I went to les 7 laux today. It was a balmy and blue skies day. They have installed a new ski lift which absolutely rocks: twice as fast as the old one, and it gins you access to some ridiculous new terrain. I can't wait until it snows again.
went mountain biking with Lolo today: we rode to Mont St. Martin on the road and then down by the hiking trail. The descent was pretty technical: lots of water, mud and rolling rocks. I almost crashed twice!
The Gendarmes here have pretty sweet pursuit cars: Impreza STIs. AWD, 300 bhp, you know the story. Well, it turns out that as of this summer, 58 of the 73 had been destroyed -- oops! A new pursuit car was just announced: the Megane RS! This is a seriously fast car, even though it supposed to be pretty poor as a daily driver "comically stiff suspension" is the quote that I remember. Anyway, these are not ordinary RS (which are already fast), but modified by Renault to produce more power, with a higher top speed.
still jet lagged. We woke up at 10:30 AM this morning! Then it was off to the marche for provisions. Yesterday we braved the masses at IKEA to buy come cheap cabinets and lights. IKEA is the refuge of the expat/immigrant renter.
Today was the day we were not looking forward to: the long day of planes, trains, buses and automobiles to Grenoble. I used to get nervous traveling by myself (ever since I forgot my ticket once, coming back from Williams), but now I get pathologically nervous. I had weighed all of the bags the night before and made a last minute Target mission to buy a third suitcase, so I knew there would be no problems with exceeding the maximum weight. Tickets, passports, babies: everything was in order. We got to the airport in plenty of time and said our tearful goodbyes to the parents, then checked in and cleared security. A kind TSA person moved us into the family line for security, so we got through fairly quickly. At the gate, we were told that they did not do family boarding by one attendant, and that they do by another (and that it was at the discretion of the agent). This was not a good start to the day. The flight itself was a little less painful than the flight from Europe, but only slightly. The stewards and stewardesses were United employees, which is to say the worst and most unhelpful imaginable. Alex actually slept a few times, which was wonderful, but there were no in seat movie screens (on an 11 hour flight -- are you kidding me!?!) so Zoe was constantly bored. We had plenty of toys, puzzles, and an iphone loaded with Pixar, but she went through all of those in the first three hours or so. After a while, chloe and I resorted to playing with oranges with Alex to keep him occupied. Highlights were getting peed on by Alex a few hours in, and the United choice of videos. Specifically, they were playing Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations, which was filled with beautiful and delicious looking food footage. This was in between serving us some of the greyest, most nausea inducing "food" to ever grace the fold out tray of a 747-400. Thanks, United! I did learn that some of the best Szechuan food outside of China can be found in Melbourne, Australia though!
We arrived in Frankfurt groggy and sickly feeling, and then had the pleasure of clearing security again! I wish that one of these massive hub airports could be designed in such a way that you don't have to clear security more than once. Due to some airplane problem, we then sat on the bus to the airplane for a half an hour. The front of the bus was taken up by a contingent from the Canadian World Cup Snowboarding team, dressed in sponsor clothing and talking about their upcoming races. We eventually made it to Lyon, where they told us that Alex's stroller had never left Frankfurt! There was actually a long line of people queued up for the lost and damaged baggage counter: I saw three suitcases on the conveyor which had been ripped open, with clothes falling out of them. All of the luggage (including ours) was completely soaked, too. The only bright parts of the day were finding our car in the mega lot (I took a picture of the zone when I parked it), the car actually starting, and arriving to a home which had *not* been burglarized (most people that I know have had their house broken into in our area at some point). Good times!
We toured our house today. My pineapple guava has fruited! And they are delicious!
Today we bagn the day with another item off the culinary tick list of the bay area: Dim-sum at Yank Sing. The food was perfect. I wish we could find such perfect Shanghai dumplings in Grenoble! Zoe, however, was largely uninterested in everything except for the deep fried crab claw
Next, we drove to the SFMOMA and got a parking space right outside! I had not seen the rooftop garden before, which is very well done
There was an excellent Cartier-Bresson exhibit (like ten rooms full of photos!). Zoe's favorite part of the exhibit was the beaded exit, though:
She also enjoyed the aerial walkway
As well as some excellent Rothkos, Diebenkorns etc 
On our way to Berkeley we stopped at See's candies. I wanted to take a picture of Zoe in front of the heaps of chocolates, but was informed that photos are not allowed in the store! I feel honor bound to violate every anti-photo policy I can find though, and I'm sure they don't really care, so I took some pictures anyway. It was just too cute.
Two friends of the parents that collect Kenji's paintings were at the NYE party. My parents had told me that it was one of the best presentations of his work that they had seen, and arranged for Chloe, Keith and I to go check it out today. The house was in Belvedere, with a dock that goes out to the lagoon. The house is spectacular, and Kenji's prints and paintings look fantastic.
The house even has a cupola-like upper level that looks out over the lagoon and environs.
There was also a rather impressive wine cellar. Apparently, a large part of the contents of the cellar had been sold to fund the remodeling of the house
Next: some bouldering with Ian. We brought Zoe, which turned out to be pretty exhausting. One of us obviously had to be with her at all times, which required hoisting her to the gymnastic rings to swing (and then fall on the mats), but she grew weary of this quickly. Happily, they also have a kids room that is filled with toys, which kept her fairly occupied. Zoe "cooked" me omelets with pickles, oranges and mushrooms using the Playskool cooking set.
Later on, Ian and I shared a pitcher of beer at Pyramid, and we uncorked the beloved Ardbeg 17 bottle (around 30 mL remain): The smoothest and best whiskey I have ever tasted. It's a shame it is not made anymore!
Today was the parents new years day party. Despite daily sacrifices to Taka-Okami, the god of rain and consumer electronics (Ok I made that part up), it rained during the party, so things were a little crowded. We were hoping to be able to use the gardens and the deck, but Kenji had obviously angered the gods somehow. Kenji was prepared the traditional Japanese New Years soup called ozoni,
and I was in charge of grilling chicken teriyaki skewers (in the rain again). I got fed up with getting my hands singed and the bamboo skewers turning into charcoal halfway through, but finished it without too much collateral carbonization. Even more exciting than the soup was the music: mom had found Shamisen players from the Santa Cruz province of Honshu.
They were very nice, and patiently sat through some very strange behavior from my parents friends. As they were setting up, one of them got into a long conversation with them about his harmonica, and how it was a shame he had not brought it. They looked crestfallen at not being able to do a little harmonica shamisen jamming. Later on another old family friend cornered them and began grilling them about the name of a stringed intrument she had bought in Turkey, which she was sure was a "Baclava". Although it is possible that she was not talking about the sweet middle eastern pastry and there is indeed a stringed instrument from the middle east called a "Baclava", I have a feeling that she was talking about a Bouzouki. They both looked very confused but kept politely suggesting the names of instruments that began with the letter "B". Their suggestions were only for Japanese "B" instruments though. Some of Chloe and my friends also showed up, and I finally got to meet my friend Steve's son, who was born within a few weeks of Alex's surprise early arrival.
It was great to see everyone, but there were so many people that I barely had any time to talk to anyone in particular. I did manage to sneak away for ten minutes for a ride in Steve's 335i: an excellent and very fast ride. The acceleration on that thing is pretty savage. If only gas were less than six dollars a gallon and 335s didn't require the selling of organs here.
I did, however get to drink way too much heavily hopped beer (hard to find in France), whiskey and Chartreuse. A winning combination!
We haven't really thought much about new years eve in the past three years -- my theory is that it has something to do with children. However, since we had parental support tonight, Chloe and I made our first NYE sortie in a long time! We put the kids to sleep, took the cell phones with us and instructed the parents to call us in case of kid problems. Despite the temptation, we did not hop on a plane to Kalymnos at this point, but went instead to an old friend's place, where they were having a party. It felt good to get out and be child free for a few hours.
A combination of being fully committed to vacation mode and not having fully figured out how to deal with the increased volume of files from the K-5 have conspired to prevent me from posting updates. I will gradually get through the backlog, but the posts will be dated with their original times, so wont appear at the top of this page.
Today we met some friends at the Bay Area Discovery Museum at Fort Baker. There are a *lot* of things for kids to do there, but what I liked most of all was that there were fun and engaging activities for young children (e.g. Alex!). Usually Alex doesn't escape from the stroller very much during museum visits, but this time he was able to do a lot of crawling over fuzzy things and exploring. In one section there is wall-to-wall carpeting as well as random stuffed animals. Alex ignored all of the dogs, cats and piggies and went for the vulture
After a lot of high speed crawling and cackling, he ran out of steam.
Zoe, of course, was in heaven and ran around like a little crazy thing. She was repairing a mini Golden Gate bridge:
Playing some music:
Playing in the sand box:
And doing the Hula Hoop.
She was not especially successful in this final endeavor: Chloe would fling the hoop around her, and Zoe would swing her hips frantically, but completeley out of sync with the hoop. The hoop would then clatter to the ground and she would shriek "MORE!"
Anyway, a big thumbs up to the Discovery Museum. If we still lived here, we would definitely buy a membership. As soon as we left, we got swept into a classic bay area traffic jam, like almost every other time we have taken the freeway anywhere here.
We had babysitter support today and headed to the Bridges gym, next to the asian mega complex near the freeway. I'm not sure how they stay in business with so much gym competition, but chloe and I both like it there a lot. The route setting in particular is superb -- some of the best we have seen. It's also very cool that the boulders top out. At our gym in Grenoble, they have banned volatile chalk, which after some initial bristling, I fully embrace. When you get a lot of climbers chalking up in an enclosed space, you very rapidly find yourself in a giant lung destroying white cloud. We both climbed well considering the fact that we have not climbed in two weeks and have been eating vast quantities of food.
And speaking of food, next, it was on to an excellent dinner at Rivoli. Chloe and Kenji had the scallops, my mom had the duck, and I had leg of lamb. Everything was wonderful, and I particularly liked the appetizer -- fried portobello mushroom fritters. Dessert was also exceptional -- warm chocolate budino for me, and meyer lemon cheesecake for CZ. At the end of the meal, my mom was talking to us about Opentable.com, and I mentioned that a lot of restauranteurs hate it. It's true that it can be a hassle to make reservations by phone, though.
appetizer:
portabella mushroom fritters, aïoli, parmesan, arugula, caper vinaigrette
scallops:
grilled dayboat scallops, potato and anaheim chili gratin,
baby spinach, sherry gastrique, quince aïoli, marcona almond picada
duck:
Sonoma liberty duck cooked two ways, winter vegetable soufflé,
lydia’s brussels sprouts with pancetta and pine nuts, black mission fig marmalata
leg of lamb:
grilled rosemary leg of lamb, roast eggplant, tomato and goat cheese tian,
garlic and olive oil braised tuscan kale
desserts:
warm chocolate cake, vanilla ice cream,
chocolate and caramel sauces
Meyer lemon cheesecake, citrus compote
