Vacation Officially Over

Today's my last official day of vacation. I spent the morning getting my annual mammogram. All is well on that uh, front. Then I came home and cleaned. Ah, the joy that is my life.

Tomorrow is a federal holiday, so not a work day. Thursday, I return to the grind of the workplace.

To tide us over, some fun stuff. I think I need some of the geeky goodness showcased on this site. The Ctrl, Alt, and Del pillows are my favs. Found on The Presurfer.

Purses that look like book covers. Found on Boing Boing.

Feeling: tired

~~~o0o~~~
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We All Scream for Ice Cream

Chocolate ice scream, that is. In California, I tried these two brands for the first time: Dreyers and Sheer Bliss.

Sheer Bliss is a bit high end and comes in tins. My cousin and I decided we had to try ice cream that comes in a tin, and a nice tin it is. The ice cream isn't overly rich, but it is chocolatey and smooth, with a nice, creamy consistency. It had more of a dark chocolate taste than most chocolate ice creams I've had, which makes sense because the flavor is actually dark chocolate.



I'd heard about Dreyers, and might've tasted it once before, but don't recall offhand. Hubby and I found it in a food court in the outlet mall in Las Vegas and I had to have a scoop in a cup. Nothing fancy, and this ice cream doesn't need any enhancement. It's rich, creamy, and very chocolatey. A pleasure to eat.



I also had the pleasure of having a cup of Ben & Jerry's chocolate ice cream while shopping in California, so, along with all the chocolate desserts and the visit to Ethel M's chocolate factory, it was a very chocolicious trip.

Annual Philadelphia Miniaturia dollhouse minis show this weekend. I expect to spend some $$$. :)

Feeling: chocolicious

~~~o0o~~~
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A Week in Vegas and California with Food

10/25: Fly to Las Vegas with hubby, buffet dinner in one of the hotels.

10/26: Hubby and I go on Hoover Dam tour, ending with a stop at Ethel M's Chocolate Factory, one free sample. Yummy dark chocolate. Note the e on the two remaining pieces. It's a rather smooth flavor, not too bitter, melts nicely. I'd eat more. Much more.

Hubby and I went to see Jersey Boys and thoroughly enjoyed it. Dinner followed at Canter's Deli in one of the hotels, then a trip to the top of the Paris Hotel's Eiffel Tower (a weird experience right there). It's about 1/2 the height of the real one in Paris, France and offers a great view of the city. At night, it's especially pretty.

10/27: I indulged in a full massage. Ah..... Hubby and I went shopping at an outlet mall. After a quick dinner, we saw Penn & Teller (we'd seen them 3 times in the '80s), then drove to downtown Las Vegas which I much preferred to the Strip (which is technically in Paradise, Nevada. It was wonderfully lit up and the main street has a canopy with a light show. It's probably dingy during the day, but it's magical at night.

10/28: I fly to Los Angeles to visit my cousins while my hubby stays in Las Vegas. A couple of friends join him there. I have dinner at an Italian restaurant with the cousin I'm staying with (M) and her brother and his wife. These are my mother's cousins. I had ravioli and we had these cute meringue ghosts and I had some of this chocolate cake for dessert.

The ghosts were light and yummy and the cake was rich and yummy.

10/29: M and I went to the Grove shopping area. We had a yummy lunch at Morrell's (I had a meat sandwich), then shopped a bit and walked around. The Farmers' Market is there and I hadn't seen it since my family went to California in 1969 for one of my cousin's Bar Mitzvah. The area sure looks different now. One vendor selling pumpkins got into the Halloween spirit.

After, we had dinner with one of M's cousins and his wife, at another Italian restaurant. I had veal piccata this time. Back at M's house, we watched an episode of Nip and Tuck she'd TIVO'ed.

10/30: In the morning, M and I went to a small park run by the US Park Service near her home to walk her dog. They have a couple of ponds, one of which had a nice sized flock of ducks! I, of course, took pictures. After, M took me to Beverly Hills where we lunched at Nate and Al's Deli. I had the requisite corned beef on seedless rye and kasha varneskes (bowtie pasta), the latter which was almost as good as my grandmother used to make, but there were too many onions. Still, very tasty.

Then M, a friend of hers, and I went to see "Law Abiding Citizen" because M is a big Jamie Foxx fan. The movie was gory, but not as bad as the reviews had led me to believe. Implausible, but that works okay for movies like this which are somewhat reality-based fantasies. However, I figured out what was going on fairly easily, was annoyed by a bit in the beginning (why the hell does someone so smart open the door without checking who is outside?!), and couldn't quite figure out how he was doing things. Dinner at Mr. Cecil's Ribs followed, but I had a hamburger and fries, which were very good.

10/31: I had lunch with my cousin R and his wife. I hadn't seen her in 23 years, soon after they'd gotten married, so it was a real treat. My aunt (R's mother) joined us for lunch in yet another Italian restaurant, Tiramisu, (no pic of the meal -- I had pizza -- but it was the best of the Italian meals so far), then my aunt went home and R, his wife (also an M!), and I went to the newer of the two Getty museums. We had a great day enjoying the museum itself (gorgeous, very open architecture, with a garden) and the exhibits. We were especially taken with the Irving Penn photography exhibit Small Trades, haunting b&w images of people who toiled in all manner of jobs, mostly unglamorous ones and using a platinum printing technique. There's also a hardcover book. R and I are both into photography, so being able to see this exhibit, which ends in January, was good timing. We went to dinner after at a deli with a broad menu and I had Belgian Waffles for a change of pace.

It was great to be able to spend so much time with my cousin. His family moved to California when I was 2, and we've seen each other no more than a dozen times since then, so this was special. And his wife is warm and wonderful.

11/1: Went to M's brother's house (he's also an M, so we'll call him M2 although he's older than M). M2 and I went shopping at Universal City's CityWalk and had lunch at Wolfgang Puck's there.Yup, more Italian food. This time I had one of the best 4 cheese macaroni and cheese meals I've ever had. We did some shopping, then his wife, E, and I went for hamburgers while M2 stayed home (he has back problems, was tired, and is a vegetarian) at Mo's.

11/2: M picked me up at M2's house and drove me to the airport where I met up with hubby who came in from Las Vegas an hour before I did. And I owe it all to the little earplugs to the right. These Earplanes (tested by the US Navy) made flying possible for me again. I was having so much trouble with me ears when I last flew in 1986, even with the pill I was taking to help with the pressure, that I stopped going on trips that required plane travel. I wish someone had told me about these earlier. I had some discomfort and itching, mostly on the trip home which might be because I ended up inserting them too late for the descent (which was 20 minutes past the recommended 1 hour before landing), but nothing like the sharp pains I used to get in the back of my ears.

Feeling: mellow

~~~o0o~~~
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All Trips Must Come to an End

I don't get jet lagged going west, but coming back east is murder. I was not in any way tired last night and ended up staying up til 4:30 am. I think I ended up getting 4 or 5 hours of sleep when I finally got to bed.

Now I'm watching taped shows from while I was away. I'm currently watching last week's Halloween episode of Castle. Not only does Nathan Fillion still look good dressed as Mal Reynolds of Firefly, there was some neat dialogue between Castle and his daughter where she reminds him there are no cows in space when he says he's a space cowboy, which refers to the confusion about Firefly when it aired. And when she asked didn't he wear that five years ago, I actually laughed. So good. And a few notes of the Firefly theme were a nice touch! Oh, and his Buffy reference was nice, too, because he guested on that show as a really evil preacher, the guy responsible for Xander losing his eye. Very cool all around.

The trip was wonderful and I'm still on vacation. No work for another week plus! There will be some chocolicious posts coming up.

Feeling: jet lagged

~~~o0o~~~
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Today's Action

Took a walk with my cousin and her dog at a very nice park near her house. It's a nature center where they conduct class visits. And there's a duck pond!

Then we had lunch in Beverly Hills (a corned beef sandwich in a nice, old, Jewish deli), and went to the movies with a friend of hers. We saw Law Abiding Citizen because my cousin likes Jamie Foxx. It's not as bad as some of the reviews I saw said it was, but it wasn't good, either. It was fairly predictable and gory and implausible, but I don't hold implausibility against a movie if it's entertaining. This one was borderline in that regard. There were some nice bits, especially the intricacies of the villain's scheming, and I enjoyed seeing Bruck McGill and Colm Meany in supporting roles, but Jamie Foxx seemed too generic in the role. I was expecting a bit more fire from him, I guess.

Dinner was at a ribs place with a varied menu, so I had a yummy hamburger and fries. Now I'm stuffed. I've eaten so much this trip I'm sure I've gained weight, so I'll be dieting when I get home for sure.


Feeling: stuffed

~~~o0o~~~
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Another Quickie Update

For some reason I can't fathom, Blogger isn't fully loading on my cousin's computer. Or rather, the New Post window comes up with half the features missing and an error message. It's just another internet annoyance about this trip.

Anyway, we went to the Grove mall and had a yummy lunch and did some shopping and walking around. I saw the old Farmers' Market, now 75 years strong. I'd been there in 1969 and recognized it despite all the new things built up around it (it's by the Grove outdoor mall).

Dinner was with a couple of other cousins in a nice Italian restaurant and I had Veal Picata and we all shared dessert: a chocolate chip bar heated, with vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream. Photos will be posted after I'm home because I need my own computer for that and the netbook can't connect to my cousin's network.

Feeling:

~~~o0o~~~
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Posting Might be Sporadic

I'm on my cousin's PC because my netbook can't access her network. And the internet connection is slow and annoying, so more than a quickie update might be delayed til I get home.

Yesterday, I had a massage -- so nice -- then we went to an outlet mall, walked around the Vegas strip, saw Penn and Teller, then went walking around Downtown Las Vegas.

Today (well, technically yesterday, making the above the day before), I flew to the Los Angeles area to visit relatives for a few days.

Feeling: content

~~~o0o~~~