The mysteries of ballet

Made a last minute decision yesterday to go to the ballet. It's the 75th anniversary of the San Francisco Ballet, and as part of that, they have three guest companies performing in tribute to the SF ballet this week: the National Ballet of Canada, the New York City Ballet, and Les Ballet de Monte-Carlo. One of my friends had told me about this weeks ago but then we both forgot until I read a review in the paper about it. I have to confess that the main reason I was interested was that Sonia Rodriguez, wife of my favorite skater Kurt Browning, is a principal dancer with the National Ballet of Canada and was one of the dancers in town for this performance. We went last night because it was the only night my friend could make it. Yay for living in the city and being able to stop by the box office on my way home to buy the tickets directly (and thus getting better seats than we found online - row U on the island in the left center orchestra section, which is the first row of the "cheap" orchestra seats - $55 instead of the $95 the people in front of us paid).

When I watch ballet, this is generally me - "I have no idea what's going on. Wow, that's neat. It's amazing what these dancers can do! Hehe that's funny looking. OK I still have no clue what's happening. Wow."

Each of the three ballet companies performed a different 30-minute or so ballet (I didn't time them so I'm not sure if that's accurate, but there were 2 intermissions and the whole thing was about 2 hours long..), and it was a study in contrasting styles, kind of neat for a ballet newbie like myself.

The National Ballet of Canada went first with "A Delicate Battle." I've read the description in the program and I still don't entirely understand what was supposed to be happening ... then again, the choreographer himself says he wasn't going for a particular meaning so maybe that's the source of my confusion. There was something about the "battle" or conflict/tension between the 3 men and 3 women at the centerpiece. There was something going on with the fact that one woman remained fully dressed in her 19th-century style dress, one woman stripped the outer garment to dance in a gauzy skirt, and one stripped all that down to just the nude-colored leotard, but while I would have expected the disrobing to symbolize/accompany a corresponding loosening/freedom in the dancing but it didn't seem to. The woman in the dress was definitely the most tight, most rejecting of the man dancing with her, the one who tried to corral the others and "watch over" the dancers in the beginning, but then the woman in the floaty skirt (which was very pretty) seemed the most loose, most passionate, most embracing of the man. Sonia, who was the woman most fully stripped down, seemed some sort of amalgamation of the others, repeating their motions but with more desperation, passion, frenzy, rapidity... she seemed the most trapped, fighting between embracing the man and struggling against him. When he lifted her, her body language was the most tight, legs pressed together, arms tense... so I don't understand why the most stripped down one was the most conflicted. I don't understand the juxtaposition with the early dancers - the program said something about the women being the protectors, but while the men were, as my friend said, kind of abusive towards the 3 women, they seemed to mostly ignore the other dancers, so I didn't see the threat. I didn't get the overall progression at all, I guess. But the dancing and the staging was beautiful - simple stage with white confetti representing snow fluttering down all through (which was pretty but occasionally amusing when some big clump would suddenly come barreling down towards the stage). It's incredible what these dancers can do - the flexibility, strength, precision, balance (even though sometimes some ballet moves are really silly looking). The crowd gave these performers, IMO, rather tepid applause - polite and appreciative but not particularly enthusiastic, which made the really lengthy bows kind of weird to me. It's like they had planned for greater applause and didn't adjust for a more cool reception so they just went on bowing and bowing in different combinations long after the applause would warrant. Ah well.

After an intermission, the second ballet was from the New York City Ballet - "Duo Concertant" - which was relatively very simple and austere. A pianist, a violinist, a male dancer, and a female dancer...that's it. It opened with the violinist and pianist dueting while the dancers simply watched them for quite some time. This ballet had moments that I really enjoyed - some very pretty and stunning dancing from the dancers, things that made me marvel once again at ballet dancers' perfect balance and precision of movement (though also some inadvertently amusing moments when their shoes squeaked overmuch on the floor, kind of ruining the smooth effortless grace). But it also had long moments of dullness - it's not that interesting to watch dancers watching a pair of instrumentalists whose music is a bit muted from back in row U. The music was not my favorite and a little too quiet. I think if this segment had been shorter, I would have enjoyed it more because the dancing was great, when there was dancing.

One more intermission to clear things between groups and then the curtain went up on a pair of dancers with a candle in between them. Throughout this whole dance by Les Ballet de Monte Carlo, the flame and candles were a recurring motif, both in decoration and in the dancers' movements, with waving arms and flickering fingers evoking the flame. This dance was in my opinion the most interesting - very different, very innovative, very evocative. It had a huge cast of people, in contrast to the other two groups, and they did some interesting things with gender roles. It opened with pairs of women dancing together, where one woman was in a tutu-style skirt while the other was in pants, partnering each other in fluid and interesting movements. It then went to pairs/groups of men dancing together, again where some were costumed in pants and others in a skirt. There was an extended section of dance with a push/pull/control/play type of dynamic between a man in a skirt and a woman in pants. The last segment had all the men and women on stage together, sometimes with the women partnered, sometimes with the men, with half of them (the half where the men were in skirts and the women in pants) reaching towards the other half (the traditionally dressed bunch) who were dancing together, etc. It wasn't even the gender play that was the interesting part here, though. As I said to my friend, I didn't really know what that ballet was about either, but I didn't care because I was just captivated. The movement they achieved, the style, the music, the look..it was all entirely different and really interesting. The SF Chronicle reviewer seemed to find this ballet very pretentious, and stereotypically so. I may just not watch enough ballet to know what's stereotypical but to me, it was fresh and interesting. And the audience seemed to agree - they were on their feet (though not terribly quickly) for this one, while the applause for the previous two groups was mostly moderate. I definitely liked this dance the best of the three.

Overall it was an interesting night - something different than what I usually do, and interesting to see the contrasting styles and variety there is in the ballet.

Blog of whine

Wah. My teeth hurt. The top teeth b/c of this other gum thing I did last week and probably b/c I haven't been very careful about eating this time around, and the bottom teeth b/c of my retainer which my orthodontist kindly tightened for me even though my teeth had moved back as a result of several weeks of non-retainer wearing after the gum graft. And my gum feels a bit inflamed. And my head hurts. And waaaaahhh.

Bleah.

I hate my mouth! Or gums...

Went to see my periodontist today. The hole in the top of my mouth is all healed, yay! My gum graft has taken nicely and looks good, I can go back to normal brushing, flossing, eating, everything. Yay!

I need to get another gum procedure done. Boooooo!!! Apparently I have very deep pockets (6mm) on the backside of my right rear teeth. Since I got a deep cleaning done just last year and it doesn't seem to have helped, she's highly recommending trimming the gum to trim away the pockets, b/c brushing and flossing won't be able to clean that deep and I'll end up with some periodontal disease later. Sigh. Since I want to be healed up in time to eat lots of beef in Argentina, I ended up scheduling the procedure for tomorrow afternoon. So yes - a day after I'm given the ok to treat my mouth like it's fully normal, I'm setting myself back into liquids and soft foods land. Hopefully this one will take less time to heal...

And not only that, I drive to Palo Alto almost right after the procedure in order to get vaccinations/immunizations for my trip. Sore mouth, drive to get needles poked in my arm. So much fun. Sigh...

Random SF happenings

Odd things sometimes happen when living in San Francisco.

Shopping in Union Square on the 15th of March, we spotted a huge crowd of people - men and women - wearing bridal gowns of all different styles milling about. When asked what this was all about, we were told "We're the Brides of March!" The Brides of March on the Ides of March. How very random.

Riding the 31 bus, which goes down Turk straight through the Tenderloin last week (not my usual bus), a whole crowd of young black men got on the bus somewhere around the SF Shopping Center. Within a few blocks of turning onto Turk, the whole group of them were staring apprehensively out the back window and muttering nervously to each other. I was reading a book at the time in the back seat so I wasn't entirely paying attention but I finally caught on that there was a car - a BMW, I guess - following the bus with a guy in a ski mask hanging out of one of the windows. At one stop, the car went around the bus but then stopped not far ahead of it. The entire group were on edge, not sure what to do, yelling at the bus driver to stop and let them off the bus, but then too nervous to actually get off. One guy opened the emergency window and jumped out of it, and took off running around the corner. A few others got off (or jumped out the window for some reason, even though the bus was still stopped and the door was only 3 feet to the left of the window) and took off running, while others chose to stay on the bus but kept watching apprehensively out the window. There was some relief when it was reported that the car had turned off the road, but they all wondered where it had gone. More guys got off a few stops later, but three guys stayed on the bus past my stop (which is a good distance away from where this all occurred), apparently deciding it was the safest place to be. Somehow the rest of the people on the bus, even when we figured out what was happening, couldn't seem to get too nervous about this, but these guys were obviously quite terrified. Then again, given that I read that a teenager was gunned down in a drive-by earlier that day in Western Addition, I don't blame them for being nervous. Guys in ski masks hanging out of cars..not something you generally want to see (though I never did see him). I did have the nervous thought that if someone *did* open fire on the crowded bus, there'd be nowhere to go..but I somehow couldn't believe they'd just randomly shoot into a crowded bus either. The 31 isn't top on my list of buses to take these days after that, though, I must say...which isn't to say I won't take it if I need to go somewhere it'll take me.

Travelling girl...

One of my friends generally has a busier schedule than me, so I suppose mine is lame in comparison. But my travel schedule for April/May I'm finding a trifle overwhelming. I suspect I will be very tired and have gotten very little work for work done by the end of this time period...

In case you're wondering where I am...

April 12-20 - Argentina (Buenos Aires, Peninsula Valdes, Iguazu Falls)
April 24-27 - Toronto/Rochester
May 2-4 - New Orleans
May 9-11 - Boston (and possibly Ithaca)
June 5-7(or 8) - Boston

All that flying..on 3 different airlines so far. So much for my miles...

Food, what else?

In the week before my gum graft, I was rather concerned with weeks and weeks of not being able to eat anything real (that's what I get for reading online stories) so I was a bit determined to get some good meals in before it happened.

The Tuesday before the procedure, I was surfing Yelp to see what kind of Tuesday night deals there were. I had already found the $12 Tuesdays at 2223 Restaurant. Apparently there were Taco Tuesdays all over the city, but that wasn't what I was looking for. I finally stumbled across 20% off Tuesdays at Tangerine Cafe (3499 16th St at Sanchez), a restaurant I'd heard good things about for brunch. We decided to give it a try. The restaurant was fairly empty - one reason for Tuesday specials is I think it's kind of a dead night for restaurants - so we were seated quickly and then moved almost as quickly to a table by the window. The menu looked interesting but I have to confess the food was a bit disappointing. My bf got the Baked New Zealand Lamb, described thus: "Lamb chops encrusted with herbs, honey and pistachio nuts, served with spicy rice with roasted bell pepper and steamed vegetables" - he said he tasted neither honey nor pistachio, and it just wasn't very interesting. I think I got the Grilled Plum Wine Marinated Pork Tenderloin, described thus: "with Whiskey-Braised Apple Sauce,Served sautéed eggplant with black bean and jasmine rice." This tasted pretty good, but it was rather strongly flavored. Nothing subtle in this dish - I liked most of the flavors but they were just very overpowering. It's too bad because the menu did look interesting, but the visit didn't inspire the desire for a return visit.

I did discover, however, that Sanchez has got to be the sweetest smelling street in SF. I'm used to walking around and smelling piss. Sanchez has jasmine trees or something planted all along it, and the walk to the bus was so pleasant and lovely smelling. I'd want to live there just for that!

I don't remember what we did Wednesday night but Thursday, I decided to try the 7-course of beef at Anh Hong Restaurant (808 Geary at Hyde), who claim that their family invented the seven course of beef. I'd heard a lot about this but I have to say, the 7 courses weren't what I expected. It was beef in stuff like salads, soup, rolls, sausages, meatballs..the only straight out pieces of beef were the "beef fondue" which was thin slices of beef cooked at the table in a shallow layer of simmering red wine vinegar sauce over a small flame. Of course, this was less overwhelming than if it was 7 courses of pieces of beef (like Brazilian bbq) and it ended up being quite tasty. The pacing was odd, though. They came out quickly with the salad (which was really good - fresh and tasty - and we both gobbled it up quickly), followed it with the beef fondue before we were done with the salad (having brought out the steaming hot bowl of water for us to soften our spring roll skins in way before so it'd already started to cool down), and then after a pause, the next four courses on one plate. There were definitely language issues - one of the poor waiters tried to turn to me to speak Vietnamese (sorry guy, I'm Chinese) and I had to shrug helplessly. Still, I mostly enjoyed it. The beef of the beef fondue didn't end up particularly tasty but we rolled it into a spring roll along with a bunch of other ingredients so it was ok (although that made a lot of rolls which filled us up quickly!). My favorite of the four courses that came together was probably the beef sausages, which were very tasty and flavorful. The meatballs, beef wrapped in Hawaiian leaves, and grilled beef with lemongrass were all pretty good but not amazing. We had to leave some of this dish behind so we would have room for the beef rice soup, which turned out to be quite tasty. I was surprised my bf loved it - he gobbled it up very quickly. We ended up liking the salad and the soup best, to my surprise. It was a good meal though my bf said he wasn't impressed enough to want to go back to that restasurant.

The morning before the procedure, I got a steak sandwich from Thirsty Bear (661 Howard St at 3rd) when my coworkers went there for lunch. They put blue cheese in the sandwich which makes it quite tasty if not "the best steak sandwich ever" as my coworkers proclaimed, and it came with garlic fries. Not a bad "last meal."

Other places I've been since I started being able to eat again:
Citrus Club (1790 Haight St) where my bf and I keep thinking we should like it but being underwhelmed.

Hukilau (Hawaiian, 5 Masonic Ave at Geary) which I actually really enjoyed. I've only tried Hawaiian really once before and wasn't that fond (next time I should order what I think looks interesting, not what my friend likes). This time I got the Kalua Pork and really liked it - it was slightly overpeppered but the overall flavor, with the cabbage stir fried in, the steamed rice and macaroni salad on the side, was very satisfying. And I had enough leftover for lunch. We also got the tuna poke appetizer which was quite yummy - large chunks of raw tuna in soy sauce, sesame oil, and some other marinade. My bf got the chicken katsu which was quite decent, and garlic fries (which were extra) which were buried in garlic. I'd definitely go there again - a nice satisfying, homestyle (if you're Hawaiian), no frills meal.

Golden Flower Vietnamese Restaurant (667 Jackson St between Kearny and Grant) This pho place is near my bf's work and in Chinatown (my first time to the real restaurant part of Chinatown - I'd only gotten as far as the stupid tourist stores before). The pho was really tasty - very yummy broth. My bf said the smalls were too small so we both got larges, which were bigger than I usually get but I finished it anyway. It was just really yummy. I'd happily go back.

The rest of the week I've actually cooked. Wow.

There's a hole in the top of my mouth!

Two weeks ago, I had the joy and pleasure of getting a gum graft. The gum in front of one of my front teeth was dangerously low - a "recession" - and my dentist (and the one before) was worried that the root would be exposed, leading to problems and eventual tooth loss. I finally set up an appointment with a periodontist (Dr. Rena Baroudi at 450 Sutter St) to get the graft done..after rescheduling it so I could eat during Dine About Town since I knew you were supposed to eat only soft foods for a while after the procedure. The procedure is to take a piece of tissue from my palate and graft it over the recession on my lower gum.

The procedure itself turned out to be relatively simple and quick - they injected Novocaine into my lower gum where the graft was to go as well as my palate (getting Novocaine shots never feels good but I've had enough dental procedures in the last year to just bear it and move on), spent some time prepping my lower gum, then moved on to my upper palate. I thought they were just prepping it when next thing I knew, the doctor was like "ok, got the tissue, suturing you up." So it's pretty safe to say I didn't feel a thing. The graft itself took a bit longer but she was soon suturing it into place and next thing I knew, we were all done. I felt just fine coming out of the office, a bit numb of course where I'd been Novocained, but otherwise fine. But taking their advice, I went home (it was a 2:30pm appointment on a Friday) instead of going back to work, even though I felt weird doing it since I felt like I wouldn't have a problem going to work. Turns out that was a good idea.

When the Novocaine started wearing off, I started feeling the pain - to my surprise, it wasn't just the specific regions of gum and palate that hurt. My whole lower jaw was in pain, at first just like I had braces and just gotten them tightened - a general soreness of the teeth - and then starting to feel like my jaw was on fire - a low burn, to be sure, but definitely unpleasant. Then, my palate joined in and soon I was just completely miserable. After taking 3 Motrin (they'd given me 600mg IB pills but there was no way I was swallowing those) and frequently icing my jaw (to reduce swelling), I felt no difference in the misery, and eventually gave in and took a Vicodin. That stuff is amazing. I didn't notice the difference at first, and was just sitting on the couch watching TV (I'd been working from home but after kicking off a test, abandoned sitting at my desk). However, when my sister came over to pick up some stuff, I started chatting with her and soon noticed I felt great. Basically no pain, none of that general sense of misery...I wasn't sleepy either. I was a bit perturbed to notice it seemed like my teeth had moved, though, which I pointed out to my sister and my bf.

The next morning, I was even more perturbed to note that my teeth seemed completely out of line. I'd been paying for a new retainer to help straighten out the *other* tooth and now the one she'd worked on seemed to have sunk a few mm and pushed forward so it interfered with my bite. Rather worried, I contacted my doctor, who opined it was probably just the swelling but that there was nothing we could do until it healed a bit anyway. Since I was to see her in a week, we would just wait for that. On the plus side, even though things were bleeding from time to time so my mouth didn't taste too good, nothing really hurt. I kept taking ibuprofen b/c my sister had advised that it helped reduce inflammation, rinsed with warm salt water, and used the Peridex they had given me, but no more vicodin was necessary. On the food side of things, on the first day I just had a Carnation Breakfast Shake (which I quite enjoyed) and left it at that. After that for the next couple days, even though they said I could eat soft foods like pastas, I decided not to take a risk. Had yogurt, carnation shakes, butternut squash soup (courtesy Trader Joe's), steamed egg, instant pudding, soy ice cream (being lactose intolerant) and other such basically slurpable foods.

On the third day I started getting bolder about eating quite by accident. I got a tomato bread soup from Boudin, forgetting that actually had chunks of both tomatoes and bread in it. Oops. I carefully chewed on one side of my mouth and did ok. Also treated myself to a McDonald's sundae without nuts, one of the few things I really like at McDonalds. Had a Peanut Butter Moo'ed at Jamba Juice for lunch a couple days later b/c someone online had said the protein in it was good if you were mostly having liquid lunches, but almost regretted it when I realized the thing had almost 900 calories. Probably only a few fewer calories than I had had the first day after the procedure! Eventually I started eating pasta with marinara sauce very very carefully and slowly, and udon even more slowly. I'd stop eating after a while just b/c I was so tired of it and my food had cooled down. This wasn't because of any actual pain, mind you, it was because of paranoia. After my great bleeding incident when the sutures came loose a week after my wisdom teeth were pulled several years back, I've gotten rather paranoid about dislodging sutures in my mouth.

A week in, I had my first followup appointment and apparently everything looked good. I'd been told not to brush or floss the affected areas, and those orders held, but at this point she removed the sutures from the top of my mouth and told me I could eat whatever I felt I could handle as long as I didn't bite into anything. I kind of broke that order a bit the next day when I hit the Ferry Building farmers market and started sampling the orange slices and such they had out. Oops. I started eating pretty much normal foods, though still avoiding crunchy stuff or anything overly hard. Then two weeks later, I had my next followup appointment (this morning) and she said everything was looking really good. In fact, she seemed so pleased with the progress she was disappointed we hadn't taken a "before" photo - I think she wanted to show off the case! I still can't brush or floss that particular tooth, and I'm still supposed to avoid biting into stuff (hard to do - I got a chocolate hazelnut croissant from the Crocker Galleria farmers' market today and had a hard time just ripping pieces off to eat), but everything is looking good. Next follow-up: 2 weeks. On the sort of minus side, I now can wear my retainer again. Got an appt tomorrow morning with the orthodontist to adjust it as needed, but I'm not looking forward to that =(.

That building at 450 Sutter St has seen me so much in the last year it's kind of scary...