The Countdown Begins...

So begins my last month in Nor.Cal. Some interesting weekend highlights:

I received a lumpy package in the mail the other day, and found this medal with a certificate inside. It's been almost 8 months since I went to Louisiana, so this was an unexpected, but nice, surprise.

On Friday, E and I were treated to a very belated b-day dinner by one of her roommates. She took us to HC Dumpling House in Cupertino Village. They serve nothing but (what else?) dumplings, and was surprisingly good. Apparently, we weren't the only people that thought so, because the place was packed.

For dessert, we had crepes at Q-cup, where I was also entertained by a group of Asian high school girls giving each other sage advice on which college to go to, such as, "Well, this college has more cute guys, but that college has more hot guys." (I can laugh at this now only because I know I went through similar lines of reasoning when I was a high school senior...). Haha, BTW, the girls never once mentioned academics the whole time we were there.

The UCLA v. LSU game didn't turn out to be all that interesting (Go Bruins!), but fortunately we had plenty of other things to keep us occupied, such as great food! Check out Joy with this huge platter o' protein that we got from Uncle Frank's BBQ!

This platter of BBQ tailgatin' goodness is advertised to feed "10-12 people", which was perfect since there was 11 of us. But there was so much leftover meat, that 7 of us ate it for dinner the next day, and there was still a crockerpot full of leftovers. Bob and I surmised that the menu must have meant 10-12 Louisiana-sized people.

Oh, and who can forget? E gave me these roses for our anniversay. I'd never gotten flowers before (graduation flowers don't count), so that was pretty nice.

I used to think giving cut flowers was a kind of mixed blessing. I wasn't sure if the brief joy of having the colorful, fragrant flowers in a room outweighed the inevitable, depressing task of throwing out the dried out wilted husks, just a few days later. But after receiving some, I have to admit, that it still felt pretty nice. Hrm, I wonder if you get the same effect with potted flowers? At least, those won't die for a while....