Living An Intentional Life
This past weekend was spent eating Chinese food (to celebrate the new year!) and watching the X games. D got me hooked on watching the superpipe a couple of years back. My favorite snowboarder has got to be Shaun White, aka “The Flying Tomato”, or “Senor Blanco”. He is the coolest dork ever–straight kickin’! This year he won gold! Can’t wait for the Winter Games…must make sure there is enough room on our Tivo before they start.
One of my hobbies is trying new restaurants. I think D sometimes gets annoyed because I always want to go somewhere new instead of sticking with the tried and true. However, D proved his taste for adventure when he ordered the “Peruvian Punch” made of purple corn at Nory’s Peruvian Restaurant a couple of weeks ago. It is an acquired taste. Pictured is D’s order of rotisserie chicken. I had chicken fried rice. They also give you some rolls to dip in a small bowl of aji–a light green, spicy sauce that contains peanuts and crackers, according to our waiter.
I just got the Orange County Entertainment Book for 2006, so that will be dictating our dining choices in the upcoming months.
If you need a good laugh, read Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. It really is an encyclopedia, from A to Z, of observations of her life. So many of them rang true with me, and many of them are about things that no one bothers to talk about. My favorite entries are “Drying Off” and “Love”. I was literally laughing so hard I could not tell D what I was laughing about, which never happens when I’m reading.
Old Oven
New Oven!
I’m excited about our new oven/range, but it is so nice and clean, I am kind of afraid to use it. I’m sure I’ll get over it, though.
OK, enough about the LA Auto Show. More about last Sat., though. After spending 3 hours at the show, we ventured out to the SGV to meet up with Derek’s ex-roommate at IU who was visiting from NJ. We had some time to kill, so we ate lunch at a place called Ajisen. I had some milky pork ramen and D had some CA rolls and gyoza. Then we met up with Dan at Tea Station. Thankfully, there were no plastic tops to contend with at this boba place! Then we ate dinner to celebrate my little sis’ birthday. Afterward my family played a game of Apples to Apples and it was actually fun! My mom always tries to get us to play games without much success. However, she read about this game on Amazon and one of the reviews said it’s good even if you don’t really like games, and I must agree.
Here are yet some more pics from the auto show.
D & a Monster Truck
Look, my shirt is the same color as the electric car!
NICE!
Melissa, this one’s for you.
Dad, this one’s for you.
Michael J. Fox, this one’s for you.
Suzuki…gotta love those Japanese!
Since watching The Apprentice, I’ve become more aware of the thought that goes into marketing campaigns. Here are some of the more creative set-ups at the auto show. The top picture is of a pod at the VW display. When you turn around in it, there’s a video screen and there’s surround sound. The second picture is a water display by Buick. The third picture is in the Porsche “lounge”. Lastly, I can’t believe Volvo made their reps wear these turquoise suits with white shoes…so not cool. D also used the Chevy penny machine to make a penny stamped with the Chevrolet logo, but the picture didn’t turn out very well.
Before the CX-7 came along, D was obsessed with the Subaru Outback (It has AWD! Look at the ground clearance!) So, of course we had to check it out.
Yesterday D & I went to the LA Auto Show (shout out to K for getting us tickets). This will be a multi-part post because we took a lot of pictures, and the thought of one big post is too over-whelming. Anyway, D was excited to see the new Mazda CX-7, (a cross-over) which had its first unveiling at the LA Auto Show. D was disappointed that the doors were locked, but he liked how it looked from the outside. Now he says we are going to get one in a year and a half, but we’ll see how long that lasts! 🙂
Last night, D and I went to eat at BCD Tofu in Garden Grove. We shared the short rib combo, which comes with soon tofu, pictured here (we also ordered one extra stone pot of rice). As you can see, it was a cauldron of bubbling spiciness, sputtering out onto my paper place mat. We requested “medium” spiciness, and it was quite good. The ribs also came piping hot, served on a sizzling plate. It was a good amount of meat, so I’m glad we shared. While we were waiting for our food, the restaurant played “Arthur’s Theme” by Christopher Cross, a favorite of mine. Good times. The waitresses also tried speaking to us in Korean–haha.
Now, on to the story for which this entry is named. After our dinner, I suggested that we go to the boba place at the end of the strip mall, called Boba Loca. D tried to poke the big straw through the plastic top, but it wouldn’t go through. So, he held the cup steady and jammed the straw with all of his might and broke the whole cup! Milk tea spilled all over the counter, bar stool and floor. D asked for a new one and I tried to mop up as best I could with the paper napkins. We had the cashier poke the hole in our new boba so we wouldn’t have a repeat disaster and we quickly left. The cup had a Bible verse on it, just like In-n-out!
Afterwards, we hung out at the Block. They have added a lot of stores recently that I hadn’t seen before. There was cool looking gelato place called Melt that we should try some day. D bought a Berkeley sweatshirt at Steve and Barry’s. Everything in the store was $7.98! D used to go to that store in Indiana for IU t-shirts, but I guess they’re expanding. The t-shirts were super cheap and the iron-on writing would come off after a few washings. However, D’s sweatshirt is embroidered, so hopefully it will last longer.
