indulgence

After working two straight days of doubles at the restaurant (and going to bed at 3am after the second day), I slept until 10:45am today! It was quite a shock, as most of my pals would agree, as I am usually an earlier riser. I could never pop out of bed like Tom could, but he's just a different creature altogether....

When I woke up today, I lazied around, checked my email, made some phone calls and made plans with Tasty (Ryan) for the day. We were going to the mall! Our mall is craptastic...i.e. a crapload of nothing can be found there. After making plans with Ryan, I dressed and made brekky. Today I made a two-egg omelet with tomatoes and cheese and a side of cheese grits. I was indulging...cheesy goodness for a fresh start to my rainy and relaxing day off!

At the mall, I was looking for my sister's birthday present - an iPod Nano 4GB. Target had none. So we went to Best Buy and found one. The deal included two free silicone covers - hot pink and red. Can you go wrong with those colors? They even matched the outfit I was wearing today...all purple like Barney with some red, black, white and pink. Sounds more hideous than it is...perhaps Ryan can attest...or not. He made fun of me all day. (If it sounds like an awful outfit, perhaps I can convince you that it was made more beautiful by the Red Sox cap I donned on my head.)

After shopping we were hungry and I was craving Asian noodles. There are no noodle houses around here. The Thai restaurant looked abandoned, I hear the food at the Panda Inn (Chinese) is bad these days. So I suggested something Latino - perhaps Sabor. Neither of us liked the menu. Pancho's? Closed. So, back we went towards my house and stopped at La Fogata, the Colombian restaurant. Mmmm, it was open!

Ryan knew nothing of Colombian food, so I did the talking...literally. After going to Peru in May, I've discovered my fluency with Spanish. I ordered some typical Latino foods for us to eat. We started with Tostones (fried green plantains) topped with a cheesy tomato and onion sauce. To die for. For the meal we shared Chicharrones (fried pork rind), mini corn cakes, Empanadas con pollo (with chicken) and la sopa del dia (the soup of the day): Tripe. Ryan and I both chowed down on the Tostones. I love them. They're always better when someone else makes them though, I can't seem to make mine right...I have a hard time keeping the temperature of the oil consistent to avoid over- or under-cooking them. Hmm.... I have had better chicharrones, in Peru, so that was a little disappointing. The corn cakes were plain but nice topped with some aji (spicy sauce). The empanadas were YUMMY and the soup was tasty, but the tripe not so exciting. I think I can't get past the texture. We also each had a bottle of Cristal, my new favorite Peruvian beer, mmm, mmm, delicious. Thanks to Carlos for introducing my taste buds to Cristal. I spoke for a little bit with Miguel, the owner, also a friend of Carlos. They used to work together. He said he buys the Cristal in NYC. That doesn't help me out much....

I think I forgot to mention that it had been pouring rain all day. It poured rain all day.

After our late lunch/early supper we were quite satisfied and went to my house to watch a movie. My parents and I have Netflix and we just received "Lucky # Slevin". I hadn't seen it and neither had Ryan. It was fantastic! Great video angles, scenery, plot. And it was entertaining because I had to get up and pee about three times, knocked over a pint of water and had to clean that up and almost fell asleep twice, haha.

After the movie we were both craving ice cream. Ryan mentioned ice cream and then I kicked him, because he was reading my mind. I called Rita Marie's and they were going to be open for another half-hour. I said, "Let's go, they close at 9!" So we went for ice cream - I got a small orange-pineapple on a sugar cone and Ryan had the red raspberry chip on a plain cone. Since it's by the lake, I suggested we go eat our ice cream there. We walked around in the dark for a bit and the rain continued on...so we sat in the car, finished our ice creams and talked for another hour or so. We rarely get a chance to hang out, so it was a great day and night with my buddy Ryan.

Tomorrow is my sister's 38th birthday. I can't wait to give her the iPod! She never asks for gifts, nevermind anything technology-based, so it's exciting to hook her up to the present time and day. (Okay, I haven't even entered the iPod realm yet, but I do have a little iRiver mp3 player that gets me through a 30 minute run...needless to say it's slow to upload and I've been listening to the same 20 songs for the last three years....)

Signing off.