Aaaaand now it's snowing

2-4" predicted. 2 days after we had weather in the high 60s. See where the saying, "If you don't like the weather in New England, just wait a minute" comes from?

Ah. global warming

I don't know how anyone can argue that global warming isn't a very real phenomenon. We had temps in the high 60s today...in December...in Boston. I'll admit though that I loved every second of it :) Got to walk around with no coat on and we even took the motorcycle out to dinner. Good times!

Yankee tournaments are cursed for me

Played in my first Yankee tournament today in two years, a Women's C- so I got to ease back into things. Except for the part where I went after the bad set, the setter ran across my path, and I landed on her foot after hitting and rolled my ankle. The same ankle I rolled a few months ago and couldn't walk on for days. Sweet.

But good news! After doing the RICE thing for about 45 minutes I found that I could walk on it. So I slapped on the active ankle and played the rest of the day, slightly gimpy but better than leaving the team with a ghost for the remaining four games out of eight. And guess what? We won! Yes, I rock for playing on a rolled ankle ;) (either that or I'm just stupid--it's definitely debatable)

What a lucky girl I am

My birthday was on Monday but I've been celebrating since last Friday :) Documenting how lucky I am is going to take a little while and a lot of pictures, so here we go (apologies in advance for the bad low-light pics)....

Friday 10/23/2009

Last year a good friend got me a gift card to a restaurant in Cambridge called Salts. We didn't get around to using it until this year so Willy took me there for my birthday. I don't know how we've never heard of this place before but my friend knows I love duck and found this place because they're known for their lavendar honey glazed whole roasted duck for two. You actually have to reserve it in advance if you want to make sure to get it; they only have a few ducks per night and they often sell out. The people seated at the table next to us were disappointed they couldn't have one after they saw ours come out and tried more than once to buy our leftovers :)

Anyway, dinner was amazing. Seriously, I was in heaven and it's sort of silly how happy a good meal makes me. The duck was delicious--slightly sweet, great flavor, moist, yummy! And the stuffing and veggies on the side were great too. They bring the whole duck to your table and then carve it up and plate it for you. It's so much food we only ate half of it for dinner so we got another half for dinner a couple of nights later--yum x2!

For appetizers we got the slow-cooked farm egg with chanterelle mushrooms, chorizo, and native corn and an avocado-wrapped king crab thingy. Both were excellent and so flavorful. My mouth is watering again just thinking about it. For desserts we got the chocolate parfait (so good!) and the mascapone-enriched cheesecake with corn bread ice cream (just OK).

The restaurant definitely pays attention to details. They not only decorated our table with confetti for my birthday, they actually lined up the separate little balloon and streamer pieces so they looked like balloons on a string. Yowza.

Saturday 10/24/2009

On Saturday the celebration continued, this time with my family. Everyone came over to our house to carve pumpkins during the day and we all went out for a sushi dinner afterwards. The gray day was perfect for staying indoors and we had a lot of fun. All the best pictures are on Willy's computer though so I need him to upload them to our shared drive before I can post any. The jack-o-lanterns turned out pretty cool, but you'll have to take my word for it for now.

After dinner we went back to our house for cake and coffee, and then I got some pretty awesome gifts. First was the new Fuji Finepix F70EXR point & shoot camera that came from my parents and Willy. I've been lugging around an old brick of a Canon that's circa 2002 or something. This guy has a ton of fancy-schmancy software built in and a 10x zoom. I still have to learn how to really use it, but I'm finally out of the digital camera Stone Ages.

Second, my sisters got me something that will let me continue exploring my crafty side. I asked for and got my very first sewing machine, a Brother CS6000i. No, I don't know how to use this either but I intend to learn :) I mean, c'mon, a girl my height really needs to learn how to hem her own pants at least! Too bad Catholic schools didn't have home ec.

The last gift was from my aunt and uncle, who got me a four pack of mini merlots. I was telling them recently that I rarely drink wine at home because Willy doesn't drink so it's a waste to open up a whole bottle just for me. I keep meaning to get those small bottles of wine for myself but never do, so they did it for me :) P.S., the 2008 Woodbridge Merlot is yummy!

Sunday 10/25/2009
We got some gorgeous fall weather on Sunday so Willy and I went to the famous Mt. Auburn Cemetary to check out the fall colors. It's a beautifully manicured space and I know it sounds like a weird place to take an outing, but I'm so glad we did. We spent probably 2 - 2.5 hours walking around and I got to try out my camera, which was fun. We took a leaf-peeping trip out to Western Mass a couple of weeks ago but were a little early for peak colors. Well this weekend was definitely peak. Gorgeous reds, yellows, oranges--stunning. Even the sky was a flawless, cloudless blue. I know it sounds cheesy, but I felt so calm, happy, and rejuvenated all at the same time after our visit.

Monday 10/26/2009

Willy took the day off from work just to hang out with me on my actual birthday. We didn't do anything big, just had a nice lunch together and later in the evening played in our regular volleyball league. It was a good, chill day. But I got one more surprise because Willy had yet another birthday present for me. The crazy boy got me a pair of tanzanite studs to replace ones I lost earlier this year! I don't have a pic yet, but they're lovely.

See what a lucky girl I am? I have an amazing hubby and family that I got to spend some quality time with and also got some pretty awesome gifts (I don't know what they're going to do for Christmas presents now because I pretty much got everything I want or need!). I also had a chance to catch up with a bunch of Cali friends over the phone. Crazy Miss Sabrina even wished me a happy birthday via text, e-mail, IM, FB, snail mail, and a phone call :)

Happy Birthday to me! I hope you all are as lucky as me!

Some amigurumi gifts

I made my friend a couple of amigurumi gifts recently to celebrate her birthday. Actually, I finished them more quickly than I thought I would so they sat around for three weeks before it was time to mail them out to her :P She was born in the year of the Rabbit so I made her a couple of cute bunny-themed things as well as a Gromit like the one I made for Willy earlier this year. I was actually going to make a third bunny but decided I didn't really like that particular pattern so I left it out.

Anyway, now that she's finally received the gifts I can post some pics. Happy Birthday again, S!

SNOW?!?!?!?!

Are you freakin' kidding me?! It's mid-OCTOBER! This is just insane. At first it was just rain that looked like it was turning into little bits of snow. 10 minutes later and it's now big, fat flakes! Argh! It's not sticking but still. Mid-October, people, mid-October!

I bet our SF friends are glad they came to town this weekend for a wedding :P Back to prepping for dinner for the four of us tonight.

Yarn Bonanza

Joann's recently had a sale of 30% off ALL their yarn online (AND I found a free shipping code) and I definitely took advantage. I once told my friend that I don't have much of a yarn stash because I try not buy stuff unless I have a specific use in mind for it. Um, yeah...the stash has definitely grown. This is just what I bought with this order. I probably already owned at least that much beforehand. BUT everything in this order I have plans for. I'm going to be busy, busy, busy until Christmas!

Today was a good day

1. I had a good job interview this morning.

2. As soon as I got home from said interview, I got a call from a recruiter about another position I applied for that I'm a really, really good fit for (IMHO).

3. I played volleyball for a third day in a row tonight. And played well.

I'm hoping these are signs that my luck is finally turning around.

Chicago is a cool city

We went to Chicago a couple of weeks ago and had a great time exploring the area. My college roommate is from there and is super proud of her city so we went several days before the wedding and stayed with her and her fiance. We checked out all the big touristy things and ate our way through the city (Chicago has so many great restaurants!). It also helped our enjoyment of the city that it was 70-something degrees every day we were there! Somehow I don't think it'll be that nice when I go back to Chicago in January for roomie's wedding :)

I've done a few of the tourist things while visiting my friend once before, but Willy hadn't checked out much of that stuff so our first stop was the well-known architecture river cruise offered by the Chicago Architecture Foundation. It's a relaxing way to see some of the great architecture that Chicago is famous for, but even though it always comes highly recommended it's more of a B in my book than an A+.

After the architecture tour we hit Millennium Park, this amazing public park opened in 2004. Saw the famous bean sculpture, which was super cool. The outdoor amphitheater is also awesome; they must have amazing events there. You can't see the sprawling lawn that extends to the right of this picture, but it's slightly sloped for stadium-style seating and it's just great. I also really liked this water feature thing they have. A couple of tall video screens displays the faces of Chicagoans and water spurts from their mouths into a shallow, long, rectangular pool that kids can run through. It's totally fun :)

The next day we hit a couple more big sites, Sears Tower (its new name, Willis Tower, sounds so lame) and Navy Pier. The new glass platforms that extend out from the 103rd floor of the Sears Tower are awesome! I spent a little too much time out on them looking down and got a bit of vertigo :P But it was very worth it. It was funny seeing the people who were afraid to go out on the platforms--including this big dude whose girlfriend was trying to coax him out to check out the view. Navy Pier was also a nice place to just walk around and check out the view of the lake. People knock it as a horrible tourist trap but I liked it, I just didn't buy any overpriced tchotchkes :)

Oh, we even got to see one of our old SF friends while we were in Chicago. Edwin spent a couple of months at his family's place before starting on an adventure living in China. We caught him right in the nick of time, the day before he was scheduled to fly out to China. Had lunch at Portillo's with him (mmm, hot dogs!) and then hung out together at Navy Pier. It was great to see him since it's been about a year since the last time we were able to get together.

The last big thing we hit was one of Chicago's famous comedy clubs, Second City. I had no idea the city was so known for this, but some big comedians came out of Second City, like Tina Fey, Stephen Colbert, Dan Castellaneta, John Candy, Dan Akroyd, Jim Belushi, and more. The show we saw was called Studs Terkel's Not Working. The first half was pretty funny, the second half was pretty lame. All in all, a good time.

Now for the eats...

Alinea: The big splurge meal. This is a very high-end restaurant with a tasting menu (12 courses) and a tour menu (25 courses). It has a completely non-descript big, gray door for an entrance and once inside you walk down a narrow, dimly lit hallway. Right when you get to the end and aren't sure if you're hitting a dead end or if there's a sharp turn to the right, a door on your left magically slides open and the hostess greets you. It's much larger inside than it looked from the street and the decor was classy and upscale without being too stuffy. The same could be said of the staff. There was one server
("waiter" doesn't seem like the right word for someone

who's wearing a suit that undoubtedly cost multiples of what I gave as a wedding gift to the couple we were in town for) who was a bit stiffer than the others, but in general everyone was very friendly and willing to chat and joke with us. There was a whole team of people involved in presenting the food, explaining how to eat it, cleaning up between courses, etc. so we didn't have just one server.

The dinner itself was certainly an experience, though I'm not sure molecular gastronomy (re: food with super fancy garnishes and presentation) is totally my cup of tea. I did appreciate the intense flavors and the sudden bursts and changes of tastes in my mouth, but some of the dishes came off as a bit salty to me (e.g. the truffle ravioli--which they gave us twice for some reason! Willy had joked that he ate his so fast that he thought it was actually missing and he needed another, and they actually brought us both another one!) That said, wagyu beef--a.ma.zing. It might as well have melted in my mouth, and I would definitely have taken another serving of that instead of the truffle ravioli! And you see that little black lopsided thing under the picture of the wagyu beef? Well it was a prop that went with that particular dish. They wanted to bring the grill experience to the dining room so since they don't cook the beef tableside they fill that little topsy-turvy contraption with some kind of essence of the beef, some dry ice, and then fill it with water when they serve you the dish so that smoke covers your table and the smell of grilled beef surrounds you while you eat. Those crazy fancy restaurants with their crazy fancy props! The last dish pictured is described on the menu as scallop, shellfish, and honeydew, the latter of which if memory serves was the foam portion of the dish. It was excellent.

I was sooooo stuffed at the end of the twelve courses that I have no idea how I'd ever do the 25-course tour. A couple of the servers kept insisting it was totally do-able, but I'm not convinced. Plus at $225 I think I'll wait to go to French Laundry. I will say that the tasting menu was probably priced pretty accurately at $145, but I've decided I'm more of a traditional cooking technique kinda gal and I'd go back to Blue Ginger's $85 tasting menu over this. Don't regret trying it one bit though.

Art of Pizza: One of my online resources recommended this place for its pizza over the Big Three usually recommended in Chi-town, those being Lou Malnatti's, Giordano's, and Gino's East. The stuffed (i.e. super deep dish) veggie pizza I got was delicious. I only managed to eat one slice, which is very unusual for me and my rather large appetite. Next time I'll have to try one of the other places to compare.

Lou Mitchell's: Went to this diner for breakfast based on another online rec. It's a well-known institution in Chicago and I guess lines get pretty long on the weekends (though probably not as long as the line at Hot Doug's--holy crap that was crazy. More on that later). While you're waiting you get a fresh-made donut hole that's very yummy and not too sweet, and the ladies also get a trick-or-treat-sized box of Milk Duds :) Since we went on a Thursday morning we didn't wait at all. Willy's pancakes and my french toast were both very good, and they make a bunch of different baked goods fresh daily that you can take home with you (though some of them were pretty pricey).

Wishbone: Willy had been to this place years and years ago when he had been through Chicago and wanted to go back again for these corncakes (corn pancakes) he remembered. I have to say, they were really good and better than what we had at Lou Mitchell's.

Phoenix Restaurant (dim sum): Not as good as dim sum in Boston or the bay area, but decent overall. On weekdays they offer a picture menu that you can order off of instead of pushing carts around, which probably helps non-Chinese diners. I'm sure they do this because of the lower volume of diners on weekdays so they can cook to order instead of risking putting a bunch of stuff out on carts that might or might not get picked up.

The only place I wanted to go to that we didn't squeeze in was Frontera Grill. The chef there, Rick Bayless, just won Top Chef Masters and his cuisine is upscale Mexican. Willy really likes Mexican food and we haven't found great options for that in Boston. Unfortunately, I didn't account for needing reservations even for lunch so we didn't get in. He also has a slightly higher end restaurant attached to Frontera called Topolobampo that I really want to try too, but figured with Alinea on the agenda I better not spend all our money eating :) Frontera does have a fast casual place in the food court of the old Marshall Field's (now Macy's) downtown so Willy did at least get to try that and he gave it a thumbs up.

A quick note on the wedding we were actually in town for: we were honored to be invited to the small, 50ish-guest event of my college friend and his now wife. It was really nice to attend a smaller wedding for once. I only wish we hadn't gotten lost and missed the ceremony itself :( We gave ourselves an hour to get to the venue which should have been only 25 mins. away but we overshot a turn and spent too much time getting back on track. *sigh* totally embarrassing, but at least we got to spend some time with the couple at the reception and the afterparty. Congrats, Ed & Min Jung!

Griffin update

I wanted to wait until things were finalized before giving an update on Griffin. After having him for about three weeks it became clear to us that we weren't bonding with Griffin and were not enjoying dog ownership. It was a stressful time for us, because we felt really guilty about having brought him into our lives and then not being happy with the decision. As I mentioned before, it's not that we thought it was going to be all fun and games owning a dog, but we weren't really having any fun at all. In that case, it seemed pointless to have a dog; if you're not enjoying life with the dog, then you're just adding a lot of chores to your workload for nothing. We still love dogs but for whatever reason it just wasn't working out with Griffin. So we called the rescue organization we got him from and they were willing to help find him another home. They asked us to foster him in the meantime, which we were willing to do.

In the meantime, my mom decided that she actually wanted to adopt Griffin. She knew we were having a hard time with the whole experience and I wanted to make sure she didn't just want to help us out, that she really wanted a dog, and she assured me she was excited about bringing him home with her. My sisters and dad agreed, the rescue was OK with it, so that's where Griffin is now. Living in a house with more people seems to suit him better, and it's less trying on the people too since he's not following just one person around.

Maybe someday we'll adopt another dog, but right now we need to recover from this experience first--it was not at all what we expected. Luckily things worked out OK, and we hope our friends are OK with our decision too. Thanks to all of you who offered support, encouragement, and advice--we greatly appreciated it.