KO Prime: Bring your own utensils

I went to a client dinner for work last night at KO Prime which I was excited to check out. There's nothing better than an expensive meal on someone else's dime. I ordered the 14 oz 28 day aged New York Strip steak which was delicious and I enjoyed a plethora of sides: pumpkin risotto, pomme frites, creamed spinach, asparagus and a potato gratin.

That said, I would recommend that you bring your own set of utensils if you dine at KO Prime. The utensils there are beautiful to look at and lovely, but utterly useless. I've never seen so much food dropped on the floor and so many utensils flip over and fall to the ground. The problem? All the silverware was very bottom heavy. My neighbor dropped her fork twice. I dropped some steak on my seat and a spear of asparagus. The guy across from me dropped a big hunk of steak on the floor which he took home to his dog.

I doubt we were all super klutzy so I blame it on the silverware and the dinnerware. I had to wince and hold my napkin in front of my eyes because I couldn't watch our waiter clear our table. He kept trying to pick up the imbalanced stack of stuff about three times and I swear it looked like he was going to drop it each time. I'm sure my vivid facial expressions didn't boost his confidence. All in all, a tasty meal, but I do prefer Ruth's Chris. Their sides are bigger, the steaks are bathed in butter and the utensils are wonderfully unmemorable.

MGDub is Coming To Town

MGDub is visiting for a few days just in time for the snow. We're going out on Saturday with Wheezy and the Zoritys for a holiday dinner at Maggiano's which I'm totally looking forward to. There might be snow on Saturday, but as long as the T is running, we should be able to trek down to Maggiano's Little Italy for something delicious.

Giant Snowstorm

Tons of snow today, they closed down the office this afternoon and I came home early and worked at home. I was so glad I can take the red line home. The snow storm barely affected my commute at 3pm, some of my coworkers drove for three hours to get home. Adam drove a friend's car to park in our driveway since they needed somewhere to park their car during the snow emergancy and it took him 20 minutes to drive back to our place when it normally takes him only 10 minutes to walk the same distance. Adam's been very nice about shoveling.

Salty Snacks

I came downstairs yesterday to find Adam watching football and munching on a bag of Pepperidge farm dried stuffing mix. He claimed that it was tasty and low fat. I pointed out that it was probably high in sodium and that he shouldn't drink too many liquids in case the stuffing expanded in his stomach. I did promptly go out and buy five different kinds of crackers at the store: water crackers, sesame water crackers, low fat triscuits, stoned wheat crackers and some low sodium goldfish.

Double Time

I woke up, got ready for work, put on my nice watch, went to work, went to the restroom, pushed up my sleeves, washed my hands, looked down and noticed I was wearing two watches. I was already wearing one when I woke up and then I added a second one.

Twitter

I now have a twitter update section on the upper right section of my blog which I use to write updates of mundane and random things I'm doing. I've only been using it for a week and I've decided that my life is pretty mundane and many of my twitter updates are about what I ate, what I'm eating, what I'm about to eat with a few weather updates thrown in there. Nonetheless, I'll be twittering away here and there about things that do not warrent an actual blog post.

Brownie Baking Contest

Last week, we had a brownie baking contest at work. I was originally going to bake some box brownies and enter them, but having won the chocolate chip cookie contest, I thought I should put some more effort into it and bake a batch from scratch. I consulted my friend Laurel, who's a master baker, for a good brownie recipe. She too finds scratch brownies too much of a bother and usually uses a mix, but she recommended the Alton Brown recipe if I was going to the trouble. I came home from bowling Monday night pretty tired and the kitchen was messy, but I decided to use the one square foot of counter space available and bake these brownies. Unfortunately, it wasn't until after I'd mixed in all the ingredients that I realized that I'd used a 1/3 measure thinking it was 1/4 and had also used a 1/2 measure mistakenly as well. I felt pretty darned frustrated at this point since all the cocoa powder sifting had left my kitchen even more messy, but I stuck them in the oven and baked them anyways. They turned out pretty good, I added a dash of mint to the recipe and entered them at work. I didn't win, but I came in 2nd which is good because I was dreading having to confess to my inability to measure dry ingredients. As you faithful blog readers may remember, this is a problem I've encountered before when I've used inaccurate amounts of butter in my baking. That said, brownies are very forgiving and taste good even when you aren't quite so accurate.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Contest

We had a chocolate chip cookie contest complete with a blind tasting at work on Tuesday and I WON with the aforementioned chocolate chip cookie recipe from a few weeks back. They were even baked the night before and no longer ooey and gooey so just imagine how good they are fresh out of the oven. I'm hungry just thinking about it. Next week is the brownie contest for which I don't have a good recipe so I have to do some research.

Magical Convection Oven

Adam roasted a whole chicken for dinner using the convection roast function on our new oven. expecting it to cook in 30 minutes according to the oven manual. Unfortunately, he didn't read the manual carefully enough to see that the timing was 30 minutes per pound. Apparently, convection doesn't cook at warped speeds, but it does promote nice airflow to aid even browning. I was very hungry. That's all I have to say about that.

Homecoming

Today, we rented a zipcar to drive out to CT for homecoming at Adam's alma mater. The weather was crappy out and we debated whether or not to make the 2 hour drive. We already had the zipcar reserved so we had to pay for it so I voted to check out the Nordstroms at the new Natick Collections if we weren't going to homecoming. We decided to make the drive after all and I'm glad we skipped the mall. It was cold, rainy and windy for most of the day, but we did get to wander around campus for a little bit before we headed over to a reception for the IVCF chapter there. We tried going to the local Polish place for dinner, but we couldn't find it. The following is a reconstructed conversation at a convenience store where I asked about the Polish place:

plasticann: Hi, I'm looking for a Polish restaurant called blah blah blah.
Young Convenience Store Guy: What? J and M?
plasticann: It's a Polish restaurant, the pierogi place?
YCSG: [pointing at an older woman behind the deli counter] Maybe you should ask my aunt.
plasticann: I'm looking for a Polish restaurant that is on this street?
Older Woman: Oh, that place has been gone for years. The building it was in no longer exists. They're building condos there now.
plasticann: Oh, I guess it has been eight years. I'm getting old.

We're guessing the driving range that was next to the Polish place is also now condos which would explain why we "missed" the place. The young guy probably never knew about the Polish place.

Chocolate Chip Cookies...the ultimate

As you might know, I really enjoy baking, but the ultimate chocolate chip cookie has always alluded me. The gold standard to which I compare all other chocolate chip cookies is the Meeting Street Chocolate Chunk cookie in Providence. It's a huge cookie larger than my head filled with giant chunks of chocolate and the dough is just divine. I had a major breakthrough this past Tuesday when I baked up a recipe from Williams Sonoma. I'm pretty sure I've tried this recipe in the past, but I don't remember the results being remarkable because I probably made them small like the recipe suggested. This time, I decided to bake essentially one giant cookie on a rimmed baking sheet rather than separated small cookies because I didn't have the time to deal with baking individual round cookies. The results were delicious and as close to a Meeting Street cookie as I've ever come. I'm not sure if it was the superb heating powers of my new oven, but I even daydreamed about the cookies while at work the next day. Yesterday, our friends were over watching game 6 of the ACLS (go Sox) and requested the cookies so I baked a second batch. This time, I added a dash a cinnamon and I think it was even better so today I baked a third batch to bring to a church potluck and I must say, there were no leftover cookies. Here's the recipe:

plasticann's Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies
Note: yields 20 delicious giant cookies or 96 unremarkable small cookies
1 delicious giant cookie=4.8 unremarkable small cookies

2 sticks butter (1 cup) softened
1 cup sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 and 2/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2-3 shakes of cinnamon
2 cups chocolate chips (one 12 oz bag)


1. preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. line half sheet baking pan with parchment paper
3. cream butter until fluffy
4. add sugar and brown sugar, cream until time fluffy and the sugar is no longer gritty
5. add eggs and vanilla, mix well
6. add dry ingredients, mix until combined
7. add chocolate chips, mix
8. Spread entire batch of cookie dough onto rimmed sheet or use large cookie scoop to scoop cookies and place them on the sheet just an inch or so apart. The cookies will bake into each other in the oven.
9. Bake 15-20 minutes, check to see they're nice is delicious looking and brown

Baby #3: Zhoreson Zndrew Zakun Zakin born Thursday, Oct 18

More on Cupcakes

Zames and Zess recently had their birthdays and their mommy Zara is probably giving birth to #3 as we speak. Earlier this week, Zara sent some very cute photos from Zess' 4th b-day party...a Tinkerbell themed fairy dress up party. I scrolled through cute photo after cute photo on Shutterfly until I came upon the one with the cupcakes. Being the engaged and attentive aunt that I am, I became utterly fixated on these cupcakes because they were HUGE. Sure Zess looked cute as usual in the foreground, but the cupcakes looked like they were half the size of a Zess' head. They were frosted luxuriously with copious amounts of pretty frosting topped with little Tinkerbell figurines. I zoomed into the photo trying to size up the cupcakes. At first I thought maybe the kids were just super tiny and normal cupcakes looked big relative to the tiny kids, but then I noticed that Zara's cake plates could only hold at most five of these outsized creations. Finally, I broke down and e-mailed Zara just days before she was about to give birth my very important question. Fortunately Zara graciously confirmed that in fact the cupcakes were GINORMOUS as was her belly. Now that I've seen these cupcakes, I'm slightly obsessed with the idea of eating giant cupcakes myself. I wonder if I can convince Zess to order them for Christmas when we're visiting so I can experience it for myself, they looked like they might be deliciously moist and full of potential.

GJDubya & plasticann Business Consulting

GJDubya recently made the excellent point that Kickass Cupcakes would probably do better with a less objectionable name. Afterall, kids love cupcakes and Kickass is hardly appropriate for the little ones. I think GJDubya's rebranding suggestion along with my suggestion of lowering the price point from $2.75 to $1.75 could be a potent pair of recommendations. We might even be able to charge real money for this advice if we were to start a consulting practice that simultaneously the addressed issues of branding and price elasticity. Hmmmm.

"Kiwis cause milk to curdle..."

was the title of an e-mail Adam sent me last week. He went on to say, "Unfortunately found this out with my breakfast cereal. :( " and referenced this "Note: Raw kiwi contains an enzyme that prevents gelatin from setting and causes milk to curdle." from this website. Curdled cereal milk sounds pretty nasty and I can also attest to the little fact about gelatin, I remember my fruit terrine failing to set years back because I'd added kiwi to the mix.

Kickass Cupcakes

I was really excited to check out Kickass Cupcakes in Davis Square a few weekends ago. I even tried to convince Adam to bail during a church meeting to go get cupcakes. Alas, we didn't bail, but we did go after dinner later that night. We tried the Lucky Cupcake and the Strawberry Shortcake the first night and Adam went back and bought a Mojito Cupcake and a Cinnamon Chai Pecan Sticky the next day. My favorite was the Mojito. However, at $2.75 a pop for a rather normal sized cupcake, the price is too high for Kickass cupcakes to be a regular treat. I honestly think that if they lowered their priced south of $2, they'd get a lot more people stopping in for cupcakes on a regular basis. That said, I do feel hipper and cooler living in a square that boasts a cupcake bakery. Soon, we'll be getting a Shino Express Sushi restaurant so there's more good stuff coming.

Classic Steve

Last Friday was my 29th birthday and I had a really fun time celebrating with dinner at the Rialto with Adam. Getting to the Rialto was quite the challenge. Park street station has a fire so the train was shut down so I had to walk from Downtown Crossing over to Kendall/MIT to catch the train to Harvard Square. Adam was coming from Davis and he got stuck in the train for 40 minutes just outside of Harvard Square. Fortunately, the folks at Rialto were extremely gracious and they held our table for over an hour and offered us complimentary glasses of prosecco because we looked so stressed out and harried when we finally arrived. That said, my friend Steve called and left me a message Friday and the following is a reconstructed conversation:

plasticann: Hey Steve.
Steve: Did you get my message?
plasticann: Yeah, I heard your bit of juicy gossip.
Steve: [elaborating on juicy gossip]
plasticann: Steve, did you know it's my birthday today?
Steve: Did you think I left you a message for your birthday?
plasticann: It crossed my mind.
Steve: Uhh...Happy Birthday!
plasticann: Thanks, but that's not particularly convincing. However, you can write yourself a note for the future.

Basically, it's classic Steve to call me on my birthday to tell me a bit of juicy gossip and not realize it's my birthday. It's pretty hilarious. Thanks for the birthday chuckle Steve.

Rappin' Down The Street

I should have been up at 7am on Thursday, but I was tired and procrastinating which is why I was so irritated to discover that our street is the shortcut a number of teenagers take from the Davis T over to their high school. At first, I thought it was neighborhood toddlers that were being vocal so I rolled out of bed to check things out. Instead of cute little kids, I saw packs of teenagers walking down the middle of our street, laughing and joking around. Just being normal teenagers, but they were being kinda loud especially since our windows were open. I flopped back into bed and tried to "rest" pulling my comforter over my head when I heard what sounded like someone rapping right in front of our house. I heard some "S" words and some "N" words and I don't mean shoot or nincompoop so I had to get up and see for myself. I saw one lone teenage boy with giant headphones shuffling down our street very slowly to the beat of his very loud rapping. He looked like a nice enough kid in his slacks and sweater vest, but at that moment...I wanted to tell him to "shhhh....be quiet." It was, after the fact, kind of an endearing sight and I don't think he was intending to be disruptive, but I sure hope he walk more briskly in the future so I don't have to wake up to his rapping... it's not my favorite.

Hippie Points

My friend Zlyssa was telling us the other day that Adam and I could claim "hippie points" for not having an air conditioner. Of course, part of the reason is I'm not big on air conditioning since I get cold easily and we're too lazy to install the window units that are in our basement. According to Zlyssa, sheer laziness does not void our "hippie points" We can also claim double points for not owning a car even though it's because we're a too lazy to care for one, we don't need one and because I feel a little cheap as well. I'm not really sure we deserve these points, but I've decided to defer to Zlyssa's judgement. After all, she legitimately deserves her hard earned points since she drives a hybrid, eats organic foods and composts and we could definitely use some of those "hippie points" to combat our yuppie tendencies.

We are ever true to Zrown...

We were hanging out with some friends last night for the last of a series of summer happy hour hangouts which was why it was called "Last of the Mojitos." It cracks me up to no end. We sat out in the yard, drank homemade Mojitos made from a Hemingway recipe and snacked on a variety of fun things like Adam's pesto/mozzarella cheese melty baguette concoction. We chatted about this and that as night fell when the conversation turned to college. "Would you send your child to your alma mater" basically. Now, I don't think of myself as the most rabid alum, but turns out, I was the most enthusiastic about my alma mater out of the entire crowd. I felt a little dopey and goofy being so rah rah about college since most people were kinda lukewarm or cold about it, but I really did love Zrown. When someone made a rather astute point, "Does it really matter where you went to college," I wanted to leap up and shout, "Yeah, I loved Zrown," but I restrained myself since they were probably right to some extent. Rather, I rattled off all the things I loved about Zrown which was probably a little annoying and then when I woke up this morning, I thought of a whole bunch of other reasons why I loved it. I decided not to rattle those new thoughts off to Adam since he was trying to sleep and I was being rather noisy. I was a little embarrassed to admit it last night, but I've even recently acquired a Zrown diploma frame seven years after the fact and I also purchased a decorative Wedgwood plate of the Zan Zickle gates that makes me so happy just to look at. I even considered one of those wooden chairs with the seal, but I didn't think Adam would go for totally Zrownifying our home since he's not as personally invested in Zrown. So yeah, if I knew my kids would enjoy Zrown as much as I did, I would totally encourage them to go.

First Love Springs Eternal

Last fall, when three year old Zess started her preschool, a cute little blond boy named Zvan instantly developed a major crush on her. He loved her pigtails and braids, her brown hair and eyes, everything about her. He wanted to sit next to her at lunch and at circle time. Zvan even told his grandpa on the phone about how much he loved Zess and how beautiful she was. After school, when the mommies pick up their kids, little Zvan would try to hug Zess and shout, "I love you!" Poor Zvan's mom was a bit embarassed at her three year old son's strong sentiments. He was quite young to be such a Casanova. Zess, however, was totally oblivious and hardly noticed Zvan's attentions or his presence all year.

At the end of the year, his passion unabated, Zvan managed to get Zess to agree to give him a kiss goodbye. Imagine this mommy's shock when Zess and Zvan fully embraced and smacked lips! This was followed by this mama in the car ride home explaining that Zess never had to kiss or touch anyone else unless she wanted to. In retort, Zess declared, "I wanted to kiss Zvan."

Cut to this fall, at the beginning of the four year old year at preschool. This mama was sure that Zvan would have forgotten his passion over the summer and moved on to other boyish things, say riding bikes and marble runs. But immediately at the circle time on the first day, Zvan tried to sit next to Zess by wedging himself between Zess and her best little girl friend, Zofia. Bad move. Zofia and Zvan had a bit of a scuffle over the coveted spot next to Zess, but Zofia won out. Zvan went and sat on his mommy's lap and cried.

We'll see how this unrequited crush plays out over the course of the year. . .

Not About Me

A friend of ours is temping as a receptionist. Part of the job is to answer the phones by saying either, "Yada Yada Office, may I help you, " or "Yada Yada Office, will you please hold." During a particularly crazy phone answering session last week, he mistakenly answered, "Yada Yada Office, may I hold you?" Understandably there was awkward silence on the other end.

Product Raves

I'm really loving the Trader Joe's 100% Desert Mesquite Honey. The honey is tasty, but boy oh boy let me tell you about the packaging. It's totally awesome. The spout features this rubber nubbin with a slit that only opens when you squeeze the bottle. This means, there's not honey drippage after the fact and thus no sticky cap issues either. I'm never going back to Shaw's generic honey in a bear shaped bottle or honey jars. 3X concentrated laundry detergent is another product that I'm becoming almost fanatical about. Short of 3X possibly being more expensive, I don't know what the point of buying or even making 2X detergent is. 3X is less packaging, a smaller bottle and so much lighter. Once again, I could care less what brand it is and I haven't noticed a difference in how well the detergent performs, but I do love the smaller more compact packaging.

The Longest Short Week

I'm not big on change and new situations so starting a new job is inherently exhausting for me. That's probably why I stayed five years in my first job. I didn't want to have to experience the longest two days of my life which was when I started working right out of college. Who would have thunk that a Thursday/Friday work week would leave me utterly drained. I'm not feeling so wussy since I worked four whole days this time around. That said, here are some of my highlights from my first week back in the labor force:

1. Sam LaGrassa bills itself as the "World's #1 Sandwich." I was famished on Thursday so I tried the pastrami since everyone else was getting it. I'm not a huge fan of pastrami since it's typically very salty, but Sam LaGrassa's Pastrami Sandwich is a keeper. The meat is tender, delicious, not really salty and the fresh baked french roll is awesome. It's only a block from my office which is a little dangerous, but I do have someplace great to go whenever those meat cravings hit.

2. Badge drama: I managed to lose my badge on Thursday. Yup, that would be two days in. Adam even walked over to Davis along my route to look for it and when he couldn't find it, I reported it missing and sheepishly begged the facilities guy for a new one. This morning, I get a surprise call on my office phone. Another person at my company that works on another floor also lives nearby and found my badge on the bike path near Davis. She thought it looked like her own and picked it up wondering if it was for someone at the same company. Lo and behold, now I theoretically have a commuting buddy in spirit. We've never met, but we've seen each other's photos thanks to the nifty online company directory.

The End

My nonstop fun during work hours has come to an end. I start my new job tomorrow. I did go to the North End on Friday, shop like crazy for work clothes on Saturday, check out the new Whole Foods at Alewife and play a super long game of Catan on Sunday and enjoyed a lovely day downtown today on Labor Day. As for what I'll wear on my first day, a rather boring, but appropriate combination of a black v-neck cashmere sweater, black pinstripe suit pants and some black flats. I've acquired many fun outfits that I'm excited about, but I've decided to dress with my badge photo in mind on my first day. Why do I think I photograph well in that black sweater, it's the sweater I'm wearing in all my IDs: Student and Driver's.

Bomba No More

The following is a reconstructed conversation regarding the remains of our Bomba cake:

plasticann: Did you take the Bomba to work today?
Adam: No, I threw it out, but I had one last piece.
plasticann: Why did you eat something you were intending to throw out?
Adam: It was fine! But before I threw out the rest, I smashed my hands into the cake.
plasticann: [slightly perplexed] Smashed your hands in the cake? Why?
Adam: I smushed the cake in between my knuckles and then I smashed my hands full of cake together and then I molded it.
plasticann: [laughing] I guess you were throwing it out anyways, might as well play with it. Was it fun?
Adam: [nodding] Yes! It was fun, but the cake was cold. I was surprised how cold it was.
plasticann: I wonder what your mom would say if she saw you smushing the cake?
Adam: ...she'd probably laugh...
plasticann: You think so?
Adam:...and she'd probably roll her eyes.

More Nonstop Fun

Adam got me the High School Musical CD which was fun to listen too..."Bop bop bop bop to the top..." My week of fun continued today with a trip to Providence. I hopped on the bus and got in around 11 this morning. I went to the mall and did some shopping at Nordstroms (only my favorite department store). I had a perfect little snack at Popeye's when I got hungry, one fried chicken leg with one biscuit with some tap water. Total: $1.65. Sure hit the spot. I continued my fun Wednesday with a tour of Thayer Street and Brown's campus. I even stopped by my old fraternity and said hi, how very un-plasticann of me and I felt kinda old realizing that I was probably 8-10 years older than the kids there. I enjoyed a chicken pocket at East Side Pockets, shopped at Brown Bookstore where I bought a diploma frame for my seven year old diploma. I capped off my tour of Thayer Street with an awesome chocolate chunk cookie with some milk at Meeting Street Cafe. I was intending to catch the 4:15pm bus back, but realized that it didn't exist so I had an extra hour to kill before the 5:15pm. I walked down Waterman, turned right on Hope, admired all the gracious old houses, walked by my dorm senior year (Young O) and turned right on Wickendon Street where I found this really cool store called Curatorium. They had a ton of neat stuff, some of which might fall into the category of useless crap. Finally, I walked over to Benefit Street and South Main Street back downtown stopping by the RISD gift shop where I impulsively purchased a pin made of shellaced citris fruit. All in all, a pretty darned awesome day and I still have plenty of leftover cookie to enjoy tonight.

NOTE: I should mention that MGDub coined the phase and idea of nonstop fun her senior year at Brown coincidentally. She'd just handed in her thesis and had about a month until graduation. She often wore a cool Hawaian shirt and was determined to have nonstop fun until graduation.

And the Fun Continues

I'm heading back to work next week so I'm determined to have lots of nonstop fun this week. I kicked off my week of fun yesterday with lunch in the South End with a friend from school We went to Gaslight and enjoyed some very yummy sandwiches with frites. To top it off, I got a carrot cake cupcake from the South End Buttery. The cupcake was pretty good, but not my favorite cupcake. I did promise to bring Adam one so I got him a vanilla with vanilla buttercream. Unfortunately, I had to ditch it at Park Street since it was melting and it wasn't going to make it back to Cambridge. After dinner, we went and saw Nanny Diaries at the Somerville Theatre and we even got some ice cream to boot. Today, I rode my bike on the Minuteman bike path all the way to Lexington. I walked around, checked out the little shops, ate lunch, read magazines at the Border's and had a delicious cherry vanilla ice cream cone at Rancatore's. It was quite the adventure and I felt very brave and proud of myself for venturing so far on my own and making it back home intact. For my third day of fun, I'm thinking maybe Providence, but I haven't decided.

Housewarming

Our house was very warm during our housewarming party this past Saturday. The weather had been downright cool the week before, but decided to kick it up to the upper ninties just in time for our party. So, everyone stayed indoors and sweltered a little since it was even hotter outside. We had fun though. Our friend Dave got to pick out all the beer which he enjoyed. We defrosted and served our two year old wedding cake. We got the Bomba cake from Modern Pastry as a backup for those who didn't want to risk eating an old cake. Wings and breaded mushrooms were ordered from Wingworks and I slaved away in the kitchen making ranch dip (sour cream+powdered seasonings) and cutting up some veggies. A housewarming party was a good excuse to get our place in order. We tried our best and we did pretty well. However, at the last minute, boxes were put in the closet and moved to the basement to eliminate some of the clutter.

Where's Weed?

Two weeks ago, our weed situation was getting noticably bad so I ended up weeding our entire side yard. I hadn't really noticed the weeds until I started weeding, then I noticed them everywhere. In the brick side yard, in the gravel, in with the plants, on the sidewalk. I did a thorough weeding and it took me about 3 hours to fill one giant trashbag.

Since then, I've been mildly obsessed with obliterating weeds from our yard. Unfortunately, they have complicated winding root systems so it's a fruitless battle. Every few days when I come home, I survey the land and try to spot any new weeds that have cropped up. My problem is weeding begats more weeding. At first it was all obvious weeds, then it was the weeds hiding behind other weeds, then weeds that looked like plants at first glance, so on and so forth. I haven't mastered the art of deciding between weed and plant. I know I'm in trouble once I pull up bushes and the yard is completely bare.

Teleporting Nightstands

For all the complaints folks may have about Pottery Barn and the entire Williams-Sonoma home goods empire, you can't beat the convenience and instant gratification. We were motivated by our upcoming housewarming party and my impending return to the workforce to buy some furniture for our bedroom and living room. Since we are relatively immobile without a car and somewhat lazy, we bought everything online. While everything's arriving within a week, our nightstands practically teleported to us. I placed an order on Sunday night, they left the warehouse on Monday and they arrived today (Tuesday) before noon, that's barely 40 hours. It helps that the warehouse is in New Jersey so they didn't have to travel far, but still...I'm impressed.

King of Queens

Ever since Adam Tivo-ed this episode of King of Queens, I can't stop laughing spontaneously whenever I think about it. Arthur wants to order pizza from a neighborhood joint..."Doh-mee-nohs." Here's the YouTube link Adam found.

Locked Out

We were showing our place to our friends Zeff and Zara (not my sis-in-law) when a big gust of wind shut and locked the 2nd floor balcony door while we were all outside.

Adam: The door closed, I'll just use my key.
plasticann: We don't have a key, we're locked out.
Adam: I thought it was the same as the front door.
plasticann: No, we never got a key for this door, we're locked out.
Adam: I thought there was a spare key out here for emergencies.
plasticann: That's what they said, but I never found it.
Adam: Why don't we have a key?
plasticann: We never got one, there's no key...we're locked out.
Adam: We're locked out! We need to get this fixed.

Meanwhile Zeff and Zara are laughing hysterically at the absurdity of the situation. I started to call our friend who has a set of our keys when we noticed some neighbors moving out across the street. We started hollering and waving to get her attention. We explained that the "wind" had locked us out accidentally by blowing the door closed so we dropped down a set of keys for her to come in and get us. Fortunately, she was honest enough to not rob us while we were locked outside and helpless.

Let's Party

We have these two little girl neighbors ages 2 and soon to be 7. The soon to be 7 year old is having a party this weekend and the two year old is already gearing up for the big day. She kept waving at me when I came home just now saying emphatically "Let's Party!" and "Happy Birthday" to no one in particular.

Toy Recall

The following is a reconstructed conversation with plasticmom:

plasticmom: So, have Zess and Zames had any of their toys recalled? It's been in the news.
plasticann: I'm not sure. They do have those Thomas the Train toys. I'm sure Zara is on top of it.
plasticmom: Maybe their grandpa will have to start making them homemade toys.
plasticann: I guess if he did, they'd definitely be organic
plasticmom: Ha ha, organic toys.

Fortunately for Zess and Zames, they have two grandpas who are both into woodworking so homemade organic toys are a real possibility.

Restaurant Week: Icarus

It's Restaurant [Two] Weeks, so we checked out Icarus in the South End last night for dinner. The dining room was really crowded and Adam seemed to be too tall for his chair or maybe it was the table, but the food was pretty good. For appetizers, Adam got the grilled steak salad and I had the crisp polenta with veal. We both enjoyed the pork loin with corn pudding and watermelon salad for dinner. I got the chocolate cake for dessert and Adam had the toasted pound cake with vanilla ice cream and peach compote. I liked the appetizers the best. Our pork loin was tasty, but there were these whole peanuts in the watermelon salad which seemed odd to me. My chocolate cake was rich and decadent, but not super exciting. Adam's pound cake was the real winner. The sangria was delicious and all the wine pairings for Adam's meal were awesome. My verdict, it's a very nice place, but there are other restaurants I would rather go to for a full priced meal.

Chautauqua

We flew up to Buffalo on Friday and drove to the Chautauqua Institute to see Zess, Zames, Zara, Zryce and Zryce's parents. What is the Chautauqua Institute you might ask? It's best described as a cultural Disneyland or an Utopian cultural village. You pay a gate entrance fee to get in, people own homes inside the institute and during the summer, there is cultural programming of all sorts. They have operas, orchestras, ballets, art galleries...basically lots of cultural activities in this little village where you can walk everywhere and where people don't lock their doors.

We had a really fun time hanging out and taking in the whole experience. Zames is a very active almost two year old who's obsessed with planes, trains and automobiles. He's gotten into watching "choo choo" video clips on You Tube. The other night, Zames was out past sunset which was clearly a new experience. I guess he's never outside when it's dark. He kept pointing at the sky muttering "dark dark dark dark." He tried to convince Zryce that they should lie down on the park bench because it was dark and time to go to sleep. He was genuinely befuddled by dark and super adorable.

Zess is into the idea of being fast, she has her "fast shoes," which are her pink athletic style Mary Janes. She likes to tell me she's faster than me which I seriously doubted, but I didn't debate her on that. I mean, I'm slow, but heck, I'm faster than any three year old at least for short distances. I'll be faster and taller than Zess for at least another year, maybe two. I timed her riding her tricycle up and down the driveway...took her around 10 seconds. She kept peddling faster and faster and [sorry Zara] almost ran into a wall because she wasn't looking. Good thing I reached out and caught her before she hit something. Shortly after that near miss, we tried timing her riding really slow...40 seconds. I also got her to help me put away the toys really fast. Then there was timing her putting on an outfit...30 seconds. Would have been 15 seconds had she not gotton stuck putting on her skort. Now that we know how fast she can get herself dressed, she has no excuses getting ready in the morning.

Not On The Same Wavelength...At All

Adam's friend from college, Adam, was passing through town on the way back from a big cheese making convention in Vermont. Let's call him "Foodieadam" since he's a gourmet food venture capitalist. He had about 40 pounds of cheese that he bought in coolers and he was kind enough to share his loot with us. The following is a reconstructed conversation that occured while we were enjoying a delicious spread of cheese:

Adam: We would love to come visit you guys this fall, come see the baby, see you place.
Foodieadam: Yeah, that would be great. You know what, you should come on the weekend my neighbor has this big cassoulet party in his backyard.
Adam: [a little unsure] OK, that sounds like fun.
Foodieadam: Last year they had a big tent and everyone brings their cassoulet for a contest.
Adam: Um...what exactly is this castle...???
Foodieadam: Oh, it's this French dish where you stew beans, sausage, duck, etc.
Adam: I had no idea what you were talking about. I thought you had said something about "castles."
plasticann: I totally thought he said "castles" and I was thinking bouncy castles in a backyard so I was confused.
[chuckles all around]
Foodieadam: [continuing on] Well, every year it gets better and better. I met this woman who owns a game company and she's going to be one of the judges for the contest. They make this great blah blah blah, yada yada yada and duck...
plasticann: Oh, you meant like game as in meat...
Adam: I thought you meant board games at first...
plasticann: ...and I was thinking, "gosh, I've never heard of these games."
Foodieadam: People, the theme here is food...you've got to think food.

Poor Kitty

Adam sent me this article about Thai police officers who are forced to wear Hello Kitty armbands as a mark of shame when they commit minor offenses like littering. Poor misaligned kitty, but I guess if she can play her part in eliminating corruption and evilness we should call her Super Kitty.

Pillow Inserts

Frustrated by the sad lumpy matted down state of our poly-filled pillow inserts, I marched myself down to Crate & Barrel Furniture for some new down/feather filled pillow inserts to revive my sofa pillows. Well, more like I dragged myself down there since it was over 90 degrees yesterday, but I pressed on in the heat down Mass Ave. I did collapse on the couch upon arriving home later that afternoon leaving my large number of bulky bags (broom and plunger included) in the middle of the doorway. I had to watch an episode of My Big Fat Fabulous Wedding to regain my energy. Two million for a pink fantasy wedding. Our wedding was pink and fabulous and a whole lot less that two million. Maybe it was because we didn't have adorable Hello Kitty cakes at the bridal brunch. Back to the topic at hand, However, the newly revived pillows were worth the trek...they now fluff up very nicely. All very exciting for this [temporary] housewife.

PS It's so hot right now, my eyeglasses are fogging up.

Giant Ice Cream Cones

So the other day, we were walking by the Somerville Theatre when I saw a guy with the biggest cup of ice cream I've ever seen. Well, it was the impressively big not out to break any records big, but it literally took my breath away. I swear, the ice cream towered six inches above the rim of the paper cup. Indeed, this was the very generous serving of a Richardson's large ice cream. Makes sense, Adam and I shared a "Kiddie" the other night which was plenty and there's a "Small" between "Kiddie" and "Large." Needless to say, I've been a little obsessed about the prospect of buying a large ice cream to experience the grandness in person. Unfortunately, I shouldn't eat a pint of ice cream in one sitting so I have no opportunity to buy this cone which retails for merely $3.75. I even desperately suggested that we give the cashier 4 bucks, ask her to supersize the next ice cream cone on us while we observed from behind some bushes. The idea was vetoed as was my other idea which was to buy it, eat some and throw the rest away. Saner and less gluttonous minds prevailed in the end. (Yes, that would Adam.) Oh, but one day...I will have my large ice cream.

Makeshift Chemex

I broke my Chemex coffee maker...again. This is the third one that's shattered, all from not super traumatic accidents. The first tipped over and bonked itself on the metal part of the stove. The second one I think I set down in the sink a little harder than usual and it shattered. The latest one shattered while it was sitting on the counter when I dropped a plastic box of seaweed that weighed all of 2 ounces on the rim. I think they're just fragile and while I love the Chemex, I'm not excited about investing in a fourth one. I think the key to the Chemex system is the triple bonded filters so I've been experimenting with makeshift systems. Yesterday, I used a plastic funnel for the filter and set it over my Brown Betty Teapot. Worked reasonably well, but took a wicked long time since the funnel hole was quite small. So, I bought a silicone funnel and cut part of the bottom off to create a larger hole. This morning, I used it over a tall Pyrex container so I could tell how much coffee I was making. (800 CC) Small problem, the tall Pyrex had no handle so it was too hot to handle. I had to put on my mitts...both hands. Tomorrow, I'm going to try using a Nalgene water bottle as my coffee container. The mouth might be too small, but it won't shatter and it'll tell me how much I'm making.

Martha For The Masses

My sister-in-law, Zara, was so excited about the Martha Stewart Collection at Michael's that she called me up to share the news. "I've always wanted a bone folder and now I can buy one from Martha Stewart," exclaimed Zara. Since I live 2.84 miles from the nearest Michael's and I'm pretty sure it's a 2.84 miles that includes unwalkable highways, I checked it out online and it looks pretty awesome. I especially enjoy the "share" collection with all if the cool food boxes. Other evidence that Ms. Martha is poised once again to take over the world, the new Martha Stewart Collection at FLOR. A little blah, but ever so tasteful...gotta love it.

All Moved In

We are finally all moved in. We're waiting for our bed to inflate as we speak so we can get some shut eye. (We have a sleep number bed...awesome) Today was pretty exciting. We had a crew of seven helping us move with the Uhaul. Our friend James (who drove the truck brilliantly) claims it was the easiest move ever. I hope it means that James might be willing to bail us out of driving a Uhaul for the fourth time sometime in the far off future. We then got all gussied up for my old roommate Carin's wedding to Francis. I shed a tear or two of happiness at the wedding, they looked super happy all day which is always a good sign. We enjoyed a Chinese Banquet for dinner and the cake was from Party Favors: vanilla cake with chocolate mousse and raspberry with a buttercream frosting. Delicious!

Levenger Laplander

For my graduation, I received this awesome Levenger Laplander from Zara, Zryce, Zess and Zames. I haven't had the chance to use it much, but this week, the lap desk has been super useful. We've been moving into our new home last two weeks and we're pretty much all moved except for our furniture. Even our cable and Internet is set up, but no desk. I was sitting on the floor checking my e-mail feeling mighty uncomfortable when it dawned on me...the Laplander. I pulled out a little chair, plopped my laptop on the Laplander and now I have myself a nice little setup. Even has room on the sides for my cell phone and a pen plus the Laplander protects my legs from my overly warm laptop. Thanks guys!

What's New at the Somerville Theatre

We discovered all these new additions at the Somerville Theatre last night. They've converted their ticket window into an ice cream stand selling Richardson's ice cream. We enjoyed a very generously sized "kiddie" chocolate peanut butter cup which was more like a small. They've also started to serve beer and wine inside the movie theatre. Here's an ad we saw for the Simpson's movie which they're showing first run this Thursday at midnight.

Where would Homer see THE SIMPSONS MOVIE?

He'd go the Movie-House that sells BEER!

THE SOMERVILLE THEATRE

Serving Beer (and Wine, for you Marge-Types) + Popcorn with real butter (MMMMMMMMM...Butter)

Sweet Sue's

I was having dinner with some of my old roommates last night and they were raving about the cinnamon rolls at Sweet Sue's over in Arlington. Turns out, it's the same place that Adam wanted to go to for the cinnamon roll bread pudding which makes sense since they use the old cinnamon rolls to make the bread pudding. Unfortunately, they didn't have cinnamon rolls this morning since they were backed up in the kitchen. I was supremely disappointed since I'd been excited since last night for this morning at the prospect of yummy cinnamon rolls. Instead, I had the cinnamon french toast, which was pretty good, but I'm still hung up about the cinnamon rolls. They did have this hilarious sign on the wall that cracked me up...

"Unattended children will be given espresso and a free PUPPY!"

Web Cam

Adam's parents introduced us to the world of Skype with web cam last night which was really cool. Papa Zakun was able to show us the crown molding he'd installed which was very impressive indeed. He's gotten quite proficient at it as he said so himself. It was odd, but fun seeing Mama Zakun in the background busy cooking chicken piccata for dinner and we saw how nicely their family room had been decorated. Now we're going to get one for our laptop and hopefully call Zess and Zames on Skype which would be cool to see how big they've gotten. I wonder if I could get Zara to always put them in front of the computer with a ruler in the background so I can measure how big they are. Maybe put boxes of cereal next to their faces so I can see how big they are relative to household objects. The only downside to all this is that we can no longer make funny faces while on the phone. On the other hand, maybe our families would finally get to appreciate the funny faces that we do make...we'll have a whole new funny faces audience.

Fish Carcasses

On our first morning in Tokyo, plasticmom, Adam and I were all jet lagged so we got up early in the morning and trekked over to Tsukiji Wholesale Fish Market. I'd been reading Sushi Economy so I was really interested in seeing giant tuna carcasses. The place was utter chaos with people speeding around in these little bitty trucks, others in bicycles and everyone in big rubber wellies since these was fishy water everywhere. I thought we were going to get run over at every turn, but fortunately, we escaped bodily harm. We capped off our morning tour with a delicious sushi breakfast at Daiwa Sushi right in the market.

Here are some of the many photos Adam took at the market.

Little Trucks: very fast and agile

TUNA

Hairspray & Soft Serve

Wheezy, Adam and I went and saw Hairspray last night which was super fun. I'd read a bunch of good reviews and MGDub had given her nine thumbs up to boot. The movie was lighthearted, really likable and made me want to dance to period music on the way out. In fact, I spotted two middle aged women light on their feet boogieing out of the theater. Unfortunately, I couldn't convince Wheezy to break out in dance, but Adam did humor me with a little dancing on the way home on Mass Ave last night.

I've also been really into the soft serve vanilla ice cream lately so we stopped by McDonald's for some soft serve. Unfortunately, the soft serve at Mickey D's is just not very good. That's not to say I won't eat it, but I discovered recently that not all McDonald's soft serve is created alike. So much for standardization. I was jonesing for some soft serve in Japan so I bought a cone from McDonald's there. The soft serve is really delicious in Japan: more creamy and much more vanilla-ey. Even Adam agreed it was superior to what we have here in the States.

While it is a bummer not having access to yummy cheap soft serve, there are a couple of places in Boston that I enjoy. I like the Mr. Frosty truck near the Boston Public Garden (corner of Arlington and Boylston) because it's tasty and they have a mural of Make Way for Ducklings painted on their truck. I'm not a big fan of the high prices. I also love the vanilla frozen custard at Chilly Cow in Arlington. It's so delicious, it's not technically even soft serve, it's frozen custard.

Kashi Go Lean [Crunch]

We wanted to stock up on cherries last night since they were on sale this week when we saw Kashi Go Lean on sale.

plasticann: Adam, you're running out of Kashi Go Lean, you should buy like six boxes since it's on sale.
Adam: I don't want to buy too much, the moths might get to them.
plasticann: Well, at least buy three boxes.
Adam: What if I want to eat some other kind of cereal.
plasticann: All you ever eat is Kashi Go Lean. Fine, buy some Kashi Go Lean Crunch, it's on sale too.
Adam: I wonder what's the difference...less fiber, more calories, yada yada yada, more copper.
plasticann: [laughing] MORE COPPER???
Adam: Yeah, that's about the only good thing about the Kashi Go Lean Crunch.

More copper and let's not forget the fact that the crunch version probably tastes better. As for myself, I bought some Captain Crunch...it too was on sale.

I'm Not A Plastic Bag

I was reading about this Anya Hindmarch "I'm Not A Plastic Bag" bag craze earlier this week and even e-mailed MGDub in jest asking her to buy me one because they were being sold in NYC Whole Foods on Wednesday. Adam, who is charmingly practical and unfazed by trends, fads, etc, asked, "Doesn't Whole Foods sell other canvas bags that people could buy?" and "Do these bags look any different other than saying 'I'm Not A Plastic Bag?" I tried to no avail to explain that the bag is designed by so and so and yada yada yada. The truth is, Adam is totally right, it's just a canvas bag. It's cute, but it kinda defeats the spirit of the bag to get gouged on ebay from bag scalpers.

Blooming Hello Kitty

Though cute, even I have to admit these Hello Kitty bouquets were a little bit odd. We saw them at a flower shop in Ginza that specialized in Hello Kitty flowers. I was curious how they immortalized Kitty in flower form: white carnations, wired in with plastic eyes, nose and bow.

Toeing The Line

We were moving our stuff over to our new home with some friends when we discovered just how close we were to the border between two neighboring cities. We also discovered that we have very friendly neighbors who know each other by name and have "border" parties to celebrate just how close they live to the city border. Our friend Zandy was parking his truck across the street from our new place when some neighbors said that he'd get a ticket since he was technically in another city so the parking pass I'd given him was invalid. We were naturally curious just where the city line was. Turns out, our house is about half a house from the border. The house next door is also a duplex and one side of the house is in one city and the other side of the house is technically in another city so they pay taxes to two different cities. Our neighbor across the street is mostly in one city, but pays about $25 to another city because a sliver of his home is on the other side of the line. Unfortunately, he doesn't get anything in terms of services for his $25. Unbelievable! Fortunately, we don't have to get a visa to cross the border between the two

Cutie Couch

After much contemplation, MGDub got a new couch. Looks comfy...I look forward to sleeping on it next time I visit.

Zoey

As a fun gift, Wheezy planned a fun overnight adventure for her little cousin Zoey. Zoey would sleep over at Wheezy's new place, go on the Swan Boats, maybe eat some pizza, etc. According to Wheezy, Zoey is a very polite child and somewhat indirect. The following are reconstructed conversations that Wheezy reconstructed for me:

Zoey: Have you ever had that snack where you cut up apples and dip them in peanut butter?
Wheezy: Yes! [pause] Would you like that snack?
Zoey: Yes please.

Zoey: Gosh, we've been walking around for a long time.
Wheezy: [pause] Would you like to take the bus?
Zoey: Sure!

I predict Zoey will do quite well in high context indirect cultures like say some Asian cultures.

Air Hello Kitty

plasticmom flew on this adorable jet last fall and bought me an official Hello Kitty flight attendant apron so boy was I excited to get the full Hello Kitty experience myself when we flew on it from Taipei to Tokyo on EVA air. Hello Kitty infused almost every aspect of the flight. Boarding passes, headrests, TV programming, salt/pepper packets, wet wipes, etc. My meal included a slice of Hello Kitty fish cake and the dessert was Hello Kitty ice cream with a little "spoon" shaped like Hello Kitty's bow. (Hello Kitty strawberry ice cream is pretty nasty and artificial, but the little kids probably like it.) However, my favorite was the Hello Kitty barf bag which I saved...unused.

Splitting the Bill

I'd read somewhere recently that splitting the bill at the end of a meal with a friend is reduces the utility and joy one derives from sharing a meal with your buddy. Therefore, they suggested that people should alternate paying for meals rather than splitting the bill on every meal. I proposed the idea a while back to Wheezy since we often go out for lunch together and she readily agreed to the plan. In fact, according to Wheezy, Wheezymom has always thought it was weird that we split the bill since she and her friends alternate. (Wheezymom is quite wise and knows what's up even without reading the article.) The only glitch to this alternate bill paying plan is I can never remember who paid last time and this uncertainty was making me a little anxious since I didn't want to shirk on my share. So at 3am one night last week when I was suffering from insomnia, I came up with a great solution. A little card for my wallet that reads, "I'll get the next one" laminated in packing tape. Whoever has the card pays for lunch and after you pay for lunch, you hand the card to the other person for next time. Problem solved. Now we just have to remember to hand the card back and forth.

New Home

Adam and I just got back late Monday night from a three week vacation to Japan and Taiwan with plasticmom. We had a blast eating our way through Tokyo and Taipei and seeing all the cool sights. Today, we closed on our new condo so we're now officially homeowners. It hasn't sunk in yet, but I do feel overwhelmed by yet another move and I feel intimidated by the responsibility of maintenance. Hopefully, we'll become handy responsible people who water the yard and shovel snow. I've already purchased the Martha Stewart Homekeeping Handbook which has instructions for everything from washing dishes to exterminating pests.

Let's Go Red Sox

For Adam's birthday, I got him tickets to see the SF Giants play the Red Sox at Fenway. The baseball gods [or Jesus] were smiling upon us. The weather was perfect and the park was packed. Wheezy was also at the game having also received tickets for her birthday from her brother and her beloved Manny scored the only run of the game...a homer to boot. Since Adam is a big Red Sox fan and slightly bigger Giants fan, the game was pretty much a win win for him. He was cheering for everyone, but booing no one. I think he was slightly disappointed that it was a "pitcher's game" [as he tells me] and there weren't a whole lot of hits. In the end the Red Sox won which was fine since [according to Adam] they needed the win more than the Giants.

Lucy Kaplansky

We just got back from a Lucy Kaplansky concert tonight at Club Passim where we sat two feet from the stage and a foot from the speakers. Wasn't too bad given that it's folk, but the higher notes were bugging Adam's ears. Lucy was taking requests and some folks were being less than helpful:

Lucy: Would anyone like to request a song?
Adam: Brooklyn Train!
Lady: Can you sing the one about...your dad?
Lucy: Which song?
Lady: The one, about your dad.
Lady 2: How about the one about your mom.
plasticann [to Adam]: Can she sing the one about the train....and Brooklyn?

Unfortunately, Adam missed the entire exchange and didn't hear my little comment so I didn't get my token chuckle.

Ritz Galore

Last weekend was the Community Fest at church so they got the Ritz cracker van to come out and pass out free samples. After all, the new Ritz is flakier and tastes more buttery. When I stopped by on Tuesday, I noticed boxes upon boxes of crackers that the Ritz folks had left at church after the festival. I was overcome with joy at the prospect of 30,000 Ritz crackers and had to fight the urge to run over to the stack and hug the boxes. Adam even let me take a whole box home (300 two packs = 600 crackers) since I was so excited. The problem is, I'm so attached to the idea of a pristine box of crackers, I wouldn't let Adam open the box and snack on the crackers. I feel somewhat justified, we do have an open box of Ritz in our pantry and shouldn't we eat those first? I should think so.

Wagamamas

We walked over to Wagamamas for dinner last Saturday after we saw Ocean's 13. I was craving ramen since it was a cool damp day and Adam was kind enough to check out Wagamamas even though he would have rather had a Chacarero. I had the grilled chicken ramen and a delicious fruit juice and Adam enjoyed the pan fried udon noodles. Overall, the food is pretty good, but not fantastic, but it did whet my appetite for eating ramen in Japan when we go on vacation.

Events and Happenings

We've had lots going on and lots of visitors recently with Adam's birthday and my graduation. Here are some fun highlights.

Kristen, Dave, Adam and I went to Salts for Adam's birthday where we all ordered the roasted duck carved table side. It was a surprise for Adam where we were going and I tried to trick him up until the end implying we were going to Cuchi Cuchi across the street.

Adam's parents and the entire plasticfamily came to Boston for my graduation from that school that rhymes with BIT. There was even a contingent from Taiwan. We all woke up way too early to get to graduation. I had to be in line by 7:30am and Adam went and saved seats. I got my cool diploma and they even said my name correctly. Afterwards, we went to Mistral for a yummy graduation dinner where we were all stuffed senseless. We showed our Taiwanese relatives around town who requested lobster twice so we went to Legal and Summer Shack. Ironically, I ate a Pearl hot dog and a piece of fried chicken at Summer Shack while everyone else ate seafood. It was a mighty tasty hot dog, those kids know all about the good stuff.

Other than that, we're busy planning details for our upcoming trip to Japan.

Penny A Day

The other day, we sent our nephew Zames a cool ball for throwing around and we sent Zess a small coin purse, Hello Kitty of course. Zess was so excited about the coin purse and the random change and money I stuck in there that she's now inspired to earn a penny a day for doing her chores. I was immediately intrigued about the types of "chores" a three year old does. Apparently, she's responsible each morning for the following:

1. turn off her white noise machine
2. turn off her nightlight
3. bring her water sippy cup into the kitchen

Perhaps if Adam offered me a penny a day, I'd do some of the chores that I perpetually overlook. Oddly enough, they're pretty similar to Zess' chores. I often forget to turn off the humidifier, turn off the bathroom light and I sometimes forget to bring my water glasses into the kitchen. I am reasonably good about doing dishes so at least I've got something on my three year old niece.

Tapas at Masa

We finally made it over to Masa in the South End for their one dollar tapas tonight. It was actually 50 cents since we went before 8pm. We each got a combo platter of 10 small bites, shared a citris mojito and a chorizo quesadilla. Our favorites were the taquito, shrimp on plantain and the poblano goat cheese. The empanadas and zucchini frites were pretty tasty, but I wasn't a huge fan of the skewered chicken and the Mexican hummus. I would definitely recommend checking it out if you're in the bar area especially if you're looking for a fun snack in a nice bar. The combo platter was really fun and only five bucks when it's 50 cent tapas. For another five bucks, they'll throw in a small pitcher of sangria.

Did you go to...?

The following is a reconstructed conversation at the supermarket this afternoon. Note, I was wearing my college shirt.

Checkout Lady: Did you go to Brown?
plasticann: [surprised because she forgot she was wearing the shirt] Yes!
Checkout Lady: I went there too...
plasticann: oh, you did!
Checkout Lady: ...and now I'm a cashier.
plasticann: [pause] Did you like it at Brown?
Checkout Lady: [pause] Well I liked my major.
plasticann: What did you major in?
Checkout Lady: Studio Arts.
plasticann: That's cool, what kind of art do you do now?
Checkout Lady: Last few years, mostly charcoal.

So, if my job doesn't work out, maybe I can work my alumni connections over at the Star Market and get a job there. If I had a choice, I'd rather work at this particular market versus the one over at Porter Square. It's always quiet and never too busy.

City Slickers: Urban Gourmet Revived

The weather warmed up over the last week so we walked over to Union Square for dinner at The Independent last Friday. On our way there, we passed by a new pizza place, City Slickers on Somerville Ave. To back up just a moment, Adam used to love pizza from Urban Gourmet in Ball Square. Unfortunately, they closed down after a fire and Adam's been mourning ever since. Turns out, the owners of Urban Gourmet opened up City Slickers with a similar menu and they even offer Christina's Ice Cream by the scoop. Needless to say, Adam is pretty darned excited that he can have favorite pizza again.

Nothing To Complain About

plasticann: I have to go home and do dishes. They're everywhere and I see them all the time now that I'm home a lot. I think Adam's stopped doing pots and pans since I finished school.
Wheezy: Do you do the cooking?
plasticann: No, Adam cooked.
Wheezy: [pause] You know, I want to take your side, but you really have nothing to complain about.
plasticann: I know you're right, I have nothing to complain about. I'm just being lazy

I still haven't done the dishes and it's 6:21pm.

All Done!

I had my last exam yesterday afternoon for Finance II and boy is it strange being "all done." I thought my exam was from 1-5pm so I showed up ar 12:30pm and ate my lunch near the exam room. There were some folks hanging around and I figured people would come in closer to 1pm since I was a little early. I stake out the room and save four good seats for my buddies and me and hang out. My friend Zeff strolls in around 12:55pm and then my friend Zara a few minutes later with her lunch. I wonder if she's planning on eating during the exam. The room is half empty so I get my hopes up that I might be able to spread out and have two seats for my exam. Soon, I notice it's 1:01pm when Zara is unwrapping her sub sandwich, munching away. 1:02pm, the room is still pretty empty and the TA is nowhere to be seen. It finally dawns on me to ask what time the exam starts. Turns out, as you may have already figured out, the exam is scheduled for 1:30-5:30pm. Good thing I got there a whole hour early.

My Feet Are Too Warm

I was trying to sleep last night, but my feet were too warm so I had to take my socks off. The following is a reconstructed conversation that occurred while Adam had my socks:

plasticann: Don't put the socks on my face.
Adam: [laughing uncontrollably]
plasticann: What?
Adam: I was going to hold them in front of your nose and make you smell them.
plasticann: [sigh] I guess I know you too well.
Adam: You used to sometimes say, "Don't put the socks in the vicinity of my face."

I think he once put them in front of my nose when I asked him not to put them on my face so I started hedging my bets by asking him not to put them in the vicinity of my face. I'm happy to report that Adam usually does comply when I put in a request.

Picardie No More

We have these awesome Duralex Picardie drinking glasses that we absolutely love. Adam likes how the big ones hold a lot of water and we both like how they're kinda old school. In fact, Adam's parents and his sister may have the exact same glasses in their homes as well. They're tempered glass, have a flared shape and are really durable. We got ours at Williams-Sonoma, but unfortunately, the manufacturer has discontinued the original Picardie glass replacing it with a new version that stacks. I don't understand why Duralex discontinued the glasses, afterall, it's caused quite the uproar in my life and in the lives of a couple of other people who've complained about the situation online.

The new ones are OK, but they just don't compare to the originals. I couldn't find them anywhere so I was super excited to see them at Crate & Barrel a few months ago. I stopped by Crate & Barrel this afternoon and saw that the glasses were on sale. While I was initially excited by the discount, I also surmised from the sale sign that Crate & Barrel was most likely discontinuing the glasses. I'm sad to report that they are in fact discontinued. They still have 5000 glasses in stock in New England, but they'll eventually run out. Since Adam doesn't appreciate how I like to stock up on things, I won't disclose exactly how many glasses I bought today. Let's just say, it was enough that my bag was cumbersome, but not enough that I took a cab home. Now that we have a giant basement, I'm thinking about going back for some more and somehow sneaking them by Adam and squirreling them away at our new place. The only problem is, now that I've blogged he'll be on to my little plan. Don't worry, I won't buy 5000 glasses...my basement isn't that big.

Short Term Memory

Conversation 1

Adam: What do you want?
plasticann: Slice of pepperoni and a garden salad.
Adam: What kind of pizza?
plasticann: Pepperoni!
[two minutes later]
Adam: Greek salad?
plasticann: No, garden salad.

Conversation 2 by way of cell phone

Adam: I'm stopping by the store, do you need anything?
plasticann: Can you get some dishwashing soap, shampoo and some eggs?
Adam: Sure!
[15 minutes later]
Adam: I'm at the store, what did you want again? Laundry detergent?
plasticann: No, dishwashing soap.
Adam: Do we need laundry detergent?
plasticann: No, just dishwashing soap.
Adam: OK!
[one minute later]
Adam: So we need dishwashing soap, eggs and what?
plasticann: Shampoo.
Adam: Oh, that's right.
[one minute later]
Adam: What kind of shampoo?

Real Grownups

Adam and I will soon be real grownup homeowners come July. We're very excited about our new place, it's a pretty pale green color on the outside, we have a nice porch for hanging out and a whole lot of bedrooms, four to be exact. I tried to convince Adam that we could each have a room just for ourselves, mine could be pink and Hello Kitty and Adam can have his Marvel comic book room, but he's insisting that we share everything.

My friends at school suggested that I offer to negotiate a 1 year lease on one of the rooms which reminds me of the time my aunt had to pay her brothers (my uncles) "rent" back when they were kids. I guess there were three rooms for four kids, plasticmom got one because she was the oldest and soon off to college so there were only two rooms left for the other three kids. My aunt wanted her own room so the boys had to share, therefore my aunt had to pay "rent" to her brothers from her allowance.

We're very excited about our new place and we're looking forward to having room for guests so if you're ever in our neck of the woods and need a nice bed to sleep in...let us know.

Prodigal Suitcase

We lost our suitecase when we flew home from Israel last month. I'd given up all hope and started replacing my stuff when lo and behold, forty days later, it made its way back to Boston. Wheezy surmised that the suitcase had been on "lots of interesting little trips." I tried to confirm whether our suitecase had wandered, but the baggage person simply said, "I don't know." I'm just happy it's back home since I really missed my stuff so rejoice...the suitcase is home. I'm going to celebrate tomorrow by wearing as much stuff from the suitcase as humanly possible.

Footloose and Fancy Free

Having just finished year two at ZYU Zilm Zchool, MGDub is footloose and fancy free in Boston for a quick visit. We went to Out of the Blue for dinner last night with Wheezy and the Zoritys where we scored some delicious fried calamari. Wheezy, MGDub and I met up for lunch in Harvard Square today and I got to see Wheezy's new place. Wheezy did such a good job picking the place, it's totally perfect for her and Wheezy's dad, Cap'n Zoby did an awesome job painting. Wheezy even has a pink room. I totally want a pink room, but I have a feeling I won't be able to sneak a whole pink room by Adam, maybe a towel, but not a whole room.

Capone Foods

My friend from school Zara raves about the empanadas at Capone Foods in Union Square so I was psyched to see a second Capone Foods open up on Mass Ave near Davis Square. We finally went in last Saturday where we tried delicious pasta samples and other treats. They even have cannoli kits where you get the shells and they sell you a bag of the filling so you can fill at home. We got the vegetarian lasagna which was delicious, some focaccia bread and some frozen empanadas. Haven't tried the empanadas yet, but I'm looking forward to them.

Happy Belated to Wheezy

Wheezy had a super fun b-day party last Saturday and I finally got to meet Wheezymom and her dad, Cap'n Toby. We enjoyed tasty deep fried appetizer snacks, listened to tunes DJed by Wheezy on her ipod and we even got cool party favors (personalized mugs, M&Ms and cookies). Sweet!

I tried to get the dirt on Wheezy's childhood and teen years, but turns out she's a model child/citizen just as I suspected. Her childhood friend said that she was super smart, excelled at academics and sports...blah blah blah. Wheezymom said that she was a well behaved child who loved to read. Wheezymom would even take Wheezy to interviews since Wheezy was super well behaved and could read for hours. Just as I suspected!

Happy B-day to Steve

It's that time of year again...Steve's birthday. Happens every year like clockwork which means Wheezy's is coming up in just three days. Since Steve had asked for Rice Krispy Treats last year, I made them for him again and to properly celebrate Steve's birth, I've eaten about five treats so far. I did add some sprinkles this year to make things a little more festive and I also upped the marshmallow count per batch to 30 which was nice since the Krispys were a little more chewy.

Modified Recipe
3 Tbs butter
30 marshmallows
6 cups of Rice Krispy cereal or the generic equivalent

Flat Patties

The weather on Saturday was gorgeous so we checked out Flat Patties in Harvard Square for lunch. The burgers were tasty, what one might imagine a McDonalds burger was like back in the day. Fries were crisp and my lemonade was refreshing. The food is freshly cooked to order which is plus and the prices are reasonable.

All Things Japanese at Fanueil Hall

Zeff, Zatrick and I (our tech strategy team for school) decided impetuously to take our afternoon meeting on the road since we didn't have a whole lot to do and the weather was insanely nice out. Our original plan was to hit Beard Papa's for a cream puff snack, but we ended up making a detour to the brand spanking new Wagamamas that opened today. I remember years ago, plasticmom and I checked out Wagamamas in London because one of my friends was obsessed with it. I can't remember how the food was, but I did remember that the place was cool and hip so I was looking forward to trying out the new Boston branch. I had the fried chicken appetizer with a delicious orange/apple/passion fruit juice, Zeff enjoyed an iced tea and Zatrick with his superhuman metabolism went all out with a full entree of teppan yaki udon noodles as his afternoon snack. All in all, pretty darned tasty and I felt special eating there on the first day to boot. Ever so friendly, Zeff congratulated each Wagamama's employee we encountered on their big opening day. Since the restaurant was pretty empty at 4pm, we even broke out the laptop and got our work done. As a finale, we each had a cream puff at Beard Papa, Zeff enjoyed his first one so much he went back for a second. Definitely a most legend [wait for it] dary tech strategy meeting.

Comment Spam

I've discovered what must be comment spam. I posted about some notebooks yesterday and I got a very strange comment from an "Alex" [better not be CADCowboy] that was rambling nonsense inserted with names of drugs. Kate commented about Alex's strange comment which was funny, but I wanted to get rid of the comment spam so I deleted the entire post along with the comments and reposted the same things again. Sure enough, "Alex" and his blog spam struck again. However, this time I figured out how to delete just the comment spam without deleting other's comments. In conclusion, I'm quite disturbed by the intrusive comment spam...it's bad enough that I have to slog through e-mail spam.

Circa Sample Bar

We stopped by the Levenger store in the Prudential to check things out. Wheezy and I happen to love the store since we love office products, but Adam find the store mildly intolerable and mostly agrees to stop in to humor me so he parked himself in a comfy armchair while I checked out the latest wares. I ended up by the Circa notebook section of the store when a salesperson, Bob, asked if I wanted a free Circa notebook sample, it's an eight dollar value. Of course I said, "YES!" so we went through 10 minute process of picking covers, picking rings, picking papers, etc. I felt kinda bad because Adam looked pretty bored on the other side of the store, but I was just so excited about the notebook. Adam finally wandered over to me probably intending to drag me out of the store, but I preempted him by saying, "Adam, check out my awesome new notebook...it was free." Bob promptly chimed in, "Yes, would you like a free sample as well Adam?" Adam started to say no, but then he noticed that I was nodding my head vigorously so he acquiesced and got himself a custom made sample as well. I'd assumed (incorrectly) that Adam would automatically hand over his notebook to me since he didn't even want it in the first place. Just because he's a super nice husband, he agreed to give it to me if it would make me happy. Yeah! So everyone, get thee to Levenger for a free sample Circa of your own.

Cafe Polonia

Adam and I finally checked out Cafe Polonia on Saturday for lunch. We've always wanted to go, but we thought it was hard to get to without a car. Turns out, it's only about a block from the Andrews T stop on the red line. We started with a basket of bread and a spread:

Adam: This spread is good, what do you think is in it?
plasticann: I don't know...probably lard.
Adam: Really?...[asking the waitress] Excuse me, what's in this spread?
Waitress: It's for the bread and it's made with spices and blah blah blah and lard. You should try it, it's very good.
plasticann: [subtly trying to push lard away from Adam] We've already tried it, we were curious what it was.
plasticann: I don't think we should eat any more of this.

We only had a little taste of the lard, but we did think of MGDub and her Ukrainian heritage as we polished off our lunch of pierogies, potato pancakes, cabbage roll, kielbasa and sauerkraut. I would highly recommend the potato pancakes...they were awesome.