Grocery Shopping at an Amusment Park

Yesterday we plotted our course and did some adventuring around town. First stop was Lulu's Noodles, where the pho is supposed to be legendary. Uh, we didn't order it, though. Next time we will for sure. It just seemed too warm out for a big bowl o' soup. The Cantonese pan-fried noodles were good, though.

After that was a stop at a couple shops in the area - I'm afraid I did the typical wife thing and wandered to a nearby Cost Plus World Market while the Boy mulled over arcane external drive housings and computer guts at another store. We need curtains downstairs, so I searched for some. I've come to the conclusion that whoever decided that curtains should be sold one panel at a time ought to be smacked. I can imagine someone rubbing their hands with evil glee as they propose that not only will one one panel be sold at a time (as if anyone ever just needs a single panel for a whole window), but the panel shall be thin! So thin, in fact, that one may need to buy MORE than two panels to cover an entire window. MWAHAHA!!!

Only IKEA seems to get it right. They not only sell curtains enough for an ENTIRE window in one package, but it still costs less than a single measly panel elsewhere. Oh IKEA, come quickly. Cincinnati is waiting, and Spring 2008 seems so far away.

Anyhoo, after gnashing my teeth about the curtain panels, we traversed north a ways to a food market called Jungle Jim's. Now actually, to call it a food market would be a disservice.

You can't see the elephant fountain from here. Seriously.

What the place actually is, is something....sort of hard to describe. Imagine, if you will, that an amusement park married the most massive international grocery ever. This place would be the kid they'd have. According to the eccentric "Jungle Jim" himself, the place is, "Oh, six or eight acres" of gastronomical wonders ranging from thousands of cheeses, to an entire normal grocery store size area of wines and alcohols, to a fresh fish market, to a massive hot sauce section alphabetized by name, to... pretty much, you name it. Good thing we'd already grocery shopped recently. We hadn't really known what to expect there. Among the foods, you have weird and corny displays of various kinds, like a singing lion dressed like Elvis, or a support pole transformed into a giraffe neck. It was kind of bizarre in that respect, but you really really couldn't argue with the fact that any food or ingredient you could ever imagine, they had.

This is just part of the Parmasan and Romano section of the Cheese District. Forgive the blurriness. We were being sneaky with the camera.

Here are some of the dried peppers, most of which I'd never heard of. The whole area had an amazing smokey, peppery smell.

This is the front of the Hot Sauce Department- there are some aisles behind. I think the Boy had a little heart attack when he saw this. There was much gleeful browsing.

Who'd have thunk? A hot sauce that costs $2,000?? If cost is proportionate to heat, it must be like putting battery acid on your food.

We got off easy, buying just a few things: a six pack of various interesting beers and ales, which I'll write about later, cardamom, big shavings of cinnamon, star anise, and galanga. Oh, and a cat toy. Heh.

If any of you visit us here in Cin City, you may want to pay Jungle Jim's a visit. Bring your walking shoes.

Prettiest Commercial Ever?

I know it's ancient by web standards - it's been over a year since Jose Gonzalez sang "Heartbeats" as a sonic backdrop to hundreds of thousands of superballs being released down a San Francisco street for a Bravia commercial. However, I still love both the image and the song.

Wha...?

Remember the other day when I posted about how the cats love to look out the window at the feeder hanging on the oh-so-convenient tree right outside the study window? I neglected to mention that it provides a nice amount of shade and privacy to the front of the house, and is as fit as a fiddle, with its evergreen foliage making nice places for little critters to hang out where we could watch them right outside.

Yesterday I'd just charged up the camera and was ready to take some more adorable squirrel-hanging-from- feeder pictures, when I remembered the laundry needed changing. At the same time, I heard the lawn care guys doing some trimming outside, and breathed a sigh of relief that they were going to take down a couple large dead branches of a tree out by the road. I had had visions of them crunching down on an unsuspecting jogger.

Anyhoo, I figured since the squirrel would undoubtedly be in hiding until the lawn guys were gone, I'd just take pictures of it at the feeder later. It's not like it was going anywhere. Right? RIGHT??

I hauled some clean laundry upstairs and as I passed the study, I paused. It seemed awfully bright in there. That was when I realized my tree was totally and completely GONE. Gah! The cats were milling around on the windowsill, wondering why the view was so different.

After some roaring and fist shaking, I realized that they'd not only cut down my perfectly healthy shade tree, but they'd LEFT the 2 dead branches over the road. What the...?

Apparently this is a new trend with elderly man landlords. My mother-in-law had the exact same thing happen a little while ago at her place up North--- The landlord had a perfectly healthy tree chopped down for no other reason than that "It might fall on the house someday." I can only assume ours cut my tree for the same reason. Darn our trendy landlord! He didn't have to give in to peer pressure!

Bleh. I'm still sad about the tree, but I'm over it. And in the grand scheme of things, we do still have the best landlord ever. He's a grandpa-type who is absolutely charmed and impressed when you bring him the rent in person and shake his hand. We've heard no end of, "We're just so glad you're on board with us! It's just a pleasure to have such wonderful young people in that building. A pleasure!!" He actually added screen doors and ceiling fans and refinished the wood floors for us before we moved in. He wanted us to choose the paint colors, too! His wife is great as well, though she's hard of hearing, and can't take a phone message worth beans.

So *sigh* no more tree. I guess I'll put a feeder outside a window downstairs. The cats will be just as entertained, I'm sure.

Certain Laws of the Universe...

state that it would have been scientifically impossible for this ragingly adorable Valentine-spotted puppy to have been born anywhere but Japan.

Er...

I realize the last post had nothing to do with malts. However last night we went over to Graeter's on the town square after dinner for malts. It's ice cream month, apparently, and they're doing a thing where they'll add a mini scoop of ice cream for free. This equals a tiny scoop perched carefully on top of the regular scoop in the cone. We were highly amused by it for some reason. Who would have thought ice cream could be adorable?

I think it has to do with CuteOverload's Rule of Cuteness #7: "A thing, accompanied by a smaller version of that thing, is always cute."

Hooray for Malts!

Well, a week on from the move, things are pretty well unpacked, and though we need to pick up some shelving for here and there, and a couple other things, we're pretty well settled in.

It feels odd to know all the neighbors. We've always been friendly, but pretty quiet--not really diving into communities we've lived, partly because they haven't been all that conducive to diving into, and partly because we're "homey" types. But I think I like this whole "being social" business. Next weekend we're supposed to go to a big farmer's market in downtown Cincy with the girl who lives next door, and we're hopefully meeting up with a buncha nerds in a couple weeks from a literary group. We'll see what happens in terms of churches as well. We have a couple leads on decent places, though we're not rushing to find one.

The cats seem to be doing better. After the initial flurry of nervous stalking around and Nihao hissing, they've settled back into being pals--sleeping practically on top of each other and grooming each other like mad. I stuck a bag feeder outside the study window, and they've both been entranced by a massive chickadee convention as well as by a particular squirrel we've dubbed Squirrel Nutkin. (link goes to complete book online)


We have a decent patio and a--gasp!---already made garden to which I can easily add and maintain. The house we moved from started with a wasteland of trash and tomato wires in the back yard that took me an entire summer to clear and till. By the time we moved, there was more of a formed garden with plenty of perennials. About a thousand percent better than it was, but oh-so-much work... In any case, it's nice to have something a little simpler. I planted nasturtium, lavender, oregano, and chinese bellflowers in this section, which will be the "mostly herb" area. The nasturtium should spread nicely, with lots of spicy flowers, and buds you can cook with like capers. There was a tomato plant I repotted, and the local neato plant nursery was having a sale on herbs, so I got some thyme and Basil for pots. As we were walking up to the register, the owner of the place came running up with a couple garlic plants, which she gave us for free, since the cloves were ready to eat. Yum.

Ignore the big trash can and dolly. They're gone now. Also, is that a fancy-dancy brand new grill I see under that cover in the corner? Why YES, yes it is. The Boy had been yearning for one for a while now, and apparently there was a crazy sale at Lowes, and that= grill. Huzzah. We did a lime-herb turkey breast and asparagus on it last night. So yum.

oh, and Nihao likes to watch the neighbor cats from the back door.

Still Alive.

*yawn* Just barely. Happy Fourth of July, fiends and families!

We made it down to Cinci and have had internet for a few days, though I've been too pooped after the move and such to do much of anything but sloooowly unpacking boxes, like an old, rusty robot.

We're actually pretty settled for having been here less than a week. The neighborhood is lovely, the people are friendly, and we're having great fun getting to know the area and finding neat places to eat and hang out.

The cats are slowly recovering from an uber-traumatic 5 hour drive, and I expect that by next week they'll be back to normal. They're already pretty comfortable here, though there's been some hissing and spitting as Nihao is a little uncertain about her territory. Boo could care less, but she growls and roars at him, unless they're both preoccupied by something, in which case, they'll distractedly groom each other until Nihao remembers she's supposed to be hissy. It's noticably better already, thankfully.

Last night we spent some time out on the patio in the dark. There was a fireworks display happening nearby in downtown, and the carillon in the nearby church was playing songs along with it. The fireflies were out in force, trying to match the flashes in the sky.