bday mildness

OK, I suck. OK, I'm boring. My life these days consists of waking up, going to work, coming home, maybe working out, studying and going to bed. Then it starts all over again. Throw in a couple of packages of frozen dinners (5 for $10 @ Safeway!) and that's a day in the life of Serena.

So suffice to say, my bday celebration wasn't quite as... er, interesting, as it usually is. However, I can thank my friends Karen and Eric Pop for dragging me out to dinner and drinks... especially considering I spent the rest of the weekend studying some more.

Not to say that I didn't have a *great* birthday! I arrived in the office, and there was a bouquet of beautiful flowers from my co-workers sitting on my desk. I was getting calls all day from friends and family, including a text message from Brendan at midnight (scared the crap out of me!) and a voicemail at 7am from Daysun ("Oh crap! I just realized its 7am! Well, have a happy bday if I didn't ruin it for you already!").

But my friends respected my study-absorption and so I spent a chill night. Karen and I went to Bacar for dinner - and had A LOT of duck! I was pretty excited... Bacar has a 58 page wine list, and wine has become my new passion.

I arrived a little late due to Muni-madness, but wasted no time in ordering the Italian red flight. Eh, just so-so, but the wine that Karen had - a Syrah - was fabulous. It was hard to choose what dishes we wanted, since everything on the menu looked great, but we finally ended up ordering 4 small dishes and a pizza. The Sonoma Foie Gras Terrine was amazing - I liked how they put the plum sauce on the side with the apples, and brought out toasted fruit bread instead of crostini, as was the Mesquite Grilled Asparagus. I thought Karen was going to start eating the aioli sauce with a spoon!

Then came our Duck and Foie Gras Sausage - yum - and the not-so-impressive Lamb Riblettes. The duck was particularly good because of the caramelized onions. Finally, came our pizza: thin and crusty, right out of the woodburning oven, and topped with house made duck chorizo, quail egg, manchego and truffles. Ohhhhh. Probably one of the best pizzas I've ever had! Too bad we were close to exploding, the food was so rich.

After dinner, we met up with Eric and headed over to Sushi Groove South for some sake cocktails. Jonathan and two of Eric's friends joined us. But, I was good and headed out as soon as it turned midnight. I needed to study the next day :-(


Karen and I at Sushi Groove - the site of our first date!


Karen and Eric


Eric decides to DJ me...


I gave myself head!

The next morning, I found ppl camped out in our living room, Karen in Heather's bed, and Eric's sake purchases from Japan all over our coffee table. There was a hilarious incident where Heather comes into her room to find Karen crashing there (Eric let her in - not my fault!) and they both started screaming. That woke me up.

What a way to usher in Year 29.