we heart sushi

F reports on her favorite sushi restaurants!  This is one thing we share - the love of sushi!  
Take it away, F!

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Sushi… mmm!  Until maybe 7 or 8 years ago, I couldn't fully appreciate having raw fish as a meal.  I later realized that this was due to my lack of good sushi experience.  When I finally had my first buttery, melt-in-my-mouth nigiri, it was like the clouds parted and I discovered buried treasure.  Since then, sushi has become a regular craving.  I recently craved it twice in one week and, well, here's how it went down…

 

Saturday:  We went to our fave spot near home - Ebisu on 9^th and Irving.  A small, family run restaurant that gets packed to the brim on any given night of the week.  Super fresh fish, wonderfully prepared dishes, and fantastic service to boot.  No pretense here.  Just good food.  No, great food.  We had our standard nigiri.  Clockwise from left:  Kanpachi, Trout, Maguro.   

To balance the clean flavors, we thought to have something fried in the form of a Spider Roll.  In the background is Tiger Eyes – quickly broiled baby squid stuffed with salmon.  All washed down with some warm sake, and the two little piggies skipped all the way home.

Thumbs up:  for parents who would like to bring children, the place is kid-friendly; good sake selection.

Thumbs down:  pray to the parking gods before you go; the wait for a table can take a while.

www.ebisusushi.com

Thursday:  A few hours after my flight landed Seattle, my sister and I were sitting in front of a conveyor belt with plates of sushi and various treats, thoughtfully covered in clear domes, shielding them from germies.  We were at Kaiten Sushi in Kent, about half an hour south of Seattle. Their maki are adorned with inventive sauces and most of them on the belt contained cooked fish.  The nigiri and sashimi are created as ordered, and if you're nice to the sushi chef, he will create a special roll for you.  I ordered the House Roll – super white tuna with tobiko atop salmon, red snapper, more tuna, and a sesame sauce.  Lovely textures and flavors.  At the end of our meal, my sister and I had a tall pile of plates and the bill was less than fifty buckaroos.  It was raining (surprise, surprise) as we walked to the car, but we barely noticed as we rubbed our full bellies and decided that sushi dinners during my visits to Seattle would be our new tradition.

Thumbs up:  easy parking; ample seating so there is no waiting; there are 3 kiosks that house pretty little tea serving sets, Japanese snacks, and sushi-making supplies for purchase.

Thumbs down:  don't bother with sake.

http://www.kaitensushi.us/

Ciao!
F

how are you feeling today?

I have a confession to make.  A couple of nights ago, when I had about 100 pages of text to read and a PowerPoint presentation on Situational Leadership to revise and finalize, my daughter showed me one of her recent Lego acquisitions.

I thought it would end would with a simple "show and tell," and I could go back to the task at hand.  But life is never that simple.  I could not let go.

Below is a peek into the mind that was preoccupied with different Lego pieces, instead of wrapping up unfinished work on a weeknight. 

There are days when you are just feeling chipper.  Happy to "be." 

Most of the time, because your days tend to be fraught with tension and screaming kids, you tend to gravitate towards people I shall forever call "happy to be wearing green pants."  Their optimistic attitudes are infectious.  They do not seem to care about anything.  You find yourself entertained, relaxed, and enjoying the interaction.  Their pants/"trousers" remind you of the '80s and jewel-toned fashion.  Back in the day when life was simpler, and you were never really worried about anything, but were in angst about everything.  Maybe it was all the hormones, or the zits?

 

There are days when you vacillate between happy and not-so happy. Because someone decided to cut you off on the freeway. Or, maybe drive slowly on the fast lane, the moment you realize that you are headed in the wrong direction and need to change lanes. 

 

There are days when you are just not yourself, period.  No matter how you try, something is just "off."  You know it.  Your significant other and kids know it.  Your boss and co-workers know it.  What's weird is you can't put your finger on or explain it to anyone.  It just is.  You just are.  Weird, that is.  And, the Venti Soy Mocha you just inhaled can't seem to fix the imbalance.

 

Then, there are days when you feel good about yourself.  Not being vain or anything like that, but maybe you feel "put together."  Yeah, your top actually matches your trousers (and are not polar opposites on the color wheel)! Or, something like that.  You feel good about the day's prospects.  Nice things are going to happen, right?  You are about to conquer that "to-do" list. Yeah, baby!

Except that by mid-morning you manage to spill coffee on your light colored top, and have been walking around with something the size of Canada between your teeth.  No wonder people were all smiley-smiley.  Of course, your mood just goes downhill from there.  Adding insult to injury, you realize that the meeting you were planning for tomorrow was actually scheduled for today, and started about 6 minutes ago.  The assistant to the SVP, Sales and Marketing has actually been all over the place looking for your sorry self to ask about that commission report.  Yes, the report you tried to work on when you got in this morning before you were pulled in 20 different directions. 

 

   

And, then there are days when...well...Oh, nevermind.  

Maybe that meeting you are in just entered it's fifth hour, and your "to-do" list from that morning has not been touched and probably doubled (tripled?) in the last hour or so.  All your alter-egos show up at the same time.

   

But this is just "make believe."  

Imaginative musings of a brain that refuses to acknowledge that it needs to cover 100 pages, and revise that PowerPoint presentation. (And wasted a good hour or so on this post).  Such is life.

How about you?  How are you feeling today?  

Hope yours is not as crazy as mine.

Luv,

Lease a.k.a  Duh

metal

 Week #9

The start of a new month means the start of a new theme.

This month we will feature textures...

Metal. Or, I should say, rust.

  

    

   

   

  

   

 

~~~

HH convinced me to "drop by" an abandoned naval base to see, among other things, a dry dock and old buildings.  Since I loved really old buildings, I thought it was a good idea.  Perfect location for another photography project.

While we were cruising along a revitalized area of the base, we came across these interesting metal pipes/cylinders.  Altogether, the pipes were about 100+ feet long, and about 7 feet in diameter.  Not sure what they were for, but I got out of the car and started capturing these images...

  

There is something about metal and rust that intrigues me.

   

Then, there's the sheer size of these pipes.  

I imagine these would be used for an underground project, or 

maybe as a support for a large cement structure.

   

I loved the play of light and shadow on these babies.

 

And, the markings on the inside of each cylinder.

Some type of code for connecting the pieces?

 

I could fit into each cylinder and walk across to the other end if I wanted to (and I almost did).

But because I had 2 small children I had to stop myself.

HH reminded me that the cylinders could roll away any minute ...

 

Back to the project...

Rust looks like it is smooth, but it is not.

Tiny bubbles on the metal surface.

An interesting look at metal and what happens to it 

when exposed to the elements for long periods of time.

Happy Weekend, folks!

Stay dry and warm!