A day of Firsts

Today's been quite an interesting day (to say the least) and a day of firsts!

For some strange reason, hubby's wanting to try different foods that neither of us have tried before. In addition to wanting to try authentic Thai food, he decided we should try sushi.

I don't really recall how he came up with this idea, but he did. He also said this would count towards my "try something new" goal for this month (although that was technically met last weekend when we went to Cold Stone Creamery for the first time ever, hehe)

So today, since he had the day off work and I had the day off work we decided to make a lunch date and go to a local sushi bar nearby.

I looked up their menu last night, just to see what types of sushi they had to offer, as my college roommate had mentioned on her facebook not too long ago that she had sushi, but stated (after the comments began) that there's different types of sushi and not all include fish. I saw a few that sounded alright (I'm picky about certain foods and refuse to eat anything that resembles what it used to be either by look or texture) and prepared myself.

We get there, look over the menu and having no idea what we're doing, hubby orders the Chef's Choice Dinner for us to split, as it comes with soup, salad, 8 pieces of sushi and 4 California rolls.

He forgets to ask what kind of sushi the Chef's Choice is though, so I start to get a little anxious, afraid I'm going to have to stomach eel or fish eggs or something really really gross that just thinking about it will make me nauseous.

Anyway, they bring out the soup, which was really good - it tasted like Wonton soup with the chives, but instead of a wonton or whatever in it it has seaweed. I ate most of that.

Then they bring out the salad which has a weird dressing hubby doesn't like so I eat most of the salad too.

Then they bring out our sushi platter.

We had to flag down the waitress and ask her which was what kind of fish, as we were clueless. We got Salmon, Smoked Salmon, Yellowtail, Squid, White Tuna, some other Tuna, and 2 other kinds that hubby ate (he also ate all of the Squid - yuck!).

We agreed the California rolls were good (although I got a little grossed out in the car, looking over the To Go menu and learning there was crab in it), and we both really liked the Smoked Salmon even though hubby let me eat most of that one. I had some of both tuna's and part of the salmon too.

Teaching hubby to eat with chopsticks was pretty fun too, as he's never used them before! I have a little experience, as every year that we went to the ACEN in one of the Chicago suburbs we'd stop at this place called Bowl House near Arlington Heights and they have 3 course meals similar to what we had (soup, salad, entree) - it's kind of an insult there to ask for silverware so you pretty much have to figure out the chopsticks. I told him I have to take him there sometime, as I LOVE that place!

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Another first - I got my first "smartphone" - the Moto Droid.

Hubby's had his for like 2 months now and it's pretty neat. I bought my last phone (the Moto Krave) with the thinking that it would ease me into getting used to a touch screen, as all the phones these days seem to be going touch screen and back to the non-flip phone look and feel - it was a flip phone with a touch screen, but the touch screen is heat sensitive so half the time, if the phone was cold, it would take forever to send a simple text as the keyboard would act up. The guy at the mall kiosk warned us about that before I got it, but I thought I'd give it a try. It wasn't too bad, but it was annoying when it would happen on occasion.

I spent on and off throughout the evening working on the customization. There's a few apps my brother in law install on my hubby's phone that we're trying to figure out how to get on my phone, as we're not sure how he did it without us having to pay for it. We should have that figured out tonight though and I still have to create and set up my ringtones too.

Hubby also bought me a neat Ed Hardy snap on cover, which I found in his glove box a few weeks ago, while looking for napkins when we were eating at Sonic. It was supposed to be a surprise (which it was when I found it!) for when I got my Droid. It's got a black panther or puma on it with some neat design.

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And yet another first... we bought Tiger a harness and leash and attempted to try it out.

That's right, a cat on a leash.

We have a really nice walking/bike path just around the block from our apartment and hubby and I like to go for walks on it, but he works a lot and I'd like to use it more this summer and thought it might be fun to try and take Tiger for a walk.

When we first were putting the harness on her, she was laying there on the bed, looking like a defeated little kitty with this annoyed look in her eye like "Really? What ARE you doing to me now?!" (hubby just clipped her nails earlier today with the Pedi-Paws, which she hates).

Then we attached the leash to it.

She pretty much sat there, facing one of the corners near the door like she was humiliated or something!

I tugged on the leash, calling her to try and get her to come on. She wouldn't.

We gave her a little pull and she acted like she was a gimp kitty with non-working legs. She was NOT happy!

We opened our door to the hallway, and tried pulling her towards it, thinking maybe she'd get curious that we were letting her go into the hallway for once... we ended up practically dragging her out into the hallway, where she got a little curious once she was out there.

Then we opened up the hallway door to the stairs to the lobby near the front door to the building. She wasn't interested in going up the stairs, so I picked her up while hubby went ahead and opened the front door - we figured we'd just take her out on the front patio so she could get used to everything. Her little heart was racing!

As I started to walk out the front door with her in my arms she FREAKED out, extending her claws, gripping onto me as I tried to put her down, she took off toward the stairs, nearly backflipping down them and then started scaling the wall next to the hallway door that shut behind us (she almost got up to the ceiling!), before she hid around the corner, scared.

Hubby came back in, holding open the hallway door - as soon as he opened it she shot off back down the hallway, towards our apartment - she really showed us her speed!

She stopped just short of our door, so we opened it and had to coax her in - once she realized it was home she was fine, although she spent the next 15 minutes avoiding hubby as he was the one that put the harness on her, lol...

As bad as I feel for laughing as she was clearly unhappy at first, and then terrified when we tried to get her outside, seeing her facial reactions to wearing the harness and then watching her scale the wall like that and doing running leaps in the hallway to get home, it was pretty hilarious!

Don't worry - she's perfectly fine! We never pulled/dragged her very hard, and made sure the harness was tight and secure enough, but not too tight - it fit her as well as her collar does.

I think we'll have to gradually work up to getting her used to the harness and leash, maybe have her wear it for a little bit around the apartment so she's not all "what IS this thing you've put on me?!"

At least it's clear that she has no dire interest in going outside again though, which is good! She must have had some traumatic experience out there last fall to be THAT scared of going near an open door with her mommy and daddy!

Watch, someday that LOLcat in the picture will be Tiger getting her payback! lol...