Doc, Drinks, and Dumplings: My Valentine's Day

Friday, February 14th

My Valentine's Day started with a trip to Nugget Market for a little something special for my wife. The store was bursting with flowers – every color, arrangement, and size imaginable! I gravitated towards potted plants, thinking they offered more value and longevity (and secretly hoping my wife reads this and knows I'll be the one tending to it!).

It was a busy day! Shortly after I got home, my wife arrived with her own Valentine's Day gifts, two eager dogs in tow. She gave me a heart-shaped box of turtle chocolates – it's the little things, right?

The day was a blur of projects and client meetings at MyCali Designs. I felt like I had some people on my mind, so I reached out to a few, just to say I was thinking of them. I had two clients, polar opposites in industry and personality, call. One jokingly asked if I was calling to wish him a Happy Valentine's Day, and we had a good laugh before getting down to business. Later, an older client stopped by to discuss work, but not before mentioning his wife had asked if he'd gotten her chocolates. We both chuckled, eyeing the box my wife had given me.

As the day wound down, we headed to San Francisco for a musical – "F'n" Back to the Future! As '90s kids, we were pumped. We left around 3 to try and beat the traffic (my wife graciously drove while I worked). In the city, we wanted a pre-show drink. We parked in Union Square and surfaced, looking for a bar. My instinct was to find a hotel. The first one I saw looked nice, but was closed! We headed back towards the theater and found another hotel – this one with a velvet rope, the bar was called Charmaine's at the Proper Hotel. We asked if we could go in for drinks, and the host escorted us to a rooftop bar/restaurant. It was cozy and chic. We met Jaime and Sergio, the bartenders, and had a couple of drinks (bourbon on the rocks for me, an Old Fashioned for my wife) and some snacks (olives and dumplings). The olives were good, except for some big ones I didn't like, and the dumplings were just okay. The drinks were great, though, and even better shared with my wife.