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Nov. 26th, 2005 07:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
levertovfanI'm back in DC/Arlington. I flew out to the Bay Area Tuesday afternoon, and flew back this morning, which meant that I only had three days there.
Day the first I had a career-building advice session from a friend of the family's in downtown San Francisco, went to the new De Young museum in Golden Gate Park with my mother, made my annual pilgrimage to Green Apple Books solo, and then took the ferry back to Marin. I highly recommend the new De Young to anyone visiting the Bay Area, not for the large majority of the art, but because of the architexture and the surroundings. It has this tower that overlooks the northwestern quadrant of San Francisco, the area I grew up in. It was extremely neat for me to get a new view of the area because I grew up in the area, but I think anyone would enjoy it on a clear day (everyone in the tower certainly was). It also had a small sculpture garden that seems to be channeling the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.
Day the second was Thanksgiving Day. Mom has finally, thankfully, figured out that exposing me to each and every one of her boyfriends is Not A Good Idea. So instead of having Thanksgiving with her current boyfriend and his family, we went down to Saratoga and had dinner with the family of my mom's only remaining long term friend in the Bay Area. It was very much a family affair, and aside from the new girlfriend of my mom's friend's son, we were the only unfamiliar people there. The best vegetarian food there was the salad, which contained almonds and persimmons, so I had two plates of salad and a little bit of the other stuff and left feeling more or less like I'd had a normal sized meal. Overall, I'm very thankful that I didn't have to meet mom's boyfriend and family. Thankfulness is the reason for the season, right?
Day the third I spent the afternoon with Erica and her family and dogs. In addition to the wonderful Ozzie, a very tall, very big, and very placid tempered dog, the Cande family has now added Hank, a puppy, to their menagerie. Hank, as befits his puppy status, is a little more high energy and has a tendancy to use Ozzie as a chewing toy, but Ozzie is pretty even tempered about the whole thing. Erica and I went to a wonderful Japanese vegetarian restaurant for lunch, took Ozzie and Hank out on a walk at her mother's request, and generally hung out in the Cande kitchen. It was really good to spend time with Erica again. She's doing well, aside from beating herself up about law school applications and procrastinating on law school applications, in a manner which reminds me of both of us working on comps: working on it, worrying when she isn't working on it, and concentrating on it much harder than she really needs to, but generally laboring on it without that much doubt as to a sucessful outcome.
The Cande kitchen is very home-y. Which brings me to the fact that it was really nice to be back home. My father's home, and the immediate vicinity, really feels like home. It is comfortable and familiar to me, at a time when my life in DC feels much more up in the air and like it requires work. Specifically, job searching requires work and dealing with my office requires emotional binkers. I'm not planning on going home for Christmas/Hannukah/New Years, which I have mixed feelings about, but I do plan to go home in February if I have time then.
Day the first I had a career-building advice session from a friend of the family's in downtown San Francisco, went to the new De Young museum in Golden Gate Park with my mother, made my annual pilgrimage to Green Apple Books solo, and then took the ferry back to Marin. I highly recommend the new De Young to anyone visiting the Bay Area, not for the large majority of the art, but because of the architexture and the surroundings. It has this tower that overlooks the northwestern quadrant of San Francisco, the area I grew up in. It was extremely neat for me to get a new view of the area because I grew up in the area, but I think anyone would enjoy it on a clear day (everyone in the tower certainly was). It also had a small sculpture garden that seems to be channeling the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.
Day the second was Thanksgiving Day. Mom has finally, thankfully, figured out that exposing me to each and every one of her boyfriends is Not A Good Idea. So instead of having Thanksgiving with her current boyfriend and his family, we went down to Saratoga and had dinner with the family of my mom's only remaining long term friend in the Bay Area. It was very much a family affair, and aside from the new girlfriend of my mom's friend's son, we were the only unfamiliar people there. The best vegetarian food there was the salad, which contained almonds and persimmons, so I had two plates of salad and a little bit of the other stuff and left feeling more or less like I'd had a normal sized meal. Overall, I'm very thankful that I didn't have to meet mom's boyfriend and family. Thankfulness is the reason for the season, right?
Day the third I spent the afternoon with Erica and her family and dogs. In addition to the wonderful Ozzie, a very tall, very big, and very placid tempered dog, the Cande family has now added Hank, a puppy, to their menagerie. Hank, as befits his puppy status, is a little more high energy and has a tendancy to use Ozzie as a chewing toy, but Ozzie is pretty even tempered about the whole thing. Erica and I went to a wonderful Japanese vegetarian restaurant for lunch, took Ozzie and Hank out on a walk at her mother's request, and generally hung out in the Cande kitchen. It was really good to spend time with Erica again. She's doing well, aside from beating herself up about law school applications and procrastinating on law school applications, in a manner which reminds me of both of us working on comps: working on it, worrying when she isn't working on it, and concentrating on it much harder than she really needs to, but generally laboring on it without that much doubt as to a sucessful outcome.
The Cande kitchen is very home-y. Which brings me to the fact that it was really nice to be back home. My father's home, and the immediate vicinity, really feels like home. It is comfortable and familiar to me, at a time when my life in DC feels much more up in the air and like it requires work. Specifically, job searching requires work and dealing with my office requires emotional binkers. I'm not planning on going home for Christmas/Hannukah/New Years, which I have mixed feelings about, but I do plan to go home in February if I have time then.
