I woke up a little early for me on a Saturday, and not to get to the beach, although I certainly wanted to. I went over to mom’s to help her with Christmas cards. We spent some nice time together. Both parents thanked me repeatedly, but I was honestly grateful for something to do with my mom.
Came home for a short nap, then went to the office. I didn’t have to go in, but I knew I’d have a better Sunday if I took care of a few things Saturday. While I was there, I wrapped gifts for my office mates. Wrapping gifts always puts me in the Christmas spirit, and I liked getting the injection a full week before the actual day. I think this bodes well for the days leading up to the holiday.
I still have a couple of gifts to pick up.
Recent spins: I’m revisiting 2021 releases I enjoyed, toward my year-end best-of list. Most of Thursday and Friday I had Evergrey’s Escape of the Phoenix on repeat. Wednesday it was Soen’s Imperial, which may be my favorite album of the year. Right now I’m spinning Einherjer’s North Star, not because I expect it to make the final list (I don’t) but because I couldn’t remember it very well.
I haven’t been as mood-swingy today as I have been the past week. I think part of it is the slow news day. These days, I listen to news broadcasts via their podcast releases, since I’m not home all the time as I was the year and a half I mostly worked from home. PBS Newshour with Judy Woodruff and World News Tonight with David Muir. They were both very, very light Saturday. I know there’s an important lesson here but I’m not ready to deal with it. Despite seeming evidence to the contrary, I think it’s better to be informed these days. Even at the cost of my emotional health.
Breakfast was overnight oats. For a late lunch, I stopped at Jolene’s Market, the airport location. Jolene’s has a prominent spot in the Chinatown Cultural Plaza, where Regal Bakery used to be (Jolene is the daughter of the Regal founders), and opened big some time ago with its lobster roll. Lobster rolls are super trendy in this town, and I think Jolene’s was the instigator.
The airport location is super casual — it’s a walk-up window with a couple of picnic tables — and it’s open early, I guess partially because it’s still a bakery too. The walk-in bakery with its display cases is still there, next to the walk-up window. So yeah, you can get a lobster roll at 5:00 in the morning if you want. I haven’t done it yet, but one of these mornings before I go to the beach I’m totally going to do it because I can.
So for lunch I had the lobster roll, and I ordered a fried chicken salad to go. That was my dinner. The lobster roll was quite good. I tried it once, the day before my birthday two years ago, the night Reid and I went to Patton Oswalt at the Hawaii Theatre. I remember liking but not loving it then, but I really liked it today, my second try. It’s quite a sandwich.
The fried chicken salad is a large spring mix salad topped with pieces of boneless fried chicken, and it was outstanding. I saved some for breakfast or lunch Sunday.
I snacked on pistachios at the office, then some beef jerky at home.
When I was still at UH Manoa, living in the BSU dorm, JB and I thought it would be cool to bring home a live lobster from Safeway and keep it as a pet in the aquarium we had in the dorm lounge. We had a dorm-mate named Robert whom we sometimes called Robster, and thought Robster the Lobster would be a great name for our new pet.
I went so far as to visit a tropical fish store I liked (stories for another time; when I was a kid my father had as many as twenty aquaria in the house, and I’ve kept two at once a couple of times) to ask about keeping water temperatures cold enough for lobsters. The chillers you’d need were far too expensive for a stupid novelty idea like keeping a lobster as a pet in a dorm lounge, so we quickly abandoned the plan, but one of these days I might do it.