Menlo Park Archives - Portmanteau Suitcase

February- First Half

I am lucky that I am here to write about this month. Did you think I died? Well, this little bird almost gave me a heart attack. I woke up one morning and walked into the living room. Channeling my best “Miss Clavel turned on her light and said, ‘something is not right,'” I realized that my little Madeleine-bird was not in her cage. OMG. Where was her little corpse? I crept around trying to find her. Then there was a little shift of yellow in my peripheral vision, I gave a shriek, and we had a tearful reunion. Jk, she hates me. But I did get her back into her cage.

I have some books on my TBR list, thanks to a seemingly belated “Best books of 2022” list that I found. I was about to say I didn’t know where I found it, but looks like the screenshots say it’s elle.com. Such a sleuth.

SMS and I attended our apartment complex’s Super Bowl event, which was a lot of fun. The game was really good! It’s nice when it’s a game where both offenses shine because it’s pretty easy to follow. But, as they say, defense wins championships…

Thursday drinks in the grocery store continues with my favorite work friend. It’s not the fanciest place, but we call it home. Ha, ha, we definitely do not but it is fun. As well as weird. Also, they’re a little off on the pours. Since there was “only a little left” in the red, the guy poured it all out and said, “Ooops, that was a lot.”

We had a feast with long-time friends where we pigged out on chicken biryani and crab. Oh my gosh, it was so good. It was great to see them and tour their under-renovation house. I had fun with holding their baby daughter (~6 months) who has such a luxurious head of hair!

There is a robot “security guard” in the basement. It plays this weird, spacey sound as it rolls pretty slowly through the garage. Although it seems slightly silly, I bet it can speed to the scene of the crime and/or deploy multi-directional tasers. TBD.

Finally, I found some good visual jokes this month. I would put them in a gallery because they’re not that hilarious that they deserve their individual photos, but the Venn diagram is not behaving.

Rec’ing Ball

I want to start posting more regularly and one way is to have repeating topic-based posts. Now, I have tried this before with no follow-through so no promises that this is going to stick. But I think I have a good idea! This recommendations based post will be for recommendations that I have and recommendations I gather up from other sources (mostly Instagram). Hopefully, it’ll be a good way for me to look back on things that caught my eye for future ideas, mostly related to travel.

Menlo Park Area Eats: SMS and I went to Ben Franks, a drive-thru and walk-up window hot dog shack in Redwood City. The hot dogs and cross-cut fries are delicious! I got a chili dog and SMS went with the classic (classic). Yum!

I also had a Philz iced mint mojito, which was so tasty. I order it “house-style” with cream and milk. The only disappointing thing is that it is very heavy on the ice.

Funny memes: Maybe I will look for a weekly meme so I remember when I read them. A little meme timeline? Anyway, here’s last week’s!

Buying the right thing the first time: I think Caroline-bird has been missing her playground and her friend, Mr. Pinks. I bought a lampshade from Ikea, since the birds really liked to chew on other shades I’ve owned. Nope! Doesn’t like. Don’t worry, a bird playground is on the way!

France Trip Recommendations: SMS had a picture of Gordes, France pop up on his work computer lock screen. It looks very beautiful. Also, a friend of mine recently went to Calanques National Park. A pretty town with oysters: Île de Ré. La Table du Maroc, a restaurant by the river in Saintes, France.

Spain Trips Recommendations: A woman whose IG account that I follow is in Barcelona. I’m not sure when I’ll get an itch to go there but a few cool places include the El Born neighborhood, the Moco Museum, the Aire Ancient Baths (I have either heard of this or there are Aire baths in other European cities?), and the Moirai Market (clothes).

A Cat Named Mausie

SMS is a very kind-hearted person with a particular soft spot for animals. Not animals as his own personal pets (I want a doggie), but just in general. He supports the World Wildlife Fund and generally, just really feels compelled to help protect them (maybe this is why he is against me having a doggie?).

Anyway, SMS and I were walking around the neighborhood, which is a great way to unwind at the end of a day. I am loving these long summer days and extended twilight evenings! All of a sudden, SMS says, “Wait, isn’t that the lost cat?!”

I had no idea what he was talking about, but I did see the cat in the corner lot yard. He said, “No, really, we just passed the sign.” He ran back to get a picture of the sign to prove that it existed, get a picture of the cat, and get the contact information. We looked at the sign, the cat, the sign, the cat and yes, we were looking at the same cat.

I encouraged SMS to call and after a moment of hesitation, he called. That started a pretty hilarious conversation where the owner said that the cat wasn’t lost and SMS saying the reason we were calling is because of the sign. It turns out that earlier in the week, the cat hadn’t come home for three days so the owner was worried. The owner thought he had taken down all the signs but it seemed he missed one. He was appreciative of the call. SMS hung up, we watched the cat for a bit, and went on our way.

Later that night, SMS got a follow-up thank you text. This was the point where I figured out that the cat’s name was Mausie. How awesome is that? I thought it was a pretty funny name for a cat. I’m going to steal it and use it when I name my dog.