The last day of our little experiment. I’ll be sorry to see it end–not!

Sara’s Juice Fast: Day 3

9am: Earl Grey tea

10:30am: Odwalla orange juice

12:45pm: We ran out of vegetables at home, so I had to buy vegetable juice from Wild Oats (carrot, spinach, parsley, cucumber). This juice machine operator, as well as the bitter–but nutritious–concoction she made me, was extra-green. (She had no concept of “normal” vegetable ratios.)

2:30pm: Naked™ Pomegranate Passion juice

2:45pm: sugar high

4pm: mint tea

8pm: green tea

9pm: vegetable juice (carrot, celery, parsley, radish, green bean, cucumber) and broth (onion, garlic and juice pulp)

11pm: dessert juice (apple, pear, watermelon, water) and green tea

Today was a good day. I felt energetic–maybe even moreso than normal.

Ron’s Juice Fast: Day 3

Our cleaning ladies came early this morning, and woke me up, so once again I’m tired/weak and not quite sure of the reason. (The starvation…? Or the sleep deprivation?)

Other than that, I’m feeling more or less normal.

Today’s menu:

• water
• juice (carrot, parsley, cucumber, celery, radish)
• juice (carrot, celery, parsley, radish, green bean, cucumber)
• vegetable broth (see above)
• green tea

Sara’s Juice Fast: Day 2

What a night.

2am: Woke up with a splitting headache and nausea. Violently ill for an hour. Threw up several times. (Did some research: this is apparently a not-uncommon “healing crisis” (a.k.a. a Herxheimer Reaction) to detoxification.)
…read the rest →

Inspired by a friend, we’ve started our first juice fast. Inspired by on-line strangers, we’ve decided to keep a diary of it.

Sara’s Juice Fast: Day 1

8am: Sara’s fast begins. One cup of green tea. “This is easy!”
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(trip photos here)

San Francisco is redeemed–for the following 26 reasons (with thanks to my new friends Molly & Mike for the format):

1. Airborne
2. Bowling with :(|)boy
3. Cousins at the Cliff House
4. Delicious beef BBQ at Memphis Minnie’s (*)
5. Eating meat (pork, even)–accidentally, at the Slanted Door
   

6. Fog
7. Great white sharks eating Sara’s feet
8. Hog Island Kumamoto oysters
   

9. Inclined streets
10. Jamba Juice
11. Kayaking Tomales Bay
12. Ludicrous housing prices
13. Manka’s Inverness Lodge (*)
14. Naked truck
15. Obsessed with wine, everyone is
16. Poulain 1848 chocolate, imported from Toronto (*)
17. Quiero mas tacos
18. Recchiuti chocolates from the Ferry HouseBuilding
19. Scones by Conny (*)
20. Tongue taco at La Taqueria (*)
21. Underdressed for the SF “summer”
22. Violetta plays with Sara
23. Wine Drinkers Make Grape Lovers =))
24. Xtra calories
25. Yummy Vietnamese Shaking Beef (*)
26. Zebulon

We can now freely admit that we actually like it there.

We just returned from a trip to the Finger Lakes with some friends. (See the complete photo set here.) Some highlights:

Thursday: The Pizza Crapital of the World

We set out in the evening, anticipating a memorable dinner. Sara had planned a fabulous itinerary, and its first attraction was dinner in Old Forge, PA, “Pizza Capital of the World.” What? You didn’t know that Old Forge was the Pizza Capital of the World?! Have you been living under a rock? Well, we must be living under one, too, since we’d never even heard of Old Forge until a month ago.

We admit, we were intrigued by this audacious claim. “What enormous cajones this Podunk little town must have,” we thought, “to claim superiority over the likes of Brooklyn, Chicago… and even Rome and Naples.” At first we thought it was a joke. But there it was, proclaimed in black and white, on several well-known internet site (TripAdvisor, Fodor’s, et al.). And it wasn’t even the casual tourists who said it was the best pizza–it was pizza enthusiasts. The kind who make their own pizzas at home. Daily. And take pictures to post online for their friends to see. These were the people who said Old Forge pizza was the best, and we trusted them.

Here’s an excerpt from one posting about Old Forge pizza:

I love Old Forge style pizza. It was always a treat to get away from the “normal” type of pizza and get a taste of NEPA pizza.

We were starving by the time we reached Old Forge. We raced to Revello’s (one of the top-rated pizza places in town) and got a table. The place didn’t look like much, but that actually impressed us–pizza joints are supposed to be kinda seedy, after all. Our skepticism almost began to fade.

We sat down and asked for menus. When they came, we saw that there were two kinds of pizza: red and white. You could order by the slice, or by the “tray.” A slice was $1.05 and a tray was $12.60. (Freakonomics indeed.) We ordered a tray of red (with half pepperoni for the carnivores and half onion for the herbivore(s)) and a single slice of white.

While we waited for the pizza, we had a little birthday celebration for Kartal. We gave him a nifty T-bone T-shirt, certifying him as a true lover of food that’s killed and grilled.

And finally, the pizza arrived. The moment of truth.
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For those who don’t know, Sara and I met an absolutely lovely Swedish family while we were in India last December: Anna, Lars, Sara and Emil, and Sara’s boyfriend (whose name, I’m afraid, we’ve forgotten).

Anna was armed with an impressive digital camera and a wonderful artistic sensibility. She took some amazing photos of India which she shared with us, and which we happily added to our honeymoon album.

Here are some of the photos she sent us. (Also see our main honeymoon photo page and our itinerary.)

See the rest of
Anna’s photos.

A birthday buddy of mine recently told me that she gets a chuckle out of the abundantly misused “quotation mark.” That reminded me of my lunch from Tuesday of this week. My Coworkers and I went to a Mongolian barbecue place near the office, and while standing before the raw ingredient buffet, we noticed that the meat labels were (quotation marks as found):

“CHICKEN”
“PORK”
“BEEF”

We couldn’t decide whether this was “just” “bad” “punctuation,” or some sort of shrewd disclaimer about the authenticity of their “meats.” (Needless to say, I went vegetarian for that meal.)

On a side note, my fortune after that meal was:

My boss, who was sitting right across from me, chuckled. What should I make of that?

We just returned from our first trip to Las Vegas (see the photos)–which my father-in-law and I have dubbed the “City of Plastic.”

Everything there is plastic–the casino money, the grass (Astroturf), the décor, people’s body parts…

Despite the ubiquitous wails of the nickel slots, we spent a grand total of $0.00 on gambling.

Our trip, in detail:
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Last night, in reverse:

We returned home, tired, but happy that we got to spend time and laugh with our all wonderful friends.

As we drove back home from the city, I became more and more sure that I like “Night on Disco Mountain” (from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack) better than the original–and arguably classier–“Night on Bald Mountain.” Sacrilegous? Perhaps. (Okay, definitely.) But true, nonetheless.

We left Cafe Mozart, and our waiter shot me me one final, imploring glance. His heart… clearly broken.

Our desserts were pretty mediocre (other than the yummy fruit sauces that came with the cheescake), but Sara and I were having fun reliving our first date at Cafe Mozart. Actually, Cafe Mozart was just one of several stops we made that day–on our 14-hour first date. (The final stop, naturally, was my dropping her off for the night. When she literally jumped me in my car–that’s when I knew I was in. ;) ) Looking back at last night’s dessert experience, we can’t figure out how our friends kept themselves from puking every time Sara and I started pawing each other or calling each other “shmoopie.”

The waiter fell madly in love with me. Poor guy; his gaydar must need alignment. The fact that I ordered the frilliest thing on the menu (some kind of hot chocolate pudding drink) probably didn’t help. Or maybe it was my gay shoes? Either way, I’m pretty sure he thought he was getting some that night.
…read the rest →

We’ve already established that Hotmail sucks.

But, as if Microsoft didn’t want to leave any shadow of a doubt, this is what I saw when I tried to log in earlier today:
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So, I was at the supermarket (Shop Rite) today, and I overheard a pair of young (teenage) employees trying to fill a “shop-at-home” order. Their conversation went something like this:

Girl Employee: Let’s see, we need to get some radishes. Which ones are the radishes? Oh, here they are. [Picks up a bunch of beets.] These are radishes, right?

Boy Employee: No, I don’t think those are radishes; I think radishes are smaller. Maybe we’re out of them. [He was correct.]

Girl Employee: Oh, okay. [Consults a list in her hand.] We also need an organic avocado. [Searches the refrigerated section.]

Boy Employee: No, I don’t think the avocados are in the cold section.

Girl Employee: [Laughs.] Oh, okay; then where are they?

Boy Employee: I dunno.

Me: [Pointing at the avocados in front of them.] These are avocados, over here.

Both Employees: Ohhhhhhhhhh! Thanks!

Proof that the language of love is universal:

• FACT: we went to our friends’ wedding this weekend.
• FACT: 90% of it (best man’s toast, emcee’s announcements, etc.) was in Russian.
• FACT: we understand but 5 words of Russian.
• FACT: we [basically] understood everything that was going on (at least the important parts).
• CONCLUSION: True love is not limited to the words we understand. When love is in a room, it’s understood by all.

This wedding was our second chance (in one week) to see Rabbi Alfred Landsberg in action. (I hope he doesn’t think we’re some kind of freakish rabbi groupies.) We established the fact that he does rotate his jokes.
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We recently saw (and enjoyed) the movie I ♥ Huckabees. It reminded me of the following old Hasidic fable, which a good friend introduced to us:
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Just winding down from a fabulous weekend.

(Feel free to jump straight to the photos of Mike & Nimi’s wedding.)

Extravaganza Event #1: Karaoke Bachelor/ette Party

Mike’s rendition of “Welcome to the Jungle” was accurate to the syllable; his artistic decision to stay true to both the spirit and the letter of the song both impressed and freaked everyone out (in equal parts). :) Mike, you’ve got some set of pipes in you. Who knew?
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“He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.”

— Albert Einstein

• • •

“Life’s too short to wear a tuxedo.”

— Ron Rothman