!) and I headed straight for bed in a fine food coma. Yum yum yum. I wish I could have that meal all over again!

Heading To Wine Country

Later the next morning I had plans to meet some of my friends to drive up to Sonoma for a day and a half of wine tasting. There was a special event going on this past weekend where for $30 you gained entry to 23 wineries in the area! Not only was that an awesome deal on tasting fees, but each winery had “holiday treats” to eat and they were offering 15% off on all purchases. Some of the wineries only had crackers and nuts and chocolates, but others had sandwiches, crab appetizers, chocolate truffles, and one place even gave out small bowls of pork and beans! Mmmmm! On Friday we managed to visit 6 wineries in the 4 hours that we had. We ate so much that driving wasn’t that much of an issue, but just to be the safe responsible citizens that we are we had arranged for a limo to take us around.

Living the Fabulous Life

SF Friends at VJB Winery

Christmas Carolers at VJB Winery

Seafood Feast On The Grill

After the wine tour we came back home to our swinging pad in Oakmont, a community for active seniors. We brought life to that area! The plan for the evening was to BBQ crab legs to start, and to cook ceviche style tilapia to go into fresh fish tacos. The marinade for the tilapia probably took more than anything else, but it was well worth it.

Fresh Crab Off the Grill

Preparing for Dinner!

I’m Black and White ….

After dinner we retired to the fireplace area (like the active seniors we are) and played a few rounds of Bridge and Gin Rummy. Just kidding, we played the game Taboo. Some of the clues the teams were giving were hilarious and made me think of that scene in the movie Four Christmases where they’re playing the game. Have you seen it? Anyways, of all of the funny clues and guesses that came out that night, by far my favorite was:

Jared: Okay I’m an animal, and I’m black and white, and I smell really bad.

Tom: A panda?

A panda?? Haha! Not a skunk? Oh Tom..

Taste of Sonoma – Take Two

Since the passes we had bought to the Holiday Open House event were good for Friday and Saturday, we couldn’t pass up the chance to go out and check out more wineries! We didn’t have a limo or driver this time and all also had to drive back to the city that night so we were more moderate in our tastings. We managed to visit 6 more wineries on our list in the 4 hours that we had on Saturday which wasn’t too bad! That even included time that we took out for a picnic lunch break at one of the wineries.

When the event ended at 4pm we went back to the house to collect my dogs, pack up the car, and prepare to head back to the city. Although Mika whined like a banshee the entire 1 ½ hour drive up to Sonoma, she was a perfect angel on the way back. Weird. By the time we got home I was full and tired .. and called it a night and cancelled my overly ambitious plans to go out afterwards with some other friends. What was I thinking?

Mika As Co-Pilot

Driving Back to SD

I was so traumatized by the drive north to San Francisco and wanted to make sure I got an early start on the way back down to San Diego. I planned on leaving by 8am so I’d hopefully get home before dinner time .. and I did it! I left right at 8am! Who am I? This strange punctual road-trip girl! There wasn’t any traffic on the way back down and I got back home by 4pm. Who would have thought I’d be happy about an 8 hour drive? Well I sure was! The drive back down was fairly uneventful. Luckily the dogs slept almost the entire way and the car was peaceful and quite. I cleared out a ton of podcasts on my long drive down and the trip really wasn’t too bad.

It was really nice to come home for Thanksgiving and to spend time with my dad and friends. For the past four years I’ve worked an annual dental tradeshow in New York, NY and have taken off for New York on the Saturday following Thanksgiving. That really cut my Thanksgiving weekends short. For years! I wasn’t going this year for the first time in ages it seems which gave me the opportunity to take the time to come home. It was worth it! There’s no place like home.

GOTR Community Service Project

As most of you know I’m coaching a program called Girls On The Run (GOTR). The program is for girls ages 8-11 and it “educates and prepares girls for a lifetime of self-respect and healthy living”. We go through a number of exercises and activities each time we meet, and the program ends with the girls running a local 5K.

The season has 24 lessons that focus on three main topics:

1. All About Me – Getting to know who I am and what I stand for

2. Building My Team – Understanding the importance of cooperation

3. Community Begins With Me – Learning about community and working on a community project

Community Begins With Me

We started on “Community Begins With Me” a couple weeks and began discussing what a community is, what communities the girls are a part of, and what it takes for a community to run smoothly. We then started talking about the community service project with them and had them start thinking about what they would like to do as a group for their community project.

Developing The Project

We brainstormed with the girls last Tuesday to help them come up with a great community project idea. The project had to be something that we could complete during one session (one hour time limit) and at our regular meeting site (Carmel Valley Community Rec Center). This ruled out anything that took a lot of time, or involved us having to go somewhere else to complete the project.

Some of the ideas that they came up with were:

• Create puppets for a puppet show to benefit a local hospital
• Create holiday cards for the elderly and homeless
• Collect clothing for a homeless shelter
• Make cards for a local hospital
• Collect shoes to donate
• Collect toys/canned food/clothing for a shelter

We took a secret vote for the above ideas (eyes closed, hands raised so no one’s feeling was hurt if their idea wasn’t chosen) and the winner was.....

Creating holiday cards for the elderly/homeless!

One idea that I didn’t move onto the voting stage? “Going to a hobo village and giving out food!”. Umm… hobo village? Ha ha. What? Wait, I think there is actually one right around my storage unit downtown. No jokes… it’s a bit colorful down there. I informed the girls that “hobos” isn’t really a nice name for homeless people and that they probably shouldn’t call them that. They seemed a bit confused … apparently K-12 education has updated their lingo since I was last in school.

Anyways, we then went around the group of girls and had them all list something that they would bring to help make the cards. We had a long list of items including: envelopes, markers, colored pencils, glitter, pipe cleaners, construction paper, stickers, crayons, gel pens, and envelopes.

I then needed to figure out a place that we could send the cards. I figured a hospital or senior home might not want a random package of cards to show up on their door, so I looked to see if there were formal charities or organizations set up that would fit with our project. Luckily, I found two! While doing my research I found two programs that I thought the girls would enjoy, and decided to present both of them to the girls as options to see which they liked better. While they weren't hospitals or senior centers as they were originally hoping for, they were great options that would work for our project.

Option 1 - "Holiday Mail For Heroes"

http://www.redcross.org/holidaymail

This is a program put together by the American Red Cross which allows Americans to "send a touch of home" to US service members and veterans across the country and abroad.

Option 2 - "Make A Child Smile" (MACS)

http://www.makeachildsmile.org/index.shtml

This organization provides emotional support to families whose children suffer from chronic or life-threatening illness. Most of these children are chronically ill and some are terminally ill.

There were a few guidelines for both of the programs, they both prohibited glitter due to health concerns, they also both recommended leaving our religious references or specific holiday greetings (since not everyone celebrates Christmas), and for the children’s cards they sadly asked that the cards did not contain the phrases “Get well soon” or “Get Better”, since many of the children in the program have illnesses with no known cure and unfortunately never were going to get better. Wow.. so sad. :o( The site suggested instead to say things such as “Wishing you well”, “Praying for you”, or “Thinking of you”.

Executing the Community Project

The girls showed up last Thursday armed with supplies and a ton of energy. They were ready to get their markers out and start their cards and I struggled a bit at first to calm them down and get them to stop and listen to the guidelines. DOWNER ALERT! Nothing erases the smile of a girl holding markers and pipe cleaners than someone telling them that their card should be cheery but not say things such as “get well soon”, because these children that they would be sending cards too most likely were NOT going to be getting well soon. Yes, call me Eeyore.

The girls perked back up quickly though when I said that I had profiles of 14 different kids which included pictures of them, information about their condition, a list of their favorite things and interests, and information about their siblings if they had any.

I honestly thought that the girls would be split between wanting to make cards for the military versus the kids. I was wrong! All of the girls immediately started yelling “I want a kid!” and grabbing for a profile. Since I only had 14 profiles and we had 24 girls, some of them had to share a kid or some started on their cards for the military first.

The other coaches and I walked around while the girls were creating their cards to give them ideas on what to write, make sure that they were following the guidelines, and to help share the load of supplies between the girls. I broke up two fights over a book of stickers but besides that the girls shared very well.

While the girls were making their cards one of the girls was really excited to make her card for her “new friend” because the girl’s birthday was the same month as hers! Then she noticed that the girl was actually born the same year as her. Then the sad realization set in .. “wait….” She said. “This girl is only a little bit older than I am…” …. And I think I know the part she was thinking but didn’t say. “And she’s dying..”. Yes, so sad. :o( The girls really got into making the cards and there were so many cute ones created. In total the girls created 35 cards. We had 11 for our military service members and 24 kids for the Make A Child Smile Program!

Pop-Up Present Card

PC Happy Holidays Card

Cards For The Military

Disney Themed Card

Present Card

"We Have A Lot In Common" Cards

I think our community project was a great success and I think the girls had a lot of fun completing it!

Four Days In N'Oleans

I spent four days this past week in New Orleans. This was my second trip here, both times being for tradeshows for work. New Orleans, along with many others, are on a long list of cities that I’ve been lucky enough to see thanks to my job. Thank you marketing jobs! I love you!

Welcome to New Orleans!

Arriving In The Big Easy

I spent most of Wednesday traveling, and soon after arriving we had a company dinner and meeting. Not much of note happened that night. Well, aside from the fact that I had the weirdest hotel room ever! Okay, so the room wasn’t that weird, it was my bed. I initially walked into the room and admired the size of it. It was larger than normal, almost as big as a suite, and had a bar area over to one side. As I glanced around the room I thought “Cool! A bar!” (Not sure why, not like I was going to be mixing drinks or anything.) My eyes finally settled on the bed, and it took me a minute to realize why the bed looked so weird. It was on the floor! The boxspring was right on the floor! I tried to think of why you’d want your bed on the floor and couldn’t come up with any theories (handicapped? senior citizen? NO! A bed on the floor would be worse!) and thought oh well, whatever, at least I still get a nice big room!

My Weird Floor Bed

Oysters, Rabbits, and Frogs – OH MY!

The next day our tradeshow opened and it was into a suit and heels and onto the show floor for the day. Luckily it was a short day. Only 9:30am – 7:00pm. Can you sense the sarcasm? That is a REALLY long time to be on your feet. In heels. I have perfected an icy look of disdain for all the men who complain about how much their feet hurt after a day at a tradeshow. Oh really? You want to talk about foot pain? Put on a pair of of heels! After the show closed we all went out to dinner at K Paul’s. I had been to K Paul’s on my last visit to New Orleans and remember the menu being full of flavorful seafood and spicy creations.

K Paul's Louisiana Kitchen

The menu must have changed a lot over the years, because the primary theme I saw throughout the menu this time was DEEP FRIED. Insert frowny face. Literally 90% of the menu (appetizers/entrees) was deep fried! The only two options that weren’t deep fried were the pork chop and the two steaks. Even the chickens were deep fried! I reluctantly ordered a steak but didn’t enjoy it all that much. There were a few other interesting things on the menu – fried frog legs and fried rabbit. Yep, Kermit and Bugs Bunny were on the menu. Poor little hopping creatures! Not to totally escape the blame of eating cute creatures, I took the recommendation of the waiter and my local colleagues and ordered the Turtle Soup to start out with. Mmm mmmm good! I of course tried not to think too much about my former pet turtle Greensleeves. I had little Greensleeves for several years, until finally my dad suggested that we let him move on to another family. After watching a turtle sit on a rock for about 5 years, I didn’t put up too much of a fight.

Celebrity Spotting #1

The next day it was back to the tradeshow! Luckily on Thursday we had normal hours: 9:30am – 5:00pm. For lunch we went to a restaurant across the street called the Grand Isle Café. Amusingly, when our Louisiana sales manager recommended the place to me I heard “Grand OWL” café, and texted that very name to a couple people to meet up with us. Oops! Luckily it was just across the street and easy to figure out.

This restaurant had a couple interesting items on the menu including alligator sausage. They also had turtle stew and the waitress convinced me that even though I’d had turtle soup before, turtle stew was a lot different and I really needed to try that as well. I did, and was not that impressed. To make matters worse I didn’t realize that eating turtle stew is along the lines of eating shark fin soup. Great.

As we were leaving the restaurant my boss said “Hey, did you see that we just passed George Foreman on the way out?” What?? NO! I missed him! I walked back a bit to see him through the window. After a second glance I’m still not sure I could pick him out of a crowd again. But I was excited to see him. The inventor of the George Foreman grill!? Amazing! Just about every person I know has owned one of those at one time or another, and my dad is one of the biggest fans of that cooking contraption. I immediately called my dad to share the exciting news. “Guess what dad! I just saw George Foreman!” My dad seemed decently impressed and asked if he was with one of his sons, also named George. Apparently he has 5 sons and they are all named George. Okay, that’s weird.

George Foreman & Grill!

I chatted with my dad for a bit about New Orleans and he asked if we had gone to dinner at the restaurant run by “That famous chef, the really big one”. I remembered seeing a picture of K Paul on the seasonings they sold at the restaurant and asked if he meant K Paul. His response? “You mean the guy that dresses up like a lady?”

HUH?

Oh wait… are you referring to Ru Paul? No! Not Ru Paul, K Paul is someone else. Guess that’s not who my dad had in mind. David suggested later that my dad was probably talking about Emeril. That makes sense, “big” as in really famous, not “big” as in the size of a house. Whoops! Sorry Paul, but you’re a bit on the large side.

RuPaul vs K. Paul

Would You Like To Buy...?

We went back to the tradeshow and finished out a few more normal hours at the booth. Normal except for one person's question! As a Marketing person at the tradeshow booth, I'm used to getting the non-dollar-generating questions and inquiries shuttled over by the sales reps. Most commonly:

• Where can I get this information for my website?
• Do you distribute products in my country ___? Who can I contact for more info?
• When will you be launching product ___?
• Would you be interested in advertising in the publication ____?
• I'm from the __ dental society/group/club/cult. Would you be interested in sponsoring a booth there?

So I saw one of the reps starting to walk a man over to me and heard her end with "Monika can probably help you with that." I was expecting him to be asking about advertisements, product videos or the likes of that. Instead, he immediately asked " Would your company be interested in purchasing cadaver heads? We have very competitive pricing!"

Ummmm..........

Um... did he just say CADAVER heads? EWE! Oh wait, they do practice dental surgery on cadaver heads. But ewe, why is he asking me? Oh yeah, that's something our corporate office would handle.. if we did. But I don't think we do. Don't the universities usually handle that? We just have dummies with simulated materials. (All this time of course staring at him with a frozen smile.) I finally recovered enough to let him know that I was not the person involved with that but knew who was, and I'd pass on his information.

EWE.

Moving on....

Dinner at GW Fins

On Friday night we had reservations at an upscale seafood restaurant named GW Fins. Wow, the food was amazing there! We started out with the best crab cakes I’ve ever had, savory clams, and sizzling seasoned oysters. (Okay, I’m on the flight back right now typing this and I’m getting hungry again just thinking about that meal!) After that I had an amazing Chilean Sea Bass and my coworkers had a variety of other great looking dishes. To finish it all off we had sorbet and crème brulee. So yummy!

Sizzzzzling Oysters!

GW Fins Dinner Group

Jazz Hands!

After dinner we rolled ourselves down the street to the Ritz Carlton lounge to check out a local live jazz band. Ever want to see people who love their job? Come watch this jazz band play! The way they were shaking their heads and tapping their feet and belting out the music, wow! It really made you feel like you were really in New Orleans. We hung out there for the rest of the evening and finally called it a night around 1am. That translates to about 5am in Monika’s book! I’m usually in bed by 10pm!

Jeremy Davenport - Ritz Lounge

Live Jazz Video

The last day of the tradeshow was Saturday and was luckily only a half day. I stopped by the “Riverwalk Shops” next to our hotel/convention to pick up a few souvenirs and I spotted something that will go down as the first Christmas gift on my list. (Sidebar – I can’t believe we’re halfway through November already! Only a few weekends left to do Christmas shopping. Yikes!)

Celebrity Sighting #2

By Saturday I was tired from the night before, my feet hurt, and I was ready to go home. I had a quick flight from New Orleans to Charlotte (US Airways hub), and then Charlotte to San Diego. As the flight was boarding I got into my window seat and was happy to see that the trickle of people boarding the plane were all passing me and it looked like I was going to be so lucky as to have no seat neighbors. Whoo hoo! It looked like everyone had finished boarding and I was stretching into the next seat a bit working on my crossword when I saw a last minute person get on the plane. Uh oh! I hope he wasn’t going to end up sitting next to me! Wait a minute… this guy looked familiar. He kind of looks like one of the Baldwin brothers! You know, the blonde one with the rounder face that isn’t all that famous. Not Alec ... what are the rest of their names? Stephen? Was that him?

Baldwin Brothers
What are the non-Alecs' names??

As he passed the flight attendant and the people in front of me were whispering “Did you see who that is?? That was one of the Baldwin brothers!” I was running through my mind trying to remember the other brothers names. Stephen? David? Brandon? Why couldn’t I remember the non-Alec Baldwin names? I think other people have this problem too. I’m glad I’m not know as one of the “Carlson Sisters” whose first name no one can remember. Total benefit of being an only child! High five to me! A quick Google image search on my Blackberry revealed that this was indeed Stephen Baldwin.

Stephen Baldwin!

After that celebrity sighting, the rest of my trip was fairly uneventful. Well, besides the grumpy lady next to me in first class who has been drinking wine the whole flight. I hope someone’s picking her up and she's not driving home. Cheers lady!

My trip to New Orleans was short but fun. Some of the food we had was great, but some of it left me feeling like I needed to only eat raw vegetables for a week while I detoxed. Maybe at some point in the future I’ll get to travel back just for fun and can see a little bit more of the city.