I just finished celebrating my birthday, still here in Florida. Sheena and Lisa’s birthdays were both recent as well, so it’s been a long week.
I celebrated my birthday by going out with Athena and her parents at P.F. Chang’s (PFC). In California, PFC wouldn’t be considered the best chinese food, but it’s up there. In Florida,there is no competition, so PFC could easily be the best.
It was very good. We all shared lettuce wraps and then I ordered my crispy honey and Athena got her eggplant stir fry. We also shared garlic noodles. It was just the right amount of food. I would’ve been stuffed if the rice was better, but as it was, it was enough. My desert was a strawberry cheese cake desert shot for free.
When I got back from dinner, I lit and cut the Creative Cakery cake my parents sent from California. It was a poppy seed cake with cream cheese frosting decorated with a bow and CA flag. I have been the only one interested in eating it, which is fine with me.
I had another piece this morning before leaving for Disney World. It’s poppy seed so, it’s perfect for dessert and breakfast. Orlando is a good two and a half hours away from Jupiter. I registered for a free birthday ticket but didn’t end up pursuing it because Lisa followed through with one of her own. We were originally going to spend the night at the resort to make use of both of ours, but that was vetoed, I guess.
The was a little disappointing though because of a planning snafu. We were meant to have park hopper tickets because EPCOT and The Magic Kingdom are separate parks. But, Lisa ordered tickets online and didn’t purchase park hoppers. We were going to upgrade, but I’m not a Florida resident and the upgrade would have been upwards of $200 just for me. Needless to say, we didn’t do that.
We spent the day at EPCOT and the world toury thing they had set up. Tokyo was fantastic. We had lunch at the Teppan Edo restaurant where our own personal Japanese chef prepared our meal. It was such good food.
The atmosphere was great too and we had some fun speaking Japanese with the staff, all from Japan. They were impressed with our pronunciation. (Thank you Athena and JapanesePod101.com)
We didn’t do much else besides taking in the sights and walking around because the world tour was very food and beverage related. There were a couple cultural things, exhibits, and attractions, but it was very small scale.
I learned about Norway, storm preparedness, and energy though.
A lot of our time was spent trying to get to Disney Land or the Magic Kingdom. We were so close, it was pretty sad.
It was still nice to get out and do something new though. I still want to go to Disney Land–the Anaheim, California one because it’s better.
My gift to Lisa was a set of lotion and body wash called optimism and wild orchid. I also got her a green bag tag to adorn her gift bag. It’s a new promotion from CVS that offers $1 back every 4th visit while using reusable bags, which she does. Her gift to me was 4 shirts that are fashionable and appropriate for pub nights and house parties.
It’s raining. I’m writing from my phone in the car and the way back from Disney World. I’m very tired. It has been a long day after a long week. Yet, with all the tiresome, long days, time seems to be going so fast without making any progress toward my goal.
In response to my essay response that I posted, I received a “thank you” by email. I got a phone call about my application for an engineering position with Avista Utilities, Washington state’s power company. They asked me if I was still interested in the position 3-4 months later. I said yes, of course. So, they said the next step of the process was to write the essay that I wrote. It has now been a week since that “thank you” response to my response.
Aside from this nibble, I’ve heard nothing. I don’t know if these people know that I’m willing to uproot and jump on board with them. I’m even considering heading up by myself first while Athena builds up a solid resume work reference with Godiva. We could end up spending up to 3 months apart. That would suck so bad, but it would give me a chance to make a home for us in the pacific northwest.
We had a good laugh about having pictures of my parents along with us when we went out to dinner and having them on speaker phone. We got pretty elaborate with it, too with pictures of them eating, then singing and so on. I might end up doing that when I’m completely on my own.
