Monthly Archives: August 2008

Life Lesson: Car Rental Schmar Rental

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Guess what? Turns out there’s a serious difference in the daily rate between booking a car for a week and booking a car for 1 day and 16 hours. I’ve done Hotwire before for our car rentals and I’ve gotten some great rates. This time though, there’s not much of a rate difference between Hotwire and the standard travel sites.

I guess I learned that there’s a difference between with how far out you should book your car even if you’re using a discount service. I figured that like the hotels, they’d rather have the room (in this case the car) booked, than unbooked and thus, give you a bargain on Hotwire. Turns out that’s not the case. If I’d booked our car a few weeks back, when we first started making our plans, I’d be saving about half the price.

Who knew?!? Well, probably everyone else but me. Oh well, it’s all about visiting and hanging out with my long time friend. And um…drinking wine.

Damn that Reader

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I have over 1000 unread blog posts piled up. Sadly, I won’t be reading the majority of them. “Mark as Read” is my friend. Sorry if I haven’t been around to comment lately, I just haven’t felt all that motivated to read my blogs (my books, yes – my blogs, no).

Some Completely Random Things

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* Lunch went well.  My husband has a great team that he works with and the gals are all super sweet.  I was right too – one gal is an immigrant from China (she did our ordering) and the other two are first generation, as is one of the guys.  It was good fun though and all perfectly normal food.  They ordered jellyfish and I tried it, but I didn’t much like the consistency.  Otherwise it was a fun lunch.

* My good friend wrote me to tell me that he and his new wife just put a bid in on the house next door to where I used to live.  How odd is that?  Those houses are HUGE too, so I’m kinda surprised their going for something so large with no kids just yet.  But they are beautiful homes and it’s a great neighborhood (as long as it doesn’t snow – very steep hill at the entrance to the sub-division).

* My husband is a bit of a work-a-holic…surprise!  He had permission from his boss to work the rest of the from home, but chose not to.  He’s got a big project set to launch on Monday and we’re gone Tuesday and Wednesday so he wants to make sure it’s completely ready to go.

* I’ve scheduled an appointment with an acupuncturist.  Hopefully I can get this sinus thing under control.  I’d settle for the stupid post-nasal to just go away.  I still need to schedule with an allergy specialist so I can rule out whatever might be making me so crazy here in the house.

* My desk is a mess and covered in piles o’crap.  I haven’t filed our receipts or worked on our books in months!  Insanity.  Guess what I’ll be doing this weekend?

The weekend is full of shows and visits with friends so it should be a good one.  Can’t wait to head up to Sonoma on Monday.  It’ll be the first time I’ve seen my friend in about 5 years.  We met up in Vegas leading up to the wedding for a quick weekend the last time she was in the states.  So even though this trip will also be quick, it will involve a lot of wine (woohoo!) and a lot of catching up.  So excited.

Okay, off to get needles poked in me…

We’re Off to Try Some Shanghainese

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And let me tell you, I’m just the slightest bit scared.  Not that I don’t like Chinese food because I do. But for one, I’ll be meeting my husband’s entire work team (going away/maternity leave party for his boss).  Secondly, they’re all also really adventurist diners and well, they’re Chinese and Vietnamese. On top of that, it’s also the first time I’m meeting everyone.  So either way, a little nerve-wracking.

And let’s keep in mind, we were complaining (toungue in cheek) that my friend and his wife served our table the Americanized version of Chinese food at their wedding.  But as he explained it…being told to expect that a full chicken with head and feet is coming to the table is not the same thing as seeing it.  His co-workers are totally into the chicken feet sort of thing and they talk about it at work (no really, I do believe that 3/4 of them are either immigrants themselves that came over as a young child or first generation).

The Yelp reviews of the place we’re going are good though.  I could always just get something that I’m comfortable with, like um…noodles or the shrimp in mayo (yum!).  Of course, back at the office they’ll probably get a good giggle out of that.  But really, I can’t say I’d blame them.

Coming from an immigrant family (okay, I was raised by my first generation grandmother, but we lived with my immigrant great grandmother), I never really had food from other cultures until I was an adult – spaghetti and pizza don’t count.  Heck, I never had Mexican food until I was like 17 and even then, it was from ChiChi’s (and we all know that doesn’t count).  The only Chinese food I’d had was chicken lo mein and that was at my elementary school cafeteria (again, don’t really think that counts).  I didn’t have Indian or Mid-Eastern food until my late 20’s.

Since meeting my husband, I think I’ve tried more ethnic food that I can think of.  So it’s not that I’m scared to try new or unknown foods, I’m just not sure I’m up for the chicken feet or braised pork belly.  We just didn’t eat that sort of thing growing up (though those Eastern Europeans do seem to love their tongue and liver – nothankyouplease).

Wish me luck!