Kris and Jo go to Paris

Even the Fat tastes better in Paris

Kris hates the coffee in Paris.  Except for the fact that  it sometimes tastes a bit like an ash tray, I think it is just fine; it is certainly no worse than Starbucks.  Of course, as a strong proponent of the idea that everything tastes better with fat, I always order a cafe creme.  Come to think of it, Kris believes in the power of fat as well.  But, he is also hard-headed.  So, he refuses to order the cafe creme, chosing instead to complain as he chokes down single shots of espresso.

So yesterday, when we stopped to get a coffee at a large, a-typical Parisian cafe, just behind the Louvre, I was surprised when Kris ordered a grand creme. Surprised, but certain, thanks to the addition of our little lipid friend, that he would like this cuppa joe...

Dessert

I'm beginning to think that I can start a blog that consists soley of funny pictures of my father.

This is from the first night of our Loire trip, which you can read more about here.

Two strikes and you're out...

Le Christine
1 Rue Christine, Paris 75006
Metro: Odéon, St Michel, Pont Neuf 
Prix Fixe: 25-35 euros
Reservations: a very good idea
Tel: 01 40 51 71 64

Located in the 6th arrondissement and nestled between rue St Augustine and the rue Dauphine, Le Christine is a smaller, less expensive alternative to the legendary dining giants Relais Louis XIII and Jacques Cagna, located just around the corner.  The décor is a romantic and minimal meeting of ancient Paris and contemporary chic. The seating, especially in the front room, is tight. The two or three course menu is a nouveau take on classic French favorites like: foie gras with Muscat jelly and (raw) coquille St Jacques. The Kir Royale is the signature aperitif at Christine—the tables are set with tulip-like champagne flutes into which the waiters pour a generous amount Moët Chandon and crème de cassis.

The Cost of Living in Paris

Chocolat Chaud at the Café de la Paix: 7 euros

Erik in the Herald

There's a nice article about Erik in the Boston Herald today. You can read more about Erik at L'Espalier's website. (Be sure to check out Sel de la Terre's site as well.)

You sexy thing...

So begins my search for the “ultimate cup of hot chocolate in Paris”. 

Although most people consider Angelina’s the best cuppa cocoa around, and trust me, it’s pretty darn good, in an effort to be as objective as possible, I thought I would start my quest in my own neighborhood at Cocoa et Chocolat and then work my way around to the other arrondissements.  As Angelina’s is on the other side of the Seine, it would have to wait.  Although, come to think of it, since I live in the 6th and Angelina’s is in the 1st, it perhaps would have been more objective to start there.  Oh well, I’ll be sure to note it in the experimental error section of my final report. 

Quick update

I know I have some catching up to do, but this is just a quick update.

Today we're leaving for Geneva to visit Donna, John, and Raoul. They came to visit Jo in Paris before I got here, so now we're going to visit them in Geneva.

A couple other interesting happenings:

First, we had Korean barbecue the other night and it was delicious. I don't know the name of the restaurant, but it's just down the street.

Also, last night we went to La Rotisserie d'enface, a restaurant right across the street from Christine's. It was full of Americans, and we were seated next to a table with a couple of loud ones. Jo and I try and keep our voices low in public (it's the French thing to do), so we were talking quietly to ourselves when the couple from the table on the other side of us leaned over and asked, "So where in Canada are you from?"

I'll try and post some pictures from this weekend, but that's what I said about last weekend and I have yet to do it.

Surprise Saturday

Peter and Lee came by for a visit this weekend and we had an absolute blast. It made me realize a couple things. First, I'm pretty much living a fantasy life. I am living in one of the greatest cities in the world, and I have people to share it with. Second, nothing is more fun than spending time with people you love. Jo, Peter, Lee and I could be stuck in a bomb shelter with nothing but pickled tomatoes and canned milk, but so long as we had a few decks of cards (and maybe some indoor plumbing), we would have a fun time. Even without the cards, we could probably manage to not kill one another, which is more than I can say for some people. And when I really think about it, I actually decently sized list of "bomb shelter friends", and that includes my family, which is a lot more than some people get.

Anyway, enough with the schlock, I have a weekend of exploits and adventure to regale you with, but this post will only cover Saturday because I already know it's going to take a couple hours to write, and I'm getting behind at work. I'll cover Sunday later.

After a bit of a wrong turn, Peter and Lee arrived Saturday evening and we had some appetizers before dinner. Neither of the Randalls had tried foie gras before, and we nearly had to hold Peter down and force feed him to get him to eat it. He didn't like it, but admitted that it was "mostly mental".

We had reservations at a very close restaurant called Christine's (it's on Rue Christine), which has special glasses just for drinking Kir Royal. We all has some, and it was delicious. It was so good, in fact, that it turned our eyes red as you'll see. The picture doesn't really do the classes justice because you can't see the base. You'll just have to take my word for it that these glasses were cool. (Or you could come visit and see for yourself.)

First surprise of the night: Peter's French. Peter actually speaks French pretty well. I knew he spoke some, and he even took a class or two when we were roommates, but I'm the kind of person who doesn't believe something until I see it with my own eyes. (It's a quality that drives Johanna crazy.) So even though I should have known better, it surprised me to see Peter conversing with the waiter.

Second surprise of the night: Raw scallops. Peter, Jo, and I ordered an appetizer that consisted of scallops and much to our surprise, they were delivered raw. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, given sushi and all, but all it takes to make really delicious scallops is some butter, salt, and heat, while raw scallops taste like seawater.

To help me over the disappointment of the scallops, I'm posting a picture of some beautiful people enjoying themselves. Blame the red eyes on the aperitif.

 

Third surprise of the night: A bowl of mushrooms. Peter's entree consisted entirely of a bowl of mushrooms. He new it was something with mushrooms, but didn't realize it was only mushrooms. (There was actually a bit of garlic and salt in the bowl as well.) Not that there's anything wrong with a bowl of mushrooms. It was actually really good; better than my steak, which was quite bland.

Fourth surprise of the night: How small the world is. As I was taking pictures during dinner, someone from the next table offered to take a picture of all of us. In return, Lee took a picture of their table. It turned out that two of them were from Charlottesville, and the third was going to school in London! (For those of you who don't know, Peter and Lee moved from Charlottesville to London.) In fact, Peter and Lee and the two Virginians lived in the same housing development outside of town.

Okay, I have to go to bed, but I still have three more surprises to go. I'll try posting the rest tomorrow.

Recent adventures

Friday was our fifth anniversary. After our honeymoon way back in the fall of 2000 we decided we would come back to France for our fifth anniversary, and we made it.

We went to a casual and very popular restaurant called Fish. If you get the impression from the name that this place is "American friendly", you would be correct. Apparently one of the owners is an American. The waitstaff were speaking as much English as French, and I think nearly half of the patrons were Americans. (In our neighborhood, you're almost as likely to hear English spoken on the street as French.)

After waiting what seemed like an hour for a table, we were seated. This place has a huge and very expensive (especially by French standards) wine list. Expect to pay the equivalent of American restaurant prices for wine, which is to say, "expect to pay a lot". We had a good dinner and decent wine. I started with foie gras and Jo got a duck salad. The foie gras was yummy. Jo ordered the duck salad because the other salad contained pine nuts according to the menu, but this one ended up having pine nuts as well. We both had pork with mushrooms for the entree. It was good, but nothing special. Jo thought the pork tasted too European, like kidneys. I wouldn't really know, having never had kidneys. (We'll I have kidneys, I just have never eaten any.) I really liked the vin du jour which we drank while waiting for our table. To go with dinner we got an Alsatian Riesling which was a bit too sweet and not very interesting.

It was filling and fun, and all in all a worthy celebration of five years of marriage. I also got Jo a necklace and some diamond earrings.

The next day, after sleeping in far later than we'd planned to, we went to Ikea to buy some furniture and some household items. (You know ... Ikea stuff.) If you're ever in Paris and have the opportunity to visit the Ikea, don't bother. It's exactly like every Ikea in the US (and probably everywhere) except they smoke in the restaurant. (Do they sell beer and wine in the restaurants of American Ikeas? Ten blog points to the first person who posts the correct answer.) Also, the meatball sauce is made with real cream and is quite rich.

We went to the restaurant first because it was after 1:00 and we hadn't had any breakfast. We spent the rest of the shopping trip going "against the flow", which if you know Ikea, you know it's all about following the flow. We even ended up going down the up staircase and some sweaty french man (an Ikea employee) start having a fit because we were on the wrong side of the checkout with our yellow bag. We got a lot of stuff (a breadbox, two folding chairs, bedding, a few baskets, and other miscellany) and had to get it all back to the apartment on a very crowded bus and RER. It was a stressful experience to say the least. Also, my arms are still sore from hauling all that stuff around.

Next time, we're just using the web site and having the stuff delivered.

Lots and lots of pictures

Stew and I have no Internets connection at home, so there haven't been any posts lately. Also, I haven't really had a lot of time.

Here's a sort of cheap catch up: Download Catchup.zip

(WARNING: It's a huge file. The download may take a while.)

The pictures are of four types: What I've been eating; packing and moving, birthday celebration, and miscellaneous.

The really interesting ones I'll pull out into separate posts. Also, I apologize for the sideways movie. I didn't know you couldn't rotate a movie file.

Lots and lots of stuff

Sorry about the lack of posts. I was trying to do this new thing where I wait until I get home to post, but by the time I made it home, I was too tired to write a decent post. Hopefully I'll soon be able to efficiently upload pictures at work, which will make posting easier.

In the meantime, here are all the pictures I've taken since my last post. This isn't everything I've eaten, or everything I've done, but it's an easy way for me to feel caught up.

I think this is a grande drip and lemon poppy seed loaf, but this is from Friday morning, so I don't remember exactly.

 

I have desks at work in two different buildings, about six blocks apart. In one building, I just moved to a new desk. (I call this desk "desk number two" because compared my other desk, this is the crappy one. Get it?) Desk number one is near the DAWN snack bar, where you can purchase a variety of snacks for fifty cents. Desk number two is now near a snack bar that has Red Vines, Hershey's Miniatures, and other high-calorie, low nutrient snacks, all for free. So far I've been pretty good at resisting temptation, but I had some Red Vines. I don't know how I'm going to resist these every day. They're literally sitting two feet away from my cubical. I really like Red Vines, but I'm not sure why. If I had to guess the main ingredient, I would have to say "plastic".

This is my lunch from Friday. It's a tuna salad sandwich and a small chocolate chip cookie from Il Fornaio. The sandwich is good, and the cookie is best chocolate chip cookie you can get, but I really hate this place, mainly because it's so expensive.

Here's a close up of the cookie. Il Fornaio makes their cookies thin and crispy instead of thick and chewy like most other places. I really love these chocolate chip cookies. I honestly haven't had better, even though I can make a pretty mean cookie. (It's probably the only area in the kitchen where my skill surpasses Jo's.)

This appeared on the snack bar near desk number two on Friday. It's a bag full of fortune cookie rejects. There's even a few fortunes in here, but I haven't tried to see what they are. I wonder if they're rejected fortunes to go along with the rejected cookies. "You will lose at the lottery yet again." I have a thing about not eating food that's been rejected by other people, so I don't think I'll be trying these.

The Monorail got stuck on Friday afternoon, which must have totally sucked for people trying to reach the Bite of Seattle that started on Friday. I was walking home and noticed it sitting on the track so I took a couple pictures. This was after they had unloaded everyone by pulling the second train up next to the stuck one, and having everyone move over. "Mind the gap!"

Another picture of the stuck Monorail. You can see the two trains together at komo news.

 

My new camera can take short movies, so I filmed (Do you call it "filming"? There's no film involved.) some kids playing in the International Fountain. This was at the Bite, but there wasn't much in the way of crowds. Probably because it was still relatively early on Friday (around 5:00 PM), and it had been raining most of the morning, which may have scared people away. Normally, the Bite is shoulder to shoulder people.

On Thursday night, Stew took me down to pick up some stuff at UPS and FedEx, and then we went to Snappy Dragon for dinner, which was delicious. I have some really good food (and some not so good food) at Snappy Dragon, but this meal was one of their best. I didn't have my camera, so I couldn't take any pictures, but on Friday evening I reheated some vegetable chow mien with homemade noodles and fried tofu. It was fantastic.

On Saturday morning I had some corn flakes with sugar. I had accidentally left the milk out on the counter for a good chunk of the previous evening, so I didn't trust it and had to eat my cereal dry.

 

Stew was yet again helping me run errands on Saturday morning, and when we stopped for lunch, we noticed that they were filming a movie on a bus parked across the street. This picture was taken using a digital zoom, which is why it's a bit fuzzy, but I think it still looks pretty good.

 

Stew was playing around with the "portrait" mode on my camera. Five blog points if you can name the restaurant we were at. (I should probably give you five points just for reading this far.) There's a pretty big hint in the picture.

 

Another portrait by Stew.

 

 

Here's my burger. This is another clue as to where we were eating.

 

 

This was my dinner on Saturday. Angel hair pasta with Emeril's Vodka sauce. The drink is Sierra Mist Free mixed with orange juice and ice cubes. Nothing special, but good and satisfying nonetheless.

Microwave kettle corn for dessert. Delicious and un-nutritious.

 

More orange juice and Sierra Mist Free to wash down the kettle corn.

 

 

 

Here's a "self-portrait" of my new camera. So far I really like it. I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but it is really, really small. It fits in my pocket, even when it's in the case.

Another picture of the camera. Can you see me peeking around the corner?

 

Because this blog isn't boring enough, I've decided to start posting pictures of the groceries I buy. This is milk from Safeway. Johanna doesn't like this brand of milk "because it tastes too much like cow". I normally get non-fat, but for some reason I've been picking up low-fat recently.

I was down to zero garbage bags in the house, though I didn't really want to buy 42 bags (I'm only here for another week), I figured I'll need some for packing and cleaning, and the rest I can take to Stew's.

 

 

Still with me? Because it's about to get "off the hook" as they say. ("Hey brother." Ten blog points if you can identify that reference.)

Something that probably only my wife knows about me (until now) is that I'm a toothbrush fanatic. I generally get a new toothbrush every month, and I always get the Oral-B CrossAction Vitalizer, size 40 regular, soft. My wife thinks this is a bit crazy, but she's not the one who the dentist says has "super teeth" and never any cavities. So when I saw the Pulsar sitting seductively in the grocery store display, I had to give it a try. It's essentially the toothbrush version of the Mach 3 Power, which is the razor I use. (Oral-B is owned by Gillette. The razor is okay. The Power blades are fantastic, but vibrating razor actually nicks me more often so I use razor with the vibration turned off. I wonder if Gillette will get sued over the toothbrush as well.) As a toothbrush, it's pretty nice, but my teeth don't feel as clean as with the CrossAction Vitalizer, and the vibrating is pretty annoying. I don't like electric toothbrushes for the same reason. (According to Consumer Reports, studies show that electric toothbrushes aren't any better if you know how to use a manual toothbrush properly.)

Conditioner. In the land of hair care, "Full and Thick" is code for "makes you look less bald". I don't think it really does anything for perceived baldness, but it does make my hair feel silky.

 

 

I was down to my last vitamin, so I picked up some more. "With lycopene", so I no longer have to worry about lychanthropy. I have a rant about vitamins that's been going on in my head for several years. If this post weren't already so long, I'd include it here.

Cinnamon Life for breakfast, and grape nuts to include in yogurt.

 

 

Still with me? That's it for groceries for now.

Sunday morning breakfast. Cinnamon Life with milk.

 

 

Sunday lunch. Strawberry yogurt with Grape-nuts.

 

 

Sunday afternoon snack. More Life with milk.

 

Monday breakfast. Strawberry scone with some soft of grande Starbucks drink. I suspect it's a drip, but I really can't remember. I have no idea what I had for dinner Sunday night.

Monday lunch. Market House reuben with a pickle and coleslaw. I didn't touch the coleslaw, but I did eat the tiny oatmeal raisin cookie that came with the meal.

 

Afternoon Starbucks. Again, I don't remember the exact drink.

 

 

 

Monday dinner. This is why I shouldn't buy sweetened cereal. The empty glass had Metamucil in it a few moments before I took the picture.

 

This was my drink with dinner. Sierra Mist Free with orange juice.

 

 

 

 

Tuesday breakfast. Not really! This little guy was waiting for me in the shower on Tuesday morning. This picture is also taken with the digital zoom, which is why it's so blurry. I didn't really feel like going into macro mode on this fella.

This is the real Tuesday breakfast. That's a latte and a croissant if it isn't clear.

 

Tuesday lunch. I hate Subway, both because they're evil, and the food is terrible. But if I'm jonesing for something hot and I don't want to leave the building, a toasted six-inch meatball sub on white bread with no cheese, lettuce, cucumber, green peppers, salt, pepper, Parmesan (which isn't a cheese as far as Subway is concerned), and oregano gets the job done.

When I start getting emotionally unbalanced, I start to eat crap (hence the Subway sandwich), which further unbalances me, which leads to eating more crap. I picked these up from the DAWN snack bar (next to desk number one) and scarfed them down right away.

Of course, if you really want to eat crap, it's hard to beat McDonald's. This is a Quarter Pounder with Cheese meal. I think I got Sprite to drink. Of course I felt terrible after eating it, and I didn't really enjoy eating it to begin with. Also, whenever I eat at McDonald's, I take a look at the other people in the restaurant and think "this is what I'm going to end up looking like if I continue to eat here". That usually keeps me out of a McDonald's for a few months, at least. Next time you're in a McDonald's, take a good look at the other patrons and you'll see what I mean.

More groceries! I really wanted to get ice cream, but I settled for Power Bars instead. Johanna likes to tell me that Power Bars are really just candy bars, but I don't think that's really true. I'm not saying that I think they're healthy, but they're certainly better for you than a Snickers bar (or a 100 Grand and a bag of Bit-O-Honeys for that matter).

Lots and lots of yogurt. There's no way I'll eat all this before I move, especially since there's already some yogurt in the fridge. To the extent that I was thinking at all when I bought this, I was thinking, "I have an entire box of Grape-nuts. I'm going to need a lot of yogurt to go with it."

Tuesday dessert, part one. This is the chocolate peanut butter flavor. Do they no longer make chocolate Power Bars? I've been keeping my eyes open, but haven't seen any recently.

Dessert, part two. This one is peanut butter, which represents the pinnacle of Power Bar gastronomic experience.

 

Wednesday morning coffee, though this is really tea. Grande iced soy chai latte from Caffe Ladro. Best chai in Seattle, but you need to use soy milk to get that sweet and spicy thing going. Unlike most chai, Ladro's is very spicy and not particularly sweet. Just the way chai should be, unlike that treacle you get at Starbucks.

Wednesday lunch. I really hate getting lunch from Starbucks, so this gives you a good idea of how my day was going. I don't know exactly what grants this chicken club sandwich an "NW" designation, but it was pretty good. The drink is a grande mocha.

Wednesday dinner. Pork tacos from Taco Del Mar. This time I got the "small" drink, so the portions were much better suited to my appetite. All the staff in the store were wearing "in training" tee-shirts, which made me wonder who was doing the training. The tacos were good even if the guy didn't really know what he was doing.

I took this picture because I saw it and thought, "Why does Taco Del Mar have a profile of Darth Vader on the wall?" Does it look like Darth Vader to anyone else, or is it just me?

 

 

Wednesday dessert. Grape-nuts in orange cream flavored yogurt. I don't know why I got this flavor of yogurt. I know I don't like it, but when I was in the grocery store I was thinking, "It will probably taste good with Grape-nuts." Why I thought Grape-nuts and orange was a good pairing is beyond me. I think I must have a brain tumor.

Dinner and Coffee

I was super hungry on the way home, so I stopped by Dick's Drive In and got a Deluxe, fries, two ketchups, and a medium root beer. I don't know why I frequent this place. The hamburger was full of gristle and way overcooked, and the fries were soggy and cold. The root beer, on the other hand, was fantastic. Dick's always has great root beer. I don't know how they do it.

Waiting for the next bus up the hill, I grabbed and grande latte from the Cosmopolitan Cafe. This place used to be an SBC until Starbucks bought them and closed them all down. I hope this place makes good bubble tea, because their lattes are terrible. It tasted like old coffee grounds in lukewarm water. They had some tofu curry that looked good. I should have gotten my dinner here.

When I got home, I had some more Metamucil.

Lunch?

I had intended this to be a snack, but due to a lack of time, it turned into lunch. It's a "standard" (apparently "plain" sounded too, um, plain) bagel, toasted, with peanut butter. Poser water to drink.

I really, really wanted a salt bagel, but I know they don't pair well with peanut butter.

Breakfast

Standard morning routine. Some number of One-A-Day vitamins (maybe one, maybe more), the sort of which are labeled as being "for men", which is a demographic I fall squarely into, fish oil, and Metamucil.

Later I got a grande latte from Torrefazione. Yummy.

I'll post a picture when I get a chance. Of course, if you're dying to see what a Torrefazione latte really looks like, you can go here, here, here, or any of these places.

Update: Picture posted. Also, I had no idea that there was a Torrefazione Italia in Boston, or that Seattle only had four of them. It seems like they're everywhere in Seattle, but maybe that's because I hardly ever venture outside of Downtown and Queen Anne.

Dinner

Angel hair pasta with Emeril's Vodka sauce. I normally hate all things Emeril, but his vodka sauce is really good. If you ever get the chance to see the episode of Cooking with Master Chefs where Emeril cooks for Julia Child, check it out. He is very subdued and deferential. It just emphasizes that his show is really all about being entertaining, rather that being a good cook. (The episode on Julia's show was filmed long before Emeril had his own show.)

The beverage is Sierra Mist Free mixed with Calcium + Vitamin D No Pulp Tropicana Pure Premium Not From Concentrate 100% Pure Squeezed Orange Juice with Calcium and Vitamin D. (I swear that's what is says on the bottle.) For orange juice, I actually prefer the taste of concentrate, but they don't make a concentrate with both added calcium and no pulp (or even low pulp), and when you're adding soda, it doesn't really matter that much anyway.

If you have frequent heartburn, definitely check out orange juice with added calcium. The calcium neutralized the acid from the juice, but it still tastes pretty good.

It's for real ...

... and it looks even bigger in person.

Why do I drink so much Metamucil? First of all, I don't really drink that much. The container has two sets of instructions: one for "use as a fiber laxative" and the other as a "daily supplement". I fall squarely in the latter category. Under those directions, it says, "Adults 12 yrs. & older: 1 rounded TABLESPOON in 8 oz of liquid 3 times daily." (The italics and capitalization are in the original.) I only use a teaspoon of the stuff, it's not particularly heaping, and I usually only have one or two servings a day.

It's a habit I got into during a brief (and relatively successful) stint on the South Beach Diet. Dr. Agaston recommended taking extra fiber before consuming carbohydrates because it reduced the rate you absorbed the carbs. I'm not sure how to reconcile this with the fact that Metamucil contains a ton of sugar. I should probably be using the sugar free variety.

But the main reason I drink it is because it tastes just like Tang, but it's good for you.

This gives me an idea for a Metamucil commercial. Warning! It involves the consequences of using a laxative. I would avoid the 'continue' link if you have a weak stomach. (Actually, it's not that bad.)

Snack

I started with the crackers, but they had a wierd dusty taste, so I moved on to the cookies, and they had a dusty taste too. I think it must be me. My mouth does taste kind of funny.

Lunch

Almost jumbo pork burrito with black beans, no tomatoes, and medium salsa from Taco Del Mar. To drink: Bottled water. (The real stuff this time.) As with almost everything from Taco Del Mar, this was yummy. I think almost jumbo is the smallest burrito they've got, and I'm still too full. Next time I'll get tacos.

(I'll post a picture once I'm at a computer where I can upload it.)

Update: Added the picture, as promised.

Breakfast

The day started like any other, get up at 4 and have some Metamucil, vitamins, and fish oil. When I got to work, I had a Starbucks grande americano with Splenda and non-fat milk and a croissant.

I got the americano because they had just started a new batch of drip coffee and I'd have to wait a few minutes for it. Plus they offered the americano at a drip price, which would be a deal and a half in any café that served decent coffee. If you like drip coffee, I'd recommend trying an americano. It's more expensive, but it generally tastes better. If you're at Starbucks, I wouldn't bother because both the americano and drip are terrible.

Where does the name American come from anyway? I imagine a bunch of Italians trying to appease visiting Americans who just want "coffee", so they just pour some hot water into an espresso and give the tourists funny looks.

I've talked before about how the croissants at Starbucks are terrible, but this was one of the worst. There was actually a mass of raw dough on the inside. If I hate them so much, why do I get them? Because they're the only item in the food display that isn't either full of sugar like a donut or cinnamon roll, or disgusting like a bran muffin. I'd get yogurt, but it's expensive and they sell crappy Danon yogurt.

Sorry about the lack of posts this weekend. I've been in a bit of a doldrums because of pressure coming from a number of sources. I can tell it's bad because my TMJ is in full swing, and that hasn't happened for several years. Things should be better this week, assuming I can get my butt in gear today.

Dinner

I ordered a pizza from Pagliacci's, but while I was waiting for it to arrive I has some Red Hot Blues tortilla chips and Newman's Own Pineapple Salsa.

I got the seasonal pizza, but I can't remember what they were calling it. It's got walla walla onions, garlic, and Gorgonzola. (There's no tomato sauce on this pizza.) It's good.

To drink: filtered water. Later in the evening I had some Metamucil.

Snacks and Lunch

I was heading out to grab some lunch when I remembered that I had a lunch appointment, so I grabbed some snacks instead. I picked up some cashews and Peanut M&Ms at the DAWN snack bar. I think the cashews were well past their prime, but they provided the sustenance I needed. For candy, Peanut M&Ms are relatively healthy, which is to say they aren't really healthy at all. I also had some tap water to drink.

Lunch was on work today, so we went to Midori Teriyaki. I got chicken teriyaki and dumplings. Everything, including the salad dressing, was super sweet, and the chicken was overcooked and rubbery. Yuck. Bottled water to drink.

Snack

Peanut butter crackers from the DAWN snack bar.

Coffee and other morning happenings

Grande latte from Ladro. Disappointingly not good. I've noticed that all of my bad cups of coffee from Ladro all come from the same store (Uptown). I'll have to try some other locations to see what's up.

I also had my standard morning mix: Metamucil, two vitamins, and two fish oil capsules.

When I left the house this morning there was a KING5 News van outside the building. This was initially worrisome, but once I noticed that they were loading stuff into the Queen Anne Books, I realized that it must be for the new Harry Potter book.

I was running late this morning, and would have missed the bus, but it was also late, which was good. However, this meant that I would miss my connecting bus, which was bad, but the connection was also late, which was good, but it wasn't late enough, so I missed it anyway, which was bad. Since I now had some time to kill in Uptown waiting for the next bus, I went to Ladro to grab a latte.

SPOILER ALERT: If you click the 'continue' link, you will find out something about the ending of the new Harry Potter book. If you want it to be a surprise, stop reading.

Dessert

Metamucil.

Dinner

Taco salad with black beans, pork, no tomatoes, medium sauce, sour cream, and guacamole from Taco Del Mar. To drink, a "medium" Sprite. I could only drink half of the soda since the cup is bigger than our apartment in Paris. Who orders a large?

The salad was good, but I kinda wish I hadn't watched them making it. It was late by the time I made it to the bottom of the hill (I had a meeting at work from 5 to 6), so I was left with the last dregs of beans and pork, and it looked pretty gross. It tasted fine, especially the shell, which is full of yummy carbohydrates.

(That little black dot in the middle of bright spot in the picture is an artifact of the my phone's really crappy camera, but I like to think of it as that guy's soul getting sucked into that enormous cup.)

YASGDWSANFM

Yet another Starbucks grande drip with Splenda and non-fat milk.

Ten blog points to the first person who posts a comment correctly stating what SYFFITF stands for. What are blog points? Something I just made up to encourage people to post comments. You get 1 point for every comment you make, and you can earn additional points for answering questions. First person to 100 gets to create their own blog entry. (With TypePad, you can set up guest posters.)

Current score:
Kris: 1
Stew: 1

Lunch

Regular tofu teriyaki "wrapp" from World Wrapps with a small peanut butter and banana smoothie and some poser water. The name of this restaurant reminds of the time in sixth grade when the teacher was telling us how to format the end notes for our reports, "If it's one page, use 'p', if it's more than one page, use pee pee." The class lost it.

What's wrong with the name "World Wraps" anyway? Was someone already using it when they came up with the idea, or do they think the extra 'p' connotes "delicious food wrapped in a tortilla"? I noticed that if you get a wrapp without the tortilla, they call it a bowll. (This post is going to drive the spell checker insane.) However, the menu does not include any smoothiees. Maybe because the word already has two of the same letter in a row, just not at the end. Why don't they call it "Worldd Wrapps"?

The teriyakied (spellchecker: Noooooo! I can't take it!) tofu is much better than the teriyakied chicken which is overcooked and rubbery. The tofu is firm and tasty. Before I was a vegetarian, I thought all tofu was gross. I'm no longer a vegetarian, but tofu still makes up some of my favorite dishes, especially if the dish also include Judy Fu's homemade noodles. Yum.

Coffee breakfast

Grande latte from Torrefazione (while I still can!) and a "plain" croissant. Around here when you order a croissant in a coffee shop, they always ask if you mean a "plain croissant". For some reason this always irks me. If I wanted some other type of croissant, I would have asked for it specifically. I think the fact that it's really hard to find a good croissant in this city adds to my irkedness. The one this morning was "okay" at best. The ones you get at Starbucks are crimes against nature. I think I had a good croissant from Ladro once, but that may just be wishful thinking.

The coffee was very good, but a little too "milky". I think maybe it didn't get steamed enough.

I also had my standard "breakfast" when I woke up: Metamucil, two One-A-Day vitamins (I do this mostly to be uselessly subversive, but also because I think it will make up for my lack of regular vegetable consumption), and two fish oil capsules.

The term "coffee breakfast" is a play on "coffee lunch", which is what I used to call it when I didn't have the time or motivation to hunt down a real meal at work. Instead, I'd just have a cup of coffee and a pastry for lunch. That's really healthy. I don't do it anymore.

More ketchup (this time it's kinda sideways)

This time, I'm just going to cover Saturday, and it's not going to be in any particular order. So instead of Memento, this is more like Pulp Fiction.

Food
For breakfast, Stew came over and we went to the 5-Spot. I got the Toulouse Street Scram which includes hash browns and whole grain toast. It was good. I was starving and it hit the spot. I also had coffee and water to drink. I don't remember exactly what Stew got, but I think it was two eggs over-easy, coffee, and grapefruit juice. I'm pretty sure he got something else as well, but I can't remember what. That's what happens when you wait four days before posting.

We got to the 5-Spot just as they opened, but we still had to wait for a table. Usually there's no line until around 9:30. I don't think it was the lack of empty tables, but rather they were taking forever to seat people. Also, the fact that the sun rises at 5:30 AM these days makes 8:30 seems a lot later than it normally does, so there may have been a lot of early risers waiting for breakfast as well.

At some point during the day I had to leave because the apartment was being shown, so I went do Caffe Ladro and got an orange Italian cream soda, which is what I get when I'm not interested in caffeine.

I have no clue what else I ate on Saturday, and I would have completely forgotten about the trip to Ladro if I hadn't taken a picture.

Technology
Stew drove me to Fry's so I could buy the parts to fix the Internets. I also picked up a part that I thought would give me faster transfers from my Tivo, but after playing around with it, my transfer rates are the same.

After getting some work done (and leaving the house for a bit), I made some "improvements" to the blog.

1. I added some javascript to the pages so that I could use StatCounter.com to track site usage. You can see who's been viewing the site by clicking here. You can also use the link that appears at the bottom of the column on the right. See if you can find your visit!
2. I switched the RSS feed link to use FeedBurner, so I can get some stats on who is subscribing to the site. Unfortunately, it doesn't yet work with Firefox's Live Bookmarks, so if you're using that to see the feed, it's not showing up in the logs. This is really no big deal, since I'm pretty sure that I'm the only one with a subscription to the site. (Note: If you want to use the FeedBurner feed within Firefox, simply click on the "Subscribe to this site" link on the left from within Firefox, and then use that page to create the live bookmark. Or you can manually subscribe to "http://feeds.feedburner.com/KrisAndJoGoToParis".)
3. I got tired of waiting for this site to appear in a Google search, so I bought some AdWords. If you search on "Kris Markel", "Kris", "Markel", "Johanna Trobough", "Johanna", or "Trobough", you may see an add for this site. There one ad for me and one for Jo. My daily budget is set really, really low, so the ads stop showing up after about five people click on them. Jo's ad has a much higher click-through rate (the percentage of people who see the ad and actually click on it), which is a little ironic since she never posts anything.

Movies
As I alluded to in the post about Sunday, I rented Shaolin Soccer and watched the American Edit. (As I also said on Sunday, the original edit is better, but it's missing subtitles in places.) I liked it, but not as much as Kung Fu Hustle, which I watched the previous weekend.

Getting to Paris
(I'm saving the best for last.) Jo and I accepted an offer on the house! I don't want to say too much because we still have to deal with the inspection and some other paperwork, and I'm worried about jinxing it. However, I am pretty pleased with the offer.

I promise to do a better job of staying on top of posts, at least for a little while. I'm not going to talk about what I've been eating recently, but tomorrow I'll resume my regular meal postings.

Figures

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/232296_umbria13.html

Leave it to Starbucks to figure out how to ruin one of the best cups of coffee in Seattle.

Jumbo, no wait - no mess, stay clean cap, upside-down ketchup catch up

Whew! It's been a busy few days. In reverse chronological order (think of it as the Memento of blog posts), here's what's been going on.

Monday morning, approximately 9:30 AM: I make a trip down into the Westlake bus tunnel to buy some bus tickets because I lost my bus pass yesterday. More on that later (er ... earlier?).

Monday morning, approximately 10 AM: Salt bagel, toasted, with peanut butter, and water to drink. The bagel is from Seattle Bagel Bakery, which I think makes the best bagels in Seattle. And since the salt bagel is the pinnacle of bagel achievement, this is the cream of the crop, so to speak. Topping it with nature's perfect food (that would be peanut butter) sounds like an ideal combination, but it ended up being too salty. Also, there wasn't enough PB, and the bagel wasn't toasted enough. This is understandable because the bagel store was very, very crowded. A couple tourist families had wandered in looking for breakfast and were crowding out the locals.

Normally I get cream cheese, but I decided to go with the healthier vegetable fat instead of the less healthy animal fat.

The water, while posing as bottled, is really from the tap. (Damn posers!)

Monday morning, approximately 8 AM: Grande latte from Torrefazione. I'm on the verge of ranking this coffee as better than Ladro's which hasn't been so good recently. This is very hard for me to do, as Torrefazione is owned by Starbucks, which I hate.

Monday morning, early: Standard morning cocktail - Metamucil, two vitamins, two fish oil capsules.

Sunday night, dessert: My headache has mostly subsided, so I have a glass of "Ye olde regular" (Metamucil) and head to bed.

Sunday night: I watched the original release version of Shaolin Soccer, which was better than the American edit, but it was hard to enjoy because my head was pounding to such a great degree. I also did a couple hours of work because my headache is preventing me from sleeping.

Sunday dinner: Inspired by Howl's Moving Castle, I had Roquefort on a rustic baguette with slices of Braeburn apples. I would have preferred the stronger taste of Cabrales, but the Cabrales they had at Metropolitan Market looked disgusting. (They're whole cheese section is kinda iffy.) I also picked up some Granny Smiths and Tellagio, but didn't have the energy to eat them. I think the milder Braeburns would be better paired with the Tellagio while the sweeter Granny Smiths would go well with the blue cheese. I'll try that tomorrow (er ... tonight). Plus it was hard to enjoy anything with my headache.

Sunday, approximately 3:55 PM: I still have a few minutes to kill before the open house is over, so I head to Metropolitan Market to buy dinner.

Sunday, approximately 3:30 PM: I make it to the top of the hill and decide to grab some ice cream at Scoops so I can eat it while scoping out the apartment to see if anyone comes in or out of the open house. There's only one table on the sidewalk and it's occupied, so I start eating my ice cream indoors and move once the table opens up. I don't see anyone enter or leave the apartment.

For ice cream, I get a single scoop of cookie dough, which tastes like crap. It's too sweet and not at all creamy. They really serve terrible ice cream at that place, especially when compared to what the Cow's Meow offered when they ran the shop. (Cow's Meow made their own ice cream, Scoops just ships in drums of Dryer's.)

Sunday, 3:00 PM: In an effort to abate my migraine and some misguided hope that maybe it's caffeine withdrawal related, I get a grande latte from Caffe Ladro. This is the second or third coffee I've gotten from them that was too chalky and had an odd tangy aftertaste. Normally I like my latte to have a bit of a chalky mouth-feel, but this was too much. Plus, it didn't do a thing to help my headache.

As I'm wandering about the bottom of the hill, I start to lose my peripheral vision. This is a common migraine symptom, and it makes navigating difficult. So I decided to head back up to the top of the hill and I realized I no longer have my bus pass. I think it must have fallen out of my pocket at the movie theater, but I'm in too much pain to go back to the movie theater and ask if they've seen it.

Sunday, 1:00 PM: I noticed that Howl's Moving Castle is starting at the Uptown, and I've got three hours to kill, so I decide to see it. I normally don't like seeing movies by myself, but I'm hoping it will help to pass the time. Initially, I start nodding off, but then a migraine starts. I can neither sleep nor enjoy the movie.

Sunday, noon: I am exhausted and sore from so much frantic cleaning, so I head down the hill to Dick's for some "comfort" food. I get a Deluxe, fries, medium root beer, and two ketchups. (At Dick's, you have to pay for the ketchup.) The hamburger hits the spot, the fries are cold and soggy, and the root beer is fantastic. I think Dick's just serves Dad's Root Beer or something equally pedestrian (I'm a bit of a root beer snob), but they've got the syrup to soda water ratio just right or something.

Sunday, 11:30 AM: A super quick shower. (I can't remember if I have to be out of the apartment by noon or 1:00, so I'm shooting for noon.) I run to Metropolitan Market for some flowers to pretty up the place.

Sunday, 5:00 AM: After my morning cocktail and a bowl and a half of corn flakes with milk and sugar, it's clean, clean, and clean. We have an open house today so I start a six-and-a-half hour cleaning session that includes scrubbing both bathrooms and the laundry room from top to bottom, sweeping outside and watering the plants, vacuuming everything, doing all the laundry and the dishes, dusting, taking boxes out to the garage, and 10 million other little things. The thing is, the house wasn't really that dirty. I just felt compelled to get it spotless for some reason.

Well, that's enough for now. I'll recount Saturday's details later.

Late lunch

Pork tostadas from Blue Water Taco Grill and some bottled water.

This was delicious, but I have two complaints. First, it had cilantro, which I have some sort of genetic aversion to. I've noticed that my aversion is not as bad as it used to be, but I don't know if this is due to changes in my body chemistry, acclimation (they put cilantro on everything in Seattle), or people use a different variant of cilantro these days. I think the fresher the cilantro, the more potent the metallic taste that I don't like is. Second, I don't know how to eat this. It's got two toasted tortillas on the bottom which makes it really awkward to eat. Am I supposed to cut the tortillas with a knife and fork? Do I just eat off the top of them? Am I supposed to break them up and eat this like nachos? I couldn't tell, so I went with the first idea because it fit well with my genteel nature.

The pictures of stuff should look slightly better. I'm still using my phone, but I'm loading them directly to my workstation instead of sending them over the Internets, where Sprint compresses them.

Snack

Tube nuts (heh heh).

Morning coffee

Weekly coffee with Wayne. This week it was my turn to buy. We both got grande drips.

Breakfast

The ol' regular: Two One-a-day vitamins, two fish oil capsules, and Metamucil.

Breakfast proper: Cottage cheese with canned peaches. This is delicious, though I wouldn't say it's particularly healthy. The peaches are in "light syrup" which contains a lot of sugar. I fear to think of what "heavy syrup" looks like. Plus I accidentally bought low-fat cottage cheese instead of non-fat. Low-fat tastes better (fat is flavor, after all), but not that much better, and this breakfast is really all about the peaches.

Erik in the Globe

Erik is quoted in the Boston Globe! Of course, they also mention Boston's two best restaurants: L'Espalier and Sel  de la Terre. Can't wait to try a Yellow Jersey sometime, but I think they should add some Metamucil.

Photo courtesy of the L'Espalier web site.

Snack and Dinner

I had to bug out of the apartment for a few minutes while it was being shown, so I walked down to Caffe Ladro and had a Raspberry Italian Cream Soda. I'm not a big raspberry fan, but I was craving something fruity and they didn't have strawberry syrup. It was good, but messy. For some reason, whenever I drank from the cup, soda spilled out from the top.

For dinner I had a couple PB&J sandwiches and a glass of milk.

I've started including images of what I'm eating, but they're crappy cell phone images. If I can dig up our old digital camera, I'll start using it instead.

Coffee, again

Grande latte from Torrefazione Italia. Third best latte in Seattle. Yummy!

Lunch

I had a jumbo pork burrito on a flour tortilla with black beans and medium sauce from Taco Del Mar. It was good, but I should have gone with the "almost jumbo" because now I'm too full and want to take a nap.

To drink: More water! Can you believe it? I only wish the kitchenette at work were closer to my desk. Then I would drink water all the time.

Water!

Finally, something healthy. (Or at least not actively unhealthy.)

I refilled my bottle of water from yesterday's lunch from the filtered water dispenser here at work. Yummy.

Breakfast and Coffee

I apologize for posting late today, it's been a crazy morning. More on that later.

Breakfast - Vitamins, fish oil, Metamucil, and Corn Flakes of the Sith (with non-fat, organic milk and sugar).

Coffee - Starbucks grande drip with Splenda and non-fat milk.

Dinner

I made a grilled cheese sandwich with Orowheat Country Potato bread (almost the unhealthiest bread in existence, but boy is it good) and Tillamook Special Reserve Extra Sharp Natural Cheddar Cheese. To make sure it paired with the cheese, I used Tillamook Unsalted butter to fry it in.

I burnt it, but it was still tasty so I made another (and managed to burn it as well, even though I was being careful). I thought about having Cheetos as a side dish, but the packaging said they were "dangerously cheesy" so I decided not to push it.

To drink: I started with one of the beers that Stew brought to the Bon Voyage party (New Belgium Loft Beer), but I could only stomach a couple sips so I had filtered water instead. Finally I make a healthy decision, but only because my hand is forced.

Aperitif: Metamucil. I wonder if anyone has made a real cocktail with this stuff. What would you call it? I'd go with "orange movement" (Get it?), or maybe "the regular". (Which is funnier, calling "the regular" or "the old regular"? I can't decide.)

Dessert: Extra Strength Mylanta liquid antacid. (Gee, I wonder why I need that.)

Afternoon Coffee

It's like "Afternoon Delight", but without the delightfulness.

Starbucks grande drip with Splenda and non-fat milk. Yuck.

Another interesting interaction at Starbucks. More details below the fold.

Lunch

I had half of a chicken salad sandwich left over from this weekend so I brought it to work. It was quite tasty. To drink I had bottled water from the vending machine. $1 for 20 ounces! It's highway robbery. The only reason I didn't just drink tap water is that there aren't any decent sized cups in the kitchen area, and I'm far enough away that multiple trips is very inconvenient.

Bringing lunch is so much more convient (and better tasting) than trying to buy something locally. I really should get my act together and bring a lunch every day.

Coffee

Grande mocha from Starbucks. Better than a drip and less healthy, which is clearly what I need right now.

Some tool who wasn't paying attention took my drink instead of hers, which was a grande, two-percent, extra hot mocha, so I had to wait for them to make another. Granted, they did make the drinks out of order, but still.

Maybe it was a sign that I should stick with drip coffee.

Breakfast

Standard breakfast cocktail - two vitamins, two fish oil capsules, and Metamucil.

I also had a bowl of corn flakes. When I bought the cereal, the bagger at the grocery store noticed that these are "Corn Flakes of the Sith" because there's a big picture of Darth Vader on the box. I asked if that made them more nutritious, and she said she didn't think so.

Dinner?

I have the hardest time deciding what to make myself for dinner. I spent 30 minutes wandering around Larry's trying to figure out what I wanted to eat. I finally bought the ingredients for grilled cheese and tomato soup, but by the time I got home I was so hungry (notice how there's no lunch post today) that I scarfed down half a bag of Cheetos and now I'm full. And it wasn't a small bag.

Oh yeah, I had some Metamucil as well.

Coffee

Another Starbucks grande drip with Splenda and non-fat milk.

I hate Starbucks, and I hate their drip coffees, but it's convenient, and it means I don't have to make a decision about lunch for another couple hours.

Breakfast?

Part 1, 4:30 am: Two vitamins, two fish oil capsules, Metamucil.

Part 2, 7:00 am: Starbucks grande drip coffee with Splenda and non-fat milk.

Part 3, 10:30 am: Planters salted cashews from the DAWN snack bar. These are good, but it makes me laugh that Planters packages them as "tube nuts".

Ketchup catch up

Argh! I'm way behind on my posts. Here are my meals since my last post.

Lunch, part deux: Two hot dogs with ketchup and yummy mustard and some Metamucil. A grocery store Frappucino to drink.

Dinner: Two chicken legs and Metamucil. Filtered water to drink. I bought a whole chicken and some broccoli meaning to eat more, but I was so hungry I ate the parts of the chicken that I could get to the quickest, and then I was full.

Midnight snack: A pint of Ben and Jerry's Half Baked ice cream. I intended to just have a few bites, but by the time I looked into the container, it was empty.

"Breakfast": Starbucks doubleshot, two vitamins, two fish-oil capsules, and Metamucil. Not much of a breakfast, to be sure.

Lunch: A Starbucks non-fat, with-whip mocha and a foccacia-chicken-artichoke sandwich (also from Starbucks). I hate Starbucks sandwiches. They are expensive and not very good (and 90% bread). But I was hungry and short on time. The sandwich was actually pretty spicy, which was surprising. It was also filling, if not terribly tasty. I haven't had a mocha from Starbucks in a long time, but I wanted something sweet and more filling than a drip or tea which are what I usually get.

I'll post more on my Starbucks philosophy when I get some time.

Lunch

Cheerios with milk and honey.

Not much of a lunch, but it was fast, and I wanted to use up the last of the milk because it was starting to taste a little suspicious.

The wired city

Produced by Google Earth.

In reality, this isn't even half of the coffee places in downtown Seattle.

Check below the fold for another view.

Coffee

Starbucks doubleshot Espresso & Cream Premium Coffee Drink.

These things taste great, but they're full of cream and sugar.

Also had more Metamucil. From the blog it must look like I drink this stuff all the time, but it doesn't feel that way.

I also had my daily vitamins - two One-a-day Men's and two fish oil capsules.

Midnight snack

Metamucil (of course) and macaroni and cheese.

I guess I was still hungry from missing lunch because I ate an entire box of macaroni and cheese.

Ugh.

Dinner

I was starving by the time I left work today, so I thought about stopping at the bottom of the hill and picking something up, but nothing appealed to me, and I wanted to get home.

Two beef hot dogs with ketchup and mustard. (That sweet and spicy mustard is really good.) Notice that this is nearly the same thing I had yesterday (minus an orange). This "bachelor" life sucks.

Beverage: New Belgium Loft beer. Stew had brought this to Jo's bon voyage party so I thought I'd give it a try. I didn't like it at all.

Coffee

Grande drip with two packets of Splenda and non-fat milk. I wonder if you can develop a tolerance for Splenda because I used to only use one packet. Two is still too many, but one and a half is not enough.

Of course, it tastes terrible, but I need something to help me wake up.

I also got an almond poppy seed loaf, which will probably be my lunch. I don't know why Starbucks calls it a 'loaf' when it's really a cake. I guess 'loaf' sounds healthier. For me, the word 'loaf' has really negative connotations around it, all because of one line in The Shawshank Redemption.

Snack

Salt bagel, toasted with cream cheese. Tap water to drink.

I haven't had any coffee yet this morning, and i can feel it. However, I think I'd be better off at this point with a short nap rather than some caffeine.

Breakfast

Same as yesterday, minus the coffee.

Midnight snack

More Metamucil.

Dinner

Two beef hot dogs, grilled with mustard and ketchup. The mustard was a sweet and spicy variety and was very good.

Filtered water to drink, and an orange.

I also had another glass of "Metamucil Tang" before dinner.

Coffee

Wayne bought me a coffee at Starbucks. I ordered a grande drip, but they had just started a new batch so I had an americano instead.

I remember the last americano I got a Starbucks being much better that I expected, but this one was not very good. Maybe last time I used real sugar and whole milk; this time I used Splenda and non-fat milk.

Lunch

I headed down to Subway (which I hate) to get a meatball sub (which I can barely tolerate, but it's warm and I don't have to go outside to get it). The line was too long, so I decided to try Starbucks (which I also hate).

Instead of giving into my hunger, I went over to Market House for a sandwich. They're okay, and it's fast and no more expensive than Starbucks. Turn out they now have homemade Reuben's, so I got one. It was okay, but not anything special, but it really hit the spot because I was starving.

It came with coleslaw that I didn't touch. (I don't like coleslaw.) I did eat the accompanying pickle, and nibbled on the cookie, but it had too many raisins to eat the whole thing.

To drink: Aquafina bottled water from the vending machine. It was watery.

Chai

I grabbed a tall soy chai latte from Caffe Ladro while waiting for the bus. The barista (baristo? it was a guy) made it "extra spicy". I think in reality he accidentally added too much syrup. It was still very good.

Best chai in Seattle.

Breakfast

1 heaping teaspoon of Metamucil dissolved in a glass of water.
2 One-A-Day Men's multivitamins.
2 fish oil capsules.
1 bowl of Cheerios with honey and low-fat milk.

Standard breakfast, nothing special.

I also grabbed a Starbucks Frappuchino (the kind from the supermarket) from the fridge that I had left over from a late night working session last week.