The Friday Five, 3/31/23: 5 things I've been up to this week

I know people always say that January seems like the longest month, but to me it has been THIS month: today is March 31st, and for some reason the month has seemed extremely long, so I'm looking forward to April tomorrow. Plus, I have a lot of fun things planned for April, like Easter in Indiana (with my boyfriend's family), Vegas for a friend's wedding mid-month, and a blogger stay at Bavarian Inn near the end of the month, in Frankenmuth. 

Influencer event at Mici Italian, Troy
Influencer event at Mici Italian, Troy

What I've been up to this week:
  1. Eating a lot of good food. Probably a bit too much. Last Friday, Green Lantern Pizza sent me a free medium pizza coupon via email (I love them; they send me that and free bread maybe once a month or bimonthly, for some reason) and I stopped by its Royal Oak carryout location to get it. On Saturday, I got Doordash delivery from Pink Garlic, because I was staying in Clawson for the weekend, which is rare for me; I'm usually in Farmington Hills but my boyfriend was sick last weekend, so I decamped to my condo. On Sunday, I went to an influencer event at Mici Italian (see below), and my boyfriend was feeling better by then so we got Sidecar Slider Bar for dinner via Doordash. On Tuesday, my mom and I were seeing Chicago, at the Fisher, so we had Noodles & Co. for dinner—they have a buy one, get one half-off coupon in the app right now—and yesterday, my boyfriend's dad was in town so we got Sidecar again, but time actually dined IN, which was interesting. The Farmington location is closest to him and I've only been to the Birmingham one, for dine-in.
    I also forgot to mention that yesterday for LUNCH, I met two Yelp friends at Reflections, which is the fine dining restaurant at Oakland Community College's Orchard Ridge (Farmington Hills) campus, and we each had a four-course meal for $18 per person. I had never been before—and it's a little hard to find, it's in OCC's J Building and requires a reservation to be made online—and all the food was very good. The food is cooked by OCC's culinary students and served by students, as well. They only have ONE more seating left for the rest of the school year, so I hope to try them again in the fall sometime; they only serve lunch, on Thursdays, as well.
  2. Seeing movies. I had a lot more time to myself last week since my boyfriend was sick, so I put my A-List membership to good use. I saw Shazam on Thursday night and enjoyed it more than I thought I would, and Creed III on Friday night, which was great too; I'd give it 4.5/5 stars. I was going to see Inside, with Willem Dafoe, on Saturday afternoon, but it was raining out and I was tired, so I skipped. On Sunday, my boyfriend and I saw John Wick Chapter 4 at Emagine's Super EMAX screen (thank you, T-Mobile $5 tickets!) and I enjoyed it—I'd give it 4/5 stars. I'm going to see the Dungeons & Dragons movie tonight, too, which should be a fun movie, and next week The Super Mario Bros. Movie comes out too.
  3. Attending an influencer event at Mici Italian, Troy. I had never been to Mici before and it's down the street from me, near Maple/Coolidge Rds. in Troy, so I was excited to try it. The owner was very generous and we tried a lot of the menu. My favorites were the pesto pasta, the margherita pizza, and the other pizzas we tried. We also got to go into the kitchen and take some videos, and you can see my reel here. If you eat gluten-free, they also have GF pizza crust and zucchini noodles; the zucchini noodles were quite good. 
  4. Seeing Chicago at the Fisher Theatre. I have seen Chicago once before, in the time before I would go to musicals as press (so I would sometimes win tickets instead). It was also here in 2018 but ironically, I actually had to go to the city of Chicago for a work event that week, so I ended up giving my press tickets to a then-friend. This time, at the Fisher, I enjoyed it, and would overall recommend it—it's playing until this Sunday, April 2, and you can see details on my blog post here. I rewatched the 2002 movie version the next day and I do prefer that to the musical, but the musical was fun as well. (fun fact: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Renee Zellweger, and Queen Latifah were all around 32-33 years old in the movie ... about 3-4 years younger than I am now. Crazy!)
  5. Watching TV shows. Love is Blind, one of my favorite guilty pleasure shows, is back on Netflix, and I binged some of it last Friday, and I plan on watching this week's new episodes today. I finished up The Last Thing He Told Me, on AppleTV+, which debuts April 14, and I will share my review with you on April 11; I'm looking forward to reading the book now, too. I'm also still watching Acapulco and Ted Lasso, also both on AppleTV+; the second season of Acapulco came out a while ago, so I'm playing catchup, and I only recently started watching Ted Lasso, so I'm nearing the end of season 2 right now. Per usual, I also watched Married at First Sight this week, and I watched the season finale of The Watchful Eye, on Hulu, and two new episodes of How I Met Your Father (also Hulu). Young Sheldon had a new episode last night too and I watched that; it's one of my favorite shows but also makes me miss The Big Bang Theory
Salad with pesto ricotta tart at Reflections, OCC
Salad with pesto ricotta tart at Reflections, OCC

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