The Friday Five, 7/30/21: 5 things I've been up to this week

This week has seemed relatively short, but I kept thinking it was one day farther along than it actually was ... for example, I thought yesterday was Friday, oops. 

Mushroom thin crust pizza from Cottage Inn
Mushroom thin crust pizza from Cottage Inn

What I've been up to this week:
    1. A tornado warning and no power. On Saturday, I was staying over my parents' place in Walled Lake because I was going to have brunch with a high school friend in the area the next day. We had a tasty dinner (the Cottage Inn pizza, pictured above) around 6 or 7pm, and then at 8pm, the tornado siren went off and we had to go to the basement. During that time, the power also went off. I was able to escape the next day, and ended up having lunch at my friend's house instead of in a restaurant, but my parents didn't get power back until TUESDAY MORNING, so about 2.5 days without power. I guess about 130,000 DTE consumers were out of power as well. 
    2. Eating out/getting takeout. As I mentioned, we had Cottage Inn for dinner last Saturday (and then my parents froze the pizza, and then later everything in their fridge and freezer had to be tossed...), and we had the mushroom thin crust pizza pictured above plus a BBQ chicken pizza with Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce. Cottage Inn has super tasty pizza and we usually use the Groupon ($11.20 today, for $20.00 to use!) but I had a DoorDash deal to use instead. On Sunday, my boyfriend picked up banh mi for us from Saigon Market in Madison Heights, which is the best deal in town—$4 and always delicious, plus they make the bread in-house—and on Tuesday we had Pita Way and also stopped by Crumbl Cookies, since the menu looked awesome this week. 
    3. Seeing movies. Last Friday I took myself to the theater to see Snake Eyes, which was just okay—I accidentally took a ten-minute nap during it too. I'd give it 2.5/5 stars. On Sunday, we went to see Old, which was really good, but I'm also a big M. Night Shyamalan fan. I would give that one 4.5/5 stars, I've still been thinking about it a bit this week. And today, I am going to go see Jungle Cruise, in 3D (AMC A-List perks! That ticket would have been $16.49 otherwise, which is insane, considering I only pay $19.99 per month for A-List), and on Sunday I am going to see Stillwater, the new Matt Damon movie. 
    4. Watching new TV shows. HBO Max has a ridiculous new show called Fboy Island, which is sort of like The Bachelor meets Survivor ... I watched the first two episodes yesterday and they were pretty fun, though. There are three episodes out right now, and then they will released 3-4 episodes next week and the week after, for a total of ten. I also tried The Prince, also on HBO, which was weird but kinda fun ... it's like Family Guy but with the Royal Family. The main character is Prince George, though, and it's been getting a LOT of backlash online, with people saying that they shouldn't have used real kids in the show (even though the show is animated). The episodes are only about 13 minutes long, however, so I'll probably watch a bit more of it. I also devoured Love is Blind: After the Altar on Netflix, as it's only three 45-minutes episodes, and it follows the cast of Love is Blind to see where they are now. In addition, I've been enjoying the new Gossip Girl, Grownish, Kevin Can F*** Himself, and The White Lotus, and I'm going to watch the season finale of Why Women Kill (on Paramount+) later today; I also finally finished up Virgin River this week, and I'm still watching Genera+tion, I have like two episodes left.
    5. Reading. I don't talk about reading that much on this blog, mostly because A) I have my book blog for that and B) I have mostly been watching TV/movies during the pandemic, versus reading, but this week I have been reading You Love Me, by Caroline Kepnes, book #3 in the You series, and it's long but pretty good. I was an early adopter of the TV show, when it was on Lifetime, and then it came to Netflix and pretty much exploded in popularity; the main character is played by Penn Badgley, too, whom I loved in Gossip Girl. I've also read both of the previous books, and Joe is back in fine form in this one, so if you enjoyed the other books and/or you enjoy the TV show, I'd recommend the book series. 
    Sea Salt Toffee, Chocolate Cake, Peach Cobbler, Strawberries 'n Cream, from Crumbl Cookies
    Sea Salt Toffee, Chocolate Cake, Peach Cobbler, Strawberries 'n Cream, from Crumbl

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