The Sandwich Artist – Part II

Oh, look! It’s my favorite sandwich artist – the one with the purplish hair! Oh YAY she’s gonna make my sand..w...i….c…..h……. nooooo! Wait!! Dang! Mr. Cold-cut-combo has stolen my sandwich artist! Lucky for him since she’s probably the only one on the planet who understands what he means when he asks her to take the bologna off the sandwich (she’s THAT good…)… I mean, you ordered a cold cut combo, not a ham and salami sandwich - it’s a cold cut combo guy, that COMES with bologna… (does anyone else use the imprinted Oscar Meyer commercial to help them spell the word b-o-l-o-g-n-a? Just me? Hmmm… Oh, and speaking of Cold Cut Combos, did you know that the ham, salami and bologna are all considered “turkey-based meats” on Subway’s menu… look it up… last time I had salami, there certainly was not a speck of turkey in it… so… fyi…)… but our heroine knows just what to do!

Ugg, so who does that leave me with? Jo Shmo, your run of the mill sandwich artist (sing that to “Nick Burns, your company’s computer guy”, and then smile as you think of Jimmy Fallon and how FUNNY he is…). No, I have a better name for him… he’s The Sandwich Assailant. Why? Because he gets paid to assault your sandwich, that’s why.

Here are a few things you should know, Mr. Sandwich Assailant:

1)
Mustard is typically yellow and mayonnaise is typically white. Don’t confuse the two as you did earlier today, it’s not rocket science. You claim to be a sandwich artist, right? Well then? You should know this.

2)
Subway sandwiches come in 6 inch and foot long varieties. When someone buys a foot long sandwich and you are nice enough to cut it in half for them (when really, it’s not you being nice so much as it's you doing your JOB), this should result in you cutting the foot long sandwich into two 6 inch portions, or at least somewhere close. A Subway sandwich should not be cut into two disproportionate sections, for example one that is 3 inches and one that is 9 inches, unless specified by the sandwich purchaser. You should know this.

3)
As noted above, Subway sandwiches are either 6 inches or 12 inches long. When dispensing condiments on said sandwiches, those condiments should cover the entire length of said sandwich. Not 2 inches from one side to 2 inches from the other. You should know this.

4)
When someone specifically asks for “one line of regular mayonnaise” (no, not mustard) what they are trying to communicate with you is that you should use your little squirt bottle of mayonnaise (again, not mustard) and draw one line of the condiment from one end of the sandwich to the other end of the sandwich, creating one 6 or 12 inch line of mayonnaise across the length of the sandwich. You should know this.

5)
When a customer has made a specific request, as outlined in point 4, this is not the time to flaunt your artistry by waving the bottle back and forth across the length of the sandwich as you squeeze (or some portion of the sandwich as you clearly don’t understand the aforementioned concept of point number 4) – this goes against the request of “one line” and apparently also goes against point number 3 above as well, leaving me not only with more mayonnaise than I requested or budgeted for in my daily calorie allotment, but also causing me to have areas on my sandwich with too much or no mayonnaise at all. And let’s not forget about that unwanted mustard you provided me with. As an “artist” I know it’s hard not to perform a bit of artistry from time to time, but you must use your gifts within the confines of your customer’s order. You should know this.

I beg of you, Subway Sandwich Artists, get your $hit together.

Amy's 29th Birthday

So for Amy's 29th birthday, after Amy and Anthony made a trip to Olive Garden for Soup, Salad and Breadsicks... the Benezra family (Amy, Anthony, Debbie, Larry, Jeremy, Selena, Jason and Libbye - Taylor and Samara were unable to attend) went sunset sea kayaking at Alki. We were going to take pictures, but it was way too windy and wet and never took any. But despite our lack of proof, it did happen and was fun, a great workout and so pretty to see Seattle from that view, and of course the sunset too (even in not so pleasant weather conditions). Definitely want to try that again in nicer weather (anyone wanna join us?). So strange since the weather had been holding all week up until 10 minutes before we headed out. The tour was fun, but a lot of work. The weather made for a "challenging blue run" according to our cool instructor, Adam (who also commented that where he is from the tour would have been more like a black diamond run, but that's cuz the conditions where he's from are weak sauce). The funky weather made it that much more challenging and fun! And... COLD!



After the tour and a quick stop at Buffalo to change clothes and pretty ourselves up a bit, we went to Pearl in Bellevue for happy hour drinks and snacks with Larry and Debbie. Amy dreams of the Pearl happy hour and takes any excuse to go! She was so pumped! She had her favorite drink, the Sisho Wild Drop, along with fried beechers cheese and some other good apps, then spluged with the butterscotch sundae - SO GOOD!



The next day we opened presents in the morning and then went to the Brelsford's for dinner and movies. See the loot below.Amy's friend, basically the brother she never had, Nick, gave her these pretty Enzo shoes..... Her favorite make and style in a new color (she already has MOST of them... so these just add to her beautiful collection)
As Amy was taking photos, she tried to be quick so the cats would stay off the loot, specifically the sweatshirt. She took a photo, turned, took a photo of another item, and within those 3 second, a little ninja swooped in. See below as Mute took Amy's new sweatshirt as her own. Mute is representing the Spartans!
After presents, (as mentioned earlier) we went to the Brelsford's for dinner. Amy got to choose the entire menu which included a fresh salad, onion soup, baked potatoes, cod and chocolate cake! Mom surprised us with coconut gelato too! MMmm! The best part, really, was the cake. Mom makes it for Amy every year and she really looks forward to it. This year she asked Mom to save a little bit of the batter so she could eat that too, her favorite! MMM! No wonder she couldn't finish her dinner since she had cake batter as an appetizer!! Thanks Ma, everything was SO GOOD!



This was Amy's 29th Birthday, the first of many. It goes, 29, 30, 29, 29, 29... Anthony made it especially special for her, not only by giving her nice gifts and a beautiful necklace that Amy had her eye on months (maybe over a year) ago... but Anthony gave her the nicest gift ever. He found a book called "what i love about you" which is one of those fill-it-in-yourself books. It must have taken Anthony hours to fill in. It has all these places where you fill in what the page tells you so that the reader learns about all the ways that the author loves them. How long they've been together, their favorite quirks about you, words to describe you, if you were a drink you'd be ____, if our story was a book it would be titled _____, etc. It was just so touching and something Amy will keep for all times and read often! She's already read it twice...



Next year is a big one for both of us! Yikes! The big 3-0! But let's not get ahead of ourselves, Anthony is just a baby at 28 afterall... can't wait for his big day this August!

M's Diamond Club with Nick...thanks Amy

So Amy rounded up Diamond Club Tickets from her company for Nick and I and surprised us. She took Sark to the vet for another checkup and we got to go to the game in style.Crown and Coke, green olives and Ahi made up plate #1, but there were 2 more plates after this one.

After pigging out on dinner, we went to the seats to check out the view.
This dude was all decked out in Japanese baseball attire.
Nice view huh?
Lorenzo Romar and the Husky basketball team threw out the first pitch.
Felix got the start for the Mariners.....
and sucked, a lot.
Yep, we didn't have a chance all game.
Even Jesus couldn't help us.
This was the only exciting thing about the game.....my yellow hydro won.
Yes, the scoreboard showed that the other team had a no hitter into the 7th inning until Griffey ruined it.
These kids were pretty excited after the hit...but really, it was quite cold...so they are dumb.
This outfit was just too funny.

Ceviche

Ceviche is the bomb... most of the time... and those top chefs are always making it... so Amy thought, "why not me?" She found a simple peruvian recipie online and gave it a whirl. There was a whole lot of citrus going on, onions and a habenero pepper too. Reminded us of Puerto Rico fo sho.

Here it is, doin' it's thing... only hours away from being eaten... oh wait, don't forget those onions!

Overall, the ceviche was good. Cod is a little fishy for Amy, and she can only handle ceviche in small doses... plus the habenero was a poor choice, the recipe should have called for something with a different less potent flavor... but now we know for next time. According to Anthony, this was much better on day two, but supposedly the citrus has broken down the fish almost too much at that point... so... who knows!

If at first you don't succeed, try, wait, try again some other time!

The Sandwich Artist

(Attention Blog Readers - this post is straight from Amy... which explains all the "I"'s below...)

I want to give a shout out to The Sandwich Artist that made my Subway sandwich today.

I've gotta be honest, I'm typically 100% dissapointed in Subway's sandwich artists, cuz they kinda suck most of the time. They don't hear you right, put the wrong thing on, get the wrong bread, give you stale bread, put on too much of this and not enough of that, but every once in a while, they LISTEN to you and create the sandwich EXACTLY as you asked. And today, that actually happened.

I frequent the Subway near my office maybe 1 or 2 times per week. I get a healthy and filling sandwich for $5.50 including tax. I turn it into a lunch and a pre-yoga / get-me-thru-to-9pm-for-a-late-night-light-dinner meal. So that's $2.25 per sandwich/meal - and that's hard to beat. Good freezer meals cost more than that. Plus walking to Subway gets me out of the office, yay! Even when I have to face sideways rain to get there, a girl has got to take a break, ok?

Look, I've had the argument... many times... what's better, Subway, Quiznos, Jimmy Johns, Georgio's Subs...? Listen, sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't. Sometimes you go to Quiznos, order a sandwich, eat most of the sandwich, save some for later, look up the calorie content of what you just ate and are about to finish, pass out from shock, wake up, then vow never to eat at Quiznos again... sometimes you feel like you can get over that trama and give them an other chance (not yet tho, G.D. Aholes made me a 1,700+ calorie sandwich... can you believe that!? That's more calories than I am supposed to eat in an entire day!). Sometimes I feel like a Jimmy Johns, sometimes I feel like having Subway. Deal with it people.

Today, I felt like Subway... and thanks to you, un-named Sandwich Artist with the purpleish hair and beautiful accent and face to match (her face was beautiful, not accent-y), I had a wonderful expereience! Thank you!

Warm Thoughts for Sark

The Sarkinator has been having some health issues. Apparently he has a virus that cannot be cured and that can occasionally cause an "outbreak" of sneezing and general snottyness. We think we have this part under control.

Unfortunately the virus has also traveled to his eye and has formed a cloudy cover to the majority of his little eye... we've caught it early and are getting treatment, but there is still a chance he could loose his sight in that eye, and potentially lose his eye. So after trying everything the vet could think of, and the problem has only gotten worse, we are taking him to the kitty eye specialist. They will use their fancy equipment on him this Saturday to see what to do from there. Keep the little fur ball in your thoughts and let's get him cured of this silly eye thing!

Below, a picture of the big guy as a little tiny kitten... ok, maybe a midsized kitten...

Weekend with the Stewarts

The Stewarts came over to our house on Saturday and spent the night. Collin was fun to have around and play with. He really liked finding Mute and Sark, though we have no pictures of that. He is such a cutie! makes a mess eating, but what 1 year old doesn't, right?

For dinner, we went to Rikki Rikki. Collin wasn't amused, but he was nice and quiet throughout most of dinner. Did he sneak a sake-bomb?

They swear it wasn't matching shirt day....but who begs to differ?

Yummy sushi for all, except Maureen who doesn't like it. Collin played with the chopsticks.

Jon and Anthony drank Sake. Anthony never had it before, but said he would get it again if he had the chance. Sushi and booze....is there a better combo?

Mariners....Suck, but at least we have Cliff Lee

Well, besides the fact that we cannot score runs and our offense is...well...offensive, at least our pitching is good. Cliff Lee made his Mariners debut and threw 7 shutout innings. He dominated and it was awesome to watch.

We had many chances to score...below you can see the fateful moments before Eric Byrnes made a bonehead play and got Ichiro out at home. He then struck out and as of Monday is no longer on the team. He sucked, but he is playing softball now, so that is funny as all hell.

Only piece of action was when the Rangers manager got thrown out of the game for arguing with the ump. See action shot of ump actually tossing him out. What a great photographer?!

We lost 2-0 and it was an extra inning game. So that made it that much worse.

Matt had to whip out his cell phone to keep busy between innings.

Booth did too.

Ugh, can a brotha get a guy who can swing the bat?

Night night time!

Then and Now

It is always neat to look back at old pictures and see how people change. It is even cooler to see 2 friends together a long time ago and then still close friends 50-60 years later. Papa is closest to the camera in this shot and on the left below.
The top picture is Papa Raymond Benezra and his friend Dave Tarica in the 1950's. And then the next picture is the two of them this year while on vacation down south.