Racquetball, Burmese and Watchmen

Friday I came home and grilled burgers, which were just what I wanted. Jill cut up potatoes into fries, then I boiled them for 3 minutes, then cooked at 400 in a little olive oil for about 10 minutes – pretty good approximation of the real thing. I also fried an egg and put it on my burger – an old college tradition called a slab that’s both tasty and grosses Jill out. I wasn’t up too late ’cause I hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before reading.

Saturday I had some breakfast, took Illa on a long walk, then Jill and I played racquetball. It was her idea, she’s been over at the community center a lot since she started working with a trainer and saw people playing. She thought it looked like fun, and it was, although both our arms are pretty sore now. She had never played before and it was the first time I had in at least 10 years, so I think we weren’t very good with the rules, but we’ll try again sometime.

We cleaned up, then headed to Silver Spring for my sister’s “unbirthday” (she doesn’t want to celebrate, but my mom still wants to take her out for dinner about that time). I’d wanted to bring everyone to Hooked, but Sharon didn’t want to go that far, so I came up with a couple local options, and we went with Mandalay Restaurant & Café, a Burmese place. It was pretty good, I started with the Gram Fritter Salad and Jill had the Mango Salad. For the main course, I had the sliced pork sautéed with onion, sour mustard, and fresh cilantro while Jill had the sliced beef and fresh cilantro simmered in onion-tomato base curry. I enjoyed mine, especially since they managed to make it pretty spicy.

Afterwards, we walked around Silver Spring and Jill scored a couple mysteries in a nearby bookshop. We all got cones at Ben & Jerry’s, then headed back to our cars and headed our separate ways. We had a bit of an issue on the way home as my temperature gauge climbed near the red zone at a couple lights, but we made it home ok (I’ll get it checked out tomorrow).

Today I was the one who left for hours, leaving Jill alone (but I took her car). I went out to see Watchmen, but I was early (the times I’d written down for today earlier in the week had changed), so I ran the errands I’d planned to run after the movie first. The movie was very faithful to the book, so it’s hard for me to review it on its own, but I enjoyed it immensely. I made BBQ sauce and ribs when I got home, now I need to finish some eBay auctions, then watch some TV and read the paper.