Suffer the Little Children: A Rant

My neighbours are a very nice couple. Older. Professorial. Lovely. Childless. They moved to their summer house three weeks ago and rented their house to a visiting Chinese professor, his wife and their two kids (a very young baby and a 2-year old). I am not so happy with my neighbours now.

The baby cries all the time. This is summer so their windows are open. Our windows are open (as long as I am winning the no air conditioning argument with Husband). Our houses are kind of close together. When I lie in bed, or sit on my couch, it sound like the screaming baby is in the next room.

Their two year old is a little brat. Mom puts him in the backyard and then he stands there kicking the back metal screen door over and over and over and over (you get the drift).

Now, Husband and I have opted out of having children. Our reasons are many and varied. We own our own business and have responsibility for 45 people, many of whom are the sole breadwinners in their families. We work long and strange hours. We didn't want our relatives and day care to raise our children. I didn't want to end up a virtual single mother since any hours I don't work, Husband has to. I like my ankles just the way they are. We love to travel. We like to eat late. I have a low pain threshold and both of us have almost zero patience. We were both only children and didn't really grow up with kids around us. Kids scare me. I can't watch babies and toddlers eating because it makes me physically ill (weird, eh?). Between us we have exactly 158 reasons not to have kids. I know because we wrote them down when we were discussing our options years ago.

But now, this summer anyway, I feel like I have kids. I am woken up several times a night when the baby cries. I have to stretch my patience when the toddler goes off his head. I have to smell baby poo because the mother changes the baby outside right under my window and keeps an open diaper pail along the side of their house, 5 feet from my patio. But I can't complain.

It isn't the kids' fault. They're kids. It isn't the parents fault. Baby's cry. Kid's poo. Okay maybe the parents could deal with the temper tantrums 10 times a day. But it just isn't politically correct to storm over to your non-English speaking neighbours and scream at them because you're tired from lack of sleep. I could close my windows (and I generally do when it gets really bad), but why do I have to disrupt my life because I didn't have kids.

This recent development in my neighbourhood is just so typical of what seems to be happening all around me lately.

We own a kid friendly restaurant. And lots of our customers have really great kids (as long as I don't have to spend much time watching them eating). But there are some parents who I would just love to ban from our premises. So for them, I am providing them with the following set of rules:

1. My staff are not your baby sitters. Do not allow your children to run around the dining room floor while you enjoy your "adult" conversation. The servers are carrying hot plates, hot coffee, glass, china and knives. The room is filled with dangerous things for a kid. And I am sure that if your kid gets hurt it will somehow be my fault.
2. In a busy restaurant please order for your kids. It is really sweet that you want 2 year old Janey to order for herself 'cause it's just so damn cute. But your server has 9 other tables to get to and doesn't have time to spend 10 minutes having a discussion with a 2 year old who has a minimal grasp of the English language and can't read the menu.
3. I understand that kids get restless waiting for a table. But you don't get priority seating just because you chose to have 4 kids. The childless customers are no less important.
4. If your kid is having a screaming tantrum, for the love of all that is holy why can't you take them outside for 5 minutes. If your kid is screaming it is ruining the meals of 150 other people. I'll keep your food warm until you get back. I'll pour you a fresh coffee. Ignoring your kid just doesn't seem to be working our real well. I the 14 years we have owned our business I only saw a parent take a kid outside for 5 minutes once. Really. Once.
5. If your kid has a serious food allergy we are not going to serve him. I know that other restaurants accomodate you. They take "precautions". But I have worked in this business almost all my life and I can tell you that they make the smallest concessions possible. They would rather make a token effort and ensure the sale. I would rather err on the side of caution. I could guarantee you that your kid's food won't be in contact with any sesame seeds or sesame seed oil. But I'd be lying. I'd rather lose a customer than kill a kid.
6. If you are carrying a baby in one of those carrier/basket things please don't put your kid on the floor in an area where people have to walk. Not everybody watches the floor for babies.
7. If your kid makes an unusual mess like throwing cherios all over the floor and neighbouring tables, puking, chucking creamers on the floor, ripping up napkins, maybe you could at least offer to pick some stuff up off the floor when you are leaving. Or maybe I could just come over to your house later and destroy your living room. Then leave.
8. We don't have magic tables, chair, and walls. If your kid crayons and magic markers all over my furniture it's ruined. You wouldn't let your kid to this at home.
9. How come it is OK for your 5 year old to jam pennies in the pay phone thereby breaking it, but it isn't OK for me to ask you to stop them from doing it. When this happened and I nicely asked the mother to reign in her kid, she started yelling that it was none of my business, I had no right to tell her kid what he can and can't do and to but out. Um. Actually it is my business. Literally.
10. Finally, please don't allow sweet little Stewie to lean over the booth and talk to, spit on, drool on, and touch the nice childless couple eating their meal on the other side. Sometimes, believe it or not, the nice childless couple, aren't that enamoured with your kid. Particularly when little Stewie rubs his stickly little maple syruped fingers all over the nice man's Armani suit jacket. 'Cause guess who gets to pay that dry cleaning bill. Not mommy I can tell you that.

I don't hate kids. I even like some of them (except, of course, for that whole eating thing). And I understand that parents have a hard, stressful, demanding job raising and taking care of them. I know that a lot of parents are going to hate what they read here. But let me give you a hypothetical scenario before you roast me:

You are dining at a restaurant and there are 4 teenagers or young adults at the next table. These young adults are loud and rude. They are yelling at each other. They are throwing food on the floor and at each other. Periodically 2 of them get up and ride their skateboards around the dining room floor. One of them starts lightly poking you in the side of your head with a fork. Finally, one of them throws up on the floor next to you and then they all leave.

I welcome your comments.

That San Francisco Treat

This was our fifth trip to San Francisco and I an not sure if familiarity has bred contempt or whether I was just too sick to enjoy it, but I have come to believe that San Francisco is a great place to live, but I wouldn’t want to visit again.

Actually that is a little bitter even for me. I’m sure I’ll go back, but probably not for some time. It really is a great city, but nausea, back spasms, lousy weather and long crappy flights kind of sucked all the fun out of SF.

For those of you interested in following in my footsteps, here is a brief review/trip report.

We stayed at The Clift on Geary St. near Union Square. The Clift is an Ian Schrager/Philippe Starck project. The room was aesthetically pleasing but not practical. There was nowhere to store clothes except a little two shelf contraption in the closet that prevents you from hanging up anything longer than a man’s shirt. The bed was simply a mattress on wooden slats with no box spring or back support. Room service was expensive ($22 for two cups of tea) and the mini-bar prices were a touch absurd (small Evian water for $10). No spa. But the staff were fantastic. They were friendly, helpful and were not like the snobby black-suited creatures that normally man the lobby of these funky boutique hotels. And there was a Starbuck’s right across the street. Was this the worst place I’ve ever stayed? No Would I stay here again? No.

Due to our gastrointestinal issues, we were not up to our usual four square meals a day. We did venture out to some of our favourite, less digestively-challenging spots though.

Breakfast at Sears Fine Food was as special as always. Located on Powell at Sutter, Sears opened its doors in 1938 and I don’t think they have redecorated in all that time. They are famous for their little round Swedish pancakes (18 of them on the plate), but everything I’ve ever eaten here was delicious. Try the hash browns, skip the home fries. www.searsfinefood.com

SF has the largest Chinese population outside of China and if you love authentic Chinese food you must head to Chinatown. The one outstanding exception to this rule is Yank Sing which has the most amazing, delicious, speedy dim sum in the city (and possibly North America). I don’t enjoy seafood and usually find dim sum a bit of a challenge as most places heavily feature shrimp in their dim sum. But Yank Sing has such a huge variety of dishes that finding pieces that I love is really easy. The Peking Duck was pronounced "the best thing I’ve ever had at dim sum" by Husband (who has dim summed his way around the world). And the Chicken Fun Gwor (steamed dumplings filled with chicken, shiitake mushroom, winter bamboo shoots, and cilantro) are my pick. www.yanksing.com

Max’s (on Geary) saved our lives. One block from our hotel, it offers homey, well-cooked, tasty dishes made with fresh ingredients. Not fancy, but that really doesn’t matter when the food is this good. And when you are not feeling well, meals like turkey pot pie, meatloaf and mashed, and scrambled eggs with toast are just what the doctor ordered. http://www.maxsworld.com/ Word of warning though - don’t expect the same quality at Max’s at the airport.

On this trip, the creme de la cream was of course Michael Mina. Nothing I had read about Mina’s new restaurant had prepared me for just how damn good it really is. Every bite of every dish was perfection itself. Service was polished, perfect, impeccable. The wine list was deep and not outrageously priced. The room was grand and soothing. The only disappointment was that we were there with business associates (doesn’t that sound a little Godfathery) one or two of which didn’t want to try the longer tasting menu (which is only available if the entire table chooses this option). So it was only three courses for us. But wow. I opted for beef carpaccio three ways, kobe beef six ways, and summer berries six ways. Husband had scallops three ways, lamb three ways and a duet of butterscotch pudding.

If you are not familiar with Mina’s dining concept, here is an excerpt from their website:

Seasonal selections highlight a fresh primary ingredient paired with a trio of accompaniments; each of the three presentations offers a distinct taste sensation. The essence of a dish is found in the interplay of comparing and contrasting ingredients and techniques.

If you love food you must make a trip to SF and eat at Michael Mina’s. It just doesn’t get any better than this.

As for the non-food portion of the trip it was shopping, shopping, shopping. Husband indulged his "straight men can love shoes too" passion at a massive sale at Nordstrom’s and I, as mentioned in the previous post, went hog wild at the world’s best fabric store (Britex). And I bought the cutest tough girl motorcycle boots (henceforth to be known as my oxymoron boots).

So now its laundry, laundry, laundry. And clearing the decks for a juicy sew-a-thon with my new San Francisco treats. Yipee!!

We're Here!

Here we are in foggy San Francisco and man is it chilly!

We had our FAB dinner at Michael Mina. Really a top 5 dinner of all time. As good, and dare I say better, than previous first choice Tru in Chicago. Holy crap it was good.

Unfortunately, and I SWEAR Michael Mina had nothing to do with it, Husband and I have been feeling very green. And the bed in our hotel room is killing us. Remeber that episode of Seinfeld with the fold-out bed at his parent's place in Florida. Well, that is what this is like. And we were too sick to get out of bed for 2 days. Thank God for HBO, VH1 and chicken noodle soup room service.

Feeling a little better today, we ventured out for breakie at Sears Fine Food and took a little shopping stroll. Found THE BEST FABRIC STORE IN THE WORLD. If you have never been to Britex Fabrics in San Francisco you have missed something. I started to hyperventilate and walking in circles talking to myself. So I decided to leave, but I am heading back there tomorrow with a LIST.

Talk to you when I get back.