Wednesday, December 18, 2002

Patrick had a nightmare at 2:15 AM. We both woke up and stayed up for a bit before going back to sleep. Woke up late. Got to work just past 11:00 AM. Lunch with Joel at You See Sushi. I taught him what "w00t!" meant. He taught me what "poppin' collar" meant. Made a tweak to the interview reply form: the e-mail address field was only 25 characters which was too small for one of the 30 replies that came in, so I opened that up to 50 chars. Made edits to the new Medicine Question of the Month and sent them to Candy for review. Made changes to the Continuing Education page for Susie and sent them to her for review. Sam treated me and Patrick to dinner at Tokyo Teriyaki since it was his last night in San Francisco before going to New Orleans for the holidays. Patrick and I had California roll, New York roll, Spider roll, eel with avocado and string bean roll. Sam had teriyaki chicken and a sushi assortment. We gave him a box of See's candies to give to his mom, who likes See's very much. After dinner, we went to a concert or recital for Sam's composition class at City College. There were about 20 pieces with varying instruments: piano, flute, alto flute, guitar, violin. Sam had 2 pieces: one of several variations of "Away in the Manger" and a Piano Trio with a drum beat on tape and Patrick singing vocals in Chinese. It was great to hear his work, and I was impressed with his creations. The music in Piano Trio felt much more emotional and evocative than the other works, tho I liked the first violin piece. We went home, tired from the day, and I baked pumpkin bread from semi-scratch for the office potluck tomorrow. I used the mini springform pans and the small copper-colored star and bell molds that Tina and Daniel had given us in the past. The bread turned out delightfully, and I saved one small loaf for Patrick and I to enjoy at home. Worked in Brian T's change requests for Half-Light Dances. Not too much trouble. Tina responded to my query of "What would you do with 5 pounds of persimmons?" and sent me scans of her persimmon watercolors—yummy! Got to bed late, around 12:30 AM. Chatted with Chris De Lay in Hawaii just before bed. Tina responded to my e-mail query today. I asked her, "What would you do with 5 pounds of persimmons?" She said: "Mmmm. Did I send you my persimmon watercolors? They have a special place in my heart. There is a wonderful persimmon cake recipe I will try and find for you. Also, steamed persimmon pudding. Are they the Hiychia variety or the Fuyu? Fuyus are round like pumpkins and Hiychias are elongated like an egg. Yes, you can wait until they are very ripe, and scoop out the flesh and store in freezer bags. Then, you can bake with it later. The Fuyus you can eat raw. The H, you can eat raw as well, but the enzyme it contains will give you the gnarliest hairy tongue feeling... so I do not recommend it. You can cook it into a nice compote with some fresh cinnamon sticks and brown sugar. Add some dried fruits and serve it over vanilla bean rice-dream, or with toast. You can serve it with a lamb roast. I LOVE them! Mmmmmmm.... xoxox T."