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.

Piggy

I walked into MBA admissions today and spotted this adorable piggy humidifier sitting on the receptionist's desk. Then I spotted a bunch of other cute animal humidifiers around the office as I walked through. Turns out, the head of admissions decided they should have a "spa" like atmosphere so they invested in some humidifiers. All I can say is, I love a school with cute humidifiers in admissions...take that Harvard with your fancy chandeliers and professional chalkboard washers.

Pen Pals

I was super excited to see I got some mail from my little niece Zess today. The envelope was festively decorated with Disney princess stickers and orange crayon scrawl. Inside, I received some awesome hummingbird fake tattoos. I have a funny feeling these are the very tattoos that she got for Easter and freaked out saying "get it off, get it off, get it off" when the fake tattoo was first applied. My favorite, a scrap of paper with orange crayon scrawl...love it. Don't know if it's a part of a series of abstract art, but I'm putting it up on my fridge.

Eye Doctor

I managed to finagle a long overdue eye appointment for this afternoon when I called yesterday morning. I was freaked out because I thought my right eye was getting blurry and my eyes were feeling tired. I had been trying to check my vision by closing one eye while looking out the other. Turns out, this is not how one checks their vision. Apparently, closing one eye can change the shape of your other eye and temporarily change the vision of that open eye which is why it's my left eye that's gotten worse not my right eye as I had self diagnosed. I was unconvinced that there was nothing significantly wrong with my eyesight and kept peppering the doctor, whom I had just met, with questions like

Q: Am I getting close to being legally blind?
A: No, blindness is measured by how well you see with glasses, you're very far off.

Q: Is a 10 degree rotation in my astigmatism alarming?
A: No, it happens all the time to almost everyone.

Q: How many spots would I see if I had a detached retina? One spot?
A: Not just one, a shower of spots.

Q: Will I be able to walk home once my eyes are dilated?
A: Most patients have no problem....haven't you had them dilated before?

Q: Why are my eyes aging, I'm only twenty eight? Is it the sun?
A: No, aging occurs in all ages, even 18 year olds and I've even seen it in 8 year olds?

Finally, he politely put an end to my questions with "I do this all day and there's nothing to worry about" and "why don't you do some research on the Internet, it'll be more informative than any explanation I could give you at this moment." On the way out, I asked when my next check up would be. I was internally freaked out when he said, "in two years," but then he changed his mind and said he would do another glaucoma test in a year. Woohoo! I have a feeling he was happy to get rid of me, but one has to understand that as a kid my vision deteriorated so quickly, I'd have to go every six months for a checkup so I'm perpetually convinced that I'll go blind spontaneously. I guess I should revel in my relatively good eye health rather than trying to conjure up reasons to be alarmed.

Cookies

Yesterday at work, Adam walked over to Kate and Alissa's office to offer them some sugar cookies I'd baked when he accidentally spilled them over Alissa's desk and bag. They salvaged most of the cookies, but poor Adam had to suffer through a day of, "Guess what, Adam tossed his cookies all over my bag and desk" Boah ha ha!

Everyday Food Easter

We had a bunch of friends over yesterday for an Easter potluck dinner. Adam and I made a bunch of stuff from Everyday Food magazine which all turned out great and was super simple. Our menu included (EF denotes Everyday Food):

Cheese Platter
Cheese Puffs - EF
Cucumber Dill Dip - EF

Apricot Mustard Ham - EF
Parmesan Roasted Asparagus - EF
Glazed Carrots - EF
Hash Brown Casserole
Spinach Salad with Goat Cheese and Nuts
Incredible Fried Rice

Strawberry Shortcake with Chocolate Sauce
Sugar Cookies shaped like Chicks

Namesake

We went to saw The Namesake tonight in Harvard Square and I was super excited because I really enjoyed the book. The following is a reconstructed conversation between my friends Zeff, Zatrick and me. Zeff and I have immigrant parents whereas Zatrick family lines goes back quite a few generations.

plasticann: I've been really wanting to see The Namesake.
Zeff: Yeah, I totally want to see that too.
Zatrick: What's it about?
plasticann: It's about...
Zeff: ...it's about the immigrant experience.
Zatrick: Well, I don't really know much about that, we go a few generations back.
plasticann: Well, you kinda "immigrated" to a different part of the country...Boston.
Zatrick: Yeah, where there are way too many people. I can't wait to leave and get back to the trees.

Zatrick grew up on a hobby farm with cows a milking where the land was a plenty. He finds Boston a bit constricting.

Back from the Holy Land

Israel was super hectic and jam packed, but fun overall. We visited a number of places including Jeruselum, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Caesarea, Nazareth, Sea of Galilee, the Dead Sea and finally Eilat, a beach resort at the southern most tip of Israel next to the Red Sea. We're still pretty jet lagged from our trip, but we're doing our best to stay awake past 9pm. We ate way too much falafel, hummus and shwarma and we're happy to be home sleeping in our own bed and cooking our own meals.

Thurs/Fri Mar 22-23 - Travel: We flew Alitalia which was relatively uneventful. We had a stopover in Milan and the airport was not very exciting and overall the food on Alitalia was horrid.

Sat Mar 24 - Jerusalem: Jerusalem is a strangely disorienting place. There are so many holy sites and so many religions converging on one space. Then there are the contradictions between different interpretations so no one really knows what happened where and when. Thus, they call the mental insanity that ensues from this disorientation, Jerusalem Syndrome. We went to a bunch of holy sites including the wailing wall, the room where the last supper supposedly took place, King David's tomb, etc. I also bought a giant bagel from a street vendor. It was eight inches wide, that's how big. Not as tasty as an Iggy's bagel, but I was impressed by how ginormous the bagel was.

Sun Mar 25 - Jerusalem: We all suited up for a variety of business formal meetings. We visited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs where they confiscated our passports in exchange for visitor's badges. I even asked the guard, "Will I get my passport back when I leave?" She nodded yes and I felt pretty dumb for having asked. I mean, of course I was getting it back, how else would I leave the country? We then visited a street market where I bought some cookies that looked significantly tastier than they turned out to be. I did enjoy a small chocolate croissant that was surprisingly delicious. Next, we went over the the Orthodox Jewish quarter to look around and we were sorely disappointed. I guess we were unrealistically expecting the Amish. Basically, the folks in this neighborhood just dressed conservatively, but had cell phones, bought CDs, etc. Lastly, we went over to the Bank of Israel and heard from the govern er of the bank. Let's just say, I spent an hour digging my nails into my palms to stay awake and my hands hurt afterwards.

Gmail Paper

We got back yesterday from Israel and I totally fell for this new gmail feature when I logged on to check my e-mail. I forgot it was April Fool's Day so I was confused about gmail paper, but didn't pursue it any further. If I had clicked on learn more about gmail paper, I would have realized that I'd been had. Pretty Hilarious!