Best Part of Today

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Best Part of Today

Thank you!!! I've been trying for years to remember the name of that restaurant - my old brain doesn't work quite as good as it used to!

My dad used to work in the AYB and in the 60's that building was my stomping grounds on the weekends. The Hob Nob was a really cool place with glass and chrome everywhere and marble walls. The bar was against the back wall facing Bishop Street and a side entrance opened up to the AYB lobby. That was a true 30's style restaurant bar diner combo. Too bad for the AYB, that building had a lot of class.

The only parts of that building left was in the interior design of the house we lived in on Kilauea Avenue where my dad installed a lot of the marble and fixtures in that house.

When we sold the house I told the new owners that many of the fixtures, windows, flooring and doors were from the AYB including the glass grand piano table top that sits in the dining room, the chandeliers and various lighting fixtures. The kitchen table was this massive 4x8 sheet of marble and the bar stools that wrapped both that table and the wetbar came from the Hob Nob. That house is all that's left of the AYB right to the glass entryway door to the rear patio bearing the name of Aloha Airlines from their ticketing booth at the AYB.

[cynsaligia]

Re: Best Part of Today

this could have gone into funniest part of today or what's for dinner, honestly.

it started last night with me wanting to cook fried chicken the way my mom & grandma did. the part i messed up was the cleaning the chicken. mama and mom used salt as an abrasive of sorts to remove excess fat and feather spines from the chicken. this also partially seasons the chicken. i had forgotten that duh...need to rinse the chicken many many times with lots and lots of running water.

i only rinsed once.

you guys ever see that commercial for the labeling system where a woman bakes a birthday cake and all the kids and the dog take a bite, promptly spit it out, and eye the baker as if she had betrayed them? the problem was that she got the salt container mixed up with the sugar (hence the need for a labeling system). the chicken i fried last night inspired nearly the same reaction from eric. i felt so sorry for him--it really was very very bad.

fast forward to tonight. eric and i didn't feel good about tossing nearly two pounds of perfectly good chicken thighs (well, they were perfectly good except for the inedibly salty part). we had saved them in a ziplock bag in case we figured out a way to "save" them.

we decided to make curry out of the chicken but leave salt completely out of it, in the hope that the creaminess of the curry would mitigate the excess salt. eric offered to cook the curry, following a pressure cooker recipe i've used several times before. eric prudently followed the recipe to the letter, not having prepared it himself before. the only difference was that the curry paste in the recipe was patak's, which we've never found. instead, i've always used mae ploy thai red or green curry paste. the recipe called for 4 tablespoons of patak's curry paste for the amount of chicken & veggies, so eric dutifully used 4 tablespoons of the mae ploy. unfortunately, i neglected to tell him that for the amount of chicken & veggies we had, the curry only needed one tablespoon of mae ploy chili paste.



now, eric and i like it spicy, but the curry was hot enough to require a teflon tongue to eat it.

i did my best to water down the curry sauce by diluting it with several times times more water and adding two cups of sour cream. this brought down the spice level considerably, but the sauce was now a still very spicy soup and it was still too salty because of the chicken.

what makes this worse is that the rice i had cooked the evening before had managed to spoil. we didn't bother to check until just before eating the over salty, over spicy yet water curry with chicken that was now thready in texture.

*sigh*

so what makes this the best part of today? well, to be honest, we did bicker for about fifteen minutes, playing the blame game. but then we stopped and silently agreed to shut up and watch the eppy of voyager that eric recorded. as eric fast-forwarded through some commercials, i said, "honey, let's just blame it on the chicken. it's not my fault, it's not your fault--it's the damn chicken's fault." eric agreed.

neither one of us could bear eat more than a thigh or two each. thankfully, the carrot and potato were quite good, if a little overcooked at this point. finally, we decided to toss the cursed chicken and wallow in some froyo goodness instead.

then i realized something. "even in making the two worst meals we've ever eaten, we still make an awesome team!" i laughingly declared.

he did this in response-----> and said, not very enthusiastically, "i guess...."

he couldn't quite suppress the tiny smile tugging persistently at the corner of his mouth.

[ploal5333]

Re: Best Part of Today

As stated in the thread 'Pet Peeve of the Day (Chapter 1)', one of my annoyances is when cashiers don't push the item dividers all the way down the conveyor belts.

Well, I go to Costco Iwilei today and I'm third in line. The cashier places the divider close to him. I decide to say and do nothing, be a bit more patient. When I get to the head of the line he zaps my items. He reaches under the counter and pulls out his coupon book. He zaps a credit for the '100 Calorie Packs of Cheetos Asteroids, Doritos, and Sun Chips', saving me $1.75!

My patience paid off. Wasn't that sweet of him! It's never happened to me at Costco before. How nice.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Best Part of Today

As stated in the thread 'Pet Peeve of the Day (Chapter 1)', one of my annoyances is when cashiers don't push the item dividers all the way down the conveyor belts.

I noticed at KTA and at Safeway a few cashiers intentionally blocking the photocell that stops the conveyor belt when a product breaks the beam of light. They use that divider bar that separates customers' items as a way to break the beam of light causing the conveyor belt to stop.

After seeing this happen twice at two different stores, I realized they did it to prevent the third person in line from putting stuff on the belt. This way the cashier can take a short pause between tendering their til while the now empty conveyor belt is being loaded by a pissed off customer.

Smooth, I thought to myself and when speaking to some of our cashiers at Home Depot who worked at other retail establishments that use similar conveyor belts they confirmed my observations. These poor cashiers just wanted a short breather before hitting the registers. Many of them are evaluated by how fast and accurate they tender merchandise. Too slow and they're dinged on their performance evals, too fast and they're scrutinized as to their accuracy.

By blocking the conveyor belt's electric eye to stop it, they can take a short break between customers and can use the excuse that the customer hadn't put their stuff on the belt fast enough. The bar is a simple, effective and discrete way of passing the blame to the third customer for their poor metrics counts.

So there you go a scientific way of why they don't push items along.

[Kalei99]

Re: Best Part of Today

A three hour spa day today which included a salt scrub, 1.5 hour swedish massage, and facial w/arms, neck and shoulder massage. It was at the Zermatt Resort in Midway, UT. Heaven on earth!

[Leo Lakio]

Re: Best Part of Today

While the thread itself and the full post found here are a serious topic, the Alpha Female and I laughed heartily at ericncyn's "sample euphemism":

hoohoodilly for dingdongthehumperstick

for which I am grateful - thank you, ericncyn, for your particular brand of humor in that discussion.

[MatildaRose]

Re: Best Part of Today

While the thread itself and the full post found here are a serious topic, the Alpha Female and I laughed heartily at ericncyn's "sample euphemism":
for which I am grateful - thank you, ericncyn, for your particular brand of humor in that discussion.

It is funny. It's also available in the Urban Dictionary.

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:...&client=safari

[Lei Liko]

Re: Best Part of Today

Getting a text message from "he who is chasing his dream in Canada"...letting me know that he'll be home soon.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Best Part of Today

It is funny. It's also available in the Urban Dictionary.

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:...&client=safari

My 9-year old is in the car with me as I drop him off at school the other day and he blurts out, "Dad, what's a condom".

Suddenly that commercial is running in my head about talking to your kids about sex. Okay how do I respond.

So I chicken out and tell him it's a type of balloon for which my 11-year old that has a pretty good idea of what a condom is blurts out, "yeah a really unusual balloon".

9-year old, "how unusual?"

11-year old, "it's kinda disgusting but it goes over..."

Dad with one heavy sigh blurts out the clinical truth, "It's a birth control device that is placed over the male reproductive organ called the Penis. This prevents his semen from fertilizing the female's eggs thus preventing pregnancy. It's also used in limiting the spread of communicatable diseases"

Wow I said it.

9-year old, "What?"

By then Waiakea Elementary School was here and a quick, "Okay Jeffrey, have a good day in school, see you this afternoon...ask your teacher!"

Okay technically I said it and said it without using fluffy words, straight clinical talk...hey it's not my fault his vocabulary isn't up there yet

[Beau]

Re: Best Part of Today

The best part of today was visiting my parents. As I was driving the long winding road on Pacific Heights, I thought to myself, it's been over a month since the last time I saw them.

They were on an extended trip to North Carolina to visit my younger brother who was finally home from Afhganistan. My parents greeted me warmly and gave me a gift they had brought for me while on the mainland. They asked me to stay for lunch, which was terrific as usual. They asked me all the usual questions about my job, and the how my friends were doing.

As I was leaving, before I could get into my car, the next door neighbors saw me and greeted me very warmly. They gave me 3 ripe mangoes to take home.

I was musing about a conversation I had with a friend yesterday. His father still doesn't accept him, and they haven't spoken in years. By comparison, I'm very lucky to have the parents I do have.

LOL, even tho I'm in my early forties, I still feel like a little boy sometimes when I visit my parents. The way my mother and father fawn over me and try to cater to my every need makes me feel like that, I suppose...

[cynsaligia]

Re: Best Part of Today

My 9-year old is in the car with me as I drop him off at school the other day and he blurts out, "Dad, what's a condom".

Suddenly that commercial is running in my head about talking to your kids about sex. Okay how do I respond.

So I chicken out and tell him it's a type of balloon for which my 11-year old that has a pretty good idea of what a condom is blurts out, "yeah a really unusual balloon".

9-year old, "how unusual?"

11-year old, "it's kinda disgusting but it goes over..."

Dad with one heavy sigh blurts out the clinical truth, "It's a birth control device that is placed over the male reproductive organ called the Penis. This prevents his semen from fertilizing the female's eggs thus preventing pregnancy. It's also used in limiting the spread of communicatable diseases"

Wow I said it.

9-year old, "What?"

By then Waiakea Elementary School was here and a quick, "Okay Jeffrey, have a good day in school, see you this afternoon...ask your teacher!"

Okay technically I said it and said it without using fluffy words, straight clinical talk...hey it's not my fault his vocabulary isn't up there yet

The best part of today was visiting my parents. As I was driving the long winding road on Pacific Heights, I thought to myself, it's been over a month since the last time I saw them.

They were on an extended trip to North Carolina to visit my younger brother who was finally home from Afhganistan. My parents greeted me warmly and gave me a gift they had brought for me while on the mainland. They asked me to stay for lunch, which was terrific as usual. They asked me all the usual questions about my job, and the how my friends were doing.

As I was leaving, before I could get into my car, the next door neighbors saw me and greeted me very warmly. They gave me 3 ripe mangoes to take home.

I was musing about a conversation I had with a friend yesterday. His father still doesn't accept him, and they haven't spoken in years. By comparison, I'm very lucky to have the parents I do have.

LOL, even tho I'm in my early forties, I still feel like a little boy sometimes when I visit my parents. The way my mother and father fawn over me and try to cater to my every need makes me feel like that, I suppose...

one of the best parts of today is reading the above two posts. so heartwarming! i look forward to one day being a parent, and passing forward the love my mama and mom gave me.

another best part was spending part of my day at antonio's pizza by kahala mall to celebrate a dear friend's daughter's birthday. niecey (my nickname for her) has grown so much in the years that i've known her. it's awesome to see her blossoming into a teenager.

a third was corresponding with a friend and finding that while he is going through a personal struggle, things are getting better, and largely because he is driven, passionate, and taking matters into his own hands instead of leaving things to fate.

i guess, really, the best part of today is realizing i had several moments that could each qualify as "best part of today" if they had happened on different days.

[Leo Lakio]

Re: Best Part of Today

From yesterday - went to a house concert that (due to reasons I won't waste your eyeball time with) actually became an organized open mic instead. Got the Alpha Female to join me for two songs (both of us on `ukulele): "O Kamawaelualani" & "Ipo Lei Momi." (See "Leilani Rivera Bond" & "Keali`i Reichel," respectively.)

Not only did the crowd dig it, the AF (who is a damn good musician and always makes me sound better) neither fainted nor hurled - y'see, she has MAJOR stage fright issues.

So, as much fun as it was to do these songs for an appreciative audience, it was even better for the fact that she joined me.

[1stwahine]

Re: Best Part of Today

I needed a Punee so I posted it on another forum.heheheh

Leo Lakio saw it and did the searching and found one.

He posted it and I called.

P.K. and I went to see it and bought it.

Das the Best Part of TODAY foa me.

Auntie Lynn

[Karen]

Re: Best Part of Today

Best part of today was everyone being home same time and sharing a large bar-b-que, laughter and a bit of heart discussion/debate. Dear neighbors hearing us on the back patio and meeting us at the fence, and catching up with them. Family times....best times on earth.

[LikaNui]

Re: Best Part of Today

Just in case you missed it in another thread, I think this one is the best part of today.

Of course, the day's still young.