BIG catch-up: a week late & a dollar short! LOL
Not just a day late, but a whole week! :"> Ah well. What can ya do? At least I'm documenting it, because there is, in fact, a LOT to document, most of it very good stuff that I want to include/remember! :) Sorry to fill up so many screens without the courtesy of an LJ cut, but that feature is malfunctioning YET AGAIN! :( I had an LJ cut here but it lead to an error page when clicked!!
FRIDAY: THE ONE-WOMAN GEEK SQUAD
On Friday, Jan. 27, Shawn and I carpooled to San Jose from here in Redwood City where we live. Shawn works in SJ, and my folks live there. We carpooled because I was spending the night in SJ that Friday, for two reasons: bingo and meeting with the wedding caterer. But before I mention the cool things, I'll get the aggro things over with first. I spent a significant amount of time, scattered among both Friday and Saturday, troubleshooting and/or fixing various problems mom was having with the computer, the updated versions of some of its software, its ability to talk with the printer, etc. Shawn and I installed a new (well, replacement, but still old in terms of age) iMac to replace her older iMac that couldn't upgrade past OS 10.2. The "new" one is a limited edition graphite iMac with several improved attributes, not the least of which is the ability to run OS 10.4, which means she can now run newer versions of AOL, Firefox, Adobe Acrobat Reader, etc. that she was unable to do on the old Mac. She freaks out very badly when any little thing goes wrong, or when any little thing needs to be approached a new way. She's not like that with most other things in life, just technology. :( And she tends to act/sound very angry when she doesn't understand something, even tho I try so hard to explain it and/or demonstrate it in a clear way. It makes me not even want to help her, she just seems so antagonistic. I know it's not really toward me; it's toward the change that she has to learn and deal with, but damn, it makes me want to rip out all my hair sometimes! >:O But, to quote a cliche, "all's well that ends well" by the time I left Saturday afternoon. *sigh* OH, and before I forget, also squozen in between everything else on Friday and Saturday, I also got some of my freelance editing work done. That's important, because that's how I earn money!!
FRIDAY: THE BINGO BELLES ARE BACK
My monthly gals-only bingo group, the Bingo Belles, hadn't played since October, so it was so awesome to get together again! :D November and December were just TOO hectic for enough players to gather for a game. :( This was due to the various holidays contained in those months, players going out of town, players entertaining out-of-town guests, players attending holiday parties, players having to work holiday hours, players getting sick, and/or players' kids getting sick. The January game was supposedly going to be a large group, but a day or two before the game, a few folks had to back out -- oddly enough, due to one or two of the reasons above. But we did have enough for a game! *cheer* Jenny was kind enough to host (with Jasmine the dog as co-host! heehee) Joining Jenny were Becky R. ("Little Becky"), Coleen, Lisa M., Lisa's son Daniel (sometimes we let kids join us) and me, of course! We missed our other regular players & hope to see them soon! Becky S. ("Big Becky") was absent b/c one of her kids was sick; Ina was absent b/c she had guests; Liz was absent but I don't know why; Margie was absent b/c the folks who were going to watch her & Will's son had a conflict come up. It was a funny & fun game as always, with good food, good company and good prizes! At one point I'd won two things: a festive lemon cupcake kit and a $10 Facebook giftcard, but both eventually got stolen by other winners. HOWEVER, I ended up being the only person to hit blackout (the last game of the night), which mean I got the whole pot of $12!! (Each player contributes $2 for that). Jenny had the best luck of everyone, getting to keep several prizes she won. It often seems like the host of a game has good luck -- maybe it's karma? :)
SATURDAY: MEETING THE CATERER, SAMPLING FOOD, MEETING A DJ
My mom and I had an appointment to meet Lucy, the owner of Deliciously Yours Catering, on Saturday morning. This date and time were chosen because she happened to be catering an event for a family we happen to know (as acquaintances), and in San Jose too! I'm not giving exact details of the where and what, since it was a private event. But I will say that it all went very well! :) Lucy wasn't there when we got there, as she had to run home (not too far away) to get something. But there were several of her employees, of course. We met with one named Tootsie, who's been Lucy's employee for 18 years and is basically her right-hand woman! She told us all sorts of informative things about catering options, ideas, etc. She also put together two identical plates of food for my mom and I to sample, as Lucy had told Tootsie that she (Lucy) had said we should sample some food. We ended up having an entire lunch! LOL! It included green salad, a salsa-like salad, a homemade roll, a lovely thing on puff pastry dough that looked/tasted a bit like focaccia but was thin & crisp, a vegetarian shish-kebab, a seasoned ground lamb skewer, a chicken breast skewer, and I think something else.
When Lucy arrived, we went aside somewhere quiet and had a delightful chat about logistics, ideas, foods, etc., continuing and adding from where we left off with Tootsie. I'd never met Lucy before but she came highly recommended from one of my mom's best friends, and I can see why! Her food was excellent, and she herself is a very warm and friendly person who set us right at ease! Also, we got to sample one more item that Lucy said is one of her signatures: it was a long, hollow piece of well-baked bread with a thin crust, inside of which was stuffed a seasoned mashed potato mixture. It was hot out of the oven and fantastic!!! She gave its name but I forgot. Too bad we didn't get to try any desserts (heehee) but that's OK; I think we'd have been too full anyway!
Lucy mentioned that the DJ was setting up in another area and had a very good reputation. If we liked, we could go and meet him. So we did. I liked him and his helper right away not only because they were friendly and personable, but also because as they were "warming up" (both in terms of their equipment and in terms of physically stretching & exercising), they were playing 1980s NEW WAVE!! I complimented them right away on that and they got a kick out of how I correctly identified each artist that played while we were standing around talking: Tears for Fears, The Fixx, The Smiths & Depeche Mode! How could I NOT get any of those correct? ;D They're all among my faves!! I'm not sure if we're going to end up using that DJ service but it was a great meet up!
SATURDAY: AN EXOTIC DINNER DATE!
When I got back to Redwood City it was late on Saturday afternoon and I was tired and aggro. Shawn was very sweet and suggested we go out for a nice dinner. <3 We initially thought we'd go to The Old Spaghetti Factory, which recently opened in the downtown area, or Portobello Grill, also downtown. We had coupons for both places, which was part of the motivation, although we also liked both of their menus. (I've been to Spaghetti Factory & can vouch for their food, but neither of us has been to Portobello). Unfortunately, there was a HUGE wait at both places. :( So Shawn suggested we visit New Kapadokia, a Turkish restaurant (also downtown) that he'd eaten at a few times before and thought was very good. I was confident I'd find something to eat there, and I like trying new places, so we went, and were happily surprised to get one of the LAST tables remaining! The ambiance had a lot of authentic Turkish decor and knickknackery, which was cool. The service was very friendly and moderately fast, given how crowded the place was.
For an appetizer, we shared some dolmas: grape leaves stuffed with rice, pine nuts and currants cooking in olive oil with a touch of mint and cinnamon. They were served cold, whereas in Greek restaurants I've had dolmas served hot, but aside from that stylistic difference, they were FANTASTIC! Additionally, the Greek style seems to be to include ground beef or lamb, but I appreciated the vegetarian version even more. For dinner, Shawn had Sebzeli Guvec (sorry for the absence of accent marks), which consisted of tender lamb pieces, onions, tomatoes, eggplant and pepper paste, baked and served with rice. I had the easier-to-pronounce Karniyarik, which consisted of half an eggplant stuffed with ground beef, tomatoes, onions, garlic and parsley, baked in a metal casserole/platter and served with rice. Amazingly, we actually had a bit of room to share a dessert. The waiter brought out a dessert platter with a Turkish type of baklava and several other things whose appearance and names I didn't recognize. They all looked good, tho! We ended up choosing something that I think was a type of halva (halava?) but had a different texture from the hard flaky, packaged kind you can find in Middle Eastern grocery stores. I like that kind, but I liked this too. It was much softer, and was kind of mealy, but very yummy. I think they had some type of chocolate flavoring mixed in, and also some sweetish spices. I just now looked up halva on Wikipedia and apparently there more than a dozen ways to spell it, a varity of ways to prepare and serve it, and a ton of different countries that make some version of it! Interesting! Here is the link.
New Kapadokia seems to get hit-or-miss reviews on Yelp, including some folks who were very disappointed with the food and/or the service. However, based on this one experience, I would highly recommend the place! Shawn said he would too, as he's been there several different times. Maybe I'll even contribute a Yelp review for us! :)
SUNDAY: MOTORCYCLING & GEOCACHING
Tthe next day, Sunday, Jan. 28, was a GREAT day! After eating a yummy breakfast at Copenhagen Restaurant here in Redwood City, we took off across the Bay to Fremont and vicinity, as Shawn had found many good geocaches in that area and preloaded them into his GPS. We found several in two beautiful parks in the Niles Canyon area. One of them was even a "members-only cache," woohoo! The parks were full of mostly coast live oaks (Quercus agrifolia) and massive, multi-trunked California sycamores (Platanus racemosa), both of which are native to this great state. We found some fun and cleverly hidden caches. The final cache was sought was in Niles Town Plaza (which includes the historic train depot and train museum) but that was the only one we couldn't find. After I'm done writing this meandering missive (heh), I'll include some pix from our geocaching trip. I was going to provide a link to Shawn's album of the trip on Facebook, but he set its privacy as "friends of friends" (so my friends who aren't his friends can view it) instead of "public" (so anyone, even those not on Facebook, can view it). And he's in the garage tinkering with his motorcycle even as we speak (he loves doing that) and I'll likely forget to ask him about the album when he's back in the house. (It's a 2009 Suzuki V-Strom DL650, BTW. If you visit the page in this link, his looks like the second one pictured, NOT the garish orange one! heh).
Two quick thing before I share the photos! First: I wanted to mention that this was the first actual trip we took (not counting a trial run in town) with the new intercom system Shawn wired into the motorpickle and into our helmets! :) It was so nice to be able to talk with each other while riding, even at freeway speeds!! Second: I wanted to mention the awesome place we had lunch! When Shawn told me of it, I thought he was calling it The Niles Cafe (named after the region) but it was actually The Nile Cafe, as in the river! I should've figured that out after we went inside, due to the Egyptian motifs painted on some of the walls. :"> Oops! Anyhoo, Shawn had eaten there before and recommended it, and I'm glad he did! Their menu isn't huge, but it's packed with yummy and healthy things, and some very creative sandwiches! Good prices too! We both opted for the lunch special, which for $7.85 or thereabouts included a drink (soda or iced tea), a house salad (much fancier than most house salads) and a whole sandwich of our choice. I got the "Tuna Kahuna," which included chopped celery, chopped grapes and roasted peanuts. Somehow that combination was fantastic! Shawn got the "Apple Cheddar Turkey," which as its name suggests included cheddar cheese, thinly sliced turkey and VERY thinly sliced apples, along with mustard, onions and lettuce. It was fantastic too! (Our sandwiches were cut in two, so we each traded half a sandwich with each other). The service was fast and the ambiance was unique and cheerful. I'm so glad we went there and I hope we return soon! :D
And now some photos from our trip:
Me signing the log at the first cache we found. That's some of my motorcycle gear. :) We were sitting on the banks of Alameda Creek, which wasn't very full for this time of year, due to our overly dry winter.
Me standing with a gorgeous, massive, multi-trunked sycamore (or maybe several growing together) in the same park. There was a cache cleverly hidden IN this tree! But that's all I'll say! ;)
We never saw a geocaching container like THIS before! Neither of us has an Android phone so we don't know how the accessories are sold, but we're assuming some type of accessory came inside this cute collectible robot. :) Anyone know?
The Niles Town Plaza and train depot. Shawn centered this photo so perfectly, I really think it looks like a postcard!
This old-fashioned railroad crossing sign and light was swinging when we got there, so we thought a train was coming. Turns out, it's set to swing ENDLESSLY! As Shawn said, it was amusing... for the first few minutes! ;) Then we started thinking maybe someone should lubricate the mechanism to quiet it a bit. heh. There was a cache hidden somewhere around here; we spent a long time looking but coudln't find it. We later saw on Geocaching.com that it had gone missing. :( Apparently it was hidden on or in one of the strawberry trees (Arbutus unedo) around the plaza -- maybe even the one to the left in this pic!
