In September when Vida started piano lessons I had no idea how it would work out. I imagined myself bribing her to practice or showing up to lessons unpracticed—oh wait that was me . . .Vida on the other hand (no pun intended) has taken to the piano with a vengeance. It’s still a struggle since she is my daughter after all and wants perfection immediately, preferably without working very hard at it. I always thought she was musical but I couldn’t imagine trying to get her to pay attention to an instrument until recently. In the first weeks she diligently practiced Twinkle Twinkle with variations with one hand and then took on Lightly Row. Everything she learns seems to have the same pattern—it seems impossible and there is a considerable amount of crying in frustration and then she takes off and it seems she has always known how to play it.
After just a couple of months it was time for her for her first recital—it seemed completely foreign to me that she just accepted the idea of playing in public without any hesitation. She was completely confident in her Lightly Row with two hands, her teacher showed her the bowing protocol and she was ready to go. I found out later that she had a completely different vision of the recital. When we got to the small recital hall at San Francisco State she started to get a bit nervous. She had thought the recital was at her teacher’s house and had not realized there would be so many people. There were 20 kids in the recital along with their families. My brave girl got up and played her piece flawlessly and with great composure.
Afterward she of course wanted to hang out with Rara—they were going out to lunch and I would have been happy to go home by myself after all that stress but Vida asked me to come with them. Even though I hate sitting down to lunch I could not turn down the request. We went to Kamakura which was close by in the little shopping area on Ocean Ave. Vida wanted “fish chicken” also known as a salmon or tuna cheek along with her usual miso soup avocado roll and shrimp tempura. Vida likes it when I tell the story of how it came to be called “fish chicken”—basically just a maternal ruse to get her to eat fish. Rara and S both had bento boxes and I tagged along with a bowl of rice and whatever morsel of “fish chicken” I could snag from Vida.
Thinking about the first few months of piano got me musing on her success in soccer. When I started Vida on soccer I was sure she would be good at it— but it wasn’t easy to keep her going. She didn’t cry at her little tot soccer classes like some kids but she often didn’t really want to join in. Once she got going she had a good time and that’s pretty much how it still is. On her first soccer team the JCCSF Blues she played in practice but during the games she would stand and twirl her braids lucky to touch the ball once or twice during the entire game—when she moved on to the Hurricanes some magical thing happened. There was a game where everything seemed to click for her and she just kept scoring. Once she realized that she could score and how great it was she suddenly was into it. It was still up and down after that over the past three years—I could go on and on like the over protective mother that I am—but finally she is determined to be a soccer player. Two years ago she was having a hard season—we missed the first game because I had the wrong field, she had the flu another game and then the coach seemed to barely play her and never as a starter. I tried to let the coach know as gently as I could that Vida could really play if she gave her a chance and then finally after a scoreless game Vida took the ball and scored in the last 15 seconds. It was a tremendous feeling that she has been fortunate enough to replicate many times since—what an amazing thing, to win a game for your team and to do it over and over. Vida’s early success at the piano and her persistence in soccer has made me so proud. I never had that feeling of accomplishment when I was her age and I hope it empowers her in ways that helps her to thrive when she is older.
Sometimes I feel a little guilty that Vida has so many after school activities—not only does she do soccer and basketball and piano but she also has Hebrew School to put up with. On some of those late nights I try to make dinner happen as quickly as possible. Driving Victor back and forth from Muffinville I came across a new hamburger place, Uncle Boys on Balboa and 4th. I was on a tight time frame to get us burgers and rush to the pick up at the synagogue. There were a couple of people ahead of us but I didn’t start to get nervous until I saw a tiny home pancake grill being used to toast the buns. The guy working the counter was friendly and efficient but his co-worker at the grill needed to repeat the details of every burger variation either to the cashier or the customer multiple times as he assembled them. Our burgers should have been easy—two burgers with ketchup—one with pickles and a regular burger with everything but I had to watch him like a hawk. I got a soda to keep Victor occupied while we waited—there were tubs of freshly cut fries next to the tables which Victor was very interested in and I had to wrestle him away from them every couple of minutes. Finally our burgers where making it into some to go containers—the French fries were taking forever to cook but made it into another to go box after being shaken with a salty peppery spice mixture. They were very nice but I had to run out of there. When we got to the car, Victor insisted on having his burger immediately and I had never seen him eat something so fast—he was almost done by the time we got Vida only blocks away. Vida was mad that her pickles were inside the burger instead of on the side even though I tried to explain that the guy making the burgers was directionally impaired. The fries had gotten sweaty inside the box—unlike Big Mouth were they put them in a brown bag—but were other wise tasty.
I would hit Uncle Boy’s again but maybe after they have ironed out some of the production kinks. They had some Pilipino items and hot link sandwiches that would be fun to try. Given its convenience it will probably be sooner rather than later.
Restaurant Total: 264
