The day started well with a phone call to my sister Mallory, who turned 29 yesterday. I followed that up with a call to my UMass friends, who were all tailgating and partying it up together on the East Coast at a UMass football game at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro. They passed the phone around and I got to hear the voices of several of my favorite people. There was lots of yelling, plenty of garbled conversation, many "wait, what???'s", and lots of UMASSSSSSSSSS! Love those guys fo' life.
Next I got pretty real with myself and decided it was seriously time to do something about the mountain of dirty dishes piling up in the dish bucket. The kitchen looked effing awesome by the time I was done with it, which filled me with the inspiration to actually cook something that night.
At this point it wasn't raining yet, so I took advantage of the sorta-sunshine and set off on foot to do some errands as well as continue my Saturday morning ritual of getting breakfast out at a restaurant.
I was going to (gasp!) repeat a restaurant and go back to Cafe Zen, but was deterred by the long line. I then noticed that there was another restaurant right next door, Abigail's Party, that was also serving breakfast and had no line. I scooted over there and was able to be seated at the end of a longer table immediately! Holla! That is one of the perks of going out to breakfast alone (Dave is still geo-manning in the Arctic) - it's not hard for restaurants to find room for one person. My seat even had a perfect view of the two cooks who were very professionally preparing the food and crafting the dishes behind the open serving station. I may despise cooking myself, but for some reason I love watching other people cook and put dishes together. It gave me something particularly interesting to occupy myself with while I was waiting for my meal, as normally I'd just people-watch and scope out the design of the restaurant space. I'm a very seasoned solo diner-outer.
My Brunch Clubhouse Sandwich was spectacular: avocado, fried egg, bacon, local greens, multi-grain bread, aged cheddar, aioli. Really incredible. The smell of it as I took my first bite reminded me of Esselon Cafe in Hadley, where Dave and I met in 2007. #WhatUpHadley. My sandwich was also served with some of the best homefries I've ever had. They had the most delicately crispy exterior and were seasoned with dill (an herb that always makes me think of my Grandmother and her amazing coleslaw recipe, which is heavy on the dill). They basically just melted in my mouth. It's making me hungry just thinking about it! I'm definitely going to go back to this restaurant, and I can't wait for Dave to try it as well.
After breakfast, I headed up the hill to 4th Ave to find the post office.
[Sidebar, I was wearing a brand new, extremely freaking cozy, minty-colored sweater that I just picked up on Friday night from the Forever21 that's a breezy 45 minutes away. I was slightly devastated when I learned that Vancouver does not have a Forever21 store at all. (#SickJokes.) I was slightly less devastated to see that they're actually in the process of opening one Downtown :) But truthfully my glee upon seeing the Forever21-in-progress was diminished by how much more work it appeared needed to be done before it would be ready to open. Fortunately, Google guided me to the nearest store in Burnaby, a town to Vancouver's slight southeast... but in Vancouvzie's traffic (which sucks) it was not a quick trip. After meticulously scouring the 2-floor store for about 2 hours, I ended up buying the mint 1/2 sleeve sweater and a new pair of earrings. Whoop!!]
The post office near my place is actually located inside one of Canada's many versions of a Walgreen's/CVS, Shopper's Drug Mart (who came up with that one?). I managed to not buy any new nail polish while I was there. Of note was that my two favorite face washes (this scrub and this cleanser) are sold for $10.49 each here in Canadian dollars (that's $10.54 US dollars, as of right this second. Curiously the US dollar has become slightly more valuable here in the last 72 hours), compared to the approximately $6.50 that they each cost in the States. So that sucks. #CanadianProblems
I mailed some bills (super exciting), bought my first Canadian stamps, purchased an In Style magazine to cut up for an upcoming collage project, and picked out a special card for my good friend (and loyal penpal) Stephanie.
Quick stop at a slightly inconspicuous coffee bar off of 4th Ave for a mocha before continuing on to
Urban Outfitters, where I walked around for 25 minutes holding two more of their nail polishes before deciding that I wasn't going to purchase anything else and probably shouldn't buy the nail polishes either. So I put them back and left.
After my morning of spending Canadian money, I headed back home to tackle my laundry issues, of which I had many. Like four loads worth of issues. It finally started raining while I was moving things from washer to dryer, prompting one of those popular "weather conversations" between myself and a stranger in the laundry room.
While the laundry was in the dryer I slipped in a grocery trip to make good on my promise to cook something that evening for dinner. With a 45-minute window I made it to the Safeway and back, picking up some kale, ground turkey, parmesan cheese, chicken broth, *cough* chocolate cake *cough*, sweet potatoes, and bread.
I had big plans of making a fancy grilled cheese for dinner, with kale chips and a sweet potato on the side. Successssful on all counts!
My grilled cheese consisted of:
- cheddar cheese
- parmesan cheese
- sauteed onions
- mango chutney
- baby spinach
I'd never made kale chips before and I was only assuming that the mango chutney would taste good with my grilled cheese. That they both turned out very well was a pleasant surprise! Cue chocolate cake and ice cream for dessert. Cue also guilt for not having gone to the gym since Thursday night.
I finished out my evening by watching The Other Guys (which just recently popped up in my Netflix streaming options, to my joy and surprise) and the newest episode of South Park.
Today I didn't even get out of bed until 11:30 - that never happens! Ever!! I blame it on both my new pillow and my lack of children. And also on the dreariness of the Vancouver rainy season, because it makes our bedroom extremely dark in the mornings.
Now it's 3:34 pm and the most constructive thing I've done today is paint my nails while writing this blog and half paying attention to the Patriots game. Perhaps not coincidentally, I also just played the word "LAZY" in my ongoing game against my brother in Words with Friends.
I hope you're having a great weekend! What have you been up to?
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