Sleepy Saturday

Date night

Happy Hour with Sashi's work mates: Punch Bowl Social
Dinner: Goldberg's

Alabama Road Trip

Darr Syn's parents are Michigan snowbirds who have been hiding from winter near Mobile, Alabama so, for my birthday weekend, we decided to go spend a couple of days with them.  I have very much lucked out in the in-law department and love that we were able to visit and catch up.  They recently got an RV so it was fun to see their new home-away-from-home and some of their favorite places.

We got there around noon on Thursday and they treated us to lunch at Panini Pete's.  It was a cute little restaurant hidden away from the street behind a festive French Quarter archway.  We sat in an area that was a converted greenhouse. :)

We walked along the street a bit but most things were closed since Thursday afternoon isn't the height of the tourist traffic. :)

Other than just visiting, we didn't really do a whole lot else which was perfect for us.  The intent of our trip was to see our family.  But we did have some tasty food!

For dinner on Thursday, we went to Lambert's where they throw rolls at you but, thankfully, only if you want them to.  LOL  I had the ribs but it was their passed around potatoes and onions that I am still obsessing over!

The next day, Darr Syn's Mom made us nachos for lunch and we went to Wolf Bay Lodge for my birthday dinner.   We had to leave on Saturday but we had lunch with his parents at the Derailed Diner located in the Oasis Travel Center before we headed back to Atlanta.

It was a short visit but I enjoyed myself.  This is the 2nd year in a row where we have spent my birthday weekend with them and I think it's a tradition I want to continue.  Especially since they are planning on RVing in the same area next year and will hopefully have moved to Alabama by 2021!  It'll be nice having family that we can actually go visit without having to take a week off from work. LOL

Birthday Date Night

Dinner: Trader Vic's

I have wanted to go to Trader Vic's for as long as I can remember and knew that if I ever made it to California or London, I would make sure I got to go.  At the beginning of the month, though, I found out that there has been one in Atlanta since 1976!!!  So, of course, that's where I *HAD* to go for my birthday which we celebrated a couple days early on date night. :)

I didn't get pics of the food but I went all out for a 70's meal.  We shared a pu pu platter then I got the surf & turf (filet mignon and a lobster tail) and we shared bananas foster made table side. 

It's the first time I've had filet and it was pretty good.  That was my first time having bananas foster as well.  It. Was. Awesome!  I am still very much a T-bone or ribeye girl ,though.  Darr Syn got their ribeye which, I have to say, was WAY better than my filet.

As we were leaving, I found out that this display cabinet was mostly merch that you could purchase so I bought myself a couple of Trader Vic Mai Tai glasses as my souvenir.  They will be perfect for when I make myself fancy lady drinks.  What;s a fancy lady drink?  Either a Seabreeze or juice.  But in a fancy glass.  Like the ones I got.  Which are cheaper on Amazon. :P

Since I was driving, I didn't drink but they had a No Tai Mai Tai on their menu which was very delicious!  

I absolutely love Tiki decor and, if we ever have a place where we can set up a lounge/bar area, I would try very, very hard to get Darr Syn to agree to a Polynesian theme even though I already know it'd be a losing battle.  :) 

Date Night

Dinner: Williamson Bros.
Dessert: Douceur de France

Geek take two (Batman and Joker Tangent)

I know that it's fashionable nowadays to be into the Joker and into Batman.  And I honestly applaud those geeks and geekettes that are chasing their bliss in the colored pages of the Dark Knight, or even those that just find their joy in the recent plethora of films that put the Bat-Fam and their Rouges Gallery on the Silver Screen.

I'm honestly not trying to hipsterize my interest in the Deranged/Dynamic Duo.  But they have fascinated me for the majority of my life. 

I even have the two of them locked in duality inked onto my forearm forever: 

In 1989 Tim Burton brought to life the Clown Prince of Crime in the form of the amazing and talented Jack Nicholson.  Giving my generation their first live action glimpse at both Batman as well as the Joker in this film, I was hooked.  Point blank, I was hooked. 

I walked around for months quoting "Do you want to dance with the devil by the pale moonlight?" without even really knowing what that meant, let alone that Burton had bastardized one of the most compelling origin stories in the DC vault by shoehorning Joker as the one to kill Bruce Wayne's parents way back when. 

And no, I'm not going to say or disclaim "spoiler alert" for stores that are decades old.  Get over it.

But there was something about Jack's Joker that sparked an interest in a young viking. . . the gleeful chaos, the laughing murder, the deadly jokes. . . I'm not really sure.  I do know though that since this was my first Joker he colored my vision of all Jokers yet to come!


More to come next time!

Darr Syn is being mean

He won't let me buy tubfuls of nacho cheese from Restaurant Depot so I can take a nacho bath.

I am very sad.

Date Night

Movie: Glass
Dinner: Taco Mac

Date Night

Dinner: Texas Roadhouse
Dessert: Douceur de France

For Thanksgiving,  Darrsyn and I went out for dinner where they had a lot of delicious dessert options. I tried a macaron for the first time and have been hooked ever since! There's a French bakery in Marietta called Douceur de France that has a wonderful selection of pastries, breads, desserts, etc. They close at 6pm so we can't always make it there after Date Night dinner but we like to try!

Date Night

Dinner: Cracker Barrel

Geek-ness

I'm a geek.  I'm also a nerd.

There's a difference there, but that is a conversation for another time.

But, to be specific I'm a DC comic book geek.  I actually made a choice a few years ago to do that to myself.  I was in my late 30s and was finally in a position where I had a wee bit of extra money and could . . . *gasp* spoil myself a little!  So after really REALLY thinking things through I decided that I did, in fact, want to involve myself in comics.

Then came the choice of WHICH comics to read.  I mean, let's not fool ourselves here, no one can realistically keep up with ALL the comics out there and still manage any sort of "life" as an adult.  Those that I've seen attempt this have become caricatures of the "comic book guy" from the Simpsons. . . including the complexion!

So after looking at titles in print, number of recent (decade) reboots, and major title crossover events it became very clear to me that while Marvel has a storied history and wonderfully complex universe they are pretty prone to blowing the whole thing up and starting over.  In a decade they had something like 14 different world ending/rebooting/shattering crossover events that were REQUIRED reading.  That's more than one a year!  So just when you get caught up, everything changes and starts over.

That sounded like less fun and more homework to me.

Besides, they have the movies going that I'm still a huge fan of at the moment!

So I went back to my first comic crush.  Batman and DC.

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To be continued!

Holiday Weight

I surprised that I only gained 4 lbs total over the holidays and a lot of that was thanks to the sodium in Chinese food.  Thankfully, I have lost it again so I can get back on track! 

Since July 2018: 80 pounds down, 120 pounds to go!

Image: Deviant Art/Gambas Sauvage