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.

My brackets are garbage but at least the Women are getting Mad

My saving grace is that a bunch of others are trash too. A bunch of upsets that weren't the standard 10-7 upset but 15-2?! And a number 1 getting tossed by a #9 in the second round? And said number 1 (Kansas) was also my pick to win it all. I'll say it again, my brackets are garbage. At this point, I'm just going to root for Michigan State to win it all. I mean, why not?

Despite these upsets on the Men's side, I'd have to say the real story is on the Women's side. It's not anything new to say that the Women's side, historically so far, has been fairly predictable with an upset or two (and we're talking 9-8 upset), with say, Tennessee or UConn winning it all. But yesterday there were some big double-digit upsets--San Diego State (#11) beating #6 Texas (at home!), #11 University of Arkansas Little Rock beating #6 Georgia Tech, and Green Bay (#12!) beating #5 Virginia. Maybe we're hitting a turning point where the Women's side will start getting some March Madness respect of its own. And perhaps get airplay of an entire game of its own. And maybe the NCAA Women's Tournament brackets may be worth a pool of its own someday very soon?

If the Women's tournament continues like yesterday, I'll bet on it.

Best beer names

Saw these in a grocery store:

Slim Chance. Best name for light beer ever.

Craving

Trail mix:

Especially Easter trail mix:

Delicious, though not quite WW point friendly. Especially when you eat the whole bowl.

A better 3 weeks

So it's been 3 weeks since my abysmal failure of accomplishing anything in my last 3 (which became 7 lame) weeks challenge. I did better this time.

Though I was better about sticking to the WW points, I still stumbled a few times (darn girl scout cookie season!) and went over my allotment. The encouraging part, nonetheless, is that I managed to lose some lbs and dropped to 153 from 157.5. Needless to say, this has really encouraged me to re-double my efforts to stick to my WW points to break 150.

And I'm pleased to say I reached 3 resolutions in those 3 weeks:

I was able to donate another bag to Goodwill (#1):

I did another photo shoot (#2)! Thanks to a couple of friends, I did a themed photo shoot—quotes. I painted a quote on their bodies and tried to capture a portrait that helped tell a story about that quote. Here are a couple of my favorites:


I love her awesome smile with this quote—tells an interesting story depending on how you interpret her smile, know what I mean?


I love this one—perhaps this would work better with a cigarette, but since none of us smoke, we improvised with a lollypop, which has its own element to this story, don't you think?


Okay, obviously I'm not as photogenic as the others, and despite it being out of focus, I like the energy for this quote. Hey, does this count as a self-portrait (#3!)? If you want to be technical about it and not count this pic, then the hair cut pix definitely count, right?

So armed with a decent showing for these last 3 weeks, I'm kind of geared up to see what I can do in the next 3 weeks...

St. Patrick's Day comes full circle

When I was a kid, McDonald's was an insane treat. I know kids today, my own daughter included, cannot grasp the concept that going to McDonald's was like the child-version of going to a royal wedding or the Great Wall of China. Yes, it was pretty darn special--you even begged to have your birthday party there (and this was way before McDonald's had those Playlands). Back in those days, McDonald's was called a restaurant, for Pete's sake. Today, I'm fully aware that it is now the equivalent of getting an entree from the freezer section at the grocery store, both in convenience and price point, but warmed up and available without dragging my lazy a$$ out of the car.

Anyhoo, one of the annual events that made McDonald's even more insanely attractive was the Shamrock Shake. Again this was way before all the smoothie places out there, so the minty Shamrock Shake was completely novel and special. Those glorious days when I got those Shamrock shakes were heavenly...my juvenile March Madness. I had kind of forgotten about them, especially since I hardly go to McDonald's but the memory of that dreamy shake came to mind today and I wanted to surprise my girl with one when I picked her up from TKD.

I have a disclaimer: as mentioned a couple of days ago, Daylight Savings Time is really kicking my butt. I have not been getting the best sleep and I'm pretty sure that eating a pound of my own flesh would be easier than getting up at what was once my usual rising time. Plus on this particular day, I spent a ton of time staring at spreadsheets on the computer. My eyeballs were on fire. I wanted to pull them out of my head. I was afraid if I blinked too often, my eyes would burst into flame. Bottom line, my fuse was as short as my energy.

Anyhoo, I pulled up to the drive thru. I glanced briefly at the menu--man, McDonald's added some really new stuff to their repertoire!--and then heard the drive thru lady's voice burst through the speaker, inquiring if I wanted to start off with some special sandwich.

Me: Do you still have Shamrock shakes?
Her: Yes, how many pieces do you want?
Me: Wait, I asked for a Shamrock shake.
Her: Shake? What flavor?
Me: I want the Shamrock shake.
Her: We don't have that flavor.
Me: What! This is ridiculous! Are you telling me that you are out of Shamrock shakes already?!
Her: We don't have that flavor. We have Jamocha, chocolate...
Me: WAIT. You have JAMOCHA, but not Shamrock shakes?! It's ridiculous that you are out of Shamrock shakes on St. Patrick's Day!
Her: ...
Me: Come ON! St. Patrick's Day isn't even over yet! Gaaaaaahhhhhh!
Her: ...
Me: Look, is there a number I can call?! This is RIDICULOUS!
Her: But ma'am, our company doesn't have that flavor.

And that's when it hit me. The crazy new menu. The Jamocha flavored shake. The big poster on the side of the building that said Welcome to Arby's! I had pulled through the wrong drive-thru.

Me: Oh my gosh--I'm so sorry. I thought I was at McDonald's!
Her: ...
Me: Okay, I guess I'll just drive thru. Really, sorry about that.
Her: ...
Her: Have a nice day.
Me: Thank you! You have a great day too! Thanks so much for your help--I really appreciate it!
Her: ...

I tried to hightail it out of there, but of course, there was a car in front of me waiting for its food and the drive-thru lane was walled in. So I sat there focused on the McDonald's a hundred feet away while I'm sure the drive-thru lady was studying my countenance for a Franny voodoo doll that she would stick in the deep fryer.

Anyhoo bottom line, I made it to McDonald's and brought the girl a quart of minty Shamrock paradise:

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

Double trouble

I got to meet up with Linda for lunch today and conveniently, there was a YogurtLand around the corner. Of course, we had to get some, especially since we heard they had a new flavor:

They were also featuring another new flavor:

I tried both:

The yuzu flavor tasted just like yuzu seasoning, including a weird fakey aftertaste (at least to me). The red velvet cupcake batter tasted just like red velvet cupcake batter--almost to a fault. After a while, I felt like I was eating raw batter and it started to feel kind of wrong. I'm sure it's psychological, but I started to feel ill as if I drank a mixing bowl of raw cake batter.

But that didn't deter me from going back to YogurtLand again tonight, with the girl:

She wanted to try the new Red Velvet Cupcake Batter, which she paired with Chocolate Twilight. And gummy worms. I went back to my tried-and-true, plain tart with berries and mochi balls:

If only more days could be this delicious.