New Years' and Birthday
New Year's Eve got a little uncomfortable at home, so my sister and I celebrated my birthday early Friday night (she had to work on Monday, anyway). We went to this Japanese restaurant, Shogun, in Havertown, around 9p. Oddly enough, they weren't open till midnight, which was just "What??", but anyway. Got some chicken udon, which I did not like, but the scorpion ball/bowl I got more than made up for that. Had not had overproof rum before, but that stuff is (super) effective. I'm the lightweight of the two of us, so I got to finish her drink and not drive, so that was nice, and we returned to the now quiet house and watched Anderson Cooper get molested by Kathy Griffin (they are really funny; I'm glad CNN didn't ban her after that not-controversy a couple years ago) while the ball dropped. Was buzzed for like 3 hours off that one drink (-_-)
At midnight on my actual birthday, I got some of my presents, as my brother was going to sleep for the rest of the day. He got me some sparkling sake (natch) which was delicious, and a Japanese/English book of short stories. This one was really touching, as I'd wanted to get a book of fiction in the actual Japanese my sensei had recommended (Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto), but my go-to US importer of JP goods, sasugabooks, had gone out of business and amazon.co.jp will murder you with shipping costs. Want to order from bk1, but can't order just that, need to build up a collection of books/manga in order to justify it to myself. =| I'd told him about this and he managed to find this book locally, and it includes a story by Yoshimoto, too, as well as detailed explanations for phraseology in the translations and an audio CD as well. I was really touched.
I practice Japanese in one way by writing stories, and am never quite sure if my third-person is correct, so hopefully one of these is in third person (been first so far. Just have never felt comfortable with a first-person narrator myself, so obviously need some good examples for third.)
I also got a nice bottle of rum and my own "Big Joe" a la Cougar Town =D That single clip on the AV Club's website got me to watch the show, and it's hilarious (caught up over the weekend). And a Big Joe or Carl is invariably useful (and fragile, so be careful, careful). Now have a fleece sleeping bag thing, too, which is incredibly useful in a cold house when all you want to do is curl up and watch Fringe or stream something on Netflix,
My brother has taken in two cats - Humphrey (tabby and white with blue/green eyes) and Bogart/Tiny/Sam Spade/? (orange tabby) - for a friend for 3 months, and they arrived on Monday, too, which was a bit of a present in itself, as they're the most well-adjusted cats we've after had here. Couple hours in and they weren't scared, just wandering around looking for attention :)
My ice cream cake did melt some, but an hour in the freezer while I watched the new Daily Show/Colbert =D froze it right back into near-to-perfect consistency. A good day (^_^)