The Friday Five, 1/13/23: 5 things I've been up to this week

Today is my birthday and I am 36! I took the day off work and I'm having lunch with my parents later at Cheesecake Factory, so I'm looking forward to that—it's the first time since January 2020 that we'll be dining in there, versus doing takeout. Tomorrow my boyfriend and I are going to Ann Arbor for Chop House, Nightcap, and hopefully The Last Word, too—Nightcap and The Last Word are two of my favorite bars/speakeasies there.

UNOs pizza, at the Delta Hotel, Farmington Hills
UNOs pizza, at the Delta Hotel, Farmington Hills

What I've been up to this week:
  1. Staycation at the Delta Hotel by Marriott, in Farmington Hills. I was invited to stay in their holiday-themed room for a one-night stay, Saturday through Sunday (see my reel here). The benefits of their holiday room is that they have a hot chocolate bar in-room (with a Keurig), which was super cute; lots of holiday decor; and a late 2 p.m. checkout. The hotel also comped us a pizza at UNOs in their lobby (their lobby restaurant), which was great; we had that and their pesto bread and some drinks. 
    Unfortunately, our stay got cut short because at 8:30am on Sunday, the fire alarm went off—and we could smell smoke, so we exited via the stairs and walked to the lobby to see what was going on. It turned out to be a dryer fire in the basement, I believe. Since it was a staycation, and we live locally, we would have left at that point, but had to wait about two hours to go back to the room and grab our stuff. The room itself was very cute, though, and we had a good time Saturday staying there. 
  2. Dining out. I have birthday freebies to use, so on Friday night I redeemed my six free wings from Buffalo Wild Wings. On Saturday for lunch, I met a friend at Uptown Grille, which has my favorite chicken piccata in the area, and on Sunday, like I just mentioned, we did UNOs for dinner. On Sunday, we had planned to do Browndog, but we were exhausted, so we went home and napped for longer than we should have, and then did Sidecar Slider Bar for dinner via Doordash. Last night, I really wanted Shake Shack for dinner but their T-Mobile Tuesday code was not working, so that was really disappointing; I ordered McDonald's instead, and they screwed up my order, which was also disappointing. I was going to do Shake Shack for lunch too but since the code didn't work, I got my birthday freebie #2 at Del Taco, a free shake, and also threw in a taco for lunch. 
  3. Watching the Golden Globes. I love watching award shows—they're like my Super Bowl, since I watch a lot of movies—and the Golden Globes is always interesting because people eat and drink there (I think Jennifer Coolidge may have been a bit sloshed during her speeches!). There was a lot of Everything Everywhere All at Once love and also Abbott Elementary, both of which I really like, plus some Blackbird (on AppleTV+) love too. There were a lot of great movies and TV shows to choose from this year though, and the GGs lumps the comedies and dramas into the same category sometimes, which makes it even harder.
  4. Seeing movies. Last night I went to the theater and saw House Party, which was terrible; I was thinking I'd give it 2/5 stars, but instead I'd probably give it 1.5/5. It's based on the '80s series of films, and I have to say I'm curious to see those now—there were four of them, so I figure they can't be as bad as this one, and they're all streaming on HBO Max. I was going to see the Whitney Houston movie but I worked a little later and it's a 2.5-hour movie, so I decided to pivot, and now I regret that decision. I'm hoping to see Plane this weekend too. 
  5. Watching TV shows. I've been binging The Circle (on Netflix) this week and can't wait for the finale next week. We also finished up Willow, and I watched Married at First Sight and Gossip Girl per usual. I've also been trying to finish up Ginny and Georgia, on Netflix, which reminds me a lot of Gilmore Girls except more of a drama than a comedy; Ginny is 15 and her mom is 30, which reminds me of Lorelai and Rory, who were also really close in age in the show. Servant season 4 drops today on AppleTV+ too, so I'll definitely be watching that; I already watched the first three episodes on the press app and they were pretty good.
Cheese curds from Sidecar Slider Bar, Farmington; my fave in the area other than Culver's
Cheese curds from Sidecar Slider Bar, Farmington; my fave in the area other than Culver's

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