Thursday, March 24, 2011

i know we're cool

Today was v. eventful - not good for Ellie and Nick, but v. good for my temporary reemergence into the social scene (such as it is). I slept almost ten hours, woke up, had some oatmeal, took care of a variety of tings online, and eventually got myself ready in time to meet Tammy (aka Tammmmmmehhhh) for dim sum at the Hong Kong Flower Lounge. She was in town this past weekend, but since I was in LA, I had to catch her on her last day here before leaving for Boston tonight. Luckily, we were able to gorge ourselves on a great variety of shrimp families that may or may not be radioactive (if they were, it only made them tastier). The HKFL was hopping; even on a Wednesday, the wait for a table for two was over half an hour. But, it was worth it - when they seated us, we happened to sit down right in front of the Cart of Happiness (tm), which meant we had deep fried shrimp dumplings with mayonnaise, deep fried shrimp in bean curd, and barbecue pork pastries before our tea even arrived. Shrimp dumplings (aka shrimp families), steamed bean curd/shrimp, and shrimp noodles all followed shortly thereafter, and so we had a totally delicious, coma-inducing lunch.

Oh, and it was good to see Tammy too.

Seriously, it was good to see her - I hadn't seen her sans boyfriend for quite some time, and while I like the boyfriend, sometimes you just want a little girl talk like you're on "The View" or some shit. We spent two and a half hours there, until they were all giving us the Cantonese side-eye and clearing everything around us. Then, I dropped her off, said my goodbyes, came back down to Palo Alto, and ran a couple of errands, including getting some art supplies for an Ellie/Nick project I'm going to work on. I've decided to maybe make some collages, or at least download some inspiring photos/maps/etc., in an effort to get to know Ellie, Nick and the story better, and so I bought a sketch book, some glue, and some v. pretty paper that somehow felt like Nick (I can't explain the inner workings of my mind, and you shouldn't want me to).

Just after I got home, Chandlord called and asked if I wanted to have coffee. So, I met her in downtown Mountain View, and I talked to my dad while I drove over there, since I missed talking to him yesterday when I called my parents for their anniversary (happy anniversary!). When Chandlord and I rendezvoused at Starbucks, we both decided we didn't want that, and so we walked down to Cascal for drinks and snacky snacks. It was happy hour, and so I had a mojito, she had a glass of wine, and we split "chips and dips" (great tortilla chips with guacamole, queso fundido, and a black bean dip) for about $9 each. Since she was in Miami last weekend and I was in LA, we actually had something new and different to talk about -- shocking, I know. We somehow survived the excitement of this and hung out for an hour and a half, and it was everything I dreamed it could be and more.

When we parted ways, I ran to Target to pick up a couple of things, came home, sent a couple of emails, and then downloaded a book that I needed to read tonight. I'm interviewing an author next week about the book that she just self-published to help promote the book, and so I needed to read the book and draft the questions that I'm asking her so that she has a chance to respond to them in a timely fashion. Obviously, that took several hours - reading the book wasn't a super fast endeavor, and then I spent an inordinate amount of time catching up on romance-related emails and brainstorming questions. I'm done with it now, though, so I'm glad that's taken care of before the weekend reaches out and devours my productivity.

Now, though, I should get some sleep; I have tings to do tomorrow and have guests coming tomorrow night, so I should get up and try to be productive at some point. Goodnight!

No comments: