Ben Wildman-Tobriner is only the second San Franciscan to win an Olympic medal and ironically he was taught by Ann Curtis, the first San Franciscan. Ann has a pool in Marin where I learned to swim during my summers and where my children now go to learn. Recently, Ben showed up at the pool during our kid’s lesson so that they could touch the Olympic Gold Medal that he won at the 2008 Beijing Olympics as part of the 4×100 meter freestyle relay team (he swam in the semifinal heats). Ben currently holds the US Record in the 50-yard freestyle in a time of 18.87 seconds. He also was the World Champion in the 50 meter free in 2007.
My other connection to Ben is that he went to the same high school I went to (years apart) and was also on my school’s swim team. Ben is a self made kid. It is very rare to see a kid like Ben from the inner city that is not made of swimming pools become an international swimming champion. Our high school (Lick-Wilmerding) is not a sports powerhouse. With only 450 kids, you usually get drafted by coaches to help fill out sports rosters. In highschool my swiumming team was a motley gang of kids who didn’t wear speedos or skin tigh swimming caps to remove resistence. We had maybe 8 kids on our team. The same was with Ben years later. Ben swam at the local boys and girl’s club in San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury district. No pristine facilities. It is like the the Rocky of swimming pools.
Ben went on to be a star in the Stanford University swimming program and is now at UCSF Medical School where my wife is currently being treated for her cancer. He is now torn between medical school and his swimming career. Ben has a great humble head on his shoulders and has given back to the pools that helped him to get where he is today. I only wish the other swimmer on the US team that won 8 gold medals has the same character as Ben.
San Francisco is the longest lasting love affair of my life. Her beauty inspires me anew each day and I am very thankful to be able to live here on the edge of the continent in what I feel is the heart of the world. ~Nicole ,sfheart.com
The last couple of weeks have been a bit nutty from me. I think it all started with my annual check -up ( I got a clean bill of health by the way) but as soon as it was over, I got sick. I had a rash, a hacking cough, a fever….no it wasn’t “swine flu” although I had just taken a flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco where I was about the only person not returning from Spring Break in Mexico. In the end I think it was just the winding down from all the stress of making sure that I was healthy for my check-up that my body just relaxed and broke down. The stress had been hitting me hard and now it was just taking over my body in its weakened state.
Today, after two weeks, I felt like something came over me. I wasn’t sure. My wife went in for her 5 month appt for her study and was given the approval for more medication to lessen some of the side effects. A relief for her too I guess. She still wants to revisit her physician and see if he can make a few more corrections. These days, these decisions I leave to her. She wants to remove me from the clinical aspects of our marriage. In her view it is like my not telling her what hue of lipstick or what pair of shoes to wear. We then proceeded to make summer plans and take care of the millions of little things that have been bothering us. The Comcast cable issue, summer camps for kids, and all those little things we’ve been meaning to coordinate around the house, but just haven’t asked each other to help.
Then despite working late, skipping lunch, having a late dinner, and barely getting home in time to tuck my kids into bed, I had that burst of energy. I still have been coughing and I just knew I had to get out and run. I needed to have a healing run. In fact I had a major coughing fit just as I put on my shoes. I was dreading this run. While recuperating from this cold I joked with my wife that we really were getting old. I now had more medications on my bathroom counter than I can remember ever having. I joked with my wife that i need one of those daily pill boxes that my mom has.
It was a beautiful foggy night that San Francisco is so well known for. The damp mist on my face was so refreshing. I ran further than I had on any run this year and I set personal bests this year for the mile, 3k and 5k distances. It was truly amazing that despite my sickened state that my body could perform so well. It had to be that home-cooked weather. The damp streets from the fog, along with the blurry street lights created a dreamlike feel as I ran up and down the hills. It felt so good and all my thoughts raced in and out of my head. By the time I completed my circle back home I could have gone longer but it was already midnight. I felt stronger at the end of the run that I did at the beginning. My cough is suddenly gone and I don’t feel any shortness of breath.
It is amazing how much I needed this run. Not just for the energy, but mostly for my mindset. I think the San Francisco weather is like that comfort food for me. It’s healing effects on this native son are like my fountain of youth! I felt like Tony Bennett was singing to me as I glided through the streets, window shopping and gathering in the view of the fingers of fog as they reached under the Golden Gate Bridge and curled their way across the bay. It was like a lullaby that your mom sings to you when you can’t sleep. Sometimes it is the power of the soul to heal. The power of the mind helps rejuvenate your passion and your spirit. Those comfortable surroundings which lessen our worries are better than all the medicines that can be prescribed.
Speaking of sleep, I better get some. Long day tomorrow.
“One day if I do go to heaven, I’ll look around and say, ‘It ain’t bad, but it ain’t San Francisco.’” –Herb Caen, former columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.
Herbie by the Bay
I was going to write about something else, but today was “that day” each year that everyone gets. It is that day where the weather suddenly changes overnight and the air is so warm and Winter seems so long ago. Nobody is ever prepared for it, but it sure was nice to have on a Monday. People were walking around in a daze with their noses pointed in the air and their eyes closed and a little smile on their face as they took in the suns rays.
It wasn’t just a hot day. It was 93 degrees downtown breaking the record which was previously 84. By 9 degrees, that wasn’t just breaking, but shattering the record. Pipes burst, trains stopped, tracks buckled and power grids burnt out ,shutting down about 25% of the city without power.
Today just happened to be the day when I was finally taking care of myself and heading to the doctor for my annual checkup. Would this be the year when the doctor said I needed to be put on Lipator or some other cholesterol reducing drug? I’d say the one good thing about the hot weather was that as I fasted all day, the last thing I wanted to do was eat. I had to laugh as the receptionists were walking around in the dark and using flashlights to guide pregnant women around the halls. This happened to be Earth Day week so I guess we were conserving energy whether we wanted to or not. It kind of broke up the nervousness for me as having been to the hospital several times over the last year for my wife was a lot simpler than a normal checkup for me.
The results? Well I lost 12 pounds over the previous year and now I have to wait to find out if my cholesterol counts are low enough to avoid the drugs. Ironic that the son of a physician hates needles, but I just can’t watch them go into me, At least the lady today got my vein right on the first try and didn’t jab me three times like last year. Finally as I left, the blackout lifted. It lifted for me too. There was a relief for me as I have been working all year to make sure I stayed healthy and going to see the doctor was somethin I didn’t want to do until I was ready. More than anything though was the relief that I think I finally felt I could look after my health after monitoring my wife. It was a deep sigh. I found myself closing my eyes and soaking in the sun. It felt good, real good. I know my wife was pleased to see me doing something for myself as well.
The next several days will be busy at conferences and for our Ben & Jerry’s Free Cone Day.
It felt good to put a Herb Caen quote at the top of this entry. He was always my favorite columnist gwoing up as he captured the essence of San Francisco. I don’t think he would have enjoyed today’s sweltering heat, but I think he would have found a way to enjoy his Baghdad by the Bay.
News blip- I just heard that there are over 36,000 people over the age of 100 in Japan! Holy cow!
Well this is my short entry for the day. It is too hot to do anything! Even too hot to go for a run! I earned a day off!
I love Opening Day. …It’s just a special day in our American culture. It’s weaved into the fabric of what we are, and I think it’s a great day. – Padres manager Bud Black
Opening Day 2009
I’m not a poet so maybe I never understood TS Eliot’s poem, The Wasteland, when he says that April is the cruelest month. It has always been one of the liveliest months for me.
Yesterday was Opening Day in San Francisco. San Francisco is not a sports crazy town and I didn’t grow up in a family where baseball and professional sports were considered anything but one of the many choices of entertainment. That said, I cherished those days when I got to go see a baseball game, a football game, etc. Moreso, I really enjoyed sharing the time and history with those I love. I remember the many games I saw at Candlestick Park with my dad (mostly football games during the 49er dynasty). In fact I remember having to look through binoculars to see everything and that is how my dad noticed I needed glasses.
They say Football is America’s Passion and Baseball is America’s Pasttime. I don’t know if my dad knew that those moments he spent with me on those cold windy nights (at the ‘Stick) were making such an impression on me. They were times where I sat there with my dad and talked between pitches and your dad casually passed on his knowledge of baseball and life in general (along with the hot dog, peanuts, popcorn and watered down hot chocolate). I don’t remember what we talked about, but it was about laughing and cheering for a cause and just sitting next to each other shelling peanuts for 3 hours. Going to those games with my dad stopped in my teens as my dad spent more time working to pay for our education and to enjoy his time on the golf course. Maybe he didn’t enjoy it as a dad, or life did get that busy.
When I got older and San Francisco opened what is now called “AT&T Park” (formerly Pac Bell and SBC and more affectionately, “the Phone Booth”) , I bought a couple tickets and was able to share “Opening Day”. I think it was the 2 years I spent in Chicago where the nostalgia really started coming to me and made me not just love the game on the field but everything that surrounds it. As I mentioned in a previous entry, I had the chance to take my dad to Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs on a warm Summer day, share in a Giants victory, and help the Cubs fans drown their sorrow at Murphy’s Bleachers in a plastic cup of Old Style before showing my dad some of the better watering holes and blues clubs that Chicago had to offer. Although by this time I was well into my 20s, it was the first time I felt like I was able to relate to my dad on an adult to adult relationship. I was well free of his financial backing, we talked about my pending marriage, my future, our family, and of course baseball. It was the beginning of a new course in our relationship , the adult-adult rather than the parent-child relationship, and from there I knew that baseball was more than just a game for me.
I have to give credit to the minister who did my pre-marital testing with the recommendations for the adult-adult relationship suggestion. He was very adamant that my wife start establishing that relationship with her parents as he could see that it would be a harder struggle for them to “let go”. Truth is, that it is harder to gain that respect of a parent. 15 years later, my wife still goes through that struggle. Ironically, yesterday my wife was handed a book by a family friend who heard about my wife’s illness. It is amazing how the “sisterhood” finds each other. The book is called “The Middle Place”. more appropriately it talks about the sandwich generation we are in where we are now adults looking after our sick parents, our children and ourselves and the author comes to realize she is no longer her dad’s little girl as she deals with her diagnosis of breast cancer. My wife read the cover and said she wasn’t sure if she could read it and I offered to read it for her, but told her it is something she will have to read because she needs this example. Another example of an adult-adult relationship – and defintiely very relevant. I know my wife doesn’t want to listen to me about this subject so I’ll sit tight.
Back to the subject of Opening Day, since the park had opened in 2000 I have been able to share the festivities with some of the more important people in my life on a one-on one basis (My dad, my mom, my brother, my wife, my best friend, my daughter, and my son). There is nothing like it. The pomp and circumstance, the hopes, the memories, the patriotism can be quite overwhelming. So on this Opening Day, it was a little different as I missed it for the first time in 9 years, as I listened in my office. My office though is located only blocks from the ballpark so at lunch I wandered over, grabbed a hot dog and a soda and watched through the “Archways” in right field. A great feature of the park is that for FREE you can watch the game from behind the righfielder. It is the best way to catch a Big League Opening Day in this economy. I stared across the way between innings to where I shared so many memories with my dad and others I’ve attended games with. Its not just the Opening Days but the hundreds of other games and conversations.
The walk back to my office was one of solitude. I had gotten my fill (yes the Giants won), but more importantly I had taken the people I cared for ( not physically) to the game with me and I shared those conversations again. It hadn’t been my intention to reminisce, but it just happened in the moment. Perhaps it was the text I got on the way to the game from my mom about her friend, “Mrs. E”, who had passed. “Mrs. E” had her own connection to me with baseball. Back in high school she picked me, this gawky geeky kid to entertain her granddaughter who was visiting from Kansas. She told me not to do anything “romantic” and that the girl’s dad was the police chief in their small town. Well 9 innings later we were dating and I was scared sh–less about the midwestern Sheriff who was going to kill me for corrupting his daughter. Truth be told I think she corrupted me but I can’t remember. What I do remember though is telling her about the art of hitting a baseball and showing her the smooth swing of Will Clark as she grabbed and held my hand. Amazingly she got what I was saying, or at least she pretended to. From there I knew I had to marry a girl who could hang with me at a baseball game.
Yes baseball and life have a fabric that is woven tightly in the American hearts of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, and friends. I grew up on baseball and baseball grew up in me. While a full-blown adult, I can still go to the game like a kid and imagine I’m there with my dad or sit with my son next to me and my daughter on my lap and teach them about how to appreciate the game of baseball (because it is about appreciating life as well).
“You are fortunate to live here. If I were your President, I would levy a tax on you for living in San Francisco!” – Mikhail Gorbachev
Thank heavens the Russians never took over our City!
After a long week of travel and looking at another week of travel to colder parts of the country I am so glad to live in the city Herb Caen affectionately called “Baghdad by the Bay”. Living in San Francisco you don’t even need to go hog wild to enjoy its simple pleasures. I was already exhausted but wanted to enjoy the decent January weather and spend some time with my two children and wife. If you didn’t know I am a proud San Franciscan. I’ve had a chance to live in other great American cities such as New York and Chicago but San Francisco has all that I need. It’s small, diverse, community oriented,and yet very sophisticated and progressive. As a father, all you could ever want is to give your kids the best that you know how and sometimes when I need help, this city offers up a beautiful weekend.
With moderate temperatures and ample parking it is easy to get around. I just wanted to recharge my batteries on Saturday watching my kid’s basketball games (and teaching my kids a few moves on the courts), hitting a few golf balls at the Presidio Golf Course (the oldest course west of the Mississippi). I also got to go to my favorite hideaway in San Francisco, Liguria Bakery. Open since 1910, it is a family run business that makes the best focaccia around. It is all they make and all the major restaurants buy their focaccia from them. It is a San Francisco secret. Why? Well they start baking at about 5am every morning and open their doors around 7am and close when they’ve sold out. That could be 10am or 3pm. Oh, and they go back to Italy every year for the summer for about 6 weeks. If you’re coming here, just ask a local. there is a small sign in the window, but nobody will give away the secret.
Inside, things look much like they always have except for the few autographed photos from some recent baseball players on the Giants. A rather sparse counter with a roll of paper for wrapping and and a sign that lists the focaccia for sale is all you will find. I remember when the standard for the cocaccia was $1.50
Prices have gone up in recent years but I once lived on a diet of their focaccia when I was on a budget back in college. Get the plain pizza focaccia with tomato and green onion. It’ll serve two adults easily. BEWARE CASH ONLY, but it won’t suck your wallet dry
Afterwards we took the kids to the Haight Ashbury and got our kids some Ben & Jerry’s at our store located conveniently on the famous corner where hippies changed our culture back in the ’60s. From there we walked over to Golden Gate Park, past the Arboretum and back to our home. Our kids thought all the “new Hippies” (homeless) were interesting but as parents we try to teach our children empathy and not to stare. Most of all we are happy that they are not scared and are exposed to many of our society’s many issues and are not sheltered. Living in a great city, they can appreciate what they do have.
Sunday was more of a family day as well as the Super Bowl. Chinese tradition is to have a big one year old party banquet (200 people). My sister and her husband go all out with the traditional dragon dancing and the banging of loud drums. Growing up in San Francisco I used to go to these events all the time and got tired of them. I look at these events now as a great opportunity to casually expose my children to a part of their heritage so that they appreciate where they are from. They got a real kick out of it and also enjoyed visiting with all of my cousin’s kids. San Francisco really is a small city and since both my my mom had 6 siblings and my father had 7, we have many relatives for our children to play with. There are many advantages and disadvantages of a large family, but today we took advantage of the good parts and the good weather to spend time with family and friends.
While we didn’t get out and do everything this weekend, we did enough and have our eyes on other activities we are looking forward to in the coming weeks. As usual, we did our normal, “how was your weekend” questioning of our children. They both looked at each other and yelled, “Great” and told us their favorite parts. Maybe it is the weather, but I think it is part of the magic of living in San Francisco which gives us energy, strength and resolve to have hope in our lives.
When i look back on this post in a decadeI do need to remind myself that this is a deep recession we are in and many people are losing jobs, worrying about how to pay their bills and simply wondering how to make ends meet. I don’t think I’m any different. Like everyone I wonder what might be around the corner and hope to just maintain the status quo, yet to hear my kids say they had a great weekend is just enough to make you feel like you are doing something right.
I have another long week of travel ahead of me, but I look forward to returning back to my city by the bay and recharging my batteries once again.
Hotel Decor: 95 (warm and sleek contemporary design with silver finishings)
Hotel Amenities: 85 (Work out and business center as well as gourmet restaurant located on 5th Floor. Don’t miss Happy Hour)
Neighborhood Scene: 90 (Urban touristy. Not relaxed or perfectly safe at night)
Miscellaneous: 95 (Take a cab or park down the street in the 4th and Mission Garage. It’s cheaper)
Overall Wow Factor: 87 (You can’t get this quality for this price. Join the Kimpton newsletter to hear about their specials)
Much like the Hotel on Rivington, the style of this San Francisco luxury hotel is modern but not too over the top. The Palomar has picked up an animal (Leopard and Zebra) print theme that has expanded its brand to other Palomar locations in the US. Unlike the hotel on Rivington, the Palomar successfully hides itself in this nieghborhood and whisks you off the hustle and bustle of downtown San Francisco. Located five stories up (located above the 4 story Old Navy flagship store) the décor invites closer inspection such as the nude drawings outside the 5th Floor restaurant by Sayles. The lobby is located on the ground floor and is very similar in simplicity and style to the boutique hotels found in Paris.
The Hotel Palomar is centrally located near the SOMA district with easy access to great restaurants, the Moscone Convention Center, the Sony Metron, the MOMA, the Jewish Contemporary Museum and at least half a dozen other museums. It is also three blocks away from famed Union Square, but just across the street you will find Barney’s, the Apple Store and the Virgin store. Around the corner you will find the San Francisco Center (formerly Emporium) which houses a gorumet food court, hundreds of high end shops and a cinema multiplex. The location makes this hotel appealing to those suburbanites looking to get into the city for some action or conventioners looking for an alternative to the Marriott (Jukebox) across the street, the loud and trendy W or the new Intercontinental blue eyesore.
5th Floor Hallway at Hotel Palomar
Our King size room was quiet despite the traffic down below on Market Street and overlooked the Virgin store and Apple store. The room offers Leopard and Zebra print robes and the generously sized bathroom offered a jacuzzi soaking tub which is very relaxing after all the walking you will do in San Francisco. Definitely use it as the shower was lacking in size tucked into the corner when there was lots of room.
What do we reommend for food. If on a budget, try Coriander (Thai food) in the San Francisco Centre food court. Two items (Cripy Basil Chicken and Spicy Catfish over rice for just $8 is good for a conventioneer’s budget and don’t miss the Beard Papa Cream puffs ($2) also located in the food court. If the hotel’s 5th Floor restaurant won’t do, other great restaurants within walking distance include Two (Hawthorne Lane off of Howard between 2nd and 3rd), Roy’s (Mission and 2nd), Lulu’s (4th and Folsom) and XYZ (located in the W on 3rd and Howard) offer great alternatives. Also try the Samovar Tea House located in the Yerba Buena Gardens where you can sit down with a beautiful view of the area while going through all of your purchases.
If you joing the Kimpton’s newsletter you will see lots of special offers that will save you money so you can go on those shopping sprees. Our King Size room only cost $159/nt on a holiday weekend making this hotel an easy urban getaway spot.
King Bed-Palomar
While I am a local San Franciscan, I do have to add that the Cable Car line on Powell St. is just a block away. You can catch the cable car all the way to Fisherman’s Wharf and Ghirardelli Square from there.
