It Doesn't Feel Like November!

October was a lot of fun, for the most part. I love Halloween. I put up lots of decorations - even more this year than last.

You can see the decorations I put up last year ; they are the same ones as this year, plus new ones.
You can see the new ones here Also, you can see my Halloween costume. Last year I was a cat, and this year, a devil.  Both years were fun...in some ways, though, last year was better. Last year, my MIL was still living with us, and she enjoys holidays, decorations, and little kids, so she was fun to have around for all that. We had lots of tricker-or-treaters, and that was great.  Then David and I went to TGIFriday's, where they had lots of costumes, and a contest. We didn't stay that long, but still....it was fun.  This year, I wanted to do more. I really wanted to do karaoke in costume. Halloween was Monday, so it makes it hard for us to go out since he has to get up the next morning.  I talked him into going out on Saturday to a karaoke bar, Li'l Kim's, where they were having a costume contest. We had never been there before, and it's always good to try out a new place. We had a good time, and my costume was good...however, the karaoke bar said on their website that karaoke started at 8, but it really didn't start until 9:15. I should have called, and I could kick myself because I should know better.  It's all the way downtown, so we took a cab, and we had a cab coming at 10, so that meant we only had 45 minutes of karaoke. I sang one song and that was it.

However, it was not exactly a great karaoke bar. The singers I heard there were not very good, and the audience was not really paying that much attention or applauding much.  So staying later probably would not have been that much fun, anyway. Before the karaoke, we had fun playing oldies songs on the jukebox and eating Korean food. Strangely enough, this play is a redneck bar but run by Koreans, and they sell pretty good bar food as well as Korean food. Weird.  So at least we know now, not to go there again...And then we didn't have as many tricker-or-treaters this year, so that was disappointing.

I hope to lose more weight by next Halloween so I can get a really good costume and look good in it. I looked way too fat this year. I was very sad, though, when I had to take down all the decorations....oh, well, soon there will be Christmas decorations to put up. Honestly, though, I like Halloween a bit better.

Last week we went to Montreal. It was a great trip. David had a conference there for Deans.  We stayed at this great old hotel in the downtown are called Fairmont at Queen Elizabeth. We've been to Montreal a few times before and love it.  It has a lot of character. The food is great!  Canadians are so nice, too. It was way too short of a trip. We would love to stay there longer, or even live there.

We flew there on Wednesday morning, very early. It was a really long day. We had to leave the house around 5:30 am and drive to Atlanta. By the time we got to our hotel room in Montreal, it was 12 hours later. UGH!  We took American Airlines, and they flew us down first to Miami (uh, wrong direction!), but I guess that's how they do things. We switched planes there to fly up to Montreal.  Both ways we got to upgrade to first class for, well, quite a bit, but still cheaper than it normally would be. It is so worth it because you get a lot of room, not just leg room but also elbow room. They give you free drinks and sometimes free food. On the way up, we didn't get food, just snacks.

Sometimes my legs bother me on long flights. I have Restless Leg Syndrome, and it affects me sometimes at night, or if I am sitting for a long time and not able to get up and stretch, walk around. It can be annoying and painful (They really show call it Achy Leg Syndrome, not just "restless"). It always pisses me off whenever a comedian or anyone makes fun of it like it's not a real disease. I've had it my whole life, ever since I was a kid, and it's not "new" just because they only recently started giving it a name. It has to do with a chemical deficiency in your brain. Like we didn't already know my brain is deficient! Ha ha!  They do have drugs for it, but they're not worth it because you have to take them every night, and they really dope you up, and have too many side effects.  I don't have the problem often enough to make taking another drug every night worth it. Usually at home I have to stretch a lot, take a hot bath, take a pain killer, Ben Gay, etc.  But you can't really do all that on an airplane! I tried to stretch as best I could.  It was fine once we landed and I got to walk around. It only bothers me if I have to lie or sit without getting up.

Anyhoo.....the Miami airport seemed pretty nice. We ate at a very bad Mexican restaurant there, though, called Tequileria. Worst tacos I ever had.  It took a long long time to go through immigration in Montreal...just long lines...nothing like waiting in a long line when you're already exhausted!

We were pretty tired when we got to the hotel - especially me because I hadn't had much sleep.  But we were hungry, so we just at the hotel restaurant. It was great, though, as it turned out. They not only knew what "gluten" was but when I ordered duck pate, they brought it with gluten free bread!  Woo hoo!!  That doesn't happen very often.

Our room was very nice. It wasn't huge, but it was fine. They had a nice minibar, beautiful bathroom (black marble!), and comfy bed.  This is the same hotel where John Lennon and Yoko Ono had their famous "bed-in" in the 60's.

The only problem at all was that I brought my netbook, which is very slow, so it was frustrating to try to use for anything. I got a new hard drive for it, and...I don't know, but it's not very fast now. It was always slow, but I don't think it was quite this slow.  So I brought a lot of work but did not do much of it.

On the plane flight, and that night, I read the book "Sweetly" by Jackson Pearce, one of my favorite new authors. It is a sequel to her book "Sisters Red". If you like fantasy/monsters, they are good books, and easy to read. I zipped through this one in the one day.

Also, while we were there, I watched the movie "Green Lantern", which I have been dying to see since it came out. I enjoyed it! I don't know why some people didn't like it...maybe they're not comic book fans.

I felt more awake after dinner, so we went to this nearby Irish pub. I had to eat some more because I had to take a pill, so we shared some fish and chips. I just took the breading off the fish, but still, it was really good!!  Great fries, too.  It's called Le Vieux Dublin http://dublinpub.ca/?lang=en  It is weird at first to see everything in French, but you get used to it pretty quickly.

I slept in the next day, Thursday, while David had his conference. We went back to the Irish pub for lunch. I had a salad this time, which was a bad choice.  It was very dry, the chicken was overcooked..it was just bad. Then I asked for more dressing, and the waiter was way over his head, too busy, and taking forever. Finally he said if I got more dressing, he'd have to charge me for it! So I just said, never mind....it was pretty bad.

Unfortunately, later on we had another bad meal, and it was way way too expensive. It is the Vargas, just down the street from our hotel. That's what we get for going to the closest one. I got duck. I love duck! This was chewy, not good at all. Meat is supposed to be tender, not chewy. Blech.  It came with mashed potatoes that were lumpy. Not kidding! LOL!  And like I said, way too expensive.  David had sushi but he said it was so-so.  We went back to our hotel and had snacks there at the bar. They have really good snacks there, for free! I also ordered some chocolate mousse, which was fantastic.

They have a restaurant there called The Beaver Club which is really ritzy. The mousse is from there. Also, in the gift shop, they have a snack shop/candy shop. They had free samples of this delicious maple fudge. Most delicious thing ever. That is also made by the Beaver Club. I bought a lot to take home :) But it's very bad for me so I froze most of it. Otherwise I'd gobble it all down.

We didn't do much besides eat and drink, besides his conference.  We were only there a few days. I tried to find a good karaoke place. Most of the ones I found were karaoke rooms/boxes. That's not the same as a public karaoke bar. It's great if you have a bunch of friends or family with you, but otherwise it's kind of like, well....singing at home with my karaoke machine.  I found one place that said they have 100,000 songs. More on that later.  The place we visited last time had burned down!

I also searched for gluten free restaurants, so we went to one on Friday for lunch. It was great. It is called Zero 8. It is actually free of the top 8 allergens, which includes wheat, nuts, dairy, shellfish and more. Yet it is a delicious gourmet restuarant. I loved it. I had a burger, made with lamb. The bread it was on was pretty delicious, kind of like a crispy thing. There is no cheese, but it had carmelized onions on top so it was quite juicy and flavorful. I was trying to be somewhat good on the carbs, so I had a salad with it rather than fries. David's pasta was very good, too.  Then for dessert I had an apple cake. It was ok...would have been better with whipped cream, but...no dairy there.  All the portions were kind of small, which was good because it meant we could sample different things. Oh, and I almost forgot, they had a delicious gluten free beer! And it was not that high in carbs, either. So that was awesome.  I so wish they had this restaurant in every city.  The waiter didn't speak much English, but he was very nice. I noticed on the menu that they didn't seem to have any beef, which is kind of strange. It's not an allergen, but maybe they don't like it for some reason. They had mostly lamb, duck, and chicken.

The area where the restaurant is, called the Latin Quarter, is even more colorful and fun than the downtown area. I would have liked to have walked around, but I had only brought a sweater and it was quite chilly and windy. It was nice weather the first two days, but it got kind of cold on Friday, and I did not realize it so I didn't bring my jacket when we went out for lunch.  We also stopped at this little candy shop next door to the restaurant. It looked interesting. They had many types of Jones soda, so I got a sugar free one.  It was pomegranate - really good. We also went to this bar, a blues club, before going back to our hotel.

That night, we met our good friends Steve and Cathy for dinner. Steve worked with David at Texas Tech, and he is a professor up there now.  He and Cathy are scifi fans, too, so it's always fun to talk to them.  They took us to Chinatown and we had a nice meal. I had duck again, but this time it was good.  Steve was kind enough to drive us to the karaoke bar I had found, even though I think it was way out of his way.  We saw one in Chinatown, too, but it was very empty. I don't like going to places that are completely dead. We also passed another one on the way, so we probably should have stopped there and checked it out.

When we went to this place, Bar Zoe, it was really loud and crowded, and they wanted us to pay $5 to just go in! So forget that. I was very disappointed, though, that it was so bad.  I hate getting all dressed up and putting in my contacts for nothing.  We went to a little Greek bar down the street and had a couple of drinks before heading back to our hotel. It was a fun place. They played a lot of 80's music on the jukebox.

We went back to our hotel bar again and had more snacks and chocolate mousse. Way too much eating on this trip!  We sure didn't want to leave on Saturday.  At the airport, I ordered a local dish called a smoked meat sandwich. It was one of the most fatty things I've ever tasted, but delicious. It is some kind of brisket, on a sandwich with swiss and rye, like pastrami. But way more fatty than pastrami. More fatty than bacon and pastrami put together!

We got a really good gourmet meal on our flight, again in first class for part of it.  Almost made flying bearable.  We stayed the night in Atlanta. We usually stay at the Hilton. It's got a good price, usually, and it's right near the karaoke bar I like. They also have Trader Vic's, which we like. Another long tiring day of flying. We then went to Metro Cafe, which is a 24 hour greek restaurant with karaoke every night.  The people that work there are very nice and I usually get to sing a lot. I sang 4 songs and we were only there a few hours...if we hadn't been so tired, I would have stayed longer. However, the crowd was really dead. There were many people there, but they were interested more in the games on the TV instead of the karaoke.  I tried my best to wake them up! The KJ and I did this duet "Bring Me to Life" by Everclear, and they liked it a bit more than the other songs. I need to learn more modern songs.  I finished the night with Crazy on You by Heart, and I'm not kidding when I tell it was the best I ever did it. I really nailed it. But they didn't care. Oh, well, I had fun anyway. I wasn't hungry when we were there, so I had some food after that. We stopped at Gibney's pub for a snack, and then we went to Trader Vic's for a drink before heading back to our hotel.

I watched X-Men First Class in that hotel...I enjoyed it a lot. I only wish the movies would put the real costumes on them. I especially loved the cameos by Wolverine and Mystique (the older one).

The day we just drove home and then slept quite a bit, to recover from our late nights of eating and drinking :) The drive home was beautiful because the leaves finally changed for Fall. It's been quite warm down here for November. We are finally getting some cooler weather. Today was in the 40's or 50', I think. Lately it's been in the 60's and 70's. Almost San Diego weather.

We probably won't be able to afford to go anywhere for Christmas this year, but we're still looking into the possibility...