Hani-Yucky

I have a friend that loves Hani-Yori. Her whole family loves Hani-Yori. Whenever they are all in town, they can't wait to go to Hani-Yori. I just don't get it. I am not a big fan of Japanese food in general, but I can hold my own in most restaurants and I rarely complain. So about a year ago I went with a group of friends to lunch at Hani-Yori and I hated it.. HATED! First the menu had two things on it: beef and chicken. I like a little more variety, but OK, chicken. The tables are set up so that it is nearly impossible to have a decent conversation, which works out fine because the waiter/showman never leaves you alone. Fine, I get it that you can chop things really fast, woo hoo for you, now can you please bring me a salad or something, so I can talk to my friends? No? Fine, you can stack pieces of onion and make smoke come out the top. Very nice. Now leave me alone, I am trying to have a conversation here. Rice? You are going to fry up the rice? Yes, I am looking, you can stop banging now. I am not a fan of fried rice, but go ahead, and could you do it quietly? No? Ugh! What are you doing? You are adding egg to the rice. Without even asking! Can I get some plain white rice here please to go with my freshly grilled chicken with absolutely no flavor at all. Yeah, that would be great. OK, enough with the knives, now you are just pissing me off. Really, I left there enraged and hungry.

But Sue loves it. So when she asked me to join her and another friend (whom I haven't seen in ages) there for lunch today I said yes. What was I thinking? Luckily, I have a lot of errands to do today and I will just run in and hug everyone and run back out before the waiter has a chance to piss me off.

Rain Delay

So this weekend, even though I could not possibly care less about baseball, I saw the end of two games in the World Series. For those of you that do follow such thing you may then know that I was up until 2am on Saturday night because the game was "rain delayed" and until almost midnight Sunday night. Part of this was a cough I have been battling for a few days which comes out worse at night.

Part of it was lying awake remembering that one year ago we were getting mom ready for the surgery that was going to change her life. We all woke up way earlier than we needed to because, well, that is just the way we are programmed. By 6am we were all sitting by the door just ready to get the day started. As you may recall it was a looooong day, but it ended with us all being hopeful for a painfree future (at least for mom). How I wish we could go back and call a "rain delay" for a few years or have mom actually chicken out (I really thought she might). But we did what we thought was best and here we are.

I am having a very hard time thinking about Christmas. I don't want to have to figure out where it would be best to be. I don't want to have to think about celebrating without mom. I don't want to think. Period. I will do everything in my power to make sure Jackson has a wonderful Christmas, but I can't think beyond that.

New Room

Now this is more like it. A beautiful room with a view:


With a real closet and even a comfy robe:


This thing scares me just a little bit, but I think I can handle it:

I just got done with my last meeting for the day and I think I will go and explore the neighborhood a little bit. I am in Alexandria, but I don't think it is Old Town, it all looks pretty new.