San Fran - continued....

Editor's Note: Shame on me for not getting this posted right after my wedding blog, but my mind is cluttered with things to do. In any case, please excuse my not posting in chronological order lately.

In any case, the morning after Jake and Rosa's wedding in San Fran 2 weeks ago, Patrick and I had the luxury of strolling about town, taking in the sights and stopping by the Chinese restaurant, Sam Wo, in China Town.Truly a hole-in-the-wall you actually enter through the kitchen and head upstairs to a few run down tables and booths. It ain't pretty but it's fascinating. One single waitress, a middle-aged Chinese woman literally exploded with energy back and forth, up and down, even working an old-fashioned pulley that the kitchen staff used to hoist up the food on a tray so she wouldn't have to go downstairs. The restaurant is an old haunt and favorite of Patrick's parents (who met in San Francisco). He even remembers them going often when he was a little boy. Evidently there was even a now deceased infamous waiter who was extrememly grouchy and awful to the customers - it is said his 'rudeness was legendary'. The food is also great and remarkably cheap. A definite treasure.

After that bit we took the very efficient Bart underground where I emerged into the gay Castro District. Whew hew - E loves the gay part of town - wherever I might be! After window shopping and enjoying myself watching P being checked out, we eventually met up with Dick - his 2nd cousin on his paternal side.

Thus ensued a most lovely afternoon spent in the gracious and intelligent company of this old gent - they hadn't seen each other in about 8 years. Dick is extremely well-read and intelligent, getting old (in his 80s I believe) but his mind and memory are as spry as ever. He is essentially a walking encyclopedia. His house was quaint and full of character - with a fridge from the 1950s, artwork and absolutely congested with books (his passion) that were alphabetized and categorized according to subject matter.
As we got a tour of the house Dick would have stories about the Merritt family and Patrick as a teen, as well as P's father. At one point he pulled out an old family photo which I tried to take a picture of as you can see. Dick is but a boy in the photo - it was a family-party and he told stories of that day - how the African American maid was sneaking yellow colored, tulip-shaped ice cream to the kids, etc.
As we ohh'd and ahh'd over the picture and listened to the stories, both P and I squinted at the same time at the top right image of his grandfather - looking just like his Dad over in Ireland!! We were amazed at the likeness in expression and heavy eyebrows. Very cool...
We really had such a wonderful time. Dick is so polite, well-spoken and interesting with a sense of humour as well (he and Patrick do not see eye-to-eye when it comes to politics especially). hahaha.

It is times like the afternoon we spent that I really get inspired to interview and get the history and family tree down from the elders in the family. Especially the wonderful stories - when Dick is gone, so much will be lost within that great memory of his. It was as Patrick smiled and complimented him as we left, "You're a dying breed, Dick.."

Cousins Jacob & Rosa Wedding!!

If you know me at all (or read past blogs) you are tuned into the fact that mine is a huge family. My mother is the oldest of 8 children so you can imagine how many aunts, uncles and cousins I have just from her side of the family!! :)


True to our Mexican roots - we have many get-togethers, eat a lot, are loud, gregarious and fun to be around. And when something extra special comes up - engagements, births, graduations - the Araizas (my mom's maiden name) sure know how to throw a great shindig!

In this case, one of my 19 Araiza first-cousins: Jacob got married last weekend to his long-time novia: Rosa. A wedding is always a blessed and huge celebration with much happiness - and this was no exception. Oddly enough, for a hispanic family, with major role models of the love and importance of 'familia' and having children - 11 of us (me included) have not yet taken the plunge to get hitched. Therefore, the 8 weddings we have had the last 2 decades (starting with my oldest sister Cecilia) have been far between.

Thus, one can imagine that when we do have one - it's hailed as the 'Wedding of the Year'! It feels like we've all been waiting and emailing and making travel plans for ages! Being Northern California residents for some years now, the couple decided to have the wedding take place in San Francisco. Most of the 150 guests were either our southern Cal family or Rosa's also large family. Thus everyone essentially made a vacation trip out of it.

No complaints there - who doesn't want to go to San Fran in the summertime??! It was a real blast with a lot of the family staying at the same hotel in Union Square - thus starting the celebration days early by dining together and hitting the hip hotel bar's Happy Hour.
As for the wedding, itself - we all know Jake enough to know that his Cal Berkeley education and liberal upbringing would call for a somewhat, ahem, unconventional ceremony. I loved it! Taking place amongst the tall redwood trees of Stern Grove near Golden Gate Park, the ceremony was full of nature, spirituality, and ethnic origins as the bilingual and uber-cool officiant dressed in white linen traditional ethnic dress first greeted all the guests asking us all to take a bead and hold it in our left hand for good blessings and love throughout the ceremony, until the end when we placed them all back in front in a basket for the newlyweds. With Jake being a superb music-lover, collector and DJ, I knew music would be a treat at this wedding - and thus I greatly enjoyed the conjunto trio softly playing their latin rhythms and percussion throughout the ceremony off to the side. In the smoke of burning sage as incense, a bird's feather was waved from head-to-foot over the couple in a traditional Apache gesture, as well we acknowledged the different signs and directions of the earth (north, south, east and west) and their representations - - it was all very cool!!

Of course, being San Fran and in the midst of the very tall trees blocking out the little sun there was, it was quite chilly, thus as soon as the ceremony ended - we all (very uncharacteristically for such a Catholic family, might I add? hahahah) rushed the open bar and started sipping on wonderful rum, wine and sangria to take the edge off. Pictures followed - Patrick took some of the Aunts and Uncles and then of us cousins - everyone was in ridiculously great spirits and by the time the heat lamps were turned on and the yummy latin food was laid out - the noise level was as high as the alcohol buzz most of us were feeling!
There is so much I can write about. I shall try to sum up the highlights: great dancing music provided by DJ David (my cousin Maddy's husband); the 'loteria' table cards that told us where we were sitting were amazingly hand-drawn by Rosa's sister; the gorgeous, multi-colored and multi-textured flowers were painstakingly and generously done by cousin Maddi (employing her old job's skills); great speeches were toasted to; Cousin Paul (freshly returned from his 2-month sojourn to Europe) was actually able to pull off wearing blindingly-white dress shoes; Rosa's tiny 94 year-old grandmother was drinking wine both at the wedding and the previous evening at 11pm in the hotel bar with everyone!!

It was such a great time - and one last word - as I informed Patrick, "All celebrations in our family are such blessings, but especially my cousins that were close to me in age (Jacob, Maddi, Noey, me, sister Sara and Jude) because they we were not only close in age, but also some of our best friends growing up: attending camp and the beach together, play time at each other's houses, going to TJ when we got older - shoot: my cousins were the only ones my mom let us spend the night at!"

Therefore, an extra special abrazo of happiness to my younger cousin Jacob - who, being the youngest of our troop, was forced to eat dirt, dress up as a girl, follow Maddy around on all fours as her dog, make lemonade stands with us, play church with us (we'd put uncooked popcorn kernals in his squished-up wonderbread and make him eat it for 'communion') and seeing him always play with his dinosaurs and Transformers - I am mighty proud of the tall, handsome, gentle, and socially-aware young man he has grown into. I am so happy for him and Rosa - Que Dios los Bendiga!!!

Click below and watch the slideshow!!

Jakewedding