Restaurant Week 2023

Oakland's Restaurant Week came and went. It was nothing to write home about so it's ironic that I'm doing just that.

We kicked things off with Millennium, a very highly rated vegetarian restaurant. A for presentation, C for taste. When the most memorable part of the meal was the carrot-shaped door handle, it's not a particularly compelling place for return visits.

Millennium: A for presentation, C for flavor

From there we went to Mama in Adam's Point, Oakland. I couldn't complain about the food - the portion size was the only thing lacking - but was a bit let down to realize their Restaurant Week "offer" was just the same prix fixe menu on offer every other weekend. A solid Italian restaurant at a reasonable price. 

Mama: solid Italian fare. Pasta game not on point with Passione Emporio, but a wider selection and a greater mastery of the dessert menu.

We wrapped things up with attempt #2 at the Berkeley Boathouse as part of Berkeley's Restaurant Restaurant Week, which kicks off at the tail end of Oakland's. Last year, having explicitly made a reservation for Restaurant Week, the hostess seated us and casually informed us that they were "all out" of their Restaurant Week offerings. No substitutes, just a regular menu. That disappointment led us to Passione Emporio, an excellent Italian place that we have revisited, so it wasn't a total loss. This year, after seating us, the hostess impatiently swung by every couple minutes reminding that there was only an *hour* left in which to place our order, and then she dropped that Restaurant Week was only for the dinner hour. Cute. 

A 16th birthday for the books

One week ago, we were flying home from Fargo. We'd checked visit the Fargo woodchipper off the bucket list and oh, right, just spent a weekend visiting our future son! 

In Fargo for our first visit and James's 16th birthday

The visit went about as well as any first meeting with a foster child could probably ever go. On Day 1, James didn't much want to make eye contact and I found myself worrying whether we were forcing a child into a situation that really didn't interest him and shipping him halfway across a continent in a wild scheme he'd only agreed to because he really wanted a new forever family. A couple days later, with the jitters worn off, the situation already looked quite different as we toasted with mocktails at his fancy 16th birthday dinner. By Sunday night, we were spending our post-dinner time together chasing each other around an outdoor rink having my first snowball fight on ice. We golfed, we shopped, and we ate way more than we needed to. We introduced James to lobster, filet mignon, and burrata. We learned just how much he loves bread - a requisite, as I understand it, for receiving his future French nationality - and how he hates raw tomatoes - he will truly be my son. His foster family was incredibly gracious all weekend. It broke my heart a little to see him playing with the foster cousins who soon won't be a part of his weekly routine (at least not in person), but we know that getting this forever family is what James most wants. James opened up about so many things we hadn't even planned on touching during our first visit. His resilience and matter-of-factness about life really impressed us, and he's got a sense of humor to boot.

We feel so lucky and excited to have found such a great match for our family. Now to bring him home!

A real-life grown-up birthday party!

For the first time since moving to California, this year we have enough friends to throw together a last-minute birthday party! It makes me feel like a total weirdo to even announce that like some sort of accomplishment, but adulting is hard and making adult friends is part of the challenge. This blog set out to track the journey of returning to my home country after a decade abroad, and to that effect I'd say this is a pretty big milestone on the path to calling this place home.

"Tell them I'm very excited"

Our family narrative may never include the traditional "she said yes" moment, but now we have one very big "he said" moment. Last Wednesday, James's team gathered to break the news that a family had been identified for him. Suffice it to say, things went well. A member of James's team described it as the highlight of their career. As the story was relayed to us, by the time he finished reading our family bio, he was already asking how soon he could move. And when his social worker clarified that we wanted to be sure he felt good about this whole situation, James told her, "tell them I'm very excited." Let's just say the feeling is mutual. 💞

A Valentine's Case Update

How are you allowed to feel when the answer to your prayers is made possible through the realization of someone else's nightmare?

I've been swimming in emotional turmoil since the excitement of last Tuesday's email: unanimously approved! Check AdoptUSKids: a Case Update notification just for us. What better Valentine's news could you hope for?

Before we'd even finished composing our excited reply to James's team, my worries creeped in. We'd just been approved for a kid without even knowing the sound of his voice. How would he feel? James still has no idea that we even exist. Yes, he knows families have been asking about him, and yes, his team has been checking in with him about plenty of aspects of our home and family to ensure he could be happy with us, but it's all been abstract until now. Suddenly, there are two very real human beings for James to learn about this week. Do I think we could be a great fit? Yep. But do I also know we're not everything he'd hoped for? Yep. A friendly dog won't be waiting for him in his new home, and there won't be a car in this new driver's garage. How will that news hit?

How much joy are we even allowed when James is entering our lives through a series of heartbreaks that led him to AdoptUSKids?

Vacillating between visions of family vacations, work-outs, and shared dinners, interrupted by thoughts of a child alone in the world tossed into a new life without much choice in the matter, well, it's not the best recipe for a good night's sleep. I'm completely thrilled that Nicolas and I are on track to welcome someone into our home who's hoping for adoption as much as us. And not just anyone: James shares many of our tastes, interests, and even quirks, a real catch if you ask us. I'm also terrified. We're about to dive into the deep end, James included, assuming he gives us the thumbs up this week.

There's no clean way to wrap up this story as it stands today. So much is uncertain. But it looks like there's lots of potential, and maybe also hope.

New Year's in New Orleans

 

With just over 24 hours remaining in 2022, we rolled into our home away from home at the India House Hostel, complete with fat fluffy hostel cat Taj Mahal.

Ringing in the new year with Craft Comedy at Zony Mash.

Over the next few days, we meandered around the French Quarter, the Warehouse District, and the Garden District, frequenting St. James's Cheese Company, one of the few places without a fried dish on the menu. We criss-crossed the town in street trolleys, listened to live music at the Spotted Cat, and sipped on mint juleps on Bourbon St.

Our last day in town went better than predicted: from the storm clouds that never really broke to the email informing us that we'd at long last gotten our certification as foster parents! We spent the bulk of the day in the City Park admiring the imaginative sculptures and finally sampling beignets from the Café du Monde.

We caught a flight home with the bestest passenger.

An in-person Christmas

Another Christmas in the books, which wasn't a given after two consecutive years of pandemic-related cancelations! Finally able to be in-person around the holidays, we resumed the classics: Repak Family Christmas Eve Dinner, Aloia Christmas Day Party, Cousins Campout, and even the latest Bowling with Grandpa. I'm proud to say I even got my first chance to buy my grandpa a beer! We hit up Philly to check back in with our former East Bay roommate who's thriving in the sub-zero East Coast temps, and we managed to pack enough layers to get ourselves through a few of those sub-zero days. I knocked out the big childhood-room-clear-out without making adding too much excess to our fully stocked two-bed/two-bath condo, and we made friends with Olive the dog. All in all, a successful trip back east. Happy holidays!