Farewell Tour Year Two

Shi Young Kim, Martha Jimenez-Ito

and Laurie Contreras

at

Cafe Firenze

563 West Los Angeles Avenue

Moorpark, California

805-532-0048

Friday night marked the beginning of the Second Annual George Contreras Farewell Tour.  This year's festivities will cover only a relatively short five day period as opposed to the inaugural two week shindig last year.

The first round of these deeply appreciated gestures was a small one with Martha, on her home court in Moorpark, and our "adopted daughter" Shi Young.  One of the interesting developments of aging has been the many wonderful ladies that I now have as true friends not just acquaintances.  As a youth who attended an all boys Catholic high school it took me a VERY long time to get over my shyness around the members of this fascinating gender.  It turns out that I really like them... GO FIGURE!

Cafe Firenze is a top notch Italian (there's that word again) restaurant whose main chef and owner is featured on national top chef competition on TV's Food Channel.

Penne Arabiata was my choice and I was not disappointed.  They also serve a rather interesting balsamic martini that sounds nasty but is quite good.

These last few days and meetings are the really hard part about coaching in Catania, the knowledge that for six months you will not be able to see your family and friends and share their joys and tough times up close and personal.

Of course the opposite is also true in that I get to reunite with my Sicilian friends and share in their lives.

Bittersweet times indeed!

The "Tour" has two stops today, the first one in Santa Monica to have lunch with our new Catania QB Luke Tracy and his parents (Buca di Beppo and YES it is an Italian restaurant) followed by an evening in San Marino to visit my mother, Chuny, and my aunt Katy.