The Friday Five, 1/21/22: 5 things I've been up to this week

Last weekend (my birthday weekend, technically) was epic, so I have a lot of things to write about today! This week has been a bit tough BUT I am leaving for Vegas on Sunday, which should be a lot of fun.  

"Pretzel nuggz" from HopCat Ann Arbor
"Pretzel nuggz" from HopCat Ann Arbor

What I've been up to this week:

  1. Dining out. My last time dining in at a restaurant prior to this weekend was December 13th, aka the doomed dinner where two of the six of us got COVID. Not sure why I didn't mention this in last week's Friday Five, but on Thursday I went out to Fogo de Chao, in Troy, for my birthday, which is always excellent. I hadn't been since before the pandemic, I think they had less "meat men" (servers) walking around but other than that everything was very good. On Friday, I went to Phoenicia in Birmingham, a Mediterranean restaurant that I had not tried before, and everything was fantastic; I don't usually like hummus, but theirs was great. For Friday lunch I also did Cheesecake Factory takeout with my parents for my birthday. On Saturday, I went to Frankenmuth and redeemed my chicken dinner (lunch) freebie from Zehnder's, which was very tasty, and on Saturday night we went to Rochester Mills to get my free birthday dinner. On Sunday, we went to Ann Arbor, and did HopCat for lunch (the best grilled cheese! Also the pretzel "nuggz" pictured above) and Aventura for dinner. I wanted to go to The Last Word for cocktails, too, but unfortunately they are closed on Sundays, so instead we tried out Nightcap, which ended up having a very cool ambiance. 
  2. Day trips! I took Friday off of work for my birthday, and also Monday off (plus it was MLK Day, so it was a light work day anyways), and on Saturday we went to Frankenmuth for the day—I went with someone who is from Indiana so he had never been before, actually—and on Sunday we went to Ann Arbor. I tried to give a campus tour but most of the UM buildings require your MCard (student ID) to get in now; however, we did sneak into my old dorm, East Quad, which has changed a LOT since I was a student there (even the cafeteria menu—super bougie now!). We also went to Pinball Pete's, which I hadn't been to in years (and used lots of sanitizer after, lol, since everyone is touching the pinball machines and other games), and walked around campus a bit. 
  3. Watching TV shows and movies. I'm wayyyyy behind on my TV watching but I have a free night tonight, so I'm hoping to catch up on This is Us, American Auto, Married at First Sight, and Servant, which releases the premiere of its third season today on AppleTV+. I also have four other Servant eps in the press app to watch, and I noticed more Severance (also AppleTV+) is up, which was really good so far, out of the few episodes I watched; that one will be on AppleTV+ in February. Last night I watched The Proposal, too, which I hadn't seen in a long time, and I forgot how funny it is; on Monday, we went to the Betty White Celebration movie at the Maple, and I forgot that she was in that movie. 
  4. Cooking. I probably should not have ordered a meal delivery box this week but I did, so I had three Dinnerly meals to cook. Last night I made chicken and sausage scarpariello (sp?) with orzo, and I got to break out my Le Creuset Dutch oven, which I don't use that often since it needs to be handwashed. Last week I had Blue Apron and on Monday I made flank steak tacos, which were also tasty. Since I'm in Vegas for about half of next week I decided not to get a box—I was originally going to get two Blue Apron meals but instead I will see what I have in the freezer.
  5. Seeing Hairspray at the Fisher Theatre. This show was very high energy, and a lot of fun! It turns out that the understudy was actually playing the lead role that night (Tracy Turnblad) but I never would have known that if a friend hadn't told me, because she was very good. The show is playing until January 30th at the Fisher, in Detroit, so definitely check it out. I also recommend the 2007 movie as a primer; I have seen it before, but need to rewatch it now, and it's streaming on HBO Max currently.
University of Michigan Law Quad, one of my favorite places
University of Michigan Law Quad, one of my favorite places

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