Wanderlust Back

August 4, 2013 1 Comment

Tea and Sympathy: A stop at Chantal Guillon for macaroons with my foodie younger cousins.Tea and Sympathy: A stop at Chantal Guillon for macarons with my foodie younger cousins.

My cousins from Sacramento came to visit recently for a weekend, and while snacking on the most delicate macarons in Chantal Guillon in Hayes Valley, our conversation turned toward our trips abroad and our divergent experiences.  I had a more romantic interpretation of being in Paris than my sister, and my cousin went to Europe with a study-abroad program.  Nonetheless, we agreed we would go again, and my other cousin has become more open to overseas travel.

It’s a test in patience to wait for one part of my life to catch up with another that is already established and for years dying to move forward.  I’ve wondered when I would ever give myself permission to want to travel again, since I still had to consider getting back on my feet work-wise.

Now I feel certain this is the moment to return to my natural inclination to see more of the world.  A job eventually becomes routine, and the past is forgiven.  Other aspects of my life need more attention, especially the things that are most important to me.  While perhaps more progress could still be made, the time for magical thinking and action can now take flight and soar.

Oltrarno squareMemorable Oltrarno square where I bumped into a Florentine Adonis during my last major trip in 2008.

Filed under Brass Ring 2.0, Florence, In My Life, Travel Tagged with , , , , ,

A Tourist in My Own Town

July 14, 2013 1 Comment

Rin Tin Tiger

With featured act the Kingsboroughs, Rin Tin Tiger performs at Blondie’s Bar for the City Sounds, sponsored by NBC and Jack Daniels Honey.

In a fog-ridden city like San Francisco, it is often a relief when it clears, and you come out on the other side.  For almost the last 12 months,  I’ve felt I was traveling through a fog, and I’m just emerging from it.

Surely, the city by the bay has lots of stuff going on to cure the blues, and hanging out  with family and friends is perhaps the best medicine–they do well to keep me balanced.  Music is one of my favorite things, and taking in live music with my brother and his friends this month for the City Sounds in the Mission was what the doctor ordered.

With Wendy, my longest-known friend in the Bay Area, I went to Sunset Magazine’s Weekend Celebration and later Chipotle Cultivate Festival in Golden Gate Park, which was also humming with live music.   Both were delightful foodie events, with cooking demos by chefs (some celebrity) and cooks.

"The Salty Pimp" (chocolate-dipped soft-serve vanilla ice cream dulce de leche and sea salt) from the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck.

Profane with a Touch of Whimsy: “The Salty Pimp” (chocolate-dipped soft-serve vanilla ice cream, dulce de leche and sea salt) from the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck.

At the Cultivate fest, I enjoyed Chipotle’s tacos and even its foray into Southeast Asian cooking called ShopHouse.   I also had a bacon-wrapped hotdog from one vendor and “The Salty Pimp” from the Big Gay Ice Cream truck.  Every bite of the vanilla soft-serve ice cream was so incredible, as though the milk just came from the dairy farm.

Wendy has her ear to the ground more than I do, it seems.  I wasn’t in such a wonderful space at the time, and I had trouble being in the moment.  My head was simply somewhere else.  But when I brought myself around to be more present, I felt more anchored and grateful that Wendy gave me the opportunity to escape for a few weekends.  After all that’s what friends (and family) are for.

IMG_1392

The Truck Stops Here: Straight from NYC, unicorns and rainbows under a gray sky and an intriguing ice cream menu.

Filed under The Bay Area Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Birthday Hopes and Dreams

June 17, 2013 Leave a comment

After celebrating another birthday in May and experiencing a period of loss and change, I think of Thomas Pastorius, who passed away last year.  Considered the first microbrewer in Pennsylvania, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, he also marked the coda of my high school journalism career when I interviewed him for one of my last articles in North Catholic’s Trojan News.  Unbeknownst to me at the time, he would open Penn Brewery at the bottom of Troy Hill Road by the Fall, while I was starting college.

Although my meeting with him was brief, he was a gracious and generous man who fed my fledgling ambition by basically giving me something grown-up to write about.  I am now in rather awe the prescience of standing and speaking with him in the dank and dark interior of the old Eberhardt and Ober brewery below my high school before its grand transformation.

But as life would have it, his dream of an on-site brewery and restaurant proved to be a high-maintenance job.  One’s passion could also produce much anxiety and frustrations–that much I too do understand.  Throughout my career, I’ve gone in and out of the thing I love to do most.

Another birthday does give me pause, and a refocusing of sorts is in order, for starters, infusing more positive energy and a healthier balance during work weeks.  And if I’m lucky, I may even capture a little of the thrill “Mr. Beer” once had of crafting brews–often times the hard but, in his mind, the right way.

Filed under Brass Ring 2.0, Da Burgh, In My Life, Philosophical, Writing Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

A Lifestyle to Which I’ve Grown Accustomed

May 5, 2013 Leave a comment

I once had a blog called “Citizen of the World” that I lost since my former (read: lousy) web host decided to no longer support WordPress.  With the exception of the Passion Cafe, which has since closed, and any deaths in my family, things really haven’t changed even after a month and two years.  

April 4, 2011

Comfort Food & Company

Filed under: Food,Lifestyle — Rachelle Ayuyang @ 7:48 pm

Golden Gate Park from the top floor of the DeYoung Museum on New Year's Day 2011.

Golden Gate Park from the top floor of the DeYoung Museum on New Year’s Day 2011.

The year unfolded with a European flair. My friend Wendy and I went to the DeYoung Museum on the first day of 2011 for the last half of the Orsay Museum traveling exhibit of Impressionist art. And then we had lunch at Marnee Thai in the Inner Sunset.

In February, I met someone out of the blue, and it is a topic of discussion at lunch with my friend Rose at Rocco’s Cafe.  After saying good-bye to a close family relative in the hospital in March, supper at the cacophonous restaurant, So, was quite frankly the right antidote for the insular sadness of the ICU.  Her death was one of things Rose and I spoke about on our recent lunch this month on the rooftop of the Passion Cafe, a perfect choice for the welcome warm weather in San Francisco.  My curry chicken salad paired nicely with the organic Pinot Gris.   Later we stopped by Split Pea Seduction for its chocolate chip coconut oatmeal cookies.  I know life is often beyond my control.  But if I am open, there is a moment of clarity when I see a well of endless possibilities.  Life never stops.  Like the universe, it just keeps expanding.

Filed under In My Life, Philosophical, The Bay Area Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Springtime Trials and Renewal

April 29, 2013 Leave a comment

Rather bulbous tulips brightened up my month.

Often, I’ve gotten philosophical, sometimes spiritual.  Lately, I’ve become equally both, trying to wrap my mind around things going sideways and the homeland attack on Boston this month.  So much is being thrown at us collectively that sooner or later we are knocked out of kilter and forced to return to the things that make us who we really are.  For me, it was my penchant as a kid for daily prayer and later leaning on my strong support network of close family and friends and even the kindness of strangers.

I am rereading a book my friend Carmen once gave me called “Conversations with God.” It reminded me about life choices and decisions and that if they aren’t the right ones, there is always an opportunity to choose again.  Making that connection sharpened and clarified the path to take and mapped out the way to get through this month.  It has changed and even humbled me to some degree, and in my purposeful journey, I am more than happy to bookend this month as simply glad to have survived.

Filed under In My Life, Philosophical Tagged with , , , , ,

The Passeggiata

March 24, 2013 Leave a comment

Wow Factor: The Colosseum notwithstanding, tour guide Francesca Caruso gives her passionate take of the Eternal City. (photo by Rhodora Ayuyang)

It wasn’t a coincidence that the local PBS station was showing a marathon of Rick Steves travelogues in Italy, with the election of a new pontiff in the Vatican.  So I was happy to see in his most recent program of Rome that he invited Francesca Caruso, a popular tour guide that I had the pleasure of meeting, to participate in its filming.  While on his tour in 2008, she made such a fantastic impression on me that I singled her out as one of my “wow” moments:  “She personalized so powerfully Roman history with her depth and knowledge of literature and architecture.  I can only hope I could enjoy la dolce vita the way Francesca clearly has doing a job she obviously loves.”

Via Margutta to Popolo

Getting Back on Track: The road to happiness is through Rome, among other places in the world.

Francesca accompanied Rick on the passeggiata in the Eternal City, which is described as an early evening stroll from Piazza del Popolo to the Spanish Steps.  While sounding rather innocent and leisurely, Rick’s book in 2008 says, “in Rome, it’s a cruder big-city version called the struscio (‘to rub’),” in which young Italians cruise the Via del Corso sometimes obnoxiously in motorscooters and dispense with rather bold remarks (“buono”/”buona” or “tasty”) to passersby.

Whatever the case may be, traveling, like writing, is one of my favorite outlets, not a surprise to those who really know me.  Maintaining a balance in life is such a challenge that to have any opportunity to  get back  into my comfort zone is most welcome and, I would venture to say, mandatory.

Filed under In My Life, Italy, Rome, Travel Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Natural Woman

March 4, 2013 Leave a comment

DSC01799I was hoping to squeeze one more entry before February ended, but so many things happened, it’s hard to keep track, and lo and behold March is now upon us.

I’ve talked about retreating to my happy place when life gets topsy-turvy, but another one of my refuges is the ocean–lately Ocean Beach to be exact.

Having grown up rather land-locked, I now live close to water.  But I’ve often taken it for granted all these years living in San Francisco.  Unfairly, sometimes I’ve associated visits to the beach as how troubled I might be at that given moment to necessitate walking the length of its coastline, when in fact, recently, I’ve gone with family and friends there for birthdays and simple getaways from the city.

Leaves and my sneakerAs imbued as I am in urban life, it would behoove me to decompress from obligations and responsibilities in our natural surroundings, which often are more comforting and even more beautiful.  This brings me to a terrific documentary I recently saw about Sister Wendy Beckett (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pqhfp), the globetrotting nun whose insights to art thrust her into the international limelight in the 1990s.  She now leads a hermetic life in Quindenham, England, which brings her close to nature and therefore closer to God and a sense of peace–something I must obviously learn to do.

Filed under In My Life, Philosophical, The Bay Area Tagged with , , ,

Call Me Old Fashion

February 14, 2013 1 Comment

Last weekend, I randomly popped in a cassette tape (remember those?) that turned out to be a collection of love songs, one being a 1996 hit single by R&B singer Kenny Lattimore entitled  “For You.”

I recalled I wrote a profile about its songwriter, Kenny Lerum, when I was a magazine writer, and after realizing I didn’t have a personal copy, I decided to chase it down, going almost immediately to the San Francisco Public Library to retrieve one.  Although it was one of my smaller articles, truth be told, it’s more or less for sentimental reasons that I desired to have it now, in time for Valentine’s Day no less.

Filed under The Bay Area, Writing Tagged with , , , , , ,

A Beeline for My Happy Place

January 15, 2013 1 Comment

Way to Work

A Little Solace in the FiDi.

Mama said there would be days like these, so what’s a girl to do?  Apparently, she goes to buy make-up.  In a million years, I would never have thought to communicate in psycho-babble with regularity, but, well, I went to my “happy place.”  That would be the CVS store on California and Sansome, across from the Union Bank building where I previously worked last year.  It was rather convenient, being placed at that particular job because a few of my friends, even my sister-in-law, worked in the same building.  There were some fun times since retrieving booze and beverages from the store for company functions was a task that invited a little envy when bumping into friends, visitors and other occupants alike.

This time I was looking for mineral foundation, and I went to the cosmetics section to try and figure out a new product that would match my skin tone.  I fumbled for a time, tipping and inverting round containers to get a sense of how it might look on my face.  Then, “Ann” came to my rescue.  The CVS sales clerk saw I was having trouble and gave me the kind of customer service I would expect from any retailer worth its weight in gold.  She even removed the packaging and applied some of the make-up on my face to make sure it was the closest match.  Apparently, CVS has a “beauty guarantee” that if the product doesn’t work out, it could be returned regardless of the condition.  I left more than satisfied with my purchase, and I personally gave Ann a ringing endorsement for her helpfulness.

As the week would compel me, I made the same route, turning on California toward Sansome, eyeing the top of the Union Bank building on my left, back to the store.  The following day, I returned with my $4.50 rewards dollars on my CVS card for a pressed powder foundation and Ann’s sage advice.  I asked her what made her so good at her job, and she said passion for products manufactured with a genuine regard for improving lives, not just for expediency and cost-effectiveness.  It’s also her positive attitude that I gravitate toward, and as I manage the challenges of each day, I make no apologies for retreating to my happy place.

Filed under In My Life, Philosophical, The Bay Area

Coping Skills Required

December 24, 2012 Leave a comment

A kind of spiritual totem that I discovered during my lunch hour in the FiDi this year.

Throughout the year, I’ve blogged about dealing with my life, its constant changes, ups and downs.  In the shadows of the heart-breaking school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut and the economic anxiety over the fiscal cliff, it’s so easy to lose it nowadays, and it is all I have to do to make sure my coping skills are enough to withstand the pressure.  Simply walking out the door and crossing streets are exercises in avoiding life-and-death situations.

I’m never going to pretend to know all the answers because really most decisions we make in life are on the gray middle part of the spectrum.  They’re not always black and white.  Every move I make seem to be judgment calls, and it’s their outcomes that determine whether they were good or bad decisions.

I’ve said as much, my life is a work in progress.  Even though I know coping requires being mindful of my thoughts and stepping back and taking a deep breath before I dive in, I’m not always faithful to them, and I inevitably end up making mistakes.  Failing is unavoidable, though, and it’s the lessons we learn, how we pick ourselves up, resolve problems and move on that are the most important things to focus on going forward.

As 2012 comes to a close, I realize how far I’ve come since the end of 2011, when I was devising my plan to get back on my feet.  Like most Americans, I still have my work cut out for myself in 2013.  But at least we outlasted the typically brilliant Mayans’ false prediction of Armageddon on December 21, which brings me to the first coping skill one should always remember: maintain a sense of humor.

Filed under In My Life, Philosophical

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