It’s Sunday afternoon, we are home again, and the cat has decided to forgive us, so I guess that means that all is well.
The drives up and back were thankfully uneventful; last time we had driven up through what can only be described as “torrential”. While my car doesn’t seem to really care a whole lot about driving in the rain, I at least appreciate the chance to see the road, other cars, and so on.
Friday we had a nice, laid-back dinner at downtown Ann Arbor’s Cafe Felix with Liz’s brother Andy. Lauren was recovering from being on call, so she didn’t join us. Friday she reached a new milestone in her medical career — being too tired to bother eating dinner. Luckily, fourteen hours of sleep fixed that problem, and she met up with us on Saturday as we hoofed it across the downtown and university areas to do some shopping.
It is at this point that I should say that my wife is the best, most understanding wife in the world. As we stepped into local anime mecca Wizzywig Collectibles, she uttered those most lovely words of all, “Go nuts, dear. It’s okay.” Their website, sadly, does not do justice to the joys within their new downtown store. While I was sorely tempted by the assortment of toys, candies (mango Pocky was a new flavor to me), and plushes (including giant Domo-kun!), it was the DVD and CD sections that drew my economic stimulus. I picked up four Miyazaki soundtrack CD’s, and Liz encouraged me to get the Sherlock Hound DVD’s (exactly what it sounds like — “funny animals” in the Sherlock Holmes milieu — with writing and direction from Miyazaki). Also fascinating in their utter Japanese-ness were what have to be the world’s smallest RC cars. These are about the same size as Matchbox cars; 45 seconds attached to the controller will give the car a five-minute charge. There was even a MarioKart racer with tiny turtle shell, mushroom, and banana peels! Neat! I will definitely be back. (It’s a good thing this place wasn’t there when I used to go to Ann Arbor with Jim back in college… I never would have had any money!)
I also acquired the new Python Cookbook at the Borders across the street. So far, it’s been interesting reading.
We lunched at a “European-style” establishment called Amadeus, which was a bit of a mistake. Slow service, uninteresting food, slow service, overcooked/dry food, slow service, and, oh, we’re sorry, we don’t take credit cards, there is a tiny sign near the ground by the door that you were supposed to see on the way in. We were glad to be on our way.
We had dinner at an Italian place whose name eludes me — we ate upstairs on their rooftop patio, just after sunset, so it was cool and delightful outdoors. I had a glass of their lovely ‘97 Chianti Riserva (mmmmm), and though dinner itself was of little remarkability, their tiramisu was fabulous.
This morning we got the grand tour of Andy’s apartment, and then the house that Lauren is renting. We brunched at the Prickly Pear Cafe, which features some of the best Mexican I’ve had on this side of the Mississippi.
And now we’re back. The weekend is starting to wind down. I may spend some time with my new Python book, or with the Java book that I am slowly working my way through. Then it’s off to another “fun-filled” work week, bleah!
- Mood:content
- Music:Moby - “Landing”
Tags: books family food python retail-therapy travel wine2 CommentsPrint This Post
2 responses so far ↓
Sounds like a fun weekend. =)
A few comments:
1) Yay Domo-kun! Am I to understand that you did not buy any goofy anime toys?
2) What album/single is “Landing” from?
3) Just a little LiveJournal tip for you: if you have a long entry, you can use the < lj-cut> tag (without the leading space) to sort of “snip” your entry. You can use an accompanying < /lj-cut> tag to end the “snip area”, or skip the closing tag to snip all remaining text. People viewing your entry will see a “Click here” link that will take them to the entire entry, including snipped text. To replace the default “Click here” text with something else, do this: < lj-cut text=”Something else”>. I’m not saying you need one here, as it’s more of a personal style choice, but you’re new to LJ so I thought I’d give you a little pointer.
A few answers:
1) Sadly, no goofy anime toys for me. “I’ll get you next time, Gadget!!” Considering how far away we parked (on the other side of the Diag, for those in the UMich know), I am actually quite glad that I didn’t have to lug that Domo-kun around with me. That would not have been fun. Well, it would have been fun to watch, just not fun to be. Yeah.
2) “Landing” is from one of the “We Are All Made of Stars” singles, and I actually like it better than most things on 18 for some reason.
3) Thanks for the tip! I think for some things it will be worth it (the blah blah blah vacation play-by-plays) and other things not as worth it (rants about work). We’ll see.