Tag Archives: grandparents

Being Helpful (or Using Unemployment To Be A Better Person)

I’ve been doing a lot of selfish things while out of work. I’ve gone to Disneyland, taken lots of spin classes, and hung out with friends who I haven’t seen in a while.

But the past two days I’ve focused on other people, and that makes me feel good.

My friend Trevor, who happens to host the podcast I work for, was in a bike accident last week. He’ll be fine, but for a while, he was looking like this.

So while he had both casts on, he had to go to a doctor’s appointment. He texted me, and of course I was going to help him out (he’s going to pay me back when I must have my other hip fixed). I actually didn’t mind driving him because he had taken a pain pill that made him pretty loopy. He didn’t say anything too bad (I promise), but it was pretty darn entertaining. Some highlights were him saying hi to every car that passed us, discussing the bee that landed on my windshield, and saying that I needed to make him banana bread.

By the time I drove him back to his house, his loopiness had ended, but it’s still nice getting to chat with a friend and help him out.

Then yesterday, I made the 2 hour drive down to San Diego to see my grandparents. I wanted to see them, first of all. They had moved into a new place last January, and the last time I was there was before they had any furniture in the place.

So it was nice spending time with them, and I was able to help them out as well. I drove them to the store (neither of my grandparents are driving right now) and helped them get groceries and other necessities.

I also helped my grandpa fix something on his DVR (he’s super tech-savvy, but this was a weird fix). And I brought them some treats. I brought my grandpa some Peeps (I remembered that he used to love them), and then I made them some banana pecan bread.

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It’s actually the exact same recipe as my banana blueberry bread, but the store was out of blueberries. So I used the same amount as pecans in it. We didn’t try any of it because we ate dinner at the restaurant where my grandparents live, but it smelled really delicious.

I drove back from San Diego the same day since it’s just easier to not have to bring all my stuff down there for a night (and I didn’t want to impose). Added bonus, as I was driving north on the 5, I got to see the fireworks over Disneyland as I was driving past! That was good timing!

I’m glad I was able to do a bunch of good things over the past few days. And I’ll be doing some babysitting for a friend for the next two days, so I’ll be helping out some more. I just want to make sure I balance the selfish things in life with being a good person.

 

Maybe I Should Be A Wine Drinker (or How We Spent My Grandma’s Birthday Dinner)

One of my family’s traditions at Thanksgiving is to go out for a really nice dinner for my grandma’s birthday. Her birthday falls around Thanksgiving, and we either go out the night before or the night after Thanksgiving.

This year for my grandma’s birthday, we went to Plumed Horse in downtown Saratoga. This is totally a place that I could not afford on my own (the menus didn’t have prices on it, so you know it was very expensive).

The food was unbelievably good. We could order up to 4 courses, but most of us seemed to get 3 (appetizer, entrée, dessert). But since there were 2 appetizer courses, if you hadn’t ordered something to go for that course, they brought out a treat. My first appetizer was a green salad (my choice), my second appetizer was a parmesan black pepper soufflé (their choice), my entrée was a steak, and for dessert I had the Meyer lemon soufflé. The portions were on the smaller side, so even though I felt stuffed after the meal, it wasn’t too bad.

One of the highlights of the restaurant was their wine cellar. The head waiter for our private room gave us a tour of it. There are hundreds of bottles and the floor is clear so you can see everything in the basement.

 

For the meal, we had some red and white wines for the table. I really don’t like red, so I had a little of the white. But I really wish I could have ordered one of the yummy sparkling wine bottles I had seen in the cellar.

 

It was a great evening. Almost the entire family made it (one of my cousins wasn’t able to fly in until Thanksgiving day). And I’m glad I had a super cute little black dress to wear too (I got several compliments on it).