Sunday, October 28, 2012

Here comes the rain…

 Monday it was supposed to rain but it didn't. I think I'm going to start staying in bed on Mondays anyway. Susan came over for my massage at 8:30 AM, boy did it feel good. I had some war wonton soup from the night before, the food from this place was pretty good and they deliver! After my massage I got a nice long hot bath and then back to bed to relax for the rest of the day.  Before Karen went home I had some more shrimp fried rice and egg plant with garlic sauce. It was a nice relaxing day.

Tuesday was a really nice day. I got up and did my exercises for the Stanford research, the exercises always make me feel better and I feel like I'm stronger when driving my chair. Teresa came and picked me up and we went to a talk at San Jose State University about growing your own meat and vegetables as opposed to buying them in the store. More specifically you should buy them locally. I was going to run Robby around if it got boring but it was actually very interesting, Teresa had to listen to it for extra credit. After that we went over to San Mateo for my appointment with Dr. Piro. He did some more ultrasound on my neck and said that it was looking good and asked me to come back in 3 weeks but keep on massaging it to break up the little adhesions. My point was later than the other ones so our Ramen noodles soup place was closed. We walked up and down the sidewalk that look like pretty much every place was closed, closed for lunch and didn't open back up until 5 or 5:30 PM. We finally found a Pho soup place, it was really good but we had our hearts set on Ramen noodles.  We got home and my order from Santa Cruz local foods was waiting for us outside, the perfect tribute to buying local. I got some nice fresh bread, duck eggs, figs, fresh bread and butter. Teresa brought me home and put me to bed.


Wednesday was a surprisingly good day.  Last night I was reading a post on Facebook from Alex, Heather's roommate, and she was talking about having a cup of coffee and a berry turnover. I commented on how good that sounded and she said that she would save one for me and she did. She stopped Karen on her way to work and asked her to bring it to me. I didn't have it in the morning but I had it in the afternoon with a cup of coffee and Alex was right, it was perfect. I looked at the packaging and noticed that she got them at Trader Joe's, I will be on my way tomorrow to get more. We did some personal care and I was really hoping that I would be able to get up after and I did. I did my exercises and then decided to take Robby for a really long walk because we haven't done that for a while. We went through the lagoon and then decided to go up through the park and down Westcliff Drive. When we got to the lighthouse the sun started coming out and it was actually getting warm so we cruised on the way down to natural Bridges Beach, got chased by a little dog and headed down through natural Bridges Park to the boardwalk where the monarch butterflies are, I've been wanting to go down there for a while. I didn't see the butterflies at 1st and then the lady showed me a close-up picture on her camera, it was amazing. I saw what I thought was a bunch of dead leaves but they were actually butterflies. I think either my chair or Robby startled them and they started flying around, there were millions of them. We cruised back and got home just as Sonia showed up to put me to bed.

Thursday was a nice relaxing day. I didn't get much sleep the night before, for some reason my arms really hurt in the morning and I was really bloated… all perfect excuses to just stay in bed so I did. As it turned out it was a good thing and a nice relaxing day. My uncle and my aunt came over later that evening and we played cribbage, I started out with $4 and ended up with $5.

Friday turned out to be an awesome day. It was raining in the beginning of the week so I thought it was going to be cold all week but today was beautiful. My brother and my niece were coming to visit from Georgia, they got here around 3 PM, so I wanted to get all my personal care and my bath out of the way so I would be nice and clean for the weekend. By the time I got up and started to do my exercises they were here so we decided to go and see the new movie Chasing Maverics, it just opened today and since it was filmed here in Santa Cruz I was really excited to see it. Every time I saw the place that I recognized I got really excited, I had so much pride because it was filmed around here. My brother and my niece also enjoyed it. We came back and ordered some pizza and some hot wings, everything pizza plus pineapple. Teresa came over and put me to bed and we talked for a while and then everybody went to sleep. My other brother and niece from Modesto will be here tomorrow. I have been ordering most of my groceries from a place here in town that uses locally grown fruits and vegetables and I love it. I ordered these fruits that I have never seen before and they taste really good, they remind me of pink grapefruit. Here is the information on them…

Cape gooseberry

Other names: poha, ground cherry, husk tomato, golden husk or golden berry

Relative of the tomatillo the cape gooseberry,  known as poha in Hawaii has a tart tomato flavor and is used for making jam.  Like the tomatillo, the fruit has a papery outer skin which is removed before preparation.

Saturday was such an awesome day.  I got up and got dressed and my brother cooked breakfast. Duck eggs, bacon, biscuits, cantaloupe and pineapple… okay I have to admit he didn't cook the  cantaloupe or the pineapple. My brother and I decided to go for a walk and we ended up at the guitar store, such a cool place and really nice people. They have Santa Cruz guitars and apparently they have tours so anyone can see how they make them on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We cruised around through the lagoon, the weather was so perfect.  I took Robby for a cruise to the end of the wharf and back because he was looking like he needed a little bit of a run. We came back and hung out for a while and then my brother, Deziree and I went over to Ristorante Italiano for dinner Period as we were heading over to the restaurant I looked on the sidewalk and there was my favorite shal. David turned around and we went back to get it, I am so glad that I didn't lose that. I had just downloaded a groupon that afternoon. The place is always awesome, neither I nor anyone I have ever gone there with has been disappointed. I ordered veal piccata and it came with garlic mashed potatoes, of course I fully forgot to take pictures so you'll just have to take my word for it this time… it was awesome! Of course after stuffing myself with veal piccata I had to have a cannoli, it was really good and now I am feeling really bad. I took a lactose pill this morning but I'm starting to think maybe they don't last all day long. They came back and my older brother was here, tomorrow is going to be a really great day. My uncle has been talking about his “poor man's abalone” so we're going to try that tomorrow, we had it last year but I don't remember what it tastes like. He buys chicken breasts from Cosco and then pounds them really thin and soaks them in clam juice overnight. Then he breads them in Ritz crackers and fries them, I will try to remember to get a picture. It's quiet right now and I don't know if everybody is asleep or upstairs talking. I just know that I am really exhausted and I hope I sleep good.

Sunday turned out to be the best day ever. I got up, I think I was actually up around 9 AM, and everything was quiet so I took Robby on the cruise through the lagoon of the park on Bay Street and over to the Light House on W. Cliff Dr. I was down there couple of days ago and look like they were setting up a stage. I thought maybe it was because Chasing Mavericks was coming to the theaters but when I went by there today that look like they were taking down bleachers, it must've been some kind of surfing event because all the bleachers were faced towards the water. I tried to look online to see what was going on but I couldn't find anything. They came back home and David was across the street talking to uncle Dick so stop by and talk to them for a while and then David and I came back for breakfast. As soon as we hit the driveway we could smell bacon, I love bacon. Stanley was making French toast and bacon, I had French toast with some homemade apricot preserves that a friend of my mom's made… it was awesome. After breakfast we all decided to go for a long walk, by this time it was getting pretty warm but we walked through the lagoon,  up to the lagoon Park, down to the end of the wharf and back home.  All the way through the park we looked in the street and we swore we saw brains, it is Halloween so who knows?  By then we were all starving and uncle Dick and aunt Kathy were nowhere around so I called them and they were still up on the hill working on tile and they said to go ahead without them. We cited to just fill in the van and head to the Roadhouse Restaurant in Davenport. Every time we go there we always have a great meal. Tom, Stanley and David had hamburgers, Kelly had a margarita pizza and I had an egg plant, mushroom and pesto pizza. We came back home and everyone disappeared again, I think they were taking a nap. Teresa came at 7 PM to put me to bed, that's 3 days in a row I was able to stay up in my chair till 7 PM… I feel like a regular grown-up!








1 comment:

betty said...

I bet it would be fun to take a tour at the guitar store, Tammie, on how they make guitars. My husband plays guitar; I bet he would really enjoy that! Good for you for winning at cribbage like you did with winning more than you started out with! I hadn't heard of that movie Chasing Maverics; I'll have to try to see it!

Have a Happy Halloween!

betty