cinnaholiquitowinery
So my weekend was a little more eventful than anticipated, but not so much that it caused any kind of stress (and even packing in tons of fun can be a certain kind of stressful). It was still pretty laid back and chill. And, Shobhit should be pleased to learn, he's getting three points on the next Social Review out of it.
Because? Early Friday evening, we went out -- for basically both dinner and for dessert, at the same place. The dinner part was a genuine disappointment and the dessert part was actually pretty spectacular. I suppose that's hardly a surprise at a place like Cinnaholic, which specializes in cinnamon rolls. Their new Capitol Hill location just opened last fall and Shobhit was kind of immediately all about trying it -- we've actually been there a couple of times for desserts already, once even with Jennifer and her family over Pride weekend.
But! They recently added a new Pizza Roll, a rare savory option, and on Friday I had a $1 off email coupon to come in and try it -- the second one they had ever sent me, in fact; I got another one like a month ago but never used it. I sure would have liked to be able to find out what the regular price was on the thing, but, annoyingly, even right now their pizza roll is nowhere to be found on any single page of their website -- nor is it even on the wall menu when you go to the location. What the hell? This must just be a trial basis thing or something. They do have an example of it in their display case with a sign identifying what it is, but still with no price. I had to ask the very young, cute, obviously gay kid (probably in his early twenties) at the register. I think it was like $5.50 so I got a dollar off that.
Shobhit paid for a regular sweet cinnamon roll separately, using his own paper coupon he's had for a while, maybe from as far back as VegFest when the station he volunteered at was right next to Cinnaholic's, for 10% off. And he picked a quite nice combo of toppings: amaretto, whipped cream, blueberries and bananas.
So anyway, that was our dinner and our dessert. Or mine, anyway; Shobhit was not fully satisfied, as always, with a small portion and made himself something else once we got home. I will say this much about their pizza roll: the bread is wonderful, soft and warm; the toppings are just marinara and cheese and truly nothing special whatsoever. So it combines only half of what's great about the cinnamon rolls with nothing great at all about regular pizzas that are by and large far better. I can't say I recommend it. Their dessert rolls, however? Calorie bombs aside, they are worth it.
And then, late Saturday morning before Shobhit's swing shift at Total Wine, using my buy-one-get-one-free brunch coupon on my Chinook Book app, we went out for brunch at Poquito's. We split both dishes: a deep dish pancake, which really shocked me Shobhit actually wanted as he usually very much resists any kind of sweet griddle breakfast when we go out; and a plate of quesadillas. The quesadillas themselves were delicious, but the separate bowl of rice and beans were actually burnt.
Shobhit complained, very politely, and the waitress later came back and apologized: "They tasted it, and it was definitely burnt." Shobhit even said he could see them tasting it back in the kitchen, right off out plate. Holy shit. Do people at restaurants do that often? Eat straight out of the plate a customer clearly already had taken bites out of? That really surprised me.
Not long after that, I took myself to see The Kitchen downtown at Pacific Place, and it was not as good as I sure wanted it to be. Turns out it was just as well Laney was out of town camping this weekend and could not join me -- she really didn't miss much. I'm still glad I supported a women-focused and woman-directed film, though.
I did not walk straight home from there, and instead walked to the Capitol Hill branch library, where I stayed to read the last 10 pages of John Waters's Mr. Know-It-All: The Tarnished Wisdom of a Filth Elder. I had ready it while walking there as well, getting about 20 pages read as I walked. I then finally got it back to the library, a full week overdue. That's my M.O, really -- returning library books late. It's my system of making extra charitable contributions to the Seattle Public Library.
The movie showtime had been 2:00, but between the walk and the time at the library and then the walk home from there, it was after 5:00 by the time I got home and after 6:00 by the time I was posting the review. Then I spent around an hour making dinner, after which I had time to watch two episodes of Stranger Things 3 before Shobhit got home from work.
Yesterday I spent the afternoon with Danielle. Shobhit worked 10:30 am to 6:00, and Danielle arrived just after 2:00. We had spoken on the phone midmorning and she said she had some housework to finish and she would text me when she was on her way. She took long enough to get going that I was able to watch the 77-minute season finale of Stranger Things 3, and now that I'm done with it, I totally get why there was a surprising amount of online chatter about the show after the whole season dropped on Netflix -- for about a week. And after that, no one was really talking about it anymore. I still stand by my assessment that season 3 is objectively better than season 2 but still not as good as season 1.
Do I want them to do a season 4? I guess that just depends on whether what they make manages to justify its own existence. I have not bothered to watch any of season 3 of The Handmaid's Tale, and based on what I have read, that was the right decision.
Anyway! Once Danielle finally arrived, we were both starving. She parked in Shobhit's spot in the garage, and we didn't even go upstairs. We just walked straight over to Bai Tong for some Thai food on 12th & Pike. It was late enough a lunch and heavy enough that I never did really have any dinner -- and my weight was still slightly up this morning.
We came back and then watched the Redbox movie she brought, called The Mustang, about a prison inmate learning to take a wild horse. I had come close to seeing that in theatres and wound up never getting around to it before it left theatres. And it was actually very good. We did stop the movie in the middle for a fairly extended break of conversation about Danielle's fucked up family, but then we started it again.
By the time the movie finally ended, Danielle and I hung out and chatted for a while, waiting for Shobhit to get home from work. He parked temporarily on the street since Danielle was in his spot. Danielle and I were already in the condo because although I had tried to watch the movie in the theatre downstairs, between the seriously dated projector system down there and the DVD itself being from Redbox, the picture kept cutting out and we finally gave up and moved back upstairs.
Danielle was all about the wine I offered, and even asked to open a second bottle once the first one I opened was finished. This was fine; we still have several bottles from that wine shopping spree Shobhit did at Total Wine several months ago. She stuck around for a little while as Shobhit made himself dinner (because Danielle and I were both still very full from that late lunch). So this is how and why Shobhit gets a Social Review point for yesterday -- he was home for a time while Danielle was still visiting.
But then Danielle had to get back to her one remaining dog, Josie -- Jack, who had grown quite old, had to be put down last month. Danielle keeps saying "I'm on the pet-out plan," but we'll see. She also said she'd never get another cat after Zoe died and now she's had Cloud for three years. People always say these things when they lose a beloved pet, and then a couple of years go by and they change their minds.
So, I walked Danielle down to the garage to let her out, and she drove me the few blocks over to where Shobhit's car was parked, and I drove it back. Shobhit and I spent the rest of the evening watching Cheers episodes on Netflix.
And then, there's what happened this morning. I overslept -- by an hour! It was a very weird experience too, because it was something like 6:07 when I first opened my eyes, and it was much lighter out than it seemed it should be, and I was thinking to myself, Is it Sunday? I thought yesterday was Sunday? And then I looked at my clock and remembered, oh yeah, today is for sure Monday and OHHH SHIT!
I still got up and did my push-ups and planks though. No matter what's happening, I do my three sets of 34 push-ups in the morning, 33 in the afternoon and 33 before bed, every other day. Not even oversleeping by an hour will prevent it!
I figured out I had simply forgotten to finish setting my Sleep Cycle app alarm. I had even reset it to go off by 5:20; I just failed to press the button that says "START." So, no sleep data for last night. Damn it!
Then I seriously hustled. And I made incredibly good time: it was only 7:15 when I finished getting ready in the bathroom, and once in a blue moon I'm that far behind even after getting up on time. I just did not dawdle today at all while at my computer eating my cereal for breakfast, and I put the bowl and spoon away immediately when I was done, and I moved super fast as I brushed my teeth and shaved and showed and put on makeup and all that. It was actually lucky that Shobhit did not wake up through any of this; if he had, any time he spent talking to me would have slowed me down.
I even had to wake him up when I kissed him goodbye, though. He needed to be to work himself by 8:30. Anyway, it was about 7:40 when I arrived this morning at work, maybe one or two minutes after. I was barely more than ten minutes late, which is kind of a miracle after sleeping in for a full hour. And of course, Noah wasn't even at work yet and Scott is taking the day off and no one else was even around to notice I was late and even if they had been they would not have cared so seriously who gives a flying fuck anyway? Nobody! Nobody but me, I guess. I like to be consistent!
[posted 12:25 pm]