Dear everyone,
The Bears lost a squeaker.
As usual, I blame Cutler - - especially throwing an interception into
the end zone. He seemed injured through the whole second half. I think the only reason he
played today is that he knows his contract is up at the end of the year. I hope it is not renewed.
I have had a pretty busy week. Last Saturday I went to the funeral of Yurong
Xiang, the mother of Yanxia (Cathy) Li, our newly hired hematopathologist. The funeral was held at Immanuel Hall in
Hinsdale, which is easy walking distance from our house. . Most
of the funeral service was in Chinese, which reminded me of being in
synagogue. The pastor tried to translate
a bit of her story. Mr. Xiang was quite
overwrought, not surprising given that they met in junior high. She was one of the smartest people in her
high school. She went on to Beijing
Medical School, where she was at the top of her class. They lived through the Cultural
Revolution. She and her children were on
hand for the big 1976 earthquake in Tang Shan that killed 100,000’s of
people. They came to the US in the 1990’s,
which is where they converted to Christianity in the early 00’s... Both of her daughters became physicians. Mrs.
Xiang lived in some pretty tumultuous times in China. Unfortunately, she developed rheumatoid
arthritis in the 90’s, and she spent the last couple of years in a nursing
home.
Sunday I flew out to New York with Roger and Gary. We went to our modern hotel Cassa. The room was okay, except I found the
lighting pretty dim. I agree that
breakfast at Pret a Manger was quite the bargain. Sunday dinner we were joined
by Owen and Alison, Andy and Gail, and Kate Siskel. We ate at Tocqueville http://tocquevillerestaurant.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Tocqueville-Dinner-Menu.pdf,
a small restaurant around 15th street.
We had some kind of tasting menu, but even though there were only five
courses, for each course they would bring our multiple dishes; it was quite
confusing. The sea urchin carbonara was
spectacular, but everything was very good.
After our meetings on Monday, we went to a dinner at
Dovetail http://dovetailnyc.com/pdfs/Dovetail.DinnerMenu.pdf,
where we were joined by my college roommate, Michael Bellacosa, as well as Mark
and Sally Russ. Too bad Kate didn’t join us there for the Monday dinner, since
they offer a special vegetarian menu on Mondays. We had some strange mixed drinks.
Tuesday we had lunch at Oceana http://www.oceanarestaurant.com/
with Tom Theobald, an old friend of Roger’s, the ex-CEO of Continental bank,
and at one time, Andy’s boss’ boss. A
lot of oysters and clams were ordered.
After our afternoon meetings, we visited the Weiss’ apartment on the
east 90’s, admired their art and rehab efforts, and then went to a second
choice restaurant (we were too many for the first choice), Campagnola, in the
upper 70’s. As we walked in, the maître’d
took Gary aside and told him he would take care of us. Course after course
appeared at the table. For dessert we
had excellent napoleons. I walked back to our hotel with Owen, where we
discussed the novel Centaur by John Updike, which I have taken out of my Public
library. We also spoke about his recent
travels to Sri Lanka with Alison, especially the sugar factory with armed
guards.
Our last dinner on Wednesday was at a restaurant in Soho, or
Nolita (North of Little Italy) called Public.
http://public-nyc.com/food/dinner/. Alison had a great lentil salad, and Roger
had excellent pork tenderloin. Prior to
dinner we had a long discussion with the bar’s mixologist on different types of
rye and bitters.
After dinner, Andy,
Mark, Sally, and I went to a bar, the Dead Rabbit (named after one of the
infamous Irish criminal gangs of the 1850’s) http://www.deadrabbitnyc.com/ where
one of his distant cousins by marriage is a bartender, although she was not
there that evening. We had some very
unusual drinks, including the smashes, bishops, fizzes, and absinthes http://www.deadrabbitnyc.com/menus/drinks/parlor/mixed-drinks/. They have so many different kinds of drinks
that the menu is a little hard back book!
It was quite an interesting place, and in fact was written up in the
travel section of the Chicago Tribune this weekend.
Our fight back was late, but uneventful. Gary did an excellent job (as usual)
organizing everything. When we arrived
home, I had an interesting surprise waiting for me. Apparently, when I was a medical resident at
Hopkins, I was over taxed a little over $1000 too much per year. This was determined in 2010, and a lot of
universities, including Johns Hopkins, went to bat on our behalves. So, I got a
check for the excess FICA tax, plus ~18 years of interest. It’s a princely sum for my Birthday!
Anyway, I am getting ready to go out to Mercat a la Planxa http://mercatchicago.com/ with Andy, Gail,
Barbara and Roger for a birthday dinner.
I am not sure yet whether Cindy is going to join us. She tripped on Meeko yesterday while going up
a step, and fell on her face on a hardwood floor. She suffered a small laceration on her right
temple, above and lateral to her eyebrow.
We spent two hours at the Hinsdale Hospital ER, where they plied her
with $20 Tylenol, a cervical collar, some CT scans, and finally a little wound
glue. They gave us a prescription for
ibuprofen and flexeril (which I couldn’t fill until this afternoon). She is okay, but still pretty sore.
Post- - Our meal at Mercat was good, although Cindy did not
join us. One stand-out item was the
almond-stuffed, bacon-wrapped dates. We
had a lot to eat off of the tasting menu.
I got a lot of Doctor Who related stuff from Andy and Gail.
Love, H.
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