Congratulations SENATOR Matthew Valencia! After sweating out the days after the election, Matthew got word that he won a student senate seat at Berkeley City College.
BCC Senator Matthew Valencia
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Category Archives: Family
Vote for Matt!
All I can say is this: vote for Matthew Valencia! He’s running in a senate race at Berkeley City College and is dead serious about it. He has slogans, like “Moving BCC Forward” and “…with honesty and integrity.” He has a campaign manager, Wesley, who worked up a strategic plan for the affair. I saw this formal document in the living room once and almost fell over. I can tell you that Matt’s slogans and promises are not empty — the kid has a real desire to help people. When in middle school in San Francisco he came upon two obnoxious teens tormenting a mentally challenged boy who was having trouble with his locker. Matt marched up to them and told them what he thought and they promptly clobbered him, being older and larger. Not to be outdone, he dusted himself off, went over to one of his teachers, dragged him around the school until they spotted the perps, and loudly pointed them out. His righteous indignation overpowered his desire to protect life and limb, and you have to respect that. Here are a couple photos of the speech he gave today.
What to bury with my father?
I had to race to the funeral home today to drop off the bag of special items that will be buried with my father. Along with photos and notes from friends, I included the things he really, really loved:
1) Cell phone and charger. No one was hooked to a cell phone the way my father was. Even the day before he slipped into a coma he was trying to access messages.
2) Lock of hair and note my mother gave him in 1958. They must have been important to him, since he still had them.
3) Pack of cigarettes and a lighter. A must.
4) Lucretius, The Way Things Are. I gave this to him when I was in college, and he loved it.
5) Sir Thomas More, Utopia. This was the last birthday gift I gave him, and he liked it but did not have a chance to read it. Now there will be plenty of time.
6) Father’s Day card I made when I was a little kid. This was the one thing from my childhood he still had among his possessions, so in it went.
7) Glasses
8) Library card
9) Paper and pen
10) Comb, to support his unending vanity. Did I mention anywhere how many pairs of shoes he left behind? Something like 60 pairs – and he spent the last weeks of his life fixating on one pair of tan, snub-nosed loafers that were lost and that he had to have.
11) Nitrazine paper test key (he was into the pH thing for years)
All of this and more fit into a gallon-size Ziploc bag.
My father and lung cancer
We saw my dad for the first time since being diagnosed with lung cancer and undergoing several rounds of chemotherapy. He has been through a rough time and lost quite a bit of weight. Although he feels he looks pretty bad, I think he has an interesting look. Mean and lean and gaunt, even, yet somehow thoughtful. We go though life in all its glory and usually it shows. Is that such a terrible thing? As long as we are spared pain and suffering, and even if we are not, who cares if we show our age and experience? People in our society spend so much time psychoanalyzing the meaning of it all and, in my opinion, it keeps a vicious cycle alive. How about thinking about it in terms of people simply being at the mercy of the human body, and that we all need help now and again as said body breaks down and/or ages? Isn’t it really as simple as that? The truth of it is people fear the psychological and social implications of serious illness, and certainly the medical establishment, more than illness itself. How terrible. Here then are a couple pix of my dad, who posed in good fun with his oxygen tube for this website.
Matthew’s High School Grad Bash
Tonight we had the main bash for graduate Matthew at Albany Community Center, where we rented one of the rooms. Man, the rules. Brutal. It costs, too.
We schlepped in prepared food from 99 Ranch Market (3288 Pierce Street, Richmond). They don’t deliver, so we had to go get it. Matthew made some great selections, and a number of our Asian guests were pleasantly surprised to see fried belt fish and curry fish balls on the buffet, though I can’t say the same for the Caucasians.
The price more than made up for the must-pick-up situation.
Everything worked without a hitch. We had choreographed well in advance and also had an extra set of hands in the form of one Uncle Bill. Bill made it clear that he wanted to be a worker bee and not a planner.
We needed to decorate quickly due to cutthroat policies employed by the City of Albany in their facility rental operation. We nabbed the food at 99 Ranch and the coffee at Peet’s after preliminary work.
The sound system — a set of powered speakers and three iPods — was brought over in our initial trip, so I hooked that up while my Mom handled decorations, tablecloths and chip and dip setups.
Meantime, Steve went to BevMo to get ice for a massive soda operation. Soda had been delivered to the house by Safeway and stored in the garage. Soda is about the only thing I would trust Safeway with in terms of home delivery. The few times I tried their delivery service it was a mess. I didn’t get things I paid for and got things I didn’t pay for and didn’t want. I don’t want 6 egg custard pies in lieu of a prime rib.
There was the matter of those horrible foil chafing dishes. We had to have them ready when the food arrived. We had nine, and they required their own trip over in our Civic because their wire frames are so large and they don’t nest.
After this experience I can appreciate why people have SUVs.
The only thing that was crap, in terms of ingredients — other than the soda and some of the chip-like substances — was the chocolate cake. It was from Costco and loaded with trans fat. If there was any butter in that cake at all I wouldn’t know because I fell asleep reading the list of ingredients before I ever got to it. Note on 12/3/12: Costco has since removed trans fat from their All-American Cake — the one we had at this party
Matt and his friends had a great time, and we all keeled over at midnight.