Something Familiar

Cook had been encouraging me to go on an adventure while I’m unemployed for a while now, but I’d just been so down in the dumps to leave the house. But I want this to be a better week, and after coming across this A++ video of a dude proposing to his gf with “beef slice roses,” I decided it was time for some hot pot. The closest one was an hour away, but it was next door to a 99 Ranch, so I grabbed my quarters and embarked on the adventure.

So I thought I was going to a branch of Little Sheep, but it ended up being Little Lamb? ROFL. The restaurant was very clean, and I liked that they had three meal options–the weekday lunch special, a limited AYCE menu, and the full a la carte one. I figured I just drove an hour so I went with the AYCE and ate merrily!

This was Round 2 because I was STARVING when I arrived.

Fun conversations with my server:

Me: So what’s better, the AYCE or a la carte?
Server: I don’t know, I don’t eat here.

Server: So we have four broths–the house special Mongolian herbal broth, the spicy version of that, the tomato broth…which is just tomato broth, nothing special, and the clear broth…which is like, water.

Me: Could I take a look at the a la carte menu anyways for when I come again?
Server: Sure, but I won’t be here to help you in a month!
Me: I’m…I’m sorry to hear that…

The food was very tasty, very good sauce bar and soda was included with the AYCE. They cut their tripe very thin which I liked a lot, and their intestines were not what I expected but was really light and yummy! I imagine I won’t go too often since it’s far and can’t be great for my health, but I’ll definitely keep this place in my back pocket for when I need a comfort.

Next door to the hot pot place was a bakery that I was quite pleased with. Not a HUGE selection, but some buns I’d never seen before, and this interesting taro+red bean sesame bun that got Cook declaring she never wants donuts again and just wants this forever.

Then I scurried on over to 99 and the minute I walked in, I felt like I was home. LOL I know that sound dramatic, but it was true. I was pleased to find that along with their usual bakery and hot food bar, there were also a couple takeout stands and a boba place inside as well. I didn’t end up buying a whole lot, but it just felt good to be there. Unfortunately it’s really a long drive to get something that feels really like home, but it’s good to know that it’s there when I need it. Then again, what’s an one hour drive to a Californian anyways?

Do Cats Have Nightmares?

So you met Prada a couple of posts ago. Yes, Prada, like the bag. In fact, my sister specifically made a pose while asking the question, referring to the pose as THE Prada bag pose. As I know many of you love my terrible art skills, I thought I’d give you something to laugh at:

I also just wanted a chance to test out my Surface Pro’s sketching capabilities. Holler if you want me to draw more things.

ANYWAYS what were we talking about…oh yes, Prada the cat. Cook kept the name at the shelter for those wondering (I wondered myself), but it’s been great for making jokes like “Cook got a Prada!”). She was already a senior cat when Cook adopted her many years ago, so no, she won’t be catching squirrels for us anytime soon. She’s also down to like, two teeth or something?

So Prada comes to bed at bedtime maybe half the time. The other half she bums elsewhere till a few hours later when she wakes up in the dark feeling lost, starts meowing till she finds out where we are, then snuggles up to Cook and continues to sleep. However, the other night, she started meowing like crazy, popped into bed between us and proceeded to purr super loudly for a good 15 minutes till Cook finally got her to calm down so we could sleep.

I was quite baffled. Cook’s two theories are that either she saw something outside that spooked her or she had a nightmare. I guess it never occurred to me that that could be a thing, so of course I did some googling.

They say cats sleep 16-18 hours a day, though I have my suspicions of whether Prada is actually even awake for 6 hours a day, lol. But they do in fact have REM sleep as humans do, and can dream about experiences that have occurred in the near or distant past. As the cats get older, they’re also more likely to twitch or have more dramatic physical movements while they’re dreaming. Cook has seen Prada “run” in her sleep, which is another similarity to me, as I undoubtedly run more in my sleep than in real life. xD

What I found fascinating is that a cat’s sense of hearing and smell still remains fairly active while they’re sleeping. After they wake up, they tend to do a lot of grooming. So given that along with her purring that night she was vigorously grooming, I’d say the nightmare theory is pretty likely!

Prada’s “but it was soooo scarryyyy” look. Or it’s her saying “GTFO, idiot.” Which is accurate? I will never know.

Now, back to waiting for her to wake up from one of those 18 hour sleeps so I can throw the sheets into the wash…

Always Have a Quarter!

Today we are going to talk about… *insert drum roll* …SHOPPING CARTS! Wtf, shopping carts? Are you out of your mind, Ting? Well, I thought we could use a more light-hearted topic than killer squirrels today. So yes, shopping carts.

So Cook mentioned needing a quarter to go shopping at Costco, and I just ignored it thinking that was the weirdest thing I’d heard. There ended up being a cart lying around where we parked, but I did notice the weird contraption on the handlebars. “Maybe they stopped doing it and just left those contraptions on cuz charging people for shopping carts is ridiculous,” I thought. But lo and behold, the next time I went, all the contraptions were intact! I was like, I AIN’T GIVING YOU 25 CENTS JUST TO GO SHOPPING YOU STINGY STORES and found one not attached, then strolled off victoriously.

Now for those of you who are familiar with this contraption and how it works, you’re probably like, um, Ting, it’s just a depo–yes, yes, but when no one explains it to a confused Californian, you can’t blame us when we panic seeing a sight like this at Walmart:

At first I thought I’d be spending the rest of my shopping life hunting for runaway carts or using baskets or balancing things in my hands like I did today (6 cans of cat food and a bottle of vitamins is quite tricky!). Luckily I did some googling and now understand what this is all about.

Apparently in New Jersey, no one returns shopping carts *rolls eyes* so certain retailers (so far I’ve seen Costco and Walmart) installed these coin deposit mechanisms to encourage it. The idea is that you “deposit” a quarter in that slot when you start shopping to disconnect the chain to the other cart, and after you’re done, you return it to a cart return location, stick a chain from another cart back through, and voila, you get your quarter back. Apparently some bored people run around parking lots putting carts away properly to make some change. I guess it’s a win-win for the retailers and hopefully there have thus been less runaway cart accidents in the state.

So now I know to always have at least a quarter on me, though you can be certain I’ll still be looking for the lone unattached carts so that I can potentially make 25 cents at the end of my shopping trip. CHA-CHING!

Attack of the Mutant Squirrels

I probably should have expected people to ask about my blog title, as I’d forgotten many of you don’t yet know. So I guess it makes sense to post about that next.

A couple of months ago, Cook’s check engine light came on in her car. She took it to the shop, and the mechanic was baffled to find engine wires that had been chewed through. So she got it fixed, came home and sprayed some rodent repellent, and went on her merry way.

Of course they came back again and chewed more wires.

So another mechanic decided that just replacing them wasn’t going to be enough, and he also taped up the wires so they were harder to chew. Turns out our neighbors had the same problem, and it cost them a grand to get everything fixed up! So their tip, apparently, to ward off rodents is through mothballs. That’s right, MOTH. BALLS. Gross! (Just kidding, this spoiled Californian has never had to ward of rodents, so I had no idea what those even were.) DISCLAIMER: Mothballs are toxic. Do not ingest. Do not inhale their fumes. Do not try this at home. But when you’re out of options and need to protect your car, you gotta do what you gotta do.

Time went on, I move in, things are quiet, then BOOM! Engine light again. The squirrels returned for round 3 and chewed the only wire the mechanic didn’t tape last time. Animal-lover Cook won’t let me set out squirrel traps (and gets upset each time a family or friend volunteers to shoot them), so needless to say, we’ve put mothballs all around my cursed car. (Why cursed? More on that later!)

(Why yes, we did also order a fake owl on Amazon. Pretty sure it’s not doing anything for us. But the head bobbles like a Funko pop so naturally we have it. Here it looks on to the mothball packet sitting atop my back tire. We’ve also ordered ultrasonic pest repeller spikes that will probably also do nothing.)

Where are these squirrels coming from? Turns out there’s a spike in the rodent population as of late due to the fact that urban development has been driving out all the predators. Come back, hawks and eagles, we need you! 😦 Well, as we know, humans never learn. That said, since when did rodents eat car wires? Everyone we’ve spoken to is baffled as to why they’d be attracted to chewing plastic. But our friend made a good point that the squirrels probably peed in Cook’s engine, so they’ll just keep coming back forever anyways because they’ve left their scent. *shakes head in exasperation*

Since we’ve agreed our health is probably just as more important, we’ll tone down the mothballs and look for less toxic ways to battle the squirrels. If only our cat were younger and more ambitious…

Correction 1: Apparently there were four total rounds. Between what I originally had as round 2 and 3, they also came and chewed coolant tubes.

Getting to know you~

One of those Ancestry.com or 23andMe products has been heavily advertising here and has gotten that song stuck in my head. That’s the only reason that’s this blog’s first post title.

After a fairly smooth start in my move from California, Jersey decided to even the playing field with a string of bad luck for me (it can only go up from here, I hope?). I decided last night that getting back into writing of some form would be a good productive outlet and help me find some humor in all of this. So first, I made sure I’d at least have four loyal readers (thanks, dundundun!). Next, I pondered a blog title. While the chat group had far more hilarious ideas, I ended up with “Squirrels Ate The Car” because I felt it more accurately captured my general feeling of confusion as I learn how to survive in a small, east coast town. Squirrels eat cars? What now?! There’ll be a whole post on that later.

So finally, here I am with this inaugural post. Hopefully the blog title is bizarre enough it can be easily remembered by my four readers. And now, I should actually plan out my day before Cook returns to find my only accomplishment of the day was that I scooped cat litter on my own. (Though I better get a gold star for that!)