Saturday, February 18, 2006

Confessions of a Bear widower

Well, it seems that I'm married to a bear. What's a bear you may ask? Well, a bear is a man who is usually pretty big and hairy. There is some argument about it but the wiki has a nice entry about bears.

But I'm jumping a little forward. Today's story actually really began yesterday. I had decided to have dinner with my husband, Stkyrice, at T28. It was right after work and I was really looking forward to some good cheap food. I'm a foodie and proud of it. I'm not really into expensive food, as long as it tastes good. While we were headed to T-28, we were talking about all the new Hawaiian restaurants that were popping up all over San Francisco. I mentioned that I really didn't notice them. Actually I thought that SF was losing some of our long time Hawaiian eateries.

We lost that one over on Irving and 36th Ave a while ago and most recently Tita's over on 17th Street in the Castro. We have had some new places, like L&L BBQ (Daly City), Huki Lau (SF) and Ono BBQ (SF). But it just seemed to me that SF kept a status quo in the number of Hawaiian restaurants. Just then we reached 19th and Taravel.

On the corner was one of the new eateries, JT's Island Cafe. At that point, we decided to check them out.

There was only one table of people inside as we got to the door. I looked at the menu and noticed that there was only one thing I could have, the mahi mahi. "Not bad" I thought, at least I won't starve. Stkyrice got excited, because he could get his spam musubi. I could never understand the attraction, it must be a Spam thing.

We went in. I faintly recall the feeling of doors slamming shut behind us and chills ran down my spine. The temperature was freezing inside the restaurant. I pulled my jacket closer around me as we were seated at a booth.

Stkyrice remarked that this was a Korean/Hawaiian place, but there was only one thing I could eat there. I really didn't care. I figured that the place was just starting out. That if they wanted to stay in business here in SF, they'll eventually add more menu items, ones that will cater to people like myself. If they don't, I could expect to see another restaurant be in this space in a few months. This kinda thing happens pretty often here in SF, even to go good restaurants.

We ordered our food and waited....and waited....and waited.

I ordered my mahi mahi grill and Stkyrice ordered spam musubi along with something else, I can't recall it, my brain was too frozen.

As we were waiting for our food, a lady came in. She ordered a cup of coffee. It took a while for her to get that cuppa joe (Kona btw), they were making a fresh pot. I found this odd, as this space used to be a coffee shop type of restaurant. It was really weird not to have a hot pot of coffee ready for all the people to come in. Two other folks came in for their coffee.

The spam musubi came out. It looked good. So far, so good. Then Stkyrice picked it up and took a bite. The thing started to come apart. It was actually kinda funny seeing all the food fall into the plate. That's when the fork and knife came out. I thought, "How odd. I've never seen anyone eat that with a fork and knife before".

Stkyrice told me that the rice was too mushy and required him to eat it that way. This doesn't look good. Our dishes came out at that time. I looked at my mahi mahi with some trepidation. It looked ok, there were two slabs of what looked like pan fried mahi mahi, a scoop of mac salad and two scoops of rice. An orchid flower was a nice touch, the cold metal plate the food was on, wasn't. Here's what my dish looked like.

I tried the mahi mahi. It was tough, uh oh. The meat was really tough and I had a hard time cutting into it. Some part of the middle was tender, a very small part. The taste was never really there. I've never had fish that didn't taste like anything. I had some of the tarter sauce and found out that it was yellow colored mayonaise. I tried the mac salad. I thought, "Hey, this tastes like mac and cheese!". This was really bad. Thankfully, the rice wasn't bad, it just wasn't good.

I finished the food, because I just got off work and didn't have anything to eat all day. In other words, I was starving. It was a matter of survival, not pleasure, that I eat something.

The bill came. I paid for it quickly and we left. I really felt cheated. To have to eat something that bad and to have to PAY for it! Isn't there some sort of law against this? Something in the Geneva Convention that forbids "cruel and unusual punishment"?

I really needed to do something to get me in a good mood. We went to Molly Stone's for some of their delicious muffins, only to find that they were packed away. They were still available, just not individually and was in a twin pack. I wasn't in a good mood and this turned me off. We headed for Whole Foods.

We found parking right outside. If you're familiar with San Francisco, finding parking in front of your destination is good fortune, finding it in front of Whole Foods on California St. is a certified miracle! It's these little miracles that make life bearable.

I went inside and picked up some yummy Russian tea cookies (with almonds) and a blueberry muffin for Stkyrice. It did take me some time to find everything I wanted, because I just wanted to roam around and shop! I really needed to elevate my mood!
I did leave... eventually.

I didn't feel too bad. I noticed that a lady getting in a cashier's line as I was entering the store, was now in front of me as I was getting ready to pay. I guess I wasn't taking up too much time after all.

I paid and Stkyrice drove me to my bf, Scott's place. Scott was away to celebrate a friend's birthday and I was sleeping over to take care of his cats. Stkyrice is deathly allergic to cats, so he can't really stay there, so I was going to stay there alone.

I got inside and fed the kitties, changed their water and then took care of their litterbox. If I didn't take care of these three things, I would soon have to deal with kitty pee and shit all over the place. I was not going to deal with that, so I was very good about taking care of the kitties' needs, before my own. That's when I thought about putting my snack together.

I had a very enjoyable snack and got to do some knitting done. When a kitty wasn't in my lap that is. They really love getting in my lap, especially when I'm knitting. I tried to continue and was having some success, but I'm using a double knitting needle and the wire kept hitting the kitty on my lap. I finally just gave in, stopped knitting and did something really useful, scratch the kitty's (Alberta) head.

I went to sleep happy.

I woke up with a numb right arm. I wasn't sleeping on anything, so my arm shouldn't be numb. The kitties must have been sleeping on it all night. I suspect that it was Alberta, she's pretty heavy and seems to like, make that, tolerate me.

I really needed to erase what happened yesterday. So Stkyrice and I went to Taylor's over in the Ferry Plaza for some yummy food.

With our stomachs filled, we walked around the farmer's market at Ferry Plaza and enjoyed ourselves. I just enjoyed the whole experience of being there with a full stomach.

I went back to Scott's place to do some more knitting done. I really was trying to finish this yoga mat for Jason. I ran into some problems, like running out of yarn at the store and kitties getting in my lap, but I really was trying.

My friend Ted called me up and asked what I was doing tonight. I told him that I was planning on going to Underworld at Adonis tonight. I was feeling a little "old" and wanted to do some dancing and get some excercise in. I realized that dancing was really one of my favorite ways to excercise and I haven't been doing very much of that lately, so tonight was going to be a good chance to go out.

I had also planned on playing Urban Dead with Scott tonight, so I had to make sure that was covered as well. We usually played at 9:00PM, so since I was planning on going out dancing, I had to reschedule.

I contacted Scott in NYC and we played a little bit earlier. We had a good session and I got back to my knitting. The next thing you know, it was time for dinner. Wow, how time flies.

I was still a lil bit miffed over yesterday, so I went to Asqew. I find the food here to be pretty good in quality, taste and consistency. This time, I had the mango lime mahi mahi with roasted new potatoes as my starch. This really made my day.

It was still too early to head to the club, so we walked around Castro for a bit. That's when it hit me, the cold. I couldn't get over how cold it was and decided to change my mind regarding going out. I decided that I wanted to be indoors with a hot cup of something yummy in my hands. We went to Hot Cookie instead. I was going to skip the clubs tonight.

On our way over to Hot Cookie, some guy went up to my husband and proceeded to feel up his tit (chest) and made some weird noise, he then moved on. Stkyrice and I looked at each other with a "WTF just happened look". We had no idea who that guy was. That's when I remembered that it was IBR (International Bear Rendevous) weekend here in SF and the city was "invaded" by bears and their admirerers. This guy must have thought Stkyrice was a bear, or a bear cub, and then did what he did.

Did this guy think I was a bear chaser? Someone did in fact accuse me of that in the past. My answer to that, is no. I am not a bear chaser. I actually tend to go for guys that are smooth or hairless. If the guy has body hair, it has to be soft hair like Scott's :)

So I got my cookies and came back to Scott's place. I then made my hot chocolate and got ready to knitt when Alberta decided that she wanted to sit in my lap. This posting took forever to type, because of her. So of course I have to add her photo.

Since I was unable to type for a while, I decided to try out the audio blog route.

It's a little snippet of this blog. It's also my first time, so be kind.

Foodie memories
Once eaten, hard to forget.
Like a bad nightmare.

AiYahh!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

hmmmm, maybe we should have you stop drinking wine and start drinking whiskey...something that'll put hair on your chest.

just a suggestion :)