5/28/09

I feel a whole lot better, psychologically, after talking to a co-worker. Physically, I feel yucky. So why does my psych side feel better? It's because I found some sympathetic ears to listen to my "pains". Apparently, there are quite a few of us here at work that suffer from allergies really bad. I thought I was the only one. I shared my aches, she shared hers. And guess what? We have the same symptoms. It does feel great to find "support" where one does not expect.

Anyway, for the past three days I have been enjoying Live with Regis and Kelly's AI guests, one after the other. Today, they had Danny Gokey and surprisingly, he was very charming. Well, he charmed me. I have abandoned my support for him midway thru the comptetion because somehow he rubbed me the wrong way after my initial liking to his earlier performances. Anyway, he was a darling today. So were Kris on Tuesday and Adam yesterday.

What else is there to share? Oh yeah we had a glorious Memorial Day weekend. Let me see if I can remember what we did and make a day to day reporting.

Saturday: Finally got a chance to see Wolverine. I know, it's been playing for over a month and we just didn't have time to see it until today. I thought the theatre would be empty but it wasn't. Apparently there are people like us who don't rush to see the movies when they first get out. The movie itself was okay, so-so, nothing to write home about. The thing with prequels is that I want to see more, but of course more is already been shown, this after all is a prequel. That part I have to get used to. I want to see my movies/stories played out chronologically, :)

When the movie was over and hubs was driving home, we didn't have plans, he had a spur of the moment thought. The theatre was a few yards away from Ground Round, a restaurant and he wanted to have some "happy hour" drinks and appetizers. I was "lets go then" with this idea. And he turned the car around and we sat down to chow down on a monstrous nachos platter (1/2 price during happy hour, thank you), and sipping our 1/2 price margaritas, oh so yummy.
With all that food, we knew no dinner for us that day.

Our we had no plans but movies day took another wonderful turn after the happy hour chow. We decided to drive another 10 miles to kill time at Ikea. This is a "research" outing, we told ourselves. We are after all going to be fixing some rooms in the house and we needed to scout out prices, designs, color schemes, etc, etc, etc.

Every trip to Ikea (because of their rarity I think) is well anticipated. I feel tingling. I like touching, feeling, enjoying, imagining myself in those showrooms. Except that some of the sofas are way too much for our budget. And since we've been watching a lot of DIY and HG TV lately, it was a hoot to see the same curtains and chairs and other home items that those two tv network's renovation shows use. They go to Ikea, just like everyone. Needless to say, those were great 2 hours or so of browsing. I love Ikea!!!!


Sunday: Went to church and everyone was greeting us happy anniversary. I was dumbfounded at first how could they know until I got the church bulletin and it's right there. Our anniversary in black for everyone to read. I just smiled and we got loads of hugs and greetings.

We promised to take Mom to this "new" Chinese (Hongkong-ese) restaurant in the next city. New to us since this was our first time to eat there. The restaurant was located in a nondescript strip mall that would easily be missed if one isn't really looking for it. But the food was cheap, tasty, and portions were generous. Also one of the dishes could have passed for a Filipino dish. I will try to copy that dish. I already have the ingredients in the house. Wish me luck.

Oh I did not mention that Sunday was cloudy, cold, grey, and felt like it was Thanksgiving holiday instead of Memorial Day holiday? Well, it was cold. One of the coldest Memorial Day weekend I can remember. And after a full stomach, we have nothing penciled in for the rest of the afternoon/day so what did we do? Snooze, naptime. I haven't napped in a long time. I think I went to sleep ahead of husband, but I remember waking up around 7 pm, about 5 hours of nap time. That's no longer considered a nap, does it? Anyway, we did watch a little bit of tv in bed until it was time to get up and fix dinner. Oh this Sunday was food and sleep and church. Good combination don't you think?

Monday: Happy Memorial Day! It was also our 2nd wedding anniversary. We planned on eating out and maybe take in a little walk or sightsee around the city, be a tourist in our own backyard. So we drove out to the city and found ourselves scouting places first, like where is Canto do Brasil, a Brazilian restaurant that we have been wanting to eat forever. And driving over to Chinatown/North Beach neighborhood for the much ballyhoed The House restaurant. Up until that last minute, we were conflicted and unsure which of the two we were going to have dinner at. Nope we did not make any reservations. We thought it was a Monday, a holiday so people would not really be eating out at this day and we could easily get seated, we thought.

Once we found where those two were located we decided to visit Mission Dolores, one of the 21 Missions all over Calfornia. A few years ago, I embarked on a mission to see all the Missions. I got to see 5, but we never got around to see the one in San Francisco, the closest in distance. We tried before, but we got lost, never really went to see mapquest, just drove around town and we never got to see it. So on this day, we not only found it, we even went inside and paid our 5 dollar do it yourself tour. Another mission checked off the list. I will be posting a series on this in my photo blog. Needless to say, I love the tour. What's not to love?

After the Mission (tour) was accomplished, we drove off to the waterfront, near the hilly area going to Fort Mason. Luck was on our side as we easily found a parking spot by the water. We walked up the hill and stopping every few feet to snap a picture from every angle, shooting photos of Frisco's waterfront, the boats, the Rock, the fishermen, the beautiful blue sky, etc. May I just tell up front that before arriving in the waterfront I was already famished? I didn't think I could wait for dinner, but we were bent on getting some exercise by walking up the hill. When we finished snapping up the hill, we came down and walked the length of the pier where fishermen were aplenty. Tourists from Vienna remarked the weather was very nice, since it was very cold in Vienna when they left. Again, photos will be posted on my photoblog.

Finally it was time to eat. It was past 5 pm. I know, we dine like early birds. But my rule is when eating out it's best to eat early because one tends to overeat when going out and a heavy stomach is a hassle when one needs to sleep.

We found our way back to Canto do Brasil, but it was CLOSED! The website did not specify that it was going to be closed on this Monday. It said on its site that it's open Mondays. Then hubs remembered seeing Espetus a couple of blocks away, another Brazilian restaurant (I yelped about my experience). It was a buffet restaurant we found out. After a slight hesitation we did go in and eat. I have a difficult time making restaurant reviews, but this I will say about the restaurant (google it and youll know more). The servers are wonderful, polite, and friendly. The atmosphere both catered to intimate dining and group dining. The noise level was minimal. The white table cloth set up feels pricey (it is!). And for the food. There is a salad station at the back where they served more than 10 ( I did not count because I did not sample them all) different salad dishes, soups, rice dishes and some more that I did not investigate. Once you get your food, they will deliver an appetizer dish on your table. The one by one men in with speared meat (14 varieties in all) come to your table and slice off a piece of that roasted meat to your plate. If you want you can make them not come to your table by flipping the red thingy on your table. If you want to have more meat switch the tab to green and meat will be coming to the table again. The meats (lamb, beef, chicken, pork) in various varieties are a carnivorous delight. I didn't really get all the names, but the filet was juicy; the grilled prawns was sweet and delicious, the lamb was outstanding. I did not try the chicken hearts. A little piece of advice, come here starving. I was starving but I got full too quickly. I think my stomach has shrunk, thank you very much. But everything was wonderful. For the price, well you know what they say, you get what you pay for, well, it was $50 p/p. We had a tab of $120 + because we tried the Brazilian beer, which was dark and sweet and yummy. I hope that brand is available in BevMo.

So with stomach full of glorious meats, and my brain still playing the beautiful landscape that is the San Francisco waterfront, we drove home to put an end to this glorious Memorial Day, our second wedding anniversary.