New Phone

Sat & I went to renew our phone service, since it's been two years. Well, the only reason to renew our service is to get a new free phone.

We were told that we will have to upgrade to the Family 450 plan. It's the same plan we were on, but it's still called an "upgrade." From Cingular to AT&T?

The girl showed us the different free phones.
A NOKIA flip phone in black & red (no strap loop). A Samsung slide phone in black, green & orange (no strap loop). And a LG flip phone in black & plum (w/ strap loop).

Needless to say, I got the LP flip phone.
WHY don't they have strap loops on all cell phones!?

Sat & じゅるるthought the plum was a cute color. Not too girly, but more woman-y than the black phone. So I went with plum. It looks like a faded black anyway.


Sat decided not to get a new phone, and opted to get $100 cash back. Although her main reason was that she didn't want to switch phone numbers over from the old phone to the new phone.

BUT we get new SIM cards when you renew the contract, so she has to re-enter all the phone numbers anyway.

So my cell phone has no one's phone numbers. And it's hard for me to copy the phone numbers from my old phone, because I can't see anything on the screen anymore.

Please call my cell phone, or email me your numbers.

Dim Sum @ MPK

Sat, じゅるる, Vu, Ichigo & I went to eat dim sum in Monterey Park. Sat called it "626" but I think that number is the street number of the restaurant. It's the usual place we go to on Atlantic & Garvey.

Ichigo said
「飲茶久しぶりなのよね～」

And Sat, じゅるる and I said
「２週間前に来たばっかりだよ」

Ichigo turns to Vu & asks
「Vuは？」

(Note that all of this is in Japanese...)

Vu pauses for a second, and says
"Father's Day."

How did he understand what we were talking about!? I think he's secretly learning Japanese, like Erikku did.

At the end of brunch, Ichigo was tapping her face with a 扇子.

I was thinking「洒落たモノ使ってるな～」when she opened the扇子.

It's a Hikaru no Go扇子.
Probably a sample I got from someone.


If she keeps using samples I get from work, she's gonna start looking like anヲタ.

New Ralphs Card

じゅるるand I went to Ralphs, and we were greeted by a young woman at a table. She asked if we wanted to sign up for the new Ralphs card.

It seems like Ralphs is getting rid of the old card system, and starting a new one. It's the same Ralphs Club savings, plus you get points for shopping there. And something about getting a gift certificate when you accrue points.

So I looked it up.
It's $1 = 1 point. 500 points = $5 gift certificate. $5 for spending $500... not so bad.

They have four different colors to choose from.


じゅるるpicked pink, because it'll stand out.
He gave me the spare key ring card, but I told him Sat would want me to use her card b/c she'll want the gift certificate. I guess they could fight over my purchase points.

PS. They were giving away cookies, candy bars & water, but we didn't take any. I should have taken the bottle of water...

Ear Infection

My ear's been hurting since Tuesday, so I went to the doctor today to get it checked out.

I had a hard time getting the appointment, but reception lady squeezed me in. So I stopped by Amandine bakery to buy four cakes to give to Dr ウ and his staff.

Dr ウchecked my ear.
「水溜まってるネ～。中耳炎、寸前だよ。来て良かったネ～。」

He said I need to take antibiotics and get ear drops. So he goes looking for sample medicine, and hands me a bottle & packs of pills. He said he only had 4 antibiotics, so I had to go buy the last pill.

I went to the pharmacy to pick up the last pill. Although at that point, I should have thought "screw the last pill" because I ended up paying for the flat rate non-generic prescription fee for ONE PILL! I have other antibiotics at home... I could have just taken one of those. Sheesh!

At the pharmacy, I noticed the bottle Dr ウ gave me said NASAL SPRAY.

Didn't he say ear drops?
Don't I have an infection in my ear?

Maybe it's because the nose is connected to the ear. Or so I tried to convince myself. Or maybe he gave me the wrong sample. I guess I'll have to look up the medicine name to see what it's for. Where is Duckie when you need him?

So here is the nasal spray & antibiotic sample I got from Dr ウ


I also picked up a bottle of vitamins, thinking I should start taking care of my body.


50 caplets, so it should be all gone in 2 months.
Let's see how long this "take care of my body" resolution lasts.
But for now, the caplets are berry flavored and sweet like candy. Yum!

PS. After using the nasal spray, there's a lot of mucus going down my throat. One, two three... Ewww!

Freebies: Multi-Grain Cheerios

My weekly sweepstakes addicts anonymous mailer came today.

Today's hit items?
Multi-Grain Cheerios from Walmart.
Energy saving lightbulbs (2 of them!) from Energy Watch.com

I also requested for wild flower seeds (for bees), multi-surface wipes (for furniture) and feminine wipes. TMI!

Too bad I don't drink coffee or want a skanky tank top from Wet Seal.

I Heard Mike Went on a Date

I heard Mike went on a date.

Or that's what the buzz was around the boys over the weekend.

I think we have a very attractive & very eligible group of boys, who rarely go on dates. Well, they go on dates together... seeing movies with each other every weekend.

So the boys got gossipy as soon as one of their own was going on a date.

How cute.

Shiz Can't Cook Series: Somen

It's still hot!

But I went to work because there was a lot of things I needed to take care of at the office. Otherwise I would have napped all day at home until it got cooler. Prince couldn't handle the heat, so we turned on the A/C today. No wonder I got a lot of work done today.

Anyway, back to the non-cooking person's food diary.

I ate decently last week because I was an 居候 atじゅるる's. It's like living with Ichigo, but without the nagging. And Sat was happy to have the place all to herself. It's a win-win situation for both me & Sat, but maybe not for じゅるる.

Now my first day back home, and I was going to stop by Trader Joe's to buy a salad for dinner... but I stayed too late at work (damn A/C!), and couldn't make it there on time.

Hungry with no pre-made food, I decided I'll eat somen. It's just boiling noodles for 3 minutes. It's like instant ramen!

So I take out a bundle of somen.


Boil it for 3 minutes & rinse the noodles in cold water.


Then pour a little bit of本つゆ into a bowl, add 4 parts water to make the sauce. And cut a little bit of ham (although I only had deli sliced ham, but it'll do). And voila! Quick and easy dinner.


But while I was cutting the ham, the cat was on the table munching on the noodles! When I yelled at her, the cat looked up with noodles hanging out of her mouth. And ran behind the TV with couple of strands that were still in her mouth.

I guess that's what I get for feeding the cat somen earlier...

But it's fun feeding a cat that eats anything.

I didn't mess up today, but boiling noodles, diluting concentrated sauce & cutting ham isn't "cooking" either.

Hot Weekend, Even for a Cat

Hot weekend. Well, it's more than half way into June so it's about time.

Our cat who likes to sunbathe in my room couldn't take the heat either.

So she moves around the house looking for a cool spot.

This is one of her favorite spots.

Between the front entrance and the sliding door to the balcony.

The breeze from the doorway.
And the wind from the osculating fan.

幸せです。

Quickie Car Wash

I had a lunch date with A-san & K-san from Japan, so I decided to get a quick car wash... cuz my car is covered with dust & ickiness. Ichigo's been too busy moving to get my car washed at the cheap Korean places in K-town.

I went to a Shell station nearじゅるる's, since they have a self-serve car wash stand.

I filled up a little bit of gas & got the basic wash. Six dollah.

It's been a long time since I used the self-serve car wash stand, so I listened to every sentence said by the machine. With all the excitement, I forgot to take a photo of the machine or the car wash stand entrance.

But I did take photos while I was inside!

Soap sud spray


And the giant brushes


If I had a Japanese blog about life in the US, I'd write all about this...

My car is now semi-clean.
I didn't drive slow enough through the blow drier at the end, so I have white spots here and there. But better than having a dusty car.

Parking Ticket... Tricked!

I got a parking ticket this morning.

I could have sworn the side street's street cleaning day was Thursday, but the sign said Wednesday.

But if the main street is also on a Wednesday, where is everyone supposed to park?

I was pretty certain street cleaning was on Thursday though. So I took a a close look at the sign.

There are new "Wednesday" stickers on the signs.

I think the city is trying to cut costs by having street cleaning in the same area at the same time, so they don't have to pay extra staff hours. And maybe to save gas.

At least it's only $35. If it were Santa Monica, it'd be $60.

Sweepstakes: InTouch Magazine, Gatorade

Three posts in a day? Yes, this is what happens when I'm working from home. Another reason not to become a freelancer. I spend all day writing blogs (that's part of my job!) and looking up sweepstakes to enter.

So Sweepstakes Addicts Anonymous pointed me towards several of the enter-once-per-day sweepstakes.

I don't bother returning to these sites, but InTouch Magazine has almost 40 sweepstakes on one site, so I might happily go there daily to enter.
In Touch Magazine's Win It

I know it's a tabloid magazine, but they have a one-click feature that will let you enter automatically every day. It's too easy? Well, I'm not really expecting to win.

And Gatorade.com's Out of this World sweepstakes. I guess you can pick your $75k ultimate out-of-this-world experience. But don't you need several millions to go out into space?

Oh no! I'm getting sucked into these sweepstakes pages.
I'm supposed to run errands today too. Time to switch back into maid mode & go buy milk, kitchen trash bags & bread.

Freebies: Shampoo

I got the weekly newsletter from the sweepstakes addicts website. That's not their official name, but that's what I like to call them.

I never checked out their freebies section, but it said "Free Pantene Shampoo" so I had to click.

Yes, I requested my free shampoo pack.
Free Pantene Pro-V Expressions

There's lots of free things out there. I don't need all of them, but here are some interesting ones.

Free Pup-Peroni snacks for dogs. I'm guessing Koge (cat) would eat this, so I requested free samples.

I thought of Ards when I saw the free walking journal. It's only for businesses, who want to motivate their employees to become healthy & walk more. Maybe Sofie can order it for Ards.

And a free colorectal cancer awareness pin! It's actually a very cute blue star-shaped logo (at least I'm assuming that I'm getting this logo as a pin)


Isn't Katie Couric an advocate of colon cancer screening? I think her husband died from it.

Dead Finger Nail Pops Off on Week 20

I slammed my finger in a car door back on Feb 1, 2008. I wrote about it on my work blog, and I kept a photo history of my dead finger nail on Flickr, if you're interested in the history.

For those who haven't heard the story... I was about to close the car door, when it slammed shut on my thumb. I think the car is a Volvo, and non-Japanese cars have heavy doors, as I found out painfully. My finger was between the car & car door, and the door was completely closed. Not even a little bit of space for my poor finger.

So after sitting through an hour-long meeting with a throbbing finger, my finger doubled in size.

Of course Sat kicked me out of the house (she always does when I'm sick), and じゅるるsaid I was whimpering all night long.

No, I didn't go see a doctor. I figured if anything was broken, I'd be hurting more.

So fast forward 20 weeks later.
I was about to go to bed & body slammed じゅるる when I heard a「メキメキ」sound. And a bit of pain. My finger nail had bent forward from the tip end, and the base part that was attached to the new nail with dried up blood had popped off.

After yelling,「ツメがモゲた！」(trans. "nail tore off), the first thing I did was take photos for the blog.

じゅるる, who was worried initially, was probably thinking "Oh gawd..."

Here's the first photo I took immediately afterwards

Can you tell that the nail is floating up on the base end?

じゅるるwas scared the nail would fall off during the middle of the night, so I put a BandAid on it.


The nail didn't completely come off yet, but maybe it'll come off while I do housework today.

Found Old Friends on LinkedIn, ISA version

I logged into LinkedIn because a few industry folks sent a connect request.

Since I was logged in, I thought I'd browse around. If LinkedIn is an ad revenue generating site, I'm not a good consumer since I only log in once a month. But my profile is at 90% complete, so I must have spent enough time on there.

I remembered that one of my ISA friends Peter had located me, so I decided to take a look through his connections. And I found three old friends, so sent them connect requests. And they seem to be wired people (old term?), so they got back quickly.

Here's an update on them.

Roy: He's still in Japan & working in finance now. He was wondering if Luke was still in Japan, so I guess I'll play matchmaker. Forgot to ask him if he's married, so I guess that'll be my next email topic.

Stephanie: She's in Washington DC as a consultant or other. I guess she got a master's along the way too.

Stan: He said he & Marigee have a son now! I didn't see Marigee on Peter's connection... I wonder if she's on LinkedIn?

I guess I can tell them about this blog, but I wonder if they'll be able to read regularly since they seem like busy people. Unlike my friends from the later half of my college years, who Flickr, RSS-stalk & chat during work hours.

Father's Day Dim Sum, Minus Dad

Today Sat, じゅるる and I went to eat dim sum in MPK area.

It was supposed to be a Father's Day brunch, but dad said he was gonna go play golf. Ichigo said she had to work, but it was the afternoon shift... but Sat forgot to invite her.

We went to 888 Seafood on Valley, because we wanted to go to the foot massage again.

It was crowded when we got there, but they opened up seats in the back banquet rooms & we got to sit down after a 20-minute wait. Food photos are on Sat's Flickr account (not at this time, but soon enough!).

As we were leaving, we saw some familiar faces.
It was Jason & Rhona (and their respective spouses)!

Jason said he's heading out to Arizona in July. He was supposed to start in June, but they pushed it back to July.

"Budget cuts, maybe." he said.

He's starting his police academy in the summer session, so he's gonna have to suffer in the 120+ degree weather. Eek! His parents said it's "only" about 90 degrees right now. Ugh!

Rhona said the people & atmosphere of Costa Mesa is really nice. And she commutes to Santa Monica daily. Time to ask for some telecommuting hours, she said.

We chatted a bit about the industry & all the layoffs at TP. And what they knew about former & still-there G staff. I gave them a bit of an update about the folks around us (mainly Chris).

It was a pleasant surprise on Father's Day minus dad.

お留守番

今日はじゅるるの家でお留守番。
週末も仕事しなきゃいけないってゆーのに、押し付けたのだ。

１日テレビを見ながら翻訳の仕事をしてました。
It's nice to have cable TV.
うちもほしいな。
But Sat won't agree to it. Darn.

お菓子もたくさん買ってあったし。
極楽、極楽～

ちゃんとお手伝いもしました。
洗濯もドライヤーに入れて、出して、たたんで。
（洗濯機に入れたのはじゅるるん）

ご褒美に会社に置いてあったケーキを持って帰ってきてくれました。


Maybe they had a birthday party on Friday?
The dark colored one isn't chocolate. It's not brown, but red-ish! It was a bit lemon-y, so maybe cherry flavored cake? The smaller yellow one is lemon & the big yellow one is caramel marble cake.

Poop Calendar

If you are eating dinner (or breakfast or lunch or snacking), I apologize in advance. You may want to read this later.

Since May, I've been using Google calendar to keep track of my poop schedule. I was getting worried about my regularity, since I wouldn't go number two for almost 5 days.

Lately, I'm starting to become a lot regular.

Well, not "regular" because I'm not on a routine schedule. But I'm going more frequently.

I eat a lot of fiber (wheat bread, cereal, oatmeal, veggies), so it's always been puzzling why I get clogged up. And I don't think I changed my diet (or exercise... = not at all!) much, so my poop schedule is still a mystery.

But I might want to thank this cereal for making me go more frequently


I buy this at Trader Joe's along w/ the granola cereals I get from there. The granola cereals are a little too sweet, so I like to mix with these grainy & hard flakes. I like bran flakes, but most of them come with raisins & I don't want to pick out the raisins each time (like I do at hotels during conventions).

It feels good to have poop come out regularly... although I don't think I'll ever get to the point of going once a day.

Shiz Can't Cook Series: Chicken Adobo

I had leftover chicken from last Friday (see Shiz Can't Cook: Chicken Noodle Casserole), and I was worried it was gonna go bad soon.

Sat was going to cook it using Mr. Yoshida teriyaki sauce, but sniffed it & decided that it was borderline bad. She's a type that won't go for anything on the borderline.

On the other hand, I tend to go on the borderline okay side of things.

So I decided to make chicken adobo, since it seems safer to 煮込む the chicken.

As usual, no measurements. Just by gut feeling.

Equal parts soy sauce & vinegar. Plus water to make it easier to simmer the chicken. And two cloves of garlic.


The recipe note on my fridge also said pepper & ginger, but we didn't have those lying around. What's a little flavor?

As the liquid boiled down, it started to smell very adobo-like. Drool.


Hopefully it's not too salty.
Now do I have rice to eat it tomorrow?

Amazon Wish List

Ards asked me to update my Amazon wish list for my birthday.

So I went through Amazon & created a new list called "Shiz Birthday 2008."


Not that this is a solicitation for birthday presents...

It's exactly 1 month to my 33rd... ahem.

Helping Ichigo Move

I went over to Ichigo's place w/ Dee to help her move.

But before we get to her move, this is her reaction to the Belmont Stakes from yesterday.
「もぉ～、大穴が入っちゃって誰も当たらなかったのよ。もう落ち込んじゃって片付ける気にならない～」

Later Ichigo mentioned that you can buy $1 bets for the Belmont race, so she should have bought it for the other horses. $1 would have turned into $45, although I doubt that would have made her break even.

Anyway, back at Ichigo's place...
She had moved most of the big things with 板前 S-san, like the bed, dresser, desk & sofa. Which didn't leave a lot of things for Dee to do, but we helped her move some of the furniture around & take some of the small-but-heavy items. Like drawers full of kimono & photo albums.

The new apartment is much smaller & a lot of Ichigo's old furniture won't fit. So we decided to toss out the desk, and she's giving the dining table to a family on the first floor.

There's a lot of stuff from Sat's HS days, so we'll have to figure out what things to take to Westwood & what to toss out.

A bunch of photo albums came pouring out from Ichigo's room, so Dee & I spent the last hour looking through them and laughing at the early 90s hair & clothes. And photos of skinny Vu. And when Bert had hair. And when Shiz was a boy.


Photos are being uploaded to my Flickr account (need to be a friend to view).

Amandine Bakery in WLA

I went to Amandine bakery in WLA (Wilshire & Bundy) to buy some croissants that Kaname's been raving about.


I think he said it was a Japanese owned bakery, but isn't a Japanese-ish bakery (like Pasco) and more like a European bakery.

I bought three kinds of croissants.

1. plain croissant ($1.50)
It's flake-y on the outside & very buttery in the inside. And the bottom side is crunchy! Kaname suggested eating it as a ham sandwich, and it was yummy.

2. almond croissant ($2.25)
This one has a thin layer of creamy paste folded inside. And a メロンパン-like sugar crust w/ almonds on top. This is a sweet, breakfast danish-like bread.

3. mini croissant ($0.99)
Kaname mentioned this as being sweeter than the plain croissant, and it is! It seems like they add sugar or syrup into the pastry dough.

A young Japanese man helped me with my big, complicated order. I wonder if he's the owner-chef? (baker?) I wish they had smaller boxes for taking pastries home, though. He put 6 croissants into a big cake box (!)

They had other fruit tarts & danishes, so I'll try them next time.
And buy the croissants too.

Shiz Can't Cook Series: Chicken Noodle Casserole

I decided to make a chicken noodle casserole... after reading Rishiri Konbu's Real Inter-racial Marriage blog. She talks about how her mother-in-law made a casserole & how she's been imitating and arranging the ingredients.

Today is a photo blog:


Shopping at Ralphs. Bought chicken thigh, zucchini, broccoli & mayo.

I also bought bread, which we've been out of since Fanime. I always buy two types -- 12 grain bread & wheat bread. And I bought another jar of pineapple preserve & a pack of sliced ham.


The ingredients of the casserole. I already had a can of Campbell cream of mushroom soup, and I forgot to include it in the picture. Oh, milk too.


I started cutting the zucchini & realized two whole zucchini was too much for an 8" square casserole dish. This is what happens when you don't plan ahead of time.


Egg noodles were boiled for 7 minutes, since Jon told me to not cook them all the way. Of course I cooked too much pasta for the casserole dish too...


So after dumping in all the ingredients into the casserole dish, the pasta was overflowing. So I had to take some of it out.


Sauce mixture of cream of mushroom soup, mayo & milk.

Of course I didn't measure any of it.
The only measured item was the can of soup, because I used the whole can. OK, that's not measuring... but it's exactly what the recipe (that I didn't follow) said.

I ended up not putting in enough mayo. I guess I should have made it almost 1-to-1, but since I was adding milk, I thought I should use less mayo. Mental note: follow じゅるる's instructions.

I wanted to add mustard to the sauce mix, but all the mustard in our house was old.


I poured the sauce mix onto the pasta mix. I mixed it up a bit, but I should have covered up all the pasta w/ the sauce because the non-covered pasta came out crispy & hard.

And topped the casserole w/ Parmesan cheese. I wish I had a food processor to make bread crumbs... Maybe should have used パン粉?


Chicken noodle casserole finished!

It wasn't so bad, I think. But there was a lot of crunchy pieces along the edges.


See, we finished. So it wasn't bad at all.


Next attempt?
Sloppy Joe's

Or home-made pizza dough (and the rest of the pizza), although that may be too big of a jump for Shiz who can't cook.

PS.

I was going to include broccoli in the casserole. But I didn't clean the frying pan after cooking the chicken & zucchini, and the burned bits made the broccoli brown... and I didn't think the burnt pieces would look good in a white-ish cream sauce.

Grunion Run Season (Personal Edition)

I wrote about the grunion run on Industry Babble, but this is the personal friends edition.

Dee came by the office yesterday & started talking about the grunion run season starting. He's been wanting to do a group event ever since the miniature golf thing (Feb 2008), so this is going to be his new project. But will he make an Evite on his own?? I should stop doing it for him. It's about time he grew up and made his own Evite.

The next grunion run is June 18th - 21st, so look out for an Evite soon.

Hollywood Bowl Tickets Arrive, part 1

Last week, I saw an unmarked envelope on our living room コタツ.

I open it up & it was the "John Williams Concert" at the Hollywood Bowl. 12 tickets total, for all the geek friends who want to go.


I know I would lose the tickets, so I gave it to Sat to hold onto.

I do that with all important things. Like my US passport.

I haven't received tickets for the other concert "Tchaikovsky Fireworks" yet. I should call them about it...

Girls' Night Out Canceled

Sat had been planning a girls' night out this Friday. Dinner + karaoke in Little Tokyo.

But she got bombarded with work & started to feel feverish (from not wanting to work?), she canceled the event.

The girls who were planning on participating:
Sat, Shiz, Sasami & Sofie (all "S"... altho Sasami doesn't really count)

The girls who opted out:
1) Ards
Was initially planning on coming. Then realized the metro rail only runs on weekdays. Too far + something on Saturday (like reading romance novels). Sat told her "I only cc'd you in the email as courtesy. None of us expected you to come." Dissed!

2) Steph
Was initially planning on coming, then realized she's a guest at a convention. Celebrities...

3) Nadine
Somewhere out in Colorado.

4) Hangyee
Hm. What was her reason?

Anyway, we'll have to wait until after July to plan another girls' night out.

Worst Dinner Photo, Ever

Went to eat at Hop Woo w/ Sat & Sasami.

We forgot to take photos before we started eating, so this is my attempt at taking a group photo after dinner.

Sasami cut off. Shiz & Sat not even in the photo (just a bit of my head). Dirty table cloth. Too dark & a little blurry.

I took it with the camera upside down. And my hand was shaking from the weird angle. I didn't even try a second attempt, thinking this would make a better blog entry.

PS. Sasami is making cupcakes next. More goodies for us. Yay!

Old Lady in the Office

It's been pretty cool at the office, with a breeze coming in from the front entrance (we keep our doors open because we don't believe in using the A/C).

But it's a little too chilly for an old lady like me.
And the cut where the lump was removed from hurts when it gets too chilly.

I was in a bit of pain yesterday, so I came to work wearing a magnetic belt.
It's something Ichigo lent me, and it's supposed to keep the area warm using magnets & blood circulation or something.

At first I wanted to hide the ugly beige belt, so I came into work with a jacket on. Then I changed into the red ハンテン I leave in the office. But it got a little warm.

And who do I have to impress at the office anyway?

So I wore the magnetic belt in full view.


オバサン道、まっしぐら。

怪しい Person Walking Around in COSTCO

Sat needed new glasses & I was on my last pair of contact lenses, so we made an appointment at the eye doctor at Marina del Rey COSTCO.

Sat, who had good insurance coverage at H Co & continued her coverage using COBRA, has been going to a different (= more expensive) eye doctor in the area. But now that she's on her self-employed health insurance, she went the poorman route & went to COSTCO with me.

I'm lazy, so I like to get go get an eye exam every other year & stockpile contact lenses right before the prescription expires. And I just ran out of my two-year supply.

Sat likes to drag me along when she gets glasses b/c in her opinion, I would give her the most honest opinion on what looks good (and bad) on her. We do that with dresses & outfits too.

Sat wanted to get black rimmed glasses this time (her current one is purple-ish wire), so we pulled off every single one from the wall. Ironically, the one that had the best shape was reddish. So she went w/ the 3rd best looking one w/ a simple black plastic frame (the 2nd best looking one was dark tortoise, but had these weird green decoration on the front tips).

Meanwhile, I had my eyes dilated... and I was dropping glasses here & there cuz I couldn't see the holes on the wall.

And I needed Sat to read the name on the prescription I got back from the woman working the prescription counter. Sat likes to call her the 馬のお姉さん because she has long thin features. 細いんだけど、キレイじゃないんだわ。

I got the plastic temporary sunglasses to wear while we drove home.
This is me in the car, looking very 怪しい, sipping a very berry smoothie. Which tastes like a watered down CoolAid.


Sat said I look like "Kinoko-chan" of "Dr Slump."


(Jyun Googled it for those who don't know what she looks like)

Foot Massage w/ Sat (+ Hong Kong Deli)

Sat & I went to get a foot massage in Monterey Park today. We invited Dave, but he didn't like it that much last time he went w/ Sat. He said he only needs a massage on his shoulders & back, and being massaged elsewhere (arms, face, head & feet) didn't do anything for him.

This time we went to the foot massage place that's right next to Hong Kong Deli on Valley Blvd (between New Ave & Del Mar Ave). Sat said it had three good reviews on Yelp, so she wanted to try it out.

We got there around 8:30pm, and it looked pretty crowded. But we needed to eat first, so we went into Hong Kong Deli.

At Hong Kong Deli, we ordered 2 entrées (veggie plate & noodles w/ soup), when the waiter/owner asked us if we wanted to add a half-chicken for $1.

Huh?

He showed us a photo, and it was a serving of half a chicken.
For $1.

We said sure... and noticed that other tables also had a plate of chicken. Are they leftovers? Do they have excess chicken? Is it a special weekend price?

The kabocha (Japanese pumpkin) dish Sat ordered was different from what she expected, but it was good. The fish puff & pork brisket noodles was yummy as always, and the $1 cold chicken dish was actually pretty good. Please look at Sat's Flickr account for photos of the food.

So we went to the foot massage place. It was still busy, but they told us two seats will be open in 2 minutes. This place's decoration motif was animal print, with cow print ottoman & zebra print cushions.

I got a mid-30s ish woman, and Sat got a late 20s young man. Sat prefers male masseuse because they're stronger. I like middle aged women because they seem to be more sensitive to your needs. But it really depends on each individual masseuse in the end.

After the hour-long massage, we went to the konjac (こんにゃく) drink place in the same plaza. Sat got konjac w/ aloe & I got konjac w/ grass jelly.

Sat decided this is going to be her one-stop Monterey Park area stop for food, massage & drink.

We thought about inviting Ben & Sofie next time, since they always complain about being bored.

PS. Koge insisted on having a taste of what I was drinking, so I gave her a tiny piece of konjac. She ate it & asked for more. This cat really eats anything.