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Walnut Creek
December 25, 2009 – January 27, 2010
My mission of 2009: Pay my parents a surprise Christmas visit. I think it was pretty successful! Unfortunately, jet lag kept me up at night and asleep during the day, but I still got to spend time with my nephews, like taking Gabriel for a walk, watching Gabriel recite his lines as an on-stage moderator at part of his 1st grade class presentations, going to the Oakland zoo with Joy and the kids. Joe and Kristin drove up for a few days, but due to the weather and my inability to get up reliably in the morning meant that we didn’t do much beyond visiting with an uncle and aunt (dad’s eldest brother), visiting with our grandma, and playing with Gabriel and Aidan. We also got to celebrate Joy’s birthday (though Bryan was working that evening), and heard some interesting family history.
Just like in my travels abroad, food plays a significant role. I enjoyed mom’s home-cooked meals, but I also got to eat out with friends, like on New Year’s Eve, and before Atsushi’s band’s show at G3. I tried out a French bistro, Le Charm, in San Francisco with Po, after watching Avatar in 3D at the Metreon’s IMAX, after which I scolded myself for my lax hygiene. Food and more food!
I was able to complete some of the things that I wanted/needed to take care of while I was here, but didn’t do many of them after all. As usual, I took the opportunity to take a look at my parents’ computers and made sure they were up-to-date with virus protection and security updates. I nervously upgraded my Mini 9 to Mac OS X 10.6 (and then to 10.6.2) and installed TurboTax in anticipation of the 2009 paperwork to arrive. I looked into using American Express’s extended warranty service to handle my Xbox 360, which had finally gotten the RROD, and my Canon Powershot G9. On the money side, I had a bit of a scare with a late payment on one of my credit cards (the finance charges ended up getting waived).
The day before my flight back to Bangkok, I rescheduled my departure to the next week, to give me even more time to procrastinate on my to-do list. I attended the English service at my parents’ church and then walked around downtown, marveling at the rare snow on Mt. Diablo, while they attended the Chinese service. I had a final dinner with Po at Ryoko’s, where she handed over a bunch of books I had lent to Jay. Finally, I did some last-minute shopping and gear tweaks and last-minute worrying, had a surprise test at the DMV, then got dropped off at Walnut Creek BART by my dad, and then it was back to Bangkok!
