In case you missed it, there’s a part 1.
I woke up Monday morning to the sound of kitchen and toddlers. Kimi and Julia made an awesome breakfast of fried rice and eggs, and I ate that and chatted for the morning. I was kinda sick of the puzzle, so other people were working on it. Eventually, I wanted to go help finish the puzzle, so I moved over to the puzzle table again. Kelvin went to go walk Sonoma.
Once again, I got entranced by this stupid puzzle, but now I had the help of Julia, Tamara, and Debbie (another friend of Susie’s). Kelvin joined in when he finished walking the dog, and Henry’s dad helped until his wife dragged him away to drive his family back to SoCal. Tamara and Debbie eventually left also, and so it was just me, Kelvin, and Julia finishing off the final pieces. A little bit before noon, we finally finished the damn thing. It only took… 16 hours (including sleep). Connor, a 4-year-old fascinated with our puzzle building, was inspired to work on a 300 piece puzzle himself. Since I was done, I helped him finish his puzzle, so we were all done with our puzzles.
No longer distracted by the puzzle, Keni and Susie opened our presents. Susie said before that she and Naomi enjoyed Spirited Away and never got around to checking out the other Studio Ghibli films, so I decided to get her Studio Ghibli movies that both she and Naomi can enjoy: Kiki’s Delivery Service, My Neighbor Totoro, and Howl’s Moving Castle (last one less so for Naomi). Kelvin got his brother a remote controlled helicopter. I was really apprehensive about him getting that, since those things are $$$ and I know Kelvin just got Keni that because Kelvin wanted to play with it. But it’s not like I had any better ideas, since he’s older than us and makes way more money than us, so he can get whatever he wants for himself. Luckily, I think our presents were not sucky. Susie immediately stuck Kiki’s in the DVD player to watch with Naomi, and Keni immediately ran off to the store to get batteries for the helicopter. Keni’s helicopter-flying skills apparently still need some work; in his flying attempts, he ended up chopping flowers, almost hitting my car twice, almost landing on the roof, crash landing onto Kimi’s car, and breaking one of the helicopter feet. Thankfully, nothing that totally messes up functionality. And I think our presents were pretty good for them at the time, since they were going to be stuck in that giant house by the beach all week.
We still had another party (Rodney’s 25th!) to go to that night, so after lunch, we headed back to San Jose. (I can’t sit around and relax when there’s still stuff to do for the rest of the day.) Traffic on 17 was heavy, but not horrible. We dropped by the apartment to take a nap, and then I dropped by my mom’s place to grab Rodney’s birthday cake, which was sitting in her fridge since the day before when I picked it up from La Patisserie. (Why the heck are so many bakeries closed on Monday??) I would usually go to Aki’s, but that place is a freaking madhouse on weekends, and they changed ownership, so I heard their service is even worse now. Sandra had recently commented about how great La Patisserie is (which is interesting, since I first heard of Aki’s from her as well), so I gave them a shot since they seem to have quite a selection of chocolate cakes (Rodney likes chocolate cake). I bribed my mother for fridge space by giving her a mini-cheesecake… otherwise who knows if Rodney’s cake would still have been there the next day :P
We drove up 101, and it turned out to be an easy drive. Traffic was pretty light, and we had the carpool lane, so plenty of space for easy driving. Driving still stresses me out tho, so I still wasn’t relaxed. On the way, we stopped by Hillsdale Shopping Center, which, according to the EB Games store locater, is the closest EB Games location to Oracle (Rodney’s workplace). I was getting Rodney a preorder for Super Mario Galaxy for his birthday. The dude working at the store was nice; he tried to convince me to preorder Brawl, but all he got was Brawl chit chat.
Once we picked up the preorder, we went to SF. The restaurant, Market Street Grill, is located near the Orpheum Theater, so I at least knew of one place to park from my trip to go see Conan. I was hoping to find a different garage though, since that parking lot I was thinking of is one of those lots that arbitrarily changes its rates based on demand. After circling the 8th and 9th street areas a couple time, unable to find other cheaper parking, I gave into parking at that lot, which is part of a parking garage for the Hotel Whitcomb. Driving up to the lot, there was no sign for rates, and there was no attendant in the attendant booth, despite an open sign hanging out in the window. We drove up to the hotel entrance and asked the parking valet guy for rates. He said something like “$20 overnight, $26 in & out privileges” or something like that. I told him we just want to stay for dinner. He stood there, thought about it, and said, “Uh, $10.” I’m like, “Okay!” and gave him $10. He gave me this sketchy looking ticket stub that had the number crossed out and a new number written over it. We left the car and walked through the hotel to get to Market St. since, for some reason, San Francisco became freaking cold and windy during the evening even tho it had been hot all weekend in the Bay Area.
When we got to Market St., we turned left towards 8th St. and started looking for the restaurant. We hit 8th street without finding either the restaurant or street numbers on anything. I noticed the direction of the street numbers on the other side, and I realized we were going the wrong way. We turned around and found 1231 Market Street… which turned out to be the Hotel Whitcomb. We’re like, WTF, this is a hotel and we just walked through it. We went back into the hotel lobby, and of course, the restaurant is right there inside, next to the front entrance.
We were 20 minutes early, so we were the first ones there. I spoke with the lady in charge, and she knew of the group I was waiting for. They set up the tables, while Kelvin and I sat there and waited. I asked her to refrigerate the cake for me; she said she had to ask the chef, but she was sure it’d be okay. Forgetting some things, I had to make a few trips back to my car, which turned out to be parked right next to the back entrance, which was really handy. (I was really happy with how perfect the whole parking situation turned out to be. Parking hella stresses me out.) We hung out at the restaurant, scribbled stuff in Rodney’s card, and waited for people to show up. Rodney showed up first, saying he was expecting to be first one there. He opened my card/present, and he seemed to like it (yay!), even though it’s not going to materialize into anything until November 13th. Then his coworker Tim showed up, and then all sorts of people started coming.
Dinner was decent. I had their San Francisco Clam Chowder, which was actually pretty good except for the truffle oil (blech!) in it. I also had their New York Strip, which was alright; they made my medium-rare rarer than medium rare. Service was pretty good; they were efficient about refilling water and circling around our table in case we needed something. (However, we were one of the few people in the restaurant on a Monday night, and there were 15 of us.) Though, a gnat got into Rodney’s water, so they have to lose points for that.
What I thought was really good in terms of service was how they dealt with the cake. They refrigerated the cake like I asked, and when it was time for dessert, servers would come over to me and whisper, asking what they should do next. Like I was in charge or something. They offered a sparkler candle, asked what they should do about serving and cutting, yada yada. They brought the cake in with the sparkler candle (but it didn’t feel like sparkling, so it ended up just looking like a tall skinny candle) and placed it in front of Rodney with a huge pile of plates. The cake looked… different from when I saw it last. It had this chocolate disc on top for the “Happy Birthday Rodney” when it was first given to me. It had now turned into this warped piece of chocolate that looked… really odd. I guess it had melted on the way from San Jose to SF. Rodney asked me about that, and I’m like, uh, I… guess.. it… melted… *hides* What’s funny is that everyone else thought it was on purpose, like it was some fancy chocolate art piece on a cake. Oh, if only.
I told them we’d deal with cutting the cake (and by that, I mean make birthday boy do all the work). Obviously, they don’t deal with this situation very often, so we were given the best possible alternatives for cake cutting utensils at the restaurant: a steak knife and a rice paddle. Rodney sliced the cake (like birthday people should), but then we made him cut all 14 slices. Which actually turned out to be a good idea, since he was pretty skilled at cutting it. Also, it means he would determine how big the last piece (his piece) would be. And it certainly wasn’t easy. I mean, I originally bought this cake just for Rodney (well, I know I was going to at least try it…) as part of his present. It’s a dessert cake meant for 8-10 people. If I had known there was going to be no other cake, I would have brought a much more substantial cake so everybody could get nice, meaty pieces. (Cake is very important for birthdays!!!) Oh, well. I know for next time. We still managed to get decent sized mini-slices for everyone tho. And it was pretty good! It was La Patisserie’s Chocolate Strawberry Shortcake, and it was a very tasty and light chocolate cake. I was surprised it survived the day in the fridge and SF trip so well. Kudos to La Patisserie; they’re on my list of bakeries to consider for my wedding… whenever that is.
Because of all the trouble I made for the cake, I made sure to tip them well… but then the bill got evenly split. I felt kinda bad, since the cake drama was all me and I wanted to over-tip them for that. Oh well. It was a great dinner, and I enjoyed myself and meeting all of Rodney’s coworkers and friends. We were the first to leave since Kelvin had to get up early the next morning for school. The trip back down was easy, but man… I was so exhausted getting home.
My weekend was too active. I can’t handle doing things… like… talking to people, going to places, thinking, etc. This coming weekend (and probably the one after), Kelvin and I have planned to do nothing. So if you want us to go to some get-together or something, we’re not going to do it. We’re not going anywhere, except maybe shopping for food. If you want to hang out, you’ll have to come to us. Guests are still very welcome at our new apartment!
New thing I learned today: Because the “Happy Birthday” song is a copyrighted song, restaurants can’t sing it to birthday guests without infringing copyright. That’s why they come up with their own, individual birthday jingles. The copyright expires in 2030.
I always thought restaurants sing their own jingles to be creative and festive. I guess they just wanted to avoid paying royalties or being sued. I think us singing “Happy Birthday” to Rodney may have violated copyright then. Anyways, Rodney’s coworker (Tom, I think?) told me this interesting tidbit.
