The Daily Sabs

today was my four year sugar-versary. i can't believe it's been four years. for the record, this is the longest i've ever worked anywhere. it's sort of mind-boggling when i think about it. it doesn't feel like four years and it's sort of wild to think i've been here this long. what's also wild is the number of desks i've sat at in that period of time. today i moved again (back in the nerd pen), i honestly believe this is the 10th spot in this office alone, add the other two offices and that's a dozen seats in four years. that amount of moving around is kind of ridiculous.

you know what else is ridiculous? little v! yesterday was her birthday and she didn't tell a soul. so naturally we had to make up for it today with cupcakes. happy birthday little v! you won't be so sneaky next year!

Randall bought the weirdest black Friday item, a DNA analysis kit for both of us (they were 80% off). They arrived today and we got to spit into a vial and send them away. Start your conspiracy big brother comments now, but apparently I'll get to know what diseases and weird genetics i'll pass on to those children I'm never having. Money well spent indeed.

In other news I apparently did not get enough thanksgiving. For dinner we roasted a chicken over brussel sprouts, sweet potatoes, and cranberries. I think I might be developing a roast chicken problem. I want to make a variation of it just about every week. Seriously. I got started in June and have probably made 20 roasted chickens since.

Ps. Sorry if you're grossed out by either spittle, chicken, or both.

little b (aka bridget, aka britches) moved to turkey a few months ago, but is in the states for an american thanksgiving. for today's festivities, we headed to magnolia where we partook in afternoon beers with a crew of folks who wanted to see her. april was one of those folks, she joined us at our house first, and after we caught up, we headed down to magnolia. there we met up with bridget, cor, cara, two folks i don't really know, winnie, marc, and then megan and her pal from amsterdam. it was another wild college reunionish type of event. and afterwards we wandered around the haight where we went drunk shopping. i drunken bought some new things and it was swell.

This afternoon Randall and I wandered down to the moscone center to check out the auto show. Mostly we wanted to check out the new mini countryman because what what? We getting one! Randall pre-ordered it a few weeks ago and the new family member should be here in a month or so. We're getting a blue one (we already had a red one in the past) but it's going to have white accents, stripes, and roof. It's a little bit bigger than I thought (although what was I expecting it's a four door car and pretty roomy in the back) and it's really not "mini" but it is cute!

Afterwards we had some blue bottle coffee, wandered the aisles of the container store (Randall is demonstrating how one of the baskets they sell is more like a hat), checked out the holiday kittens in the Macy's windows, and then ate delicious pho at turtle tower. You have to love unintended date night!

Ps. Happy birthday ah-bao!

Today was one of those glorious vacation days. You know, the kind where you wake up late, eat some foods, laze about, hang out, eat some more foods.

It started off with a desire to find a dining table and a hankering for a bloody Mary. This meant heading down to the furniture stores in the mission and stopping by ti couz for a bloody Mary and tasty crepe. On our way there we called up anneh. Her mom Betty is in town so we thought it would be fun to meet up. I had the scallop tomato crepe, and for the record, I think I am allergic to those kind of scallops. An hour or so later I was itching like crazy and my skin was oddly blotchy. Luckily Randall is smart and suggested I take a benadryl. I did and the blotchy went away and more importantly, the itchy did too.

Afterwards Randall and I walked home, stopped by bi-rite, ran into Laura (we always seem to see her in the same place), and then watched a bunch of movies (secret of kells was gorgeous to look at but lacked plot development, while 3:10 to yuma had an I don't buy that ending going on).

After an afternoon of house-lazing, I hustled on down to the movie theater where I met Erin. She and I are both like 11 years old and thus we wanted to see tangled. I should let it be known that I might actually be more like 12 going on 13 in that i thought it might be kinda lame, but it wasn't. It was actually really cute and I genuinely liked it. Oh and I'm not really the biggest Disney/fairytale fan. But it was fun. And the music was more broadway than Randy Newman, so bonus points for that.

When the movie was over Erin and I made a pit stop to katana ya where we had beers and butter corn ramen. Essentially ramen soup with pats of butter and corn niblets. It was a special kind of delicious.

After the nom-fest, it started raining so I caught a cab home. When I got home the cab driver gave me a 3 minute lecture me on how I should've had him take gough instead because of the rain not mixing with the F train tracks. He never suggested we take gough so how was I supposed to know? Seriously. 3 solid minutes of cab driver lecture about safety. It was so odd.

Speaking of odd, don't miss the new Randall sweater. Wes used this sweater when he dressed up as Randall for Halloween last year. Then later wes kindly gave Randall the sweater. And guess what? It's his new favorite. Can you blame him?

thanksgiving used to be one of my favorite holidays (right after 4th of july). This is mainly because our house was full of all sorts of people, tons of amazing food, and all around festive cheer. However, as I've gotten older, it's not nearly as much hoopla as it used to be. Now it's just an excuse to hang out, eat tasty foods, and drink. Not that that's bad, it's just different.

Growing up, morm always invited every stray who had no where to go over to our house for a feast. So it never used to be about family, it was more about having a big party. My parents didn't entertain much, so it was something i looked forward to every year. But, once we got older, and morm decided it was too much work to host for so many people, it all sort of stopped. The parties of 20-30 went down to just us. I miss those ridiculous entertaining days and would love to bring the back someday. Maybe when we're in a house that holds a real table.

Until then we eat, drink, and hang out with family. This time we ended up at liz & matt's house, where we hung out with the kids and randall's parents. matt bbq'd us up a delicious turkey, and liz and karen cooked up the rest of the dishes. we just drove out there and provided the wine. we clearly have the easy job and will happily travel anywhere that wants to feed us tastyness.

hope you and yours had a great thanksgiving and have a lot to be thankful for.

i know i do.

The fine folks at 4505 meats were out today serving up turducken "sandwiches." I put that in quotes because it was really an open faced sandwich, which means it was really just delicious brioche topped with turducken smothered in gravy, Brussels sprouts, cranberry, and fresh thyme, accompanied by the tastiest stuffing I have ever eaten. Naturally when I heard that they were doing this I told Randall we had to go. Samshrew happened to skip out on work early and met us there. The weather was amazing out, so we enjoyed our feast at a nearby picnic table. A couple of guys sitting in the park eyed our meals and asked what I was going to do tomorrow since I was feasting today. I told them I was going to be thankful for feasting two days in a row.

After the lunch extravaganza we headed back to our house where samshrew worked even though she said she was done, and Randall worked because "unlike [us] slackers some people didn't take the day off." I played music, read magazines, and annoyed them until samshrew was finished. Once she was ready, we took off to find an adventure. We ended up at Ross where we bought a bunch of toys for the toy drive. And while that might not sound that adventurous, it was. That place is wild.

Finally, as Randall and I were sitting around catching up on house, the phone rang. I didn't recognize the phone number but answered it anyway. Turns out it was a phone survey about cable, Internet, and phone service. Strangely, I love taking phone surveys. In this one the lady on the other end described commercials to me and asked if I'd seen them. At one point she was talking about robots and old ladies with pet carriers. I had no idea what she was talking about. Clearly I haven't been watching enough tv.

Happy thanksgiving all! Hope you have safe travels.

This morning I dropped Randall off at caltrain and decided to find an adventure. Sadly, I wasn't feeling that adventurous, and just ended up at the gym. After a 2 episode workout it was time to run some errands. I was still in my workout clothes (juju would've been appalled), but I had to pick up the bubbles for thanksgiving and some stuff for the house. Apparently I was really tired because I also felt the need to test out new pillows.

Once the errands were run, I headed home to start dinner. It was only 1pm, but I was doing a slow cooked citrus-spice beef stew. It's a recipe I made up (beef stock, oj, aniseed, cumin, white pepper, garlic and then some) and it turned out pretty nice. It stewed for 7 hours, but I wish it could've gone a bit longer. While I was dicing up vegetables for the stew, I remembered the roast chicken leftovers in the fridge and decided to cook up a batch of chicken stock too. I'll use it next week to make some risotto.

After the cooking I did a proper vacation thing and napped. I actually didn't mean to, but it was cold and there was a new pillow and the couch looked cozy (it was).

When I woke up I bumbled about a bit, then picked up Randall from the train station. We came home and uncivilly ate our dinner (meaning in front of the tv catching up on walking dead), but I was feeling festive so I decide to keep cooking and whipped up some pumpkin yogurt bread with chocolate chips. It was a hacked together recipe and came out decently. The loaf (and straggler muffins) rose really ridiculously, but the taste was there. I wasn't sure what to expect, for whatever reason, I hate on recipes these days. I think I'm turning into morm.

Overall it was an adventure-less day, but there was lots of festive aromatic tasty foods, and that has to count for something, no?

Stayed late tonight to get the work done. Why? I'm calling it vacation the rest of the week. Not sure what I'm doing, but if everything goes according to plan, it won't be working!

In other news, this is my new brewskeeball shirt. Randall has the same one. Now we can be twins. Seriously, I'm sure you won't be able to tell us apart.

Today in numbers:

1 tecate with lime during skeeball
2 friends under the age of 2
3 trips to the brunch buffet at the hyatt sfo
4 mimosas during brunch
5 dollars I still owe anneh for buying potter tickets
6 frames of brewskeeball championships
7 months to wait until the last hp film
8 kinds of protein eaten during brunch
9 kinds of sweets eaten throughout the day
10 episodes of weeds season 6 watched