The Friday Five, 6/28/24: 5 things I've been up to this week
This has been an extremely long week. My fiance and I are both working a half-day today and then heading to Indiana for a belated birthday celebration with his parents and sister (all of them have April + May birthdays), which will be fun.
What I've been up to this week:
- Walled Lake fireworks. Walled Lake, where my parents live, do their fireworks pretty early every year; this year was two weeks before the Fourth of July, this past Saturday. My fiance and parents have gone to them together for the past three years (including this year—2022, 2023, 2024) and show is always great, and lasts about a half-hour. This year, to sit on/near the dock near my parents' community, you had to actually live in that community (they even checked IDs) which was actually a little nice, because it wasn't quite as crowded as usual. The show itself was spectacular, too, and I got a few photos out of it.
- Cucina Lab Torino summer party. Last Friday, I was invited to Cucina Lab Torino's summer party, in Troy, and I went with a friend. I had never been to Cucina Lab Torino before but it had been on my radar for a while—they switch up their menu a lot, similar to Mabel Grey in Hazel Park, and it sounded interesting. At the party, I had a few focaccia pizza slices, plus some fried veggies, meat kabobs, and a crepe stuffed with ice cream and drizzled with Nutella or raspberry sauce (your choice), which was pretty delicious.
- Wedding things. On Saturday (AM/early PM, before fireworks) my mom and I returned to The Brides Project, in Ann Arbor, to bring my wedding dress in for alterations. I have to go back in late August to pick it up, and try it on again. The Brides Project is also where I bought my dress, and I highly recommend it—out of the 5 or so bridal shops I went to, to shop for a dress, I had the best experience here, and the best part is that they're a nonprofit: all of their proceeds go towards cancer research and support. Even the seamstresses are also volunteers, I believe, and I was expecting to pay a high amount for alterations, but that number was actually much lower, which is great. My fiance and I also decided we are going to have a "Jack & Jill" (co-ed couples) shower in August, which should be fun.
- Dining out/getting takeout. On Friday, I went to Cucina Lab Torino, as mentioned above. On Saturday, my mom and I tried out The Songbird Cafe, in Ann Arbor (near North Campus, and The Brides Project) for lunch, which was good, and for dinner we all had Hungry Howie's takeout. On Sunday, we had dinner with some friends, at Las Palapas in Livonia, which had great birria tacos and margaritas. The rest of the week was spent cooking, as I had ordered an EveryPlate box this week.
- Seeing movies/watching TV shows. The Bear is back on Hulu, as of yesterday (technically Wednesday night, they dropped the episodes early!) and I was able to do a mini binge of five episodes yesterday—there are ten episodes total, and each are a half-hour, so it makes for an easy watch, although I will say that show ratchets up my anxiety! (some of the scenes are very tense)
I started Clipped, on Hulu, which I'm also liking, and yesterday at the theater I saw A Quiet Place Day One, which was really good; I'd give it like 4/5 or maybe even 4.5/5 stars. My only complaint is that you DON'T get any origin story answers (which begs the question ... was this AQP companion movie even necessary?), however, the story itself was really interesting, and I still enjoyed it a lot.
