Seattle Day 1

Posted on May 13, 2010 by Smelly Danielly

OK, photos of Birthday Day in Seattle Road trip Alert NOW.

On Thursday morning I saw a lady carrying a bouquet of flowers walk past my window at work. The first thought that came to my head was ‘oh God I hope those aren’t for me’. I waited to hear the door bell, but nothing. Sweet, I was safe! Then I heard the door bell. ”I have flowers here for a Dan Yell See A Varro” Sweet Mother of Mercy.

My obvious reaction was to think they were from Chad, considering how I had just recently bugged him about not getting me flowers, following Adam surprising Alicia at work with a bouquet. But, at the same time, I knew Chad would probably never send me flowers at work, so I had no idea who they were from.

Alicia and I laughed about them as I reached for the card. The envelope was sort of see thru so I could see that who ever had sent them had a name that started with an A. “Is it from Chad?” she asked me. I could tell by the look on her face, she had no idea who they were from, so the fact that all I could see was a letter A surprised me.

Well, I opened the card and saw it was from Alicia and Adam! The best part was that Alicia had no clue Adam had done this, so it was a surprise to her as well!

It was so sweat of them! Emberassing for me, because I hate having all the attention placed on myself, but it was definitly very special!

Friday morning we left the house at 8:30am. It was sunny and bright and beautiful.

Peace Arch Crossing didn’t have a long wait time, which was good. Boarder crossings scare the crap out of me. It has to do with my fear of authority and even though I never do anything wrong, I feel like I am going to get in trouble anyways. Fortunately for me, the boarder guard was very nice once he found out it was my Birthday!

We did some shopping at Target in Bellis Fair. That was basically the extent of my purchases for the weekend.

We tried to buy a McMini from McDonalds, but they don’t exist in America.

We had many stops on the way down, which is one of the reasons why we didn’t get to Seattle until late. While it sucked because it meant we had less time at our destination, the stops were very much needed.

Like this stop for gas. Muchly needed.

And this stop at the Seattle Premium Outlets. If we didn’t stop here, Chad would have nothing to wear.

Chad saw these Herringbone Vans at Bellis Fair but they didn’t have his size. He was on an obsessed mission to find them. Luckily The Outlets had them in stock!

“Look! Jesus is on sale!”

YES, it’s TRUE. Marketing does work. I have been needing new runners for…oh…3 years now, but have been too lazy to spend the money. One commercial and I was sold.

I haven’t taken them out for a stroll yet, but they feel soooo cool on. You need to go try a pair! $108 inclusive at Seattle Premium Outlets!

The Outlets is where Hobble Along did all his shopping. I get so excited when it comes to shopping for Chad because it’s like I get to dress up my own live Ken Doll. Yes, I just said that.

Oh too Seattle!

So, remember when I mentioned trying to check out some of the Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives in Seattle? Well, we made it to one of them!

A very late lunch (3pm to be exact) at Georgia’s Greek Deli proved to be the best idea ever, as the food was AMAZING. I think this will have to be a traditional stop every time we go down south now.

Jesus and Mary joined us for some foodz.

We knew eating at 3pm was pretty random. Too late for lunch and too early for dinner, but there were actually 2 other groups of people eating as well, so, we weren’t the only strange ones.

This is where they set the Saganaki on fire. I missed taking a picture of it :(

Greek Beers!

Saganaki, the love of my life.

Say Hello to Chicken Gyros with Greek Garlic Fries. Ugh, I want to go back and eat more food NOW!

So I started to look around the restaurant because I read that Guy Fieri leaves a little special something on all the DDDs he goes to. Just as I say this to Chad he points at the wall.

!!!

It was like meeting a Celebrity. Yes, I am that sad.

Photos from the taping of the episode!

Signed Poster!!!

The thing with Me & Guy is, when I was sick from my first Thyroid surgery, I would lay in bed all day long and watch the Food Network for 12 hours straight. This meant I saw a lot of episodes of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. At first I thought he was the most annoying person on the planet, (as I’m sure most people do). I hated when his show came on, and I just found the whole thing so over done. But I watched, and I watched, and then they went to a diner that made pulled pork (gets me every time), and I watched more, and then I became OBSESSED.

I went from hate to LOVE. We had spent a lot of time bonding.

After my second surgery, I would lay in bed watching the Food Network and I looked forward to Triple D coming on. I loved watching all the different places he would visit. I was totally hooked!

Getting to go to this Deli/Dive, was like a small dream come true for me.

Oh, onto the hotel.

We didn’t really have the rest of the day planned, and we were pretty tried from our drive in. Not to mention all the shopping.

The view from our window at the Westin.

There is a lot of WHITE in this photo.

We decided to spend some time in the hot tub relaxing and then we went for a nap / obsessively watch The Food Network.

Chad went out and bought some wine while I had a shower, and tried to figure out a place for dinner, but it was 9pm at that point and the hotel front desk was a little clueless as to where all the action was downtown. Since we had got in so ‘late’ and had not explored the city at all, we really didn’t know where the happening places were.

We ended up just eating at the hotel restaurant. It was nice, but I was way over dressed. I had pick out this outfit before I knew where we were going. Oh well. At least I looked hot. HA.

After dinner we wanted to go out for a drink, but Seattle has this stupid law where they won’t give you a table if you aren’t ordering food, so we had to awkwardly sit at this window bar where we were served by the worst waitress ever.

I guess dinner and drinks wasn’t enough for Chad since a full glass of wine was in order while laying in bed. He stayed up to watch all the late night shows, but I passed right out. I was soo tired, plus I’m 85 years old.

Plus, I needed to rest up for all of the next days adventures!

A Jewish Birthday

Posted on March 12, 2010 by Smelly Danielly

Saturday was a full impact day that started off with me discovering my car had been keyed. Yaya! I get to spend $300 for no reason!!!

I then went and picked up Pat from Dario’s house, where they were trying to figure out how to hook up the Nintendo.

It’s hard to seperate lovers when they don’t see each other often.

Pat wanted to go down to this Roller Derby sale in Vancouver. He had informed me that it was near Terminal so the plan was to take the sky train to Main Street and then walk from there. Thank God I was feeling lazy and decided to drive instead because we drove around for half an hour trying to find the place, which according to Google Maps on Pats pohone was in the middle of train tracks, only to realized that the place was actually a block away from my work. SRSLY PATRICK! If only he had given me the actual address ahead of time it would have taken me 20 minutes to get there! Oddly enough I drive by this place every day after work and have thought to myself many times that I should tell Pat about it, but never put two and two together.

Roller Derby crowds are always very interesting. We were talking to one girl who laughed and said, “I’m in roller derby, but do I look like a freak? I don’t understand why people dress so wacky for this”. I agree. There was your mix of Punks, and Goths, and 40 year old women in hooker boots on a leash. You know, the usual.

We had to wait in line for an hour because the store is small and they only let so many people in at once. I didn’t buy anything but Pat got some wheels and stoppers.

I then had the brilliant idea of going to Memphis Blues for lunch.

Pulled Pork for me and Brisket for Pat. Nom nom nom.

I promised Pat a Pork and Bacon filled dinner, something ever Jew wishes for on their Birthday. I then realized after dinner that I forgot to put bacon in two of the dishes. Ha. Woops.

I was in a mad rush as usual.

I made…

Sweet Bacon Wrapped Pork Loin
Hand Cut Shoe String Fries with Lemon Salt
Onion Gratin with Creme Fraiche and Cheese
Caesar Salad

The shoe string fries took forever to deep fry. Everything else was ready to go but we had to wait for the damn fries.

I was actually surprised at how well the Onion Gratin turned out since I have never made a recipe that used onion as the main ingredient. Everyone thought it was really good which I was thankful for!

A nice little triple date.

Pat and Dario then shared their newly discovered shot with us; The Flaming Etna. Half Fire Ball half Sambuca.

It was actually really tasty!

Off to the Cambie for the usual Patrick Zaph Party Adventures.

We sat on the Patio for the first bit because it wasn’t too cold, but we then had to move to the inside as we froze our butts off.

That’s the truth.

I finally let my mark at the Cambie.

The Pat Zaph Trio

I made a new friend.

It was a good night until Elise went to the bathroom and discovered two people in the stall beside her were having sex. She was mortified and sat at the table in shock for the rest of the night. We all found it pretty hilarious, though, if I were in her position, I probably would have been totally disgusted.

Pat left on Sunday and we weren’t going to see him so we said good bye that night.

Another amazing weekend!

Until next time my little Jewish friend.

We miss you like you will never understand. Things are only normal when you are here.

There is Sushi in my Eye

Posted on November 4, 2009 by Smelly Danielly

Last night was Matt’s birthday extravaganza. Well it wasn’t really an extravaganza it was just dinner at our favorite sushi place by Metrotown.

We talked business as usual. A bunch of people got laid off at his work, including 5 of his friends, but he was safe. He is a genius and they know it.

He had a work birthday dinner last week and the rule was everyone had to wear fur. So classic Matt. Reminds me of the time I bought him fur for his birthday many years ago.

After dinner we went and saw Zombieland. OMG the Bill Murray part was the best part of the whole movie. I think that’s why I loved the movie so much. Hahahaha when they started to act out Ghostbusters hahah PRICELESS. Damn I love BM.

Speaking of work, I have to go out to the warehouse this afternoon and clean the crap out of the Notions room. It is the only room in the entire building that has never been cleaned and organized and yours truly is left to the task. Piss me off.

I had to go in there yesterday to look for some binders and I blew a gasket. It is so gross in there I can not tell you. When they re-did that section of the roof they didn’t cover anything so there is a layer of dirt everywhere. It is so so so gross. Not to mention all the old crap they shove into corners and forget about instead of just chucking the stuff they don’t need anymore. It doesn’t make any sense.

I brought old clothes, an apron, and rubber gloves because I know half the stuff in there is going to need to be washed. Pretty sure when I signed up for this job it didn’t say warehouse maid. I mean I don’t mind cleaning up and organizing things, but this is ridiculous. I’m actually really annoyed about it. It seems that no one except the Italian Housewife cares enough to get off their ass and clean something. It is very frustrating. I spent three days last week cleaning different parts of the office, and if it wasn’t for me, no one would do it. No one would sweep or wash or organize. We would just live in more filth then we actually do. I tested it and when I wasn’t cleaning no one was cleaning. Ok, I’ve gone off on a rant here but I am just frustrated. I know people do help out in a small way here in there, it just seems like the big projects are left to me. Or maybe I just take the initiative to do it. Ugh, oh well.

I guess in the end, I am the one who needs to use the room the most and if I have a problem with it I should fix it. I just don’t like the idea of it being covered in dirt and grime.

If only I wasn’t so damn good at cleaning!!!

Drinking in Surrey

Posted on July 21, 2009 by Smelly Danielly

We headed out to Chads new favorite pub on Saturday night to celebrate Kelly (a friend of my cousins) birthday. It’s funny because I have heard my cousins talk about Kelly and her sister Shannon for years but it wasn’t until recently that we actually met them and started to hang out. Kelly was gracious enough to invite us out to her birthday celebrations, which just happened to be at Dublin’s Crossing. I knew once Chad saw that there was no saying no to this event. (Not that I wanted to say no)

This is the only picture I have of Kelly. I know, I’m bad, but the one we took of us didn’t turn out and the other pictures are on Elises camera. Kelly is in the blue talking to the boys.

Sorry Time from the Vault of Ciavarro.

So as you can see in the picture above there is supposed to be Scotch in both those glasses, and they are suppose to be the SAME Scotch, but as you can tell they look very different. Here’s what happened…

Mr. Ciavarro requested two orders of Scotch for him and Ryan, both to be served neat (without ice). The waitress comes back, drops off one glass of Scotch neat and then realizes the other glass is on the rocks. So she runs back to the bar and two seconds later drops off the second glass. Chad grabs then both to take a look at them and we immediately notice the difference.

Now Chad, oblivious to the waitress accidentally bringing one glass neat and one glass on the rock s, automatically assumes the she screwed up the order and brought two different types of Scotch. While they discuss back and forth why two glasses of the exact same Scotch look and smell so different a light bulb goes off in Ryan’s head. The waitress, realizing she made a mistake and not wanting to ‘waste’ a $9 drink must have taken the ice out and served the same glass of Scotch, which at this point would have been cooled and diluted by the ice. Well Chad was having none of this and demanded to speak to the waitress immediately.

She finally arrived and admitted to just removing the ice and re-serving the drink. Chad was flabbergasted. This was no way to treat the finest product Scotland has ever exported! With the wave of the hand he told her it was no good and would need a freshly poured dram of Scotch immediately. To this she obliged knowing full well that she had screwed up.

Yet another *legendary* interaction between Mr. Ciavarro and a Dublin’s Crossing waitress!