Raw Fish and Swear Words

Benny Bones and I did nothing on Valentine's Day (which was a little sad...) - we wanted to go out the following Friday night to celebrate, so we did. We were thinking of going to our ward's annual Sweetheart Ball, but I don't know... I guess I wasn't in the mood. I kind of wanted to celebrate Valentine's Day with just Ben, not with Ben and the entire ward. I mean, I love my ward, but you know...

Ben's been wanting to check out a new sushi restaurant in town, so I suggested we go, hoping that they had some non-sushi stuff on their menu, as well. The atmosphere is awesome. There's this koi pond, with this little waterfall going down into it, and the seating is, like, down into the floor. You kind of climb down in. So you feel like you're sitting on the floor, in true Japanese style, but you're still really just sitting on a bench normally. Hard to explain. Anyways, luckily, they had some hibachi-style food, so I ordered hibachi chicken, hoping that it would be as good as the hibachi chicken at Benihana.

Uh, no. Not even close. Doesn't hibachi anything connote "grilled"? It was clearly just baked, cut up chicken, with this bland sauce on it. Not impressive. I brought my leftovers home, but I didn't even eat them the next day. That chicken just didn't do much for me. But it's better than raw fish, any day of the week. Ben wasn't terribly impressed with the sushi, either. He said the rolls were really small, and that they weren't firm enough. So whatever. We tried it, and now we know to go to our usual sushi place (which has a wonderful meal for non-raw-fish-eaters that resembles mongolian barbecue).

We had some time to kill between dinner and our movie, so we hung out at Barnes and Noble. Ben was looking for an architecture magazine, but they didn't really have any. They had a really cool bungalow magazine, but he wasn't looking for that kind of stuff, I guess. I bought myself The Remains of the Day. I've been wanting to read that ever since I saw the movie last fall on TV. I love Anthony Hopkins. And Emma Thompson. It was a fascinating movie, so I'm excited to read the book from whence it came. It turns out that book was my Valentine's Day present. That I picked out for myself. Four days after Valentine's Day. Maybe Ben worked so hard at making our anniversary special that he was all used up in the Gift/Holiday Forethought area of his life. Oh well. At least I got something, right?

So then we went to The Green Hornet:

Um, it was alright. The Chinese guy in the movie has really beautiful lips. I mean, I wasn't like, oh, baby, I like you, Chinese Guy, but I just kept thinking, "Wow, he has really unusual and beautiful lips. They look so smooth." And I kept thinking, "Good job, Seth Rogen, for losing weight. It's hard work. I'm proud of you." And I kept thinking, "Cameron Diaz, you're looking a little bit older. And you're not that much older than me. Yikes. Bikes."

When we got out of the movie, Ben was like, "Whoa, that movie had a ton of swear words in it." I looked at him in surprise. Really? I didn't even notice! That's so bad! Am I desensitized???

Anyways. Even though the food and the movie (and my late, self-selected Valentine's Day gift) were a little subpar, it was nice to hang out with Ben, sans kids, for a few hours. Someday we'll be able to go on dates more often. When Dylan is old enough to watch the kiddos. And when we have more money. Dang, dates are expensive...