Halloween Soccer Game

Halloween soccer game. I sat and cheered for Kevin. It was a cold morning. I really miss playing soccer.

Amber

Went to Amber on Santana Row for lunch.
Buffets, great on diverse selections but terrible, too much food. Delicious though.

Cafe Colluci

David and I made it to Cafe Colluci for Ethiopian food. I like their food. We made it for their lunch special and saved 6 dollars on our double combo plate.

Yu and iPhone Brush App

Went to Teance for an event. Rev. Heng Sure was showing Winnie's father who is a wonderful painter, the brush app on iPhone. iPhone has so many cool apps. After the event, Yadolla read a Sufi poem poetically for Ali whose birthday is tomorrow.

North Face Sample Sale

I did a dangerous thing. I stopped at the North Face outlet and checked out their sample sale. What a sample sale is all the articles used for store or media samples were gathered in this outlet for a mass sale. Everything was size medium. Things were in big bins and the place was covered in a,...... well, mess of piles of clothes. Had to dig through every box that was in no particular order or if it did once, it no longer is. I started to gather things and hung them on my body. I really had too much stuff on me and I kept dropping them each step I took. I would turn around and look to pick it up but someone else would pick it up before I would and it was gone. I took this as a gift of helping me eliminate things I really didn't need but felt like buying. I hear such impulses are common in others too.

Tai Chi Class Breakfast

Once or twice a year we get together outside of our Tai Chi Class at Berkeley Buddhist Monastery and hangout, eat, perform music for each other, play games, and chat.

Gael does cello performances and teaches cello. Emily does piano performances and teaches piano. Minako was doing comic relief palm reading on Tuan, who by the way is an architect. Minako is our famous baker, a beautiful delicious one too. Futung is a designer and his work was featured in a magazine and he had quite a spread too. He also pulled out photos of his home the before, during and after renovations. Leila is Futung's wife and poured delicious tea for us.

It was very nice to see everyone today for tai chi breakfast. Every body is very nice. I realized today that everyone in this group for years regardless of who comes and goes seems to be in some field of art, either music or 2-D or 3-D art. Very interesting, our group seems to draw in artists with gentle souls.

Affinity Badminton

Was invited to play Badminton today. I loved playing badminton, and soccer. I played girls singles in high school. Went to tournaments too. I stopped playing badminton when I became vegetarian. I learned the racket strings are made with cat gut or something like that. Plus the feather on the shuttle cock is from birds. I also stopped playing soccer because I didn't want to kill bugs for my entertainment on the grass.

I really missed playing badminton. It was nice of XueJun to invite me to play with his coworkers. They were friendly and showed mercy to my out of shape rusty moves and the court running was definitely a struggle. But by the end of 2nd hour of playing, I feel like I revived the badminton spirit in me. I feel if I keep up with this it'll all come back in a few months. Gotta work on my court foot work though. I had so much fun today. Looking forward to playing more badminton soon.

Sarvodaya Dr. Ariyaratne

Dr. Ariyaratne was in town, visiting from Sri Lanka. He is known as the "Gandhi of Sri Lanka", keeper of the world record for largest global meditation with 990 thousand people, and founder of the Sarvodaya movement with millions of members. The stories of his encounters in the face of violence and gun point life dangers, he manages to turn the hearts of his adversaries into non-violence and inspiring others to protect life instead. Physically he is an unassuming man, a little over five feet tall with a sweet soft voice. He encouraged people to change the world with their consciouness, with the daily thoughts, to turn unwholesome thoughts into wholesome ones. I really like what he said. Looking like you are meditating isn't enough, the vibration of your thoughts is what leads to peace or violence. That everyone arounds you including the birds can feel your thoughts and reacts or responds accordingly.

I showed up early, a whole hour and half early to give myself plenty of time to get lost on Stanford campus, of which I did. But still had enough time to be early enough to help set up and help out, making myself useful, getting things ready for the hundred or so people expected to the event in Stanford Old Union Building.

Service, is like my breath and heart beat, doesn't require a thought.

Dante

What a nice surprise to run into Dante today! Missed laughing with Dante over Iron Chef episodes, samuri films, drinking tea, cooking together, watching him do his shoalin moves and chi gong.

Chez Panisse

Another girl's night out. Tonight we went to Chez Panisse for dinner. Laura did our makeup again. We never seem to have enough time. We always aim to start early to do our hair and face but somehow we always run out of time.


















The food was amazingly delicious. I like it better than Millenium. We all agreed to come back. Everything was just perfect. Our server Daniel was so awesome and really helped us pick out our dinner and dessert. He also talked to the chef to create special dishes for us that is not on the menu. He also brought us complementary chocolate and candied fruit. We had a 5:30pm reservation and was there till a little after 9:15pm. Gonna miss Sher and our girl's night outs like this.

Vallco Farmer's Market

I had a bit of time today and stopped by the Friday Farmer's Market in Vallco. It moved from behind the ice skating ring to Sears parking lot. I really like the fall selection. I finally found it to be better than the Berkeley Center Street Saturday Farmer's Market. There were three stalls of vendors that I liked. One was the best in my opinion, it's called "Her Farm". Everything in that stall is $1 a bundle. I got giant bundles of kale, chollard, chard all for a dollar each. I guess everything is in season because they sure tastes very sweet and tender right now.

I also went to House of Falafel and for a Falafel wrap. Felip was there today and made mine without onions. He is a very nice person and it is nice to go to places where people are nice and know you.

Millenium San Francisco

We were at Sher's studio and got ready for our girl's night out. Laura was putting on extended eye lash on herself. She did my make up while Sher did my nails. My nails match my lip gloss color and my dress and earrings and necklace.

Dinner was delicious. I loved the food. Everything tasted very fall season, warming and on the heavier side. I had so much fun tonight. So much so that we decided to do it again next week at Chez Panisse in Berkeley.