Her favorite city

Because Monterey is such a small town with an equally small regional airport, Betty has often had to fly into San Francisco when visiting California. It made sense then to make day trips to the City by the Bay, which has become her favorite city in the United States. The photo above was taken in May 2007. After an hour of walking around, we discovered this great sushi restaurant in Chinatown. What made this place unique was not so much the sushi but the music, a perfect mix of R&B and slow jams from the 1990s. You name it, they played it. After7, All-4-One, Boyz II Men, Babyface. We even had the nerve to ask the owners where they bought the disc, but they replied that it was a custom burned compilation. Earlier we had navigated our way around the San Francisco Public Library, one of the most pieces of modern architecture in my opinion. We went there in search of books on Vietnamese music and found one about the pop artists of the Vietnam War generation. Wow, they called themselves hippies in Saigon and they sure lived up to that stereotype, down to the bellbottoms and coke-bottle glasses.

Later that evening, Betty befriended a cat in San Jose, but alas we couldn't bring the critter home. Woody would have eaten it alive. For those who don't know, our dearly departed family dog Woody never did get along with any creatures except for humans and other dogs. Woody even took a liking to Betty and would bark at me whenever I tried to hug her. Whoa, talk about no respect. But it was to be expected from a dog like Woody who styled himself a ladies man.

One of the most memorable moment occurred when I decided to buy tickets to the NUTCRACKER (ballet) at the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House. The only catch was that Betty's flight would arrive at SFO about a little over an hour prior to the opening curtain. So what did I do? I grabbed her from the airport as quickly as possible, whisked her at light speed from the aiport to our hotel in downtown. From there we wheeled three suitcases upstairs, got dressed and ran outside to hail a cab. Actually, Betty hailed a cab in near-cartoon fashion. No, she didn't need to show any leg, but the cabbie probably enjoyed stopping for a beautiful woman. Somehow we arrived at the Opera House just 10 minutes before the show started, and man, what a show. This from a guy who has no interest in ballet or classical theater. Great night. Great city.