Author: Jeff Tabaco

For me, much of the past year revolved around two events. One is Thom’s and my move to California in June. At first it was a vague, distant plan, and then, on the heels of our trip to London, things started to fall into place, and we moved to my hometown to start a new chapter in our life together. And also in 2006, yet another chapter ended with my father’s sudden death in July. I’m thankful that we had been here to spend time with him and afterwards to help my family. It’s been a life-changing year to say the least.

We went through a lot in that year of highs and lows, and perhaps that segues nicely into a bit of forward-looking news that we’ve been sitting on for a while: Thom and I, having been together for three and a half years now, have decided to register as domestic partners here in California sometime in the new year. Stay tuned!

Happy new year, and I wish everyone all the best in 2007.

Here’s a hilarious short film I came across on YouTube the other day: The Marriage Class.

“And what does a relation-ship float on? It is the appreci-ocean.” Ha.

I had a nice Christmas weekend with family. On Friday night, a bunch of us went to a new-ish Filipino restaurant in San Bruno called Tribu. It’s got a hip vibe that you don’t see in many Filipino restaurants here. The food I had was all right; I stuck to mostly familiar dishes (like pancit bihon and kare-kare), so on the one hand there wasn’t a feeling of culinary adventure (though I did appreciate the calamansi slush). Sometime I want to go back and try some less familiar items. On Saturday we went to the Tanforan mall; at Target we bought a car seat for my cousin whose baby is due next month, and at Old Navy I got a couple of long-sleeved shirts and a zip-up sweater (with elbow patches!).

The next day, Christmas Eve, my mom and I drove to see my aunt’s family in Concord. We attended Mass in the afternoon, and in the evening we visited other relatives and friends, and ate a lot. Oh, there was so much food at each house. Christmas morning was a frenzy of opening presents, and in the afternoon, we went to San Francisco to skate at the Yerba Buena Ice Skating Center. I hadn’t been ice skating in at least a few years, so I was holding onto the rail for the first few laps around the rink, but after a while I got the hang of it again, more or less. (See photo, above, of me not so much skating as standing still: an achievement nonetheless. I believe I’m mouthing the words, “Take the #@*% picture already!”)

On Tuesday, my mom and I watched Funny Girl on DVD (watching a Barbra Streisand musical with my mother: I believe my gay membership card has just been renewed for several years), and that night Thom came back from a week in Virginia visiting his folks. Before I went to pick him up at the airport, I went to the mall and got my hair cut, which I thought would be a cute surprise for Thom. (It was a pretty dramatic change, since hadn’t gotten my hair cut in several months and have had it in a ponytail until now.) Little did I know the stylist would take forever! I raced from the salon to home to the airport, and thankfully made it in plenty of time. He likes my hair, though he says it makes me look about sixteen. Ha. In the photo above I’m wearing one of my new Old Navy shirts. It says, “Going down since 76.” Of course I had to get it. Oh, wait, it’s about snowboarding?

It’s the beginning of winter (here in the northern hemisphere) — more daylight from here on out! — and just a few days until Christmas. (This morning I saw an ad that said, “After-Christmas sale and clearance starts now!” Yikes.) On Tuesday night, my mom came over and had dinner with Thom and me. It was nice to have the three of us together for a pre-Christmas dinner, since Thom would be leaving to visit his folks in Virginia the next day. Here we all are in front of our little holiday display (we hadn’t yet gotten around to actually decorating our ornament trees, except for a couple of reindeer ornaments that Thom bought at Papyrus that afternoon; one is red and the other blue, so I’m calling them the “red-state, blue-state” reindeer for now).

There were some neat presents to go around. My mom gave Thom a Mushables frog toy (which is just so cute and random and hilarious), and he got her a copy of Little Boxes (Rob Keil’s excellent book about our neighborhood, Westlake). The weekend before, Rajani came over and gave us a bag full of Williams-Sonoma goodies: hot chocolate, marshmallows, and a gift card, which I’m sure we’ll have fun shopping with. And then we had our winter ritual, a screening of White Christmas.

Thom’s sister, Michelle, sent me Songs for Christmas, the five-CD set by Sufjan Stevens. I listened to it all morning yesterday, and I love it. It’s quirky, folksy, and heartfelt. The songs are available on iTunes, but it’s worth going elsewhere and getting the actual CD set, which comes with a booklet (lyrics, chords, and little stories), a comic-strip poster, and stickers. Speaking of Christmas music, Thom bought a few CDs on iTunes recently (Sarah McLachlan’s Wintersong, Bette Midler’s Cool Yule, Celtic Woman’s A Christmas Celebration, and the remastered Vince Guaraldi Charlie Brown Christmas), all great.

Thom flew to Virginia yesterday — I miss him already! — and he sent me roses, which arrived today. I was so surprised! How sweet.

I hope everyone has a happy holiday season. As my folks say, Maligayang Pasko!

I’m finally getting around to reporting on our lovely weekend in San Diego at the beginning of December. I’m usually not one for following the travel guides word-for-word, but we did take some cues from a Frommer’s suggested itinerary, did some rearranging, and it worked out well. Here’s a quick recap:

On Saturday, we took in a number of San Diego highlights: Hillcrest for window shopping and brunch (at Bread & Cie, where I had an amazing turkey pesto sandwich); Old Town, full of historical buildings; Coronado, where the famous hotel and beach are; and Balboa Park, which was hosting a holiday celebration called December Nights. We finished off the evening with dinner at Fiddler’s Green, a cozy restaurant on Shelter Island, near our hotel, Humphrey’s Half Moon Inn & Suites, a tropical themed hotel that really makes you feel you’re on a lush secluded island (photo of the hotel pool above). And with the warm, sunny weather all weekend, we kept thinking, this is December? It was great.

The next morning we had brunch at Bali Hai Restaurant. The food was all right, but the tiki atmosphere and bay view are the draw here, which we love. (The photo here is of Thom, toasting with champagne. Cheers!) Then the afternoon was all about Legoland, about a half-hour drive north of San Diego. We had a great time being kids, looking at all the Lego models and riding the tame but still fun roller coasters. One of the highlights of Legoland are the miniature versions of a number of cities, all made of Lego. A few of the displays have motorized pieces; I took video of two of them with my digital camera, and decided I would try to use iMovie to put them together, which was pretty easy. (Gee, I sound like the Mac guy in those Apple ads.) This is my first attempt at iMovie, so it’s pretty short and rudimentary, but check it out if you like:

The rest of my photos are up on Flickr. See you, San Diego!

The company I work for encourages its employees to do at least two volunteer activities each year, so after perusing several listings at VolunteerMatch, last Saturday Thom (who was a dear to join me) and I dropped in on an ongoing project called Lands End Stewardship, one of the many volunteer programs of the Golden Gate Parks Conservancy. Lands End is a section of park area at the northwest corner of San Francisco, with an amazing view of the ocean (no shortage of great ocean views around here). We joined a fairly large group of volunteers that did planting and weeding along a trail that leads from the parking lot at the cheerily named Merrie Way (Google map). It’s kind of nice to think that we can come back as the plants grow bigger and say, we planted these!

The Conservancy loves its volunteers and really has its act together. They had all the gear that we needed — I wish I had a photo of us in our bright blue rain pants — and they even fed us: pastries beforehand and soup and bread afterwards. The leaders were enthusiastic, and we had a good time. To be honest I went in thinking it would be kind of a drag, but it turned out to be a really interesting and rewarding experience. We’ll be back for sure.

Oh, this is great. A Charlie Brown Christmas, rewritten and dubbed by the good folks at Scrubs:

(More information at TV Squad via Tin Man.)

Combine wanderlust and cheap airfares, and we’re up and away. We’re not going to the South Pacific (maybe someday!), but tonight we are flying to San Diego for the weekend, where we’ll be staying in a tropical-themed waterfront hotel, and we hope to hit some tiki restaurants or bars while in town. Also on the agenda is a side trip to Legoland, and possibly either SeaWorld or the San Diego Zoo. Thom hasn’t been to southern California before, and it’s been several years since I’ve been to San Diego, so it’ll all be a bit new for both of us.

We bought our plane tickets way back in July when we found out about one of Southwest Airlines’ fare sales ($49 each way within California), but scoping out the availability, we looked at weekend after weekend, and it was only now that our preferred flight days/times aligned with the advertised fares. So we’re off! Mai tai, anyone?