Everything is Bigger in Texas

Apparently, shifting around in the back of Chancho's car this entire week has been this big heart shaped box filled with chocolate! Just waiting to be given to me. This was the first surprise.

Step one: I was told to get in the car. We drove to the train station and caught the express train into Grand Central. It was crowded so we had to stand. Interesting conversation happened while on the train. It went something like this:

Chancho: "Do you wanna do it now?"

Me: "What? No, I don't."  Man standing next to us, glares at us.

Chancho: "Well, okay do you want to wait til the next stop, that way we can get a seat in the back?"

Me: "No. We can wait til later." Man still glaring at us, shifting slightly away.

          Chancho: "Okay, fine. I just thought it would be good to do it now."

He then pulls out his lip medication. He had apparently been wanting me to put his medication on his cut. I can only put it on while he's sitting down and figured since we were on the train it would be more convenient than trying while we were walking in the city. I of course, wasn't thinking anything near that and apparently the guy standing next to us was afraid he might get a show himself. All I could do was laugh.

From Grand Central we hopped onto the subway and got off in Times Square and there we were. We walked a few steps and found our destination. Dallas BBQ. We walked in and they wanted to put us at a table right by the front door, but we both shook our heads no. We wanted something a bit closer to the back. Instead, they told us to take the elevator upstairs. Turns out there is a huge upstairs, just filled with tables. They were a little too close for comfort. I could join in on anyone's conversations if I felt like it. 

Here's how our night went: 

Welcome! Have a ginormous drink. I chose the Blue Hawaii (pina colada)

Chancho picked the Strawberry Long Island Iced Tea

Then came my dinner. Spare ribs, Chicken, french fries and corn bread. Yes, I ate the whole plate.

Chancho's dinner arrived soon after mine. Chicken, fried shrimp, french fries and corn bread. Yep, he too finished the plate clean. 

Round two of drinks

I opted for a regular size. Still pretty large in my book. I also switched to a Strawberry Daiquiri

And here ends our dinner. This is what our table looked like 2 hours later. Oh and those blue tubes on the table...Those are the shots of vodka that came in our drinks.

After being afraid to stand up after drinking so much, we stood our ground and took off for the movie theatre. Thankfully it was right next door. Valentine's Day was the movie that he picked out. The theatre was packed. We had a guy sitting behind us that thought he was in his living room. He commented on EVERYTHING. I really could have done him harm. He didn't even have anything witty to say. There just wasn't a filter on his thinking. It was like he forgot that thinking meant to keep it inside your head. Other than that though, it was an okay movie, not the greatest and I wouldn't buy it, but it was appropriate for the date. 

From there we traveled back home. I loved it. It was perfect. A great night out with just the two of us. We were able to laugh and be ourselves, we didn't discuss anything heavy and we made it a fun night out.

I can say that this is one "holiday" that I don't mind celebrating, not on the actual day.

Listening to: "I Can't Help Falling In Love With You" by Elvis Presley

Quote of the Day: "I love every little thing about him. The good and the bad. They all make up him, and he's all I want." - Jacqueline Kelly

Well Worth The Wait

Date night went extremely well. In fact, the entire day went well. We were busy all day. Chancho had a few errands to run so we did them together. Gotta make the most out of our time. In amongst our travelings across town and back, I wound up having to drive Tank. Tank is what Chancho refers to his Honda Pilot as. I had said previously that I wouldn't drive it on the street until I felt comfortable enough to, but the occasion arose that I needed to and I managed just fine. I was being such a baby. My favorite feature, is the camera that turns on when you put the car in reverse.

But anyways onto dinner. We at Alaroma. It is a quaint little restaurant. It's a casual, but neat setting. Definitely a family restaurant. There were a lot of families there with older children. The food was delicious. It is prepared fresh just like their website said. I ordered the lasagna and it was great! I was able to bring some home for lunch today. Chancho had chicken with pasta in Alfredo sauce. For dessert, Chancho ate chocolate cake topped with vanilla ice cream and hot chocolate sauce. I had a cannoli with whipped cream. It wasn't too badly priced either, especially with our gift certificate we only spent $15 out of our own pockets or I should say Chancho's pocket. However, we both decided it wouldn't be a place that we'd go back to. We didn't like their selection of food. I'm not sure if it's just because I'm not huge fan of Italian food or if it they really didn't have that many options. Either way, it's been tried, we liked it, but on to something else.

The next movie that we were supposed to watch from Netflix before Chancho canceled the membership was 4 Christmases. (My pick) It arrived in the mail, but he had to send it back right away before he got charged for it. I was really disappointed and made him promise that we would watch it eventually. I think he figured that he could get away with not watching it because when will there be a Christmas movie in the RedBox after Christmas? Welll we stopped by the RedBox for our movie after dinner and low and behold there was 4 Christmases. Turns out, Chancho enjoyed and I had already watched it, in theaters no less, when it had first come out. I had completely forgotten. After all that fuss about NEEDING to watch it and I had already seen it. At least it was a good one.

Tonight we have plans again, just us so far, but we're thinking of practicing our skills at Taboo. It's a fun game that we sometimes play when we get together with our friends and because there is sometimes a language barrier for Chancho, we figured we'd practice on our own time.

Listening to: "I Just Love You" by Five For Fighting

Date Night To Come

It's been a pretty hectic 2 weeks. Chancho and I haven't seen a lot of one another, except for the few precious moments here and there. Not a lot of quality time. I'm itching to have some alone time to catch up and reconnect. Perhaps tonight will satisfy that itch, but most likely, I'll have to wait til tomorrow. I've put Chancho in charge of creating this date night. He really only needs to call and make reservations, but we all know that sometimes that can be too much.
We received a gift certificate from our dear friend Zach's parents for the holidays. It's to a restaurant called Alaroma. We both have never been, but it's right down the road from Chancho's place. Figured we'd give it a shot, plus how can we pass up a free meal?? From looking at the website, it seems to be an Italian restaurant and we must have driven past it at least a hundred times. Hopefully it can turn into a good night with dressing up and ending with a movie. And on that note....Chancho did decide to delete the Netflix account. I was devastated to find this out. I watch movies online all the time from there and I am addicted to the seasons of Law and Order SVU. I had been watching it from the beginning and only made it to the end of season 2. We'll be renting from the RedBox instead now. It is a lot cheaper (dollar a night!), but not convenient. I think he secretly didn't want to watch the movies I put on the list. They'd just show up and he'd have no say in them. At least now we have to have a discussion about which movie we'll be watching or a good old fashion game of rock, paper, scissors will suffice.

I'm starting to feel a lot better. I have most of my energy back. I'm still coughing up my lungs here and there and my nose is running all over the place, but I can get out of bed and do what I need to do. I was lucky to make it to work and back again without making a mess of myself.

Listening to: "The Joker" unplugged by Steve Miller
Quote of the Day: “Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others.  If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter which fork you use.” ― Emily Post

Harold's NY Deli

January 2nd is my father's birthday. We usually don't do much for it because it is right after Christmas and no one ever has enough money to spend on anything extravagant, but this year we all saved a little extra so we would be able to go to Harold's New York Deli. It's a restaurant, but the portions are ginormous! And I mean ginormous. They are made to serve 2-3 or 5-6 people. It was so funny watching everyone's face when the food arrived at the table. Even the drinks were giant sized. You never want to order anything large because it will come 3x the size you want it to be. They also have a pickle bar. I never new there were so many different pickles that you could make a bar out of them all, but there are! They also have extra bread so when you order a sandwich you can make smaller sandwiches. We ordered an eclair. A simple eclair and out comes this 18" eclair. It was bigger than my cat. It probably weighs more than my cat too. We got plenty of leftovers, which will probably feed us until Tuesday.
The entire family was able to go, including my dad's sister and her husband. Chancho wasn't able to make it because he signed up for overtime. Here are the pictures of our meals.

 This was my dad's meal that he shared with his brother-in-law. So this is only half.

French fries for the table.

This was my meal that I shared with my mom. (Roast beef with cheddar cheese and bacon)

My sister and her husband's meal. (Bacon hamburger)

My brother-in-law ordered chili fries

My brother and his wife ordered a meatball sub

And here it is! The eclair!!

Listening to: "You Can Count On Me" by Default
Quote of the Day: “Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.” - Hal Borland

Misti

Dinner went well last night. We actually wound up going to another restaurant than I thought we were going to. This restaurant, called Misti, was more of a diner atmosphere. It was still very much Peruvian though. They barely spoke English, but the menus did have a translation underneath the name of the dish. The food was excellent. I had chicken, which they are known for, cooked with onions and tomatoes with a side of rice. It came with french fries, which I thought were going to be on the side, but there were actually mixed in with the rest of the food. I devoured it. Everyone made a comment about how fast I ate it, but I couldn't help myself. My mother had 1/4 of a chicken with a side salad and rice. She enjoyed it. My father had the same thing as I did, but substituted the chicken with beef. Chancho ordered the same as my dad. My dad also ordered a Peruvian beer called Cristal. He liked it, but not enough to order a second. I was disappointed because this place didn't have the ice cream that I love. It is made out of a fruit from Peru and called Lucuma. To me it has a caramel taste to it, but Chancho insists that it doesn't taste like that. We stopped down the street at another restaurant to get the ice cream to go. Chancho picked up some cookies that were delicious and gave it to my parents to try. I think that my dad was getting a little cranky towards the end of the night and was becoming rude when my mom was asking if he wanted to go to another place and he just flat out said I want to go home. It was getting to be past his bedtime, but I felt that he was being rude when here we are out to dinner and Chancho is paying for him and he is just focused on going home. Oh well, besides all of that, it was a pleasant night. I enjoyed myself.

I just got back from going with Chancho to donate blood. The local blood donation center has been calling him everyday at least 5 times a day, so he decided he'd actually donate. There is a huge blood shortage and everyone should be donating. However, I can't say much for I don't donate myself, but the guilt hasn't gotten to me yet. Here he is laying on the chair giving a pint of blood and I'm just watching and I'm about to pass out. For some reason whenever I see blood, I get very queasy. I never used to be that way. Even the simple prick of a needle gets me light headed. He was given apple juice and a choice of cookies and trail mix. He did very well and now is using the whole "I gave blood, you have to be nice to me" line, every chance he gets. In fact he's using that line right now as I'm typing because I'm not giving him my full attention. He doesn't like the taste of his own medicine. I told him he can wait just like I wait when he sits and reads his Yankee articles for hours.

Speaking of Yankees, we will be heading to the Bronx in a few hours for the game. Not that this game will be anything special since they already got the AL East division title. They won't be playing any of the good players, just to make sure no one gets hurt and they will be healthy for the post season. I don't mind that though. I'm going to see the Yankees and no matter who is playing, it'll be a great game, great experience. We're going to take the train down this time using the new stop. Instead of having to transfer in Harlem and walk a block to the subway we just get off the train and hop on another one which takes us straight to the stadium. I have a feeling I'm going to love this addition to the train schedule.