theinbetweenismine

just a girl living the expat life

Archives for September 2007

Friendship

filed under: food, friends, my so-called life

I really can’t complain. Even though I consider myself a really private and profound person – someone who would only surround herself with a handful of deep relationships – I am still surprised sometimes by how many meaningful friendships I have and with how many people I keep in touch. I can name quite a few people that I consider my friends [and I don’t tend to use this word loosely as it is often done in English].

I am pretty sure that I have just added another person to my list of friends.

My “fairly new” roommate has pretty much proven herself in the last couple of weeks that she definitely deserves the title “friend” in my book. She’s been wonderful and sweet and even though we’ve only known each other for a couple of weeks, she’s been most supportive of me and J.
When J decided last week that he wanted to go to Sacramento with me, it was not only because he had free time on his hands, but also because of a rough road that he’s on regarding his band. He just needed to get away.

I was a little hesitant to impose on our new roommate situation, but Kari had no objections whatsoever to J staying with us during the week, in fact, she turned out to be a great entertainer and listener for J.

Tuesday night, we went out for Sushi with her and our neighbor again. Unfortunately I forgot my camera and therefore couldn’t take a picture of the even bigger sushi plate that they brought for the four of us this week. It was delicious though! We talked and laughed and just had a really good time. I realized once again how great it is to have people to hang out with and that we’ve really missed that in the last couple of months.

Wednesday night I cooked for all of us at home. I made my “famous” roasted potatoes [see here], little breaded pork cutlets and a big salad. Everybody thought it was fantastic :) Kari already committed to cooking for us one evening next week. We also want to scrapbook one night and then we have to watch all the “horrible” reality shows that she ‘TiVo’s” during the week *g* damn, we’ll be so busy :)

“Mit-ness”

filed under: my so-called life

J and I love to create words, especially when they represent a mix of German and English.”Mit-ness”  is one of those word… “mit” means “with, together with” in German and Jon coined the phrase “mitness” when my parents were here this summer. He sent me a text message one day saying ” mitness is very nötig [= necessary]”. I loved it :)

Now we use this phrase in our everyday language, along with some other phrases that we created over the years. It’s rather unique :) 

But what I wanted to say is, we’ll have a lot of “Mit-ness” this week :)

Our weekend was good. I came home Thursday night and was happy to be able to put my cold and wet feet under a warm blanket.
I was strangely mistaken that the summer would last a day or two longer in Southern California. Friday and Saturday morning it was pretty much pouring.
J didn’t mind, in fact, he loved it :)

We just ran our usual errands and then snuggled up on the couch, watched DVD and I baked Zucchini Bread on Friday night. My co-worker was so nice as to share the recipe with me after she had brought in a loaf last week for everyone in the office to enjoy. It was delicious, so I had to try it myself. You can find the recipe in the “Recipes” section.

Sunday we took a walk on the beach – because it was sunny again – before the Shuttle Bus picked me us up at 7 p.m.. Yes, you can believe your eyes… I said “us“, because J came up to Sacramento with me :) and you know what that means… we’ll go out for Sushi again this week!

Mr. Fall is early…

filed under: friends, my so-called life

… at least for California!
This morning when I woke up and stuck my feet out from under my blanket, it dawned on me. Fall is here. And man, it’s even a day early! It is freakin’ cold and “smart me” didn’t expect such a rapid change in weather and is traveling with flipflops ONLY this week. Fun… NOT!
Especially NOT, when it’s raining out side and it’s only 55°F. I am looking forward to going back to Southern California tonight where it might be a little cooler now as well, but at least I do not have to expect rain.
Yesterday we just got lucky here in dowtown, I guess, because all the surrounding areas [including Davis] were hit with severe thunderstorms plus lightning last night.

I really didn’t want to go running under these circumstances, which sucked, because I skipped Monday [because of grocery shopping] and Tuesday [because of my “Sushi Date”] already, but that’s just the way it goes and I’ll definitely use the fitness room back home this weekend. Instead, my roommate and I snuggled up with blankets on the couch last night, drank coffee and watched other people work out and lose weight. We watched “The biggest loser“.
I am sure the one or other of you has heard about this show. I am usually not a big “reality TV” fan, but my roommate watches all these shows [Dr. 90210, The biggest loser and such] and I have to say – it’s kind of relaxing in the evening to just watch some “mindless crap” on TV [without commercials – thanks to TiVo] :) She and I usually have a good time doing that.
Last night, she looked over to me and said “Are you leaving again tomorrow?” and I said “Yeah, it’s Thursday again”…and she replied “Damn, the week goes so fast. I kind of like having you here”. Oh, she’s so sweet :)

Sushi anyone?

filed under: my so-called life

Dinner at Tamaya's

My roommate and I had a “Sushi Date” tonight. We’ve been talking about going out for sushi since I moved in and last night we decided that tonight was going to be the night :)
We went walked to “Tamaya Sushi Bar & Grill” which is conveniently located within walking distance of our apartment. Have I mentioned lately that I love how “accessible” Sacramento is? :)
We had “miso soup” and “soybeans” as appetizers and than we shared this big plate of delicious sushi rolls. I am starting to like it more and more. Next time J is up here, I’ll definitely have to take him!

Our weekend was good. We just enjoyed each other’s company again. This ‘quality time’ has become so special and so important to us since I started working again. We went to the movies on Saturday and watched “Death at a Funeral”. We both loved it. British Humor is just awesome. Afterwards we went for a walk at the beach and checked out the ‘Aloha Beach Festival’ which was close to the Pier. There was Live Music, a surfing competition and lots of little shops and food stands.
I decided to cook some nice dinner in the evening [beef and pork roast with mashed potatoes and green beans – YUM!] and later we watched “Walk the line” on DVD. J hadn’t seen it and I had told him that we absolutely had to watch it.

Sunday was my Dad’s birthday and I was a little bummed that J and I couldn’t be there with my family to celebrate. We had a long talk on the phone though and where able to share a little bit of the party that was going on at my parents’ house. My Dad also sent me some pictures today and it was good to see them all happy and celebrating :)

It’s late and I gotta work tomorrow, so I’ll tell you more later…

Soreness

filed under: fitness, my so-called life

So, I started running again last night. I hadn’t really worked out in over two months, because things have been so crazy around here, but now I really want to get back into my work-out routine. My roommate goes to the gym and I actually considered signing up for it. I like using the cardio-machines and occasionally the weights, but I checked out the membership fees and hell no, it’s way to expensive. Also, I could only use it three nights a week [M-WED] anyways, because the other days I am not here and we do have a fitness room at our apartment complex down south. So my plan is this: I want to go running two nights a week while I am in Sacramento and then use the fitness room once or twice when I am back home.
We have a nice park two blocks from the house and it’s a very popular spot for runners – so I don’t even have to work out just by myself. There are always people running on the “track” [ = path around the park]. Can you tell, I am highly motivated ;) although my legs feel as heavy as lead today. Ok, I have to say that I kind of pushed it last night – a 40-minute-run after a two-months break was probably not the smartest idea.

On a different note, I admit it. I am a bargain hunter. Not to be confused with a scrooge. I like to and do spend money on certain things, but I also like to get special deals and if I can get something for a cheaper price or even free that it juuust fine with me :)

Therefore, I just LOVE this “Ding!”-thing from Southwest that I downloaded the other week. It’s a little desktop application that you download to your computer and then it’ll notify you with exclusive airfare offers that are not available anywhere other than through this application. I had signed up for Southwest’s email newsletter a while ago and I didn’t really think that “Ding!”-thing would really get me any better deals than the ones I already get on the Internet by booking the “Internet fare” in advance or something, but last Sunday, I received a notification with airfares between Sacramento and Burbank for $39 one-way! This is such a steal!
The offers are usually only good for a day or two, so I acted instantly and booked two more round-trips for the end of the month for $98 each [including taxes!] I actually would have booked flights for the rest of the year, if I hadn’t had to pay for them right away… darn it. Keep your fingers crossed for another cool offer soon – because every cent I save on airfare is another cent in my pocket ;)

Airport experiences

filed under: my so-called life, travel

I had a good weekend. It was kind of extra-short this time, but we nevertheless made the best of it – which translates into lots of snuggling and not going out at all besides shopping and doing some laundry :) Sounds good to me, doesn’t it to you?

Then Sunday afternoon I got picked up by the shuttle and before I knew it, I was sitting at the airport again waiting for my flight back to Sacramento. Let me tell you, spending as much time at the airports as I do will give you plenty of opportunities to witness strange things. Therefore, I have opened a new category, “airport etiquette”, because I have the feeling that I will share some of the strange things with you today and in the future.

So, I am sitting at the airport waiting for my flight and there is this older guy sitting kind of next to me at the gate. All of the sudden, I hear a fart and I am thinking “WTF?” and then this guys starts making farting noises with his mouth. You know, those kind of noises that you make when you push air through your almost closed lips which sounds like little farts. So he did that to distract from the fact that he actually just farted. In public. Really loudly.

Ewww.

But that is not all. He actually did this another 3 times. Sorry, but I am just grossed out. Why is it that guys obviously can’t fart silently?
I know, I am really sorry to bother you with this story, but I have encountered that a couple of times now and also that a lot of people just burp in public. Maybe, I am just unaware that the US belongs to the list of countries where farting and burping is some kind of compliment to the host of a dinner. But wait, there was no party and there was no dinner and there was still burping and farting.

Ok, that makes no sense to me and I don’t think anyone should do that in public. Period.

TGIF!

filed under: my so-called life

Man, this week went by fast… even though I had to stay until Friday this time, because I saved last Monday’s holiday hours for another time [maybe Christmas?! ;)]. Maybe it was because I was so busy this week. Busy weeks always go by fast, somehow.

My co-worker Michelle had her birthday on Tuesday and we took her out for a group lunch at Chili’s on Wednesday. It also was Kari’s birthday on Wednesday, so I stayed up Tuesday night to bake a birthday cake for her [I had to wait until she went to bed, so it got kind of late] and Wednesday after work I met her and some of her friends/neighbors for some drinks at Spataro‘s downtown. Afterwards we went to one of our neighbor’s house for birthday cake and red wine. We sat in the backyard and it was just a lovely evening. I thought it was really nice that I was instantly included in the birthday celebrations. Kari and I really get along well. We usually talk for a while when I come home and have watched TV together one time. Last night, she got me hooked on “Grey’s Anatomy”. I know I am slow on the uptake, but I just haven’t had time to watch much TV lately and I do like watching shows like that on DVD anyways [because you never have to wait for the next episode for a whole week ;)]. On a site note, she also has all “Sex and the City”-Seasons and I still have to finish up with the last one… what a perfect coincidence :)

Today my group joined some co-workers on Campus for a Friday-lunch BBQ. Michelle told me that they have a BBQ each first Friday of the month and I thought that this is a really neat idea to get to mingle with people that you usually don’t get to see in the office. And now I am sitting at the airport waiting for my flight home. Even though I had an exciting week, I am ready for the weekend :)

Labor Day Weekend

filed under: friends, fun!, holidays, my so-called life

Last weekend was Labor Day weekend, which means that we got the Monday off. See, this is what I like about US holidays. There aren’t as many, but at least they try to put the holidays not on a specific date, but on a certain day in the months [like the first Monday in September!] so that you almost always get a long weekend :)

For J and I that meant that we got an extra-long weekend! Yay!

We had a really lazy and relaxing Friday at home and then spent all Saturday at a rehearsal studio in LA and recorded some video footage. It’s exciting, but we probably have to do some editing before anything more goes online.

For Sunday, we had planned to drive up my in-laws’ old Saturn to Sacramento, so that I have a car up here to get around. We had initially planned to drive up Highway 101, but that idea quickly was abandoned when we couldn’t even get out of Ventura without getting stuck in traffic. We changed our minds and decided to take the boring – but ultimately quicker – Interstate 5 through the Central Valley. Apparently, everybody else had decided to go Highway 101, because there was hardly any traffic on I-5 and we made really good time.

We stopped at Ikea in the evening to look at a sofa bed for my room. I figured that buying a real bed would be way too expensive and also we could always use a sofa bed as a guest bed later on. I also wanted something big enough for two people to sleep on [for the weekends when J comes up to Sacramento]. So I had looked at this sofa which could very easily be converted into a bed. Jon liked it, too, and so we didn’t waver, but went ahead and bought it :) It looks like I’ll be able to post some picture soon.
We brought a few more things [like a painting and photos] from Ventura and slowly the room is coming together.

Not far from where I live, we could actually walk there!, we had some yummy dinner at Original Pete’s Pizza Pasta Grill and it was nice and warm and we sat outside until 10:30 p.m.

By the way, J instantly fell in love with Sofia when we got to the apartment. I mean, this tiny kitten is just too adorable. Monday morning we had coffee with Kari and her Dad, who had been visiting over the weekend, and later in the morning went walked! to “Café Bernardo” for some yummy breakfast. I just LOVE how everything is within walking distance from here. There is McKinley Park, a grocery store and tons of restaurants right near by, and yet the street that I live on is so damn quiet. You wouldn’t even know that you live in a big city. That’s Sacramento for you :)

J and I spent the rest of the day walking around Downtown, getting some drinks at the Hard Rock Café and checking out the “Gold Rush Days” Festival in Old Sacramento. They had put “dirt” on all the streets to make it look like in the past and there were cowboys walking around and carriages drawn by four horses. It was pretty cool :)

I took J to the airport in the evening, as he was going back to Southern California and then picked up Susi from the Amtrak station. She had decided to come and visit me for the night. Yay! We walked around Midtown, ended up also having some dinner at Original Pete’s Pizza Pasta Grill and just talked for the rest of the night. Apparently, we had to catch up quite a bit :)