Until I say stop

2004-03-05 - 6:41 p.m.

I just found out that this Sunday I'm going to be seeing some family friends I haven't seen in years. These family friends have two daughters. I think the last time I saw them was about six years ago. Hmm...actually, that's not true. I saw them last at my brother's wedding which was about two and a half years ago, but we didn't hang out then. The last time I hung out with them was about six years ago. The girls were ten and seven. I was the coolest thing. Now, though, they're sixteen and thirteen. And I have no idea how to relate to teenagers. It's not something I do. I just don't have the opportunity often. So how do I go about being cool to them now? You have to take into consideration that in reality I'm the biggest dork for hundreds of miles around. Any tips on how to be cool with these girls? I don't mean cool cool, just...I just want them to like me, is that too much to ask? I don't want them to share my opinion of my dorkiness.

And guess what. Yeah, guess! OK, never mind, I'll just tell you: I found a place near home that sells bubble tea!! Sort of... Actually they sell "pearl smoothies," but that's pretty close. I'll tell you the story, but first I have to get there. Yeah, how's that for a teaser?

So this morning I went to the gym and did a step class again. Phew! It totally kicked my butt today. I don't know what the deal was. Was the class harder or was it just me? At any rate, by the end I was barely able to do anything without tripping over my step.

Around 9:30 I made it back home. The termite guy was supposed to come to my house "a little before 11." The termite guy was there when I got home. And the termite guy was a termite gal. She was busily checking the outdoor traps and then she came inside to check the indoor one. Turns out she's the termite guy's sister and she's taking over his route. Fine, whatever. But then she was chatting with me while she was checking this trap and she was telling me why it's harder for her to do this job than for a man to do this job because she's a woman. Go ahead, think of reasons why it would be more difficult to be a termite gal than a termite guy. I couldn't think of any. And then she explained: "A guy can just go to the bathroom anywhere." You're kidding, right? In my backyard??

Later my mom came home from work and we went out to Chipotle for lunch. We got a fajita burrito because we've never tried that before. We decided we didn't like it as well as the regular chicken burrito, though. I don't know, I think they didn't cook the onions and peppers enough. They lacked...something.

After Chipotle we went to Kohl's grand opening sale. A whole slew of these stores just opened up in the Sacramento area and all of them had their grand openings today. They've been hyping it up for weeks. The parking lot was packed. I ended up having to park behind the store with the dumpsters. And do you know what I discovered? Shopping at my current weight is a whole hell of a lot more fun than shopping at my previous weight. My God, things look good on me now! I ended up buying myself a blouse, two pairs of capris, three workout tops, a belt (smaller so I don't have so much extra flopping around), three pairs of panties...and...yeah, I think that's it. I ended up getting a Kohl's charge card, too, just so I could get an extra 10% off. I sorta figure having another credit card might be good for my credit, too. Seems like I read somewhere that you've got to have two or something to qualify for a home loan and you're supposed to have them for several years. I really don't know if that's true, but I figure this won't hurt anything. Other than the fact that by using my Kohl's card I didn't earn Amazon.com points by using my other card.

But anyway, after spending too much money at Kohl's we had to walk all the way back to my car behind the building. To get there we had to walk by the rest of the strip mall and this time we stopped to look in the windows of the other shops. One of them was a Vietnamese restaurant. Do you see where I'm going with this yet? Uh-huh, they had a menu taped to the front of their window. On the menu was a picture which looked just like this:

I grabbed my mom's arm and said, "Look what they have!" My mom, who is all too painfully aware of my recent bubble tea obsession and lack of outlets for it, took a few moments before spotting the picture and then said, "We have to go get some," and headed for the door. Of course a "pearl smoothie" isn't exactly like "pearl tea" or "bubble tea" or whatever you want to call it. But it does have those tapioca balls in it. At first I talked to the guy at the counter, but he didn't really speak English and he didn't know what I was talking about until I grabbed a menu and pointed to the picture. Then I asked what flavors they had and that was beyond his ability to answer, although he tried valiantly until a girl with better English skills bailed him out. They didn't have it in regular milk tea flavor. They only had it in relatively fruity flavors. And mocha. I remember she listed mocha, mango, strawberry, taro, avocado, jack fruit, soursop, and durian, and I know she listed a few more. I think I calculated once and concluded that a 16 ounce bubble tea drink costs about 16 weight watchers points. But since I'd already earned 9 activity points and had plenty of flex points to spare, I decided to splurge and indulge. I got taro flavor because my brother once ordered something that flavor and he let me try it and I liked it. His had a stronger flavor than mine, though. And mine was awesome. It was so worth it. I have no idea why I love this stuff so much, but I do. I'm thinking I might have to go back and try the other flavors. I don't know though, avocado flavor sounds pretty gross. And I didn't even know what jack fruit, soursop, or durian are until I looked them up just now. I have no idea what they taste like. What do you think, is this a good opportunity to find out?