Monkey Power activate

It's been a rough week. And it isn't even over. Monday, I was just off. Off enough to miss a plane, off enough to miss a text that my sister's husband's brother's episode of Law & Order SVU was being re-aired that night, just off, off, off.

Tuesday didn't fare much better--landed at the airport around 10:30am and went straight to work in my glasses and clothes that I had already run around an airport and was squished between two strangers for the last 12 hours in. Miraculously, put in a full day without passing out or stinking up the place and came home to a fevered daughter murmuring in my bed. Fortunately, it broke at 11pm that same night, but I'd have to keep her home today because of a 24 hour fever-free rule at school.

So today I told her I'd come home around 1 to make her lunch, but my car wouldn't start. I'd been having intermittent problems with my car just not turning over. I didn't have time to call AAA because I had to leave at 2 for a workshop out of the office. So after talking to my mechanic, I was ready to call AAA to get my car towed then figure out renting a car. When I got back to the office, I called AAA. He decided to give it a jump and it started--something about agreeing with the mechanic that the distributor probably needs replacing and it was compounded from a weak battery. He said if I drove it around for a half hour I could probably get it going in the morning and save renting a car for the night. At this point, it's past 7pm. I call the girl and tell her if she wants to go for a drive. We burn some time by driving to Nana's and returning some DVDs for her at the Blockbuster, then I decide to push my luck and head to Sticki Picki.

Sticki Picki is the Japanese version of the photo booth (complete with instructions announced in Japanese and rough English translations on the screen). The booths are bigger, there are props available, and you can decorate the pictures with various computer graphics afterwards. The cost was $9-10 (depending on booth) and we had a lot of fun. Together we came up with Super Hero Monkey Twins:


After the Monkey mayhem, we were pretty hungry so we walk over to Ajisen Ramen:

And enjoy some of the tastiest ramen ever:

To cap off the night we get some dessert from 85 degrees:

And finished the night with some delicious cream cheesecake:

Here's hoping some Monkey Twin magic and full bellies will bring some good mojo for the rest of the week. And get my car to start in the morning.