Pooket's World

Desparately seeking handyman

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 02:50:04 GMT

Anyone know a good handyman in the area to make a simple fix under our sink, and fix our garbage disposal???!! Help!

My Bento Obsession

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 22:39:22 GMT

Hey there,

This entry is devoted to my obsession with bento boxes. Anyone who has talked to me in the last two months will know that they are my new craze. I've been packing bento lunches for me and V. for work, and I even pack them for myself on weekends b/c they're just so fun. I'm more about the practical type bentos than ones that involve cutting flowers out of nori sheets or whatever (though those are very cute! Just not practical for me). Well, since pictures speak louder than words, I thought I'd actually take pics of our bentos for tomorrow and post them on flickr. Here they are too:

Carrots and hummous. Smoked turkey and butterkaise cheese with pesto on Ezekial sprouted grain bread.
Yellow peppers, fresh raspberries, half kiwi. Greens salad with balsamic dressing, half boiled egg, sunflower seeds, red peppers, and fresh sliced tomatoes.

Fruit bowl: fresh raspberries, sliced bosc pears, and half green kiwi.
Veggie bowl: half boiled egg, salad greens with sunflower seeds, tomatoes, red and yellow peppers, sunflower seeds, avocado, and goat cheese.
Soup bowl: Organic brocolli soup with goat cheese and fresh basil.
Main dish: Leftover chicken noodle soup.
Exception to my diet: egg noodles

Sunday of SF trip

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 21:14:51 GMT

vonghia continued to be sick, and get worse. On Sunday morning we went to Hayward to visit with his Gramma and uncle. She stays at an assisted living place. We feel so sad when we go there, and never want our parents to have to deal with that kind of place. It's not awful, but we can tell how bored and lonely she is, and how frustrated she is with her frequent memory loss. I think her daughter (Vonghia's mom) keeps hoping gramma will move closer to all of us, but she is a little stubborn about not wanting to, for various reasons. I hope she moves nearer too.

Our delectable meal today was at Subway. I ate:
Cold Cut Trio with vegetables on wheat :)

In the evening, we went to our friends whom we also saw Thursday. They had cooked an amazing meal for us- pumpkin pie from scratch (they roasted the pumpkin!), and Indian food. We see each other so rarely that it's hard to spend enough time together to really get into great long conversations. But, I felt like we got there this night, and we really enjoyed our time with them. I also admire her for her running a very difficult uphill marathon in her free time.

After we got to the hotel, Vonghia was really starting to feel more sick, as I was starting to feel a weight gain of about 2 lbs from dinner!!

NEW TOPIC, I determined today that the caloric intake I need on a daily basis is 2700 to maintain my current weight. That is assuming that I exercise daily for 40 minutes, which I do when I'm not sick with the flu.

I would need to reduce calories to 2200 every day for one week in order to lose one pound. I've never counted calories before and it frankly sounds a little complicated. I mean if you cook a stew with 12 ingredients, how the heck would you know the caloric intake of that?? Anyway, it's interesting to have this number anyway, 2200. I'll start looking at labels and see how many calorie thingies are in stuff. Just found http://www.thecaloriecounter.com/, which is interesting. Baby carrots have 1 calorie per piece. A whole tombstone pizza is 1600 calories- half of daily intake.

Saturday of SF trip

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 21:03:02 GMT

Saturday Vonghia woke up sick. Poor guy. This was to be the start of a cold/flu that is still plaguing us today. We had planned to go our separate ways during the day, and then potentially rendez-vous in the evening and go to a French-Vietnamese restaurant that Darcy recommended, or one of the Afro-Cuban/Bralizian music nightclubs in the area. But, after our daytime activities, Vonghia was just feeling too sick so we ordered room service and stayed in and watched tv, did email/internet surfing, and went to bed early.

During the day, he went to Oakland to visit his stepsister and her wife, and their new baby. Fun was had by all, I hear.

I went to assist Darcy and Kanchan, two henna tribers, with a gig in Berkeley. It was a sangeet-type event at their home. Wayyyy too many people crammed into one small room. It was a pleasure to be able to assist Darcy and Kanchan, and give back to my fellow tribers who have enriched my life as a henna artist. But, I did not have fun at all (no fault of theirs- I think they felt it was a total non-fun energy suckfest too). Demanding indian and jewish aunties, overcrowdedness that wreaks havoc on an introvert like me, and more. I don't mind big parties, but if I'm doing henna, I like to be set off from where the action is. The best part was being able to help these two lovely artists out, and then going out for a sandwich with Darcy afterwards. We talked about what she'd been doing careerwise, what our daily lives are like, etc. It was nice to get to know a triber outside of just the henna shares- and Darcy is an interesting person to know- she has done a lot of interesting things.

Friday of SF trip, and need to make some henna!

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 20:51:43 GMT

Friday we arranged to meet a college friend of

vonghia's. This friend is now a professor of Islamic Studies at Stanford. He was a smart and an interesting guy to talk to. We took Caltrain from Burlingame to Palo Alto to meet him. We had hoped to stay longer, and see the beautiful Stanford campus, but we had to get on to our next activity. I think this is where we ate: http://www.kanzeman.com/menu.htm. I had: MANSSAF A JORDANIAN TRADITIONAL DISH ..................................................................
LAMB SHANK COOKED IN A SPECIAL YOGURT SAUCE SERVED ON TOP OF LAVASH BREAD AND RICE. GARNISHED WITH ROASTED PINE NUTS AND ALMONDS

It was pretty good, though not super. I felt a little heavy afterwards, and it did not come with any vegetables whatsoever.

We then headed over to our next event, which I will not be posting here, but it is interesting. If you really want, you can message me and ask me- and if I know you well, I'll tell you all about it!

I can't for the life of me think of what we did Friday evening- though I'll update this post when I remember. We wanted to make it to Chez Panisse in Berkeley but just didn't have enough time.

I think we packed too much in to this day. I know it's inevitable when you're on vacation and just want to take advantage of everything in the limited time you have. But, we were starting to get tired.

ttet

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 19:45:45 GMT

test

Thursday in SF

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 18:39:32 GMT

Hm, let's see. What did we do Thursday? Well, we left the maids a nicer tip because of all the henna crumbs they'd have to clean off our floor! A large back piece makes crumbs everywhere! I found them on the floor, in the tub, in my clothes, in my shoes... I tried to clean a bunch up, but I guess it's inevitable that if you sleep in henna that is not taped on, you're in for trouble!

We first went to Fisherman's Wharf to see all the touristy stuff. We walked around and saw all the fresh crab being boiled in street stalls, and made a mental note to buy some. Unfortunately, we never actually did. There was the requisite street mime painted entirely silver, and I got scared and completely humiliated by the guy who jumps out of a bush to scare people and then hope to get money! I was scared so much I jumped and grabbed Vonghia. And then the guy gave me a pissy look because I didn't give him any money while all the other people on the street were laughing at me?? :)

We then took advantage of our Zipcar membership. Zipcar is a really cool car-sharing program that both Ann Arbor, and many big cities have. http://www.zipcar.com/ We decided to get memberships instead of renting a car that we wouldn't use very much. We booked the zipcar, picked it up near Fisherman's wharf, and then zipped on over to the best damned vegetarian food I've ever eaten: Greens Restaurant. I ate:
Mediteranean Sampler - lentil salad with lemon, mint and goat cheese; warm piquillo pepper filled with Bellweather fromage blanc; hummous, spicy tomato jam, grilled artichoke and pita bread.
Butternut Squash soup
Almond Torte with Huckleberry Sauce and Anise Ice Cream (made in-house!) - This was, hands-down, the best dessert I've EVER eaten.
Vongia had soft tacos that are no longer described on the menu. Must just be too yummy for words...

And the view was amazing. The golden gate bridge was in my line of sight. We parked near my old haunts from when I did an internship in SF as a college kid. The safeway grocery store, the youth hostel, the phallic mary statue, the marina area.

Driving back to drop off the Zipcar, I wondered why the heck I thought I LOVED driving in SF! I almost had a panic attack over what apparently didn't phase me at age 20! We were driving up a VERY steep hill behind a cable car and I was almost sure that the cable car was going to lose the cable or whatever, and start racing down the hill and into the bay, taking our zipcar with it! If I hadn't been so white-knuckled, I would've taken a photo of it all.

After the Big Hill Fiasco of 07, we went back to Fisherman's Wharf and Aaron hung out at Boudoin's famous bakery, while I walked around some more, and decided against a 3 hour segway tour of Sausalito.

We were scheduled to meet two close friends for the evening in the SoMa area. She is a lender at an organization that lends to innovative non-profits. Sounds very cool, and very different from her past life of 14 hour workdays at Goldman Sachs, which she hated. Now she has free time to cook, enjoy SF, and run marathons, even! We met them and they took us out to Burma Superstar- another amazing restaurant, and one I will never forget for the tasty and original cuisine. I've never had anything like Burmese food. It might've been the best meal I've ever eaten. We all shared:
*
Salad prepared with imported Burmese tea leaves, tomatoes, lettuce, dried shrimp (or vegetarian), fried garlic, sesame seeds, peanuts, and split yellow peas
*
Shrimp in a tender pumpkin stew

Burma SuperStar’s special curry. Choice of beef or lamb
*
Rice noodles in a spicy tomato sauce pickled radish, cilantro and peanuts. With chicken or tofu
*
Aromatic jasmine rice cooked with coconut milk

It was incredible. I've GOT to learn how to make that tea leaf salad and the pumpkin shrimp (which actually was made with Acorn squash).

We then hung out with our friends at their nice apartment for a while, then went home, ready for another day of adventure on Friday!

Oh, I forgot to add that after going to Greens, we went on a 1 hour touristy cruise of the Bay. It was definitely worth the $21 each that we paid on Priceline. You take a boat from Pier 39, go under the Golden Gate Bridge, and come back around the far side of Alcatraz. There's a guided audio tour the whole time. A bonus is that there are very skilled and daring windsurfers playing in the waves. And, something else- like a cross between windsurfing and parasailing. Someone told me the name but I forgot it...

Wednesday

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 17:28:48 GMT

So Wednesday was quite a day! We took the shuttle to the airport (where the BART station is), and then took BART to the Powell St. Station, and walked to Chinatown from there. It was so much fun but I tried not to browse too many shops- I know Vonghia finds that incredibly boring...

I walked a TON. Glad I've been exercising a lot to build up to this. We went to the famous House of Nan King. I had been there 10 years ago and loved the food. We loved it all over again, but decided to throw away our leftovers- the food is very sweet, greasy, spicey, well, you get the picture... too much of a good thing!

We walked from Chinatown to North Beach, the Italian district. We had a coffee at the famous Vesuvio http://www.vesuvio.com/, and then Vonghia went to City Lights bookstore while I went to the famous Henna Lounge in the Mission district! You can only get henna there with an advance appointment that I booked well before the vacation. I got an amazing piece done on my back: .

We talked up a storm, Darcy did my henna, and then Aaron met up with us and the three of us went out to dinner at the most chic Indian restaurant I've ever been too (certainly not an ai and baba joint!!) http://dosasf.com/ It was good food, good company, and great ambience. I ate: Prawn Coconut Masala
(Dinner only) Large prawns prepared with a reduction of red chilies, ginger, red onions and spices, balanced with the mild sweetness of coconut milk ... There was also a coconut ice cream for dessert- yuummmy!
A couple of Darcy's paintings are hanging in this restaurant- I wish I had pictures- they are gorgeous.

Then, we had a very bumpy bus ride home, and much of my henna fell off. We then went to bed, ready to do big fun again on Thursday!!!

Finally, a public post!

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 14:54:23 GMT

I wrote so many private posts- I figured, who wants to hear "I need to start an exercise plan and remember to do my shot tonight..." kinds of things...

Here's my first public one. So

vonghiaand I just got back from SF. I wanted to keep a daily account while I was there but I got too busy, and then got home and promptly got the martian death flu. Still have it. I hate always getting sick.

Ok, I"m going to start with Tuesday of our trip, the day we flew over.
We arrived at 6pm in Burlingame, CA. This is about 20min. away from SF, where the SF airport is. It is a heck of a lot cheaper than SF proper in terms of getting a hotel deal- we got to stay at Embassy Suites for $60 a night!! It did mean we had to take a shuttle bus every time we wanted to go into SF, and then take BART, and then walk. It sounds like a lot but it actually wasn't bad.

We got to the hotel, which is RIGHT on the Bay. SF to the left of us and Oakland to the right. Airport and Bay Bridge in front (but you could only see the bridge when the fog lifted- which was almost never).

Oh, on our plane ride over, we saw the fires in SoCal. We also saw what looked like an even huger fire in AZ, but the pilot never mentioned that one so I don't know what that really was. SF had a lot of smoke and I hear it was creating problems for allergy sufferers.

So once we got to the nice-ass hotel, we ate dinner at their restaurant- Rings. It was fantastic food. I ate:
Dungeness Crab Stuffed Shrimp with lemon dill sauce. Yum. I ate some carbs. It felt like a honeymoon all over again. The place had one wall of just windows, overlooking the bay. And a beautiful domed glass ceiling overhead.

We decided to take it easy for the rest of the night and just stay at the hotel. That's it for Tuesday!

Note to self- take WAY more pics on vacation next year!

First entry

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 03:32:41 GMT

Hi,

Starting my livejournal... Will write more than this sometime soon!
Deepali