I had a nice night last night… I had to nudge Casey a little to let go of a bad traffic experience on the way home, poor guy. (smoochy-smoochy!) Then we were on our way for some meats at Redbones in Davis Square with my brother and his girlfriend.

Erica just got a job there a couple weeks ago and we got some super star treatment. Free appetizers! Free beers! It was so nice- all the staff kept coming over to say hello. Nice people.

I had a really interesting beer- Rogue Hazelnut Brown Nectar. It was super yummy but very different tasting, a little sweet. I love mostly anything hazelnut so I had to try it.

We stuffed ourselves silly on fried okra, corn pudding, broccoli, buffalo shrimp (mmm… crunchy!), brisket, salmon, coleslaw, chicken, beer, etc… Room for dessert? Um. I don’t think so.

I still think it is cool that Kyle is living nearby now. My brother is cool, man. I love hanging out with him and Erica is a sweetheart too. Her schedule makes me tired just thinking about it. She works in a clinic in downtown Boston that helps the homeless (she wants to be a doctor) and then works at Redbones to earn some cash. Yikes.

On the way home, Case and I saw this cool band, Amusia, playing at the end of Church Street. I have heard them before and the singer sounds pretty cool. We picked up their cd for $5.

I love that about Harvard Square- there are some talented people who just set up an amp on the sidewalk. It is awesome in the summer to just walk around and listen to the musicians. That is how we learned about Mieka Pauley- she was playing on the street during the Mayfair festival a couple years ago. She rocks!

Gah- now I am just rambling… I better do some work today.

…to mention that I got these for a gift at the conference last week!!

One of my colleagues, Jessica, from the University of Melbourne, carried those buggers for a long time before I came to relieve her. I was really late getting there because of some out of control French people. (long story: they paid the trolley driver to take them to the Irish reception even though the trolley was paid to go back and forth to the Australia reception. It was irritating because I had just come from the Irish reception, it was getting late, and the Australian reception was on the other side of town.)

So by the time I got there, Jessica had been hauling around these chocolate lovelies for about 3 hours (not to mention bringing them from Australia).

Have you ever had a Tim Tam? They are awesome Australian cookies and, for some reason I cannot possibly comprehend, they do not sell them here in the U.S. The caramel ones are my favorite and she gave me two boxes.

How sweet is she?! I feel so lucky.

YES!

I am now the proud owner of 5 containers of Mochi Ice Cream!!

nibble nibble…

Casey and I went to the cutest local restaurant, Seoul Food, tonight!

I was exhausted when I got home from work because it was extremely hot and humid and I had to carry a ton of stuff home for this conference that I am going to next week. My bag weighed in at 12 lbs. (!!) when I got home. ouch.

Anyway, I had a severe case of grumpypantitis when Casey got in from work. We decided just to walk for a little while to enjoy the nice night (cooled off, thank goodness!) and I remembered this little Korean restaurant that I pass on the way to the train every day.

We have gotten Korean food before but were not really sure how to eat it or what to order. The owners, Clara and Yoong (Yoong Koo?), were very helpful about telling you how to eat everything. The couple at the table next to us had a bit of a hard time because Yoong was distracted from taking our order by the way that they were eating their BiBim Bab. They had pulled out their own portions without stirring it up first. Yoong said to them, “Do you mind putting it back in the bowl?” As if he just could not imagine ruining perfectly good BiBim Bab by eating it like that. Poor kids.

We got a lovely soup and some tofu Bibim Bab and it was good stuff. Clara was the cutest woman- she helped me find some paper towel to dab my shirt after I splattered some sauce on it (typical).

The BEST part was that they have these little ice cream packets of happiness called, Mochi Ice Cream. Have you ever heard of this? You must try it!! It is all soft and firm on the outside and the inside is creamy ice cream. I can’t even describe the yumminess. You will simply have to find it!

We might have found a Friday night ritual! Thank you Seoul Food and Mochi Ice Cream for turning my mood around. I love spending time with my boy and finding new local places that we enjoy. It is so fun to learn about new kinds of food.

(ok- enough gushing…)

buh-bye!

This cracks me up.

Casey and I went out to dinner last night to the funky tapas (no not topless) restaurant, Cuchi Cuchi, with Laura, Laura’s Mom who is visiting from CA, and Bridget. The restaurant is the coolest- all the waitresses wear swanky clothes and lots of sparkly jewelry.

We had fun and I can prove it! Here, LOOK:

Bridget and I also had a tarot card reading at the restaurant. I had never had one before and wasn’t sure what I thought about the whole thing. I would really like to believe that stuff like that works but the little girl inside me who found out that Santa does not exist has some doubts! She said some stuff that was dead on and some other things that were not so accurate. If anything, she confirmed that I need to take better care of myself, something that I knew already. (not bad to hear though) Also, she knew what Casey does for a living and said that we will do very well financially. (also not bad to hear) She also said that I should take a multivitamin- go figure.

Sitting here waiting for the boy so that we can go get some FOODS!
(grumble. grumble.)

Had a very nice afternoon. Casey and I walked down to a fairly new asian cafe place, Sweetea Cafe, and got a funky lemongrass chicken sandwich, some spring rolls, and wonton soup. The boy got a banana shake thing (yuck- banana) and I got a bubble tea (yippi!). Fun was had by all.

After a loverly meal, I proceeded to drag the poor guy into every store we passed. His patience held out to the end- thank goodness. We have a birthday fest tomorrow- one of his sister’s, other sister’s boyfriend, and cousin and, of course, Mother’s Day. So we had to do a bit of shopping. Incidently, I found the coolest container for q-tips:

Which may end up holding something knitting related eventually- it is a SHEEP!

Time to light a fire under his ass- see ya!

I love Saturday- it is the best day. No work and you can do whatever you want. My only complaint is that it seems to go by way too fast.

Had a nice night last night even though Casey was being a grump. Poor guy- bad traffic day. (He has to commute from Cambridge to Marlborough and on fridays, for some odd reason, the traffic is always a bitch.)

My brother came over to hang out, which is awesome. He moved up to Somerville in November, after graduating from college. It is awesome to have him near by and we need to hang out more.

Since the boy was in traffic hell, we decided to go pick up some yummy burritos at Anna’s Tacqueria and bring them home. So we went out in the beautiful weather (my favorite- jeans and t-shirt weather) and walked. We were temporarily distracted by the cool bike store on Mass Ave so we went in and looked around. Kyle has decided that he wants to do a bike and running race in August (biathalon?) which seems like a bad idea to me. Running in August?! yikes. Anyhoo- he got some advice from the quiet salesguy and he asked what time they closed. The salesguy gave us his card (bike salespeople have busines cards?) which had the store hours on it, sweet idea! So then we got our burritos and beer and my brother somehow finagled my parents into helping him pay for the damn bike (Even though they have already bought us all (parents, me and Casey, Kyle and his girlfriend- What is that all about?!) tickets for an Eric Clapton show, who is Kyle’s absolute favorite.

So of course he had to go back to the store and buy the bike. Kyle commented that it was an interesting shopping endeavor and the salesguy says, “Yes, burritos, beer, and bikes. That is basically my life.” hehe

So then we walked the bike, burritos and beer home and played Scrabble. (do we even like Scrabble?!)

The end.