.JPG) |
| Happy Birthday to Us... er, Jer! |
His 41st birthday, to be specific. And we celebrated the big day... by
purchasing a membership to Sam's Club!
We decided to go check out the 'Costco of
the South' and see if a membership was something 2 people without children
would actually make use of. After nosing
around for 5 minutes, we stumbled across the cereal aisle, realized we could
get double the amount of cereal we were getting for the same price at Target...
and sprinted to Membership Services to get set up.
Two and a half hours later, we were loading
up our car with all our new SC purchases.
See, now that all my pots and pans and kitchen utensils are safe and
sound in my kitchen... I've realized just how bare my fridge and pantry really
are. Not being able to transport any
liquids or perishables with us into the US, I had forgotten about all the
little things we were missing. Like
ketchup. And Tabasco. And peanut butter! Not to mention all the ingredients to make a
proper Gin & Tonic. Sheesh!
So this Sam's Club trip was fruitful. Some of the highlights of our outing:
1) Chicken Breasts - 6 lb. bag for $11
2) 24x Milky Way ice cream bars for $8
3) 24x Heinekin (that's right, we can buy
booze ANYWHERE!)
4) Box of Florida fresh grapefruits... and
they're almost as big as your head!
And CHEESE!
Look at our stash -
 |
| Get ready to get bunged up! |
5 lb bag of shredded mozza, 120 'American'
cheese slices, Pepper Colby Jack cubes and a big-ass tub of Parmesan. We are set for a while... I'll never get used to the whole 'American'
cheese thing though. It's CHEDDAR,
people!
A few of the things we kindly left on the
shelves at Sam's Club, put couldn't resist snapping some photos:
It is precisely these types 'foods' that
result in stores like Sam's Club and Target to provide shopping cart
scooters. Can't tell you how many
perfectly able bodied people I saw driving these things through the aisles.
"Get off your a$$!", I screamed
telepathically...
Clearly I need to work on my ESP skills,
because these incredibly lazy people just whizzed right by me.
-----------
Jeremy is such a lucky guy, not ONLY did he
get a Sam's Club membership for his birthday... I also took him out for dinner!
We got 'gussied up' and drove downtown to a
trendy area called Brickell. (pronounced
BRICK-ul) People tell me Brickell is
full of shops and restaurants and is a great place to park your car and just
wander around in. We drove around for
about half an hour trying to find these so-called shops and restaurants. Then, and only because it was Jeremy's
birthday, we dusted off the Garmin to give us some assistance. I'm pretty sure if we would have kept driving
for a while, we would have found our way.... but it was Jeremy's day,
afterall.
Garmin showed us the way and we soon were
driving through a very busy and spiffy part of downtown. A lot of fashionable people walking the
streets, sipping wine in the outdoor lounges, leaving their Mercedes and BMWs
at the various valet stands. I found
myself wincing as we came to a stop-sign in the middle of it all.... and our
little Mazda's brakes creaked to a half.
"OMG... SO embarrassing!"
I got over it.
We parked our squeaky car and walked to
Rosa Mexicano. It was around 9:30pm at
this point. (I'm sorry Oma, dinner is a little later here than it is back
home!) But Rosa Mexicano was already
closed. We discovered a lot of these
places have earlier hours on Monday/Tuesday and then open late the rest of the
week. Luckily, a Tuscan restaurant
called Tuscana Divino was open next door, so we strolled in.
We decided because this was a bit of an
upscale type of restaurant that we would curb our 'sharing an American-sized
meal' trend and each have our own.
Expensive restaurant should mean the portions are much smaller, right?
This was the case with my meal, a lovely
bowl of traditional gnocchi that was just the right size.
However, Jeremy ordered a half a cow with a
vat of potatoes.
 |
| Terri wanted to swim in this. |
To my surprise, he polished the whole the
thing off... but this may have been a mistake, as Jeremy soon after was haunted
by the 'Meat Sweats'.... this was followed by the 'Meat Sh!ts'... and this
morning, the inevitable 'Meat Hangover'.
Poor Jeremy. At 41, it's not just
the booze that causes you hangovers anymore, it's the food too! Though the fact we don't eat that much meat
probably throws a body into shock when we over do it.
After dinner, we were invited over to my
co-worker Ian's place for a drink, which was conveniently located across the
street from the restaurant. Ian is a
Scottish lad who is a former professional soccer player (with Real Salt Lake -
pronounced RAY-al Salt Lake) and is now a colour commentator at beIN Sport. He and his lovely girlfriend Nicole have a posh
33rd floor apartment in Brickell that overlooks the bay. At least, this is what Jeremy tells me as I
didn't go near their balcony to admire the view. My paralyzing fear of heights prevented me
from enjoying the night skyline.
Ian and I were regailing Jeremy and Nicole
with stories of shenanigans from the weekend at work. Normally I share the weekend workload with a
co-worker. But this weekend, I was on my
own. I worked a grand total of 30 hours
from Friday night to Sunday night.
Needless to say, by the time Sunday night rolled around and we were into
our last half hour of recording, I was starting to get a little goofy in the
head.
The final show I produce on Saturday and
Sunday nights is called Express Extra, which is a half hour highlights show
that Ian and I host. At the end of the
show on Sunday, we were viewing footage of a big fight that broke out in the
middle of a soccer game in France between 2 rival clubs. The fans got involved and it certainly had
potential to be a much scarier situation that it ended up becoming. Ian was talking about the situation and
relating it to the passion between the clubs and the fans and how something it
gets out of control. I was about to add
my own 2 cents with a final thought before steering the conversation towards
the next topic. But, as I opened my
mouth to add my 2 cents... my brain decided to shut down and de-evolve to that
of a Neanderthal and out I blurted, "Passion is good. Danger... is bad.'
Really, Terri? Never before had I wanted to grab these
words from their bubbles above my head and shove them back down my throat from
whence they originated. In the words of
Homer Simpson - stupid brain!
----------
Did you know that it's almost
Christmas?? We didn't until we saw the
houses in our community all have their Christmas lights and decorations up
already.
 |
| Doesn't Halloween come first? |
We received an early Christmas present a
few days ago when the people who live across the street from us decided to
leave their keys hanging from their front door.
A construction worker noticed this and decided to let the home owners
know, not realizing they weren't home and had actually left for an extended
period of time.
When he tried the door to toss the keys
inside, he set off their house alarm.
The thing is, you need the alarm code in order to turn that sucker off.
So for about 4 days now, if we don't have a
fan or music or some kind of background noise in our house... we hear the
"beep, beep, beep.... beep, beep, beep.... beep, beep, beep" from the
house across the street.
It's a pleasant kind of repetition...
------------
Speaking of Christmas, we booked our
flights back home in December! We will
be back in Manitoba from December 23 to January 3. Looking forward to seeing family and friends...
we anticipate it will be busy! And we
are thankful that my parents are storing a Rubbermaid tub of our winter jackets
and boots for when we come home for the holidays.
-------------
We are starting to notice the seasonal
changes here in South Florida. It
certainly is not as drastic as a snow storm... but we have noticed the weather
has become a little more comfortable.
Don't get me wrong, it's still gorgeous, but a light wrap has become
necessary at night.
This reminds me of a little surprise I
found while unpacking some boxes. When
we left Manitoba, I also had to leave behind some duties & responsibilities
with some organizations that are very important to me. Such as the Steinbach Arts Council, and the
Manitoba chapter of Canadian Women in Communications. I have been obsessively dedicated to CWC
Manitoba for the better part of a decade, and leaving the regional board is one
of the hardest things I've had to give up as part of this relocation. When I met with the board for the last time
in August, my fellow board ladies presented me with a parting gift - a set of
GORGEOUS crystal wine glasses. They came
in a special box that I opened for the first time while we were unpacking. And in the box, I noticed they had left me
another little surprise.
 |
| These are too small for me. |
A little reminder of home that I can take
with me wherever I go, no matter what the temperature is. Thanks ladies!
----------
Closing note, as I write this in our
trusty, neighbourhood Starbucks:
No comments:
Post a Comment