Saturday, September 5, 2009

Celebration!




I had a lovely time last night celebrating my great-aunt’s birthday. My parents, sister-in-law and I took Priscilla and her husband Wally to a restaurant way above the valley on Mt. Hamilton road, appropriately named “The Grandview”. And a grand view it is. It sits on the edge of the mountain, with just enough room for a short deck before the mountain dives down, and high enough up that we were looking down on the planes heading into the airport.

The internal décor looks as if it were frozen in the mid-fifties back when the building was last rebuilt after a fire swept the mountain: dark wood paneling, a cherub-crusted fountain in the corner, and artificial pine garland complete with burgundy bows for Christmas. The menu, too, is probably unchanged, but the veal piccata that I had was well prepared and the portions were ample for a very reasonable price. And, oh, the view! Sadly I didn’t think to take a picture before dark, and though my point and shoot does a pretty good job in the dark, it really doesn’t do justice to the city stretched beneath us. (Click to embiggen.)




But more impressive than the view is that Priscilla and Wally have been together since 1942. Of course, if you manage to find, and be, as nice as Priscilla and Wally are, it’s probably easy to stay together.

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