The Friday Five, 5/3/19: 5 things I've been up to this week

This week has been busy-ish but I don't have much planned for the weekend, which is probably a good thing because the rest of May is crazy; Cinetopia Film Festival starts next weekend and I'll be staying in Ann Arbor for it, then seeing Royal Oak movies for it the weekend after that.

Ice cream flight at Browndog Barlor, Farmington, MI
Ice cream flight at Browndog Barlor, Farmington, MI

What I've been up to this week:
  1. Seeing movies. My boyfriend and I saw Avengers: Endgame last Friday night, and I thought it was great but not EPIC - I'd give it 4.25/5 stars (minus 1/4 star because I checked my watch a LOT during it, as it's a 3-hour movie). We saw it in 3D but IMO it wasn't really necessary ... I just have AMC A-List and like to see things in 3D whenever possible. On Sunday, I shlepped to Southfield to see Hotel Mumbai, because I had heard good things and only a few theaters around here still have it; it was fantastic and I'd give it 5/5 stars. On Thursday night, I actually attended a screening (gasp - it's been a while) of Detective Pokemon, because it was an AMC Stubs screening so I didn't have to wait in line for 2 hours. Check my social media next Friday for my review of that. 
  2. Brunch Bites. I unexpectedly last minute won two tickets to Brunch Bites in Royal Oak on Saturday, thanks to my friend Elizabeth over at Detroit Duchess. My boyfriend works on Saturdays but from 1pm on, so we got there around 10am when registration opened. Unlike the beer stroll in RO that I've also been to, this time they only had 12 restaurants participating (beer stroll was crazy, like 40 restaurants), so we were able to make it to about 9 of them before he had to leave. Favorites were the drink (Violet Beauregard, I believe was the name) at Mesa, and the red velvet mini pancakes at Lily's Seafood - yum! What's funny is that we had actually gone to Royal Oak for dinner the night before, too, to Bigalora for pizza—I had a $20 gift certificate to use that I had won.
  3. Guest hosting a podcast. Now I can say I'm a true millennial, I guess? Ha. I was a guest host on The D Brief podcast, and we actually recorded two different episodes of it, on Monday night in Bingham Farms. You can find those here.
  4. Seeing Derek Hough at the Fox. And it was a fantastic show! Much more "Vegas-y" than I would have thought, and he's a great dancer. Before the show, some friends and I tried out Bakersfield in Detroit for dinner, too, and that was also tasty, albeit the restaurant itself was very loud (I blame the group of 22-year-olds celebrating a birthday and doing shots in the corner...). 
  5. Getting the Hep A part two shot. I trekked to Southfield (Oakland County Health Dept.) for this; I was a little overdue, but I was supposed to get part two back in October and that's when I got really sick with the fevers. They apparently DON'T take private insurance now, so I had to pay the $49.50 ($47 + $2.50 credit card fee, yay ...) out of pocket, and for some reason my FLEX card got denied too so it was REALLY out of pocket. Hooray.
"Margherita Buffala" (buffalo mozzarella) pizza at Bigalora, Royal Oak, MI
"Margherita Buffala" (buffalo mozzarella) pizza at Bigalora, Royal Oak, MI

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