Thursday, June 19, 2003
Exercise, oatmeal. Admissions changes for James. Graduation planning meeting. Templates section work. Tonight was the School of Pharmacy graduation dinner for our senior class—a dress-up celebration before Saturday's graduation celebration. It was held at the Mark Hopkins Inter-Continental, the Web site for which has not only the world's longest URL for a hotel (san-francisco.california.intercontinental.com) but also the world's tiniest pictures: the largest of only 3 images of the hotel measures 126 pixels square. Sad injustice for what is a beautiful building and a San Francisco landmark and institution. The party was held on the ground floor of the hotel in a back lobby and adjoining large banquet hall. There were about 35 or 40 tables, and a small dance floor. It felt like someone's wedding. The pre-dinner cocktail hour hors d'oeuvres included a complimentary bar (2 drink tickets included in the dinner price, which Cindy generously paid for us staff out of the office budget), mushroom puff pastry triangles, seafood puff pastry triangles, huge prawns with cocktail sauce, roast duck on toast. Dinner: bread and butter; hearts of romaine topped with parmesan, a side of croutons (Kristina got a mixed green salad). Entree choices: COW: filet mignon, scalloped potatoes, squash, yellow and green beans. CHICKEN: breaded chicken boob and (I think) similar sides of vegetables. VEGETARIAN: I can't remember, but I remember it looked good. Desserts: two choices: one was an apple tart tartin with a tiny scoop of vanilla bean ice cream in a fortune cookie cup. the other was white and dark chocolate mousse formed into a half dome on top of a thin layer of chocolate cake then covered with a rich (I think milk) chocolate ganache then topped with a tubular tuile cookie (I don't know what it's called). All the food was very fresh and prepared with excellent care, particularly for such a large banquet dinner. The service staff was confident and competent—a pleasure to have. Our table included: Cindy Watchmaker, Don Kishii and his wife Ruth, Jorge Gomez, Claire Lee, Joel W. Gonzales, Ena Wilson, Kristina Hallett, and Betty-ann Hoener. Don graciously bought a bottle of red and a bottle of white wine for the table. I didn't have alcohol—puts me to sleep, and I don't bother trying to build a tolerance anymore. Class yearbooks were handed out, and they held a small awards ceremony to honor those who helped them along in their education. Everyone in my office got a little something (or more), and staff from other offices and other students got awards and recognition, too. After the ceremony the DJ played dance music. Cindy offered me a ride home all the way to the lower middle Sunset, but she lives in the East Bay and I insisted I wouldn't make her spend 40 minutes taking me all the way home. She dropped me at Powell station, and indeed I had gotten home by 11 PM—not too bad—I hope she did, too.