The Friday Five, 5/8/20: 5 things I've been up to this week

Quarantine, end of week 8. Our governor just extended the stay-at-home order until May 28th, which I'm not super surprised about, but she also opened up some job sectors that aren't very people-y, like real estate, construction, etc.

"Hippo dog" (aka a Chicago dog) and fries
"Hippo dog" (aka a Chicago dog) and fries

What I've been up to this week:
  1. Ordering from Postmates, with various luck. Last Friday I had a $25 referral code to use, so I wanted to order some Indian food, which I had been craving, from Postmates. However, they really don't have many Indian places to choose from, so I ended up trying out Ahan Thai, in Royal Oak. The delivery driver apologized to me because he said the app had him pick up my order first, then make a few other deliveries, then deliver to me last ... my food was still warm-ish but could have been warmer.

    Then yesterday, Postmates was offering a promo code, "SENDAPINT," for free ice cream for friends/family. I tried sending one to my parents' and boyfriend but there were no Postmates drivers in the area. For myself, delivery was like $5.99 and the credit was only $11.99, so that didn't work either. I ended up sending one to my aunt in RI, and we were both excited about it ... except then the driver called me, and was kinda rude, and also said something like "Please tip me well because people haven't been." Yeah, I can see why - not only did he not deliver the ice cream, he MARKED it as delivered too. Wow. However, I told Postmates about it and they made it up to me—they gave me $11.99 in credits, which I promptly used for dinner from Estia Greek Street Food (Troy). My Postmates driver was very fast this time and the food was delicious, too. (and if you've never tried Postmates, click HERE to get $100 in free delivery fees)
  2. Trying out new TV shows. I started watching After Life, on Netflix, with Ricky Gervais, which is okay. I binged Upload, on Amazon Prime, in one or two days, which was a fantastic show, and I just started watching Hollywood last night on Netflix, which I'm also liking a lot. I watched Normal People on Hulu, as well, which is also a book ... it reminded me a lot of La La Land with the ending, which I did not like, but the rest of it was very good. I also finished Bless this Mess on Hulu, which I highly recommend; it's quite funny. It hasn't been renewed yet so I hope ABC renews it. Dead to Me is back on Netflix today too, for season 2, so I'll probably watch some of that later today.
  3. Takeout and cooking. I had a Dinnerly box last week and I was SUPPOSED to get an EveryPlate box yesterday, but it's delayed a day. The Dinnerly box was overall disappointing; one of the recipes was a stuffed cheeseburger, and the burgers didn't cook (my fault, but they did tell me 3 minutes per side ...) and the cheese didn't melt. The fries, however, were garlic fries, and delicious. For takeout, I tried out Hippo's Hot Dogs in Troy last Saturday (finally! I had literally been waiting about eight years to try them) and it was delicious. I had the aforementioned Thai food and Estia from Postmates last week too, on Friday and yesterday. I am thinking I might try Chicken Shack on Sunday because I have a Groupon. I also cooked a recipe from Damn Delicious, skillet mushroom chicken thighs, which was decent, and I've been baking a lot; I tried out a 3-ingredient peanut butter cookies recipe, as well as a brownies recipe. 
  4. Reading books. I've really been neglecting my reading this year, but when I got my grubby little paws on the newest Jodi Picoult book, I flew through it in like 3 days; I love her books. You can read my review of that here
  5. Learning how to make international phone calls. I had to call a British number for work this week. The prefix was +44 (kind of like how the U.S. prefix is +1) but I didn't know that you had to dial 011-44- and then the number. Had to Google it! When I was in the Thailand airport last year calling my parents, I had to do something like that too ... I think I had to dial 011-1- and then their phone number. 
3-ingredient peanut butter cookies! Yum.
3-ingredient peanut butter cookies! Yum.

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