And the week of birthdays continue! Today is my friend’s Sam’s birthday, and she texted me this morning to ask if I still wanted to go to dinner to which I, of course, said yes. After driving for an hour (ah, bless you, LA traffic), I got to her place and then we made our way to this Japanese restaurant whose food she has been craving for days.

When we got there, it took us a long time to order because she could not decide what she wanted. There were too many options, and she wanted them alllllllll. Eventually, she settled on some sushi/sashimi/tempura combo of her own making, and then it was my turn to not know what I wanted. I had thought maybe some udon but then decided to get my own sushi/sashimi/tempura combo. I also ordered garlic edamame, which was actually edamame doused in teriyaki sauce, so I had to send it back.

Slice of Life is a writing challenge hosted by Two Writing Teachers.

We ate our food, and one of us (not me) wound up with a food baby that would haunt her for the rest of the night. Our plan was to go find a custard place but, surprise! The restaurant brought out a complimentary tempura green tea ice cream complete with a little candle on it. After eating it, Sam decided she still wanted custard so we went on a grand adventure to find some.

Our search led us to the Puente Hills mall, which fun fact!, is the Twin Pines Mall from Back to the Future. Obvs, it does not look like that anymore. That’s partly because it looks like the setting for a zombie movie, by which I mean, when we got there at 7:30, everything was closed except the movie theater, but it looked and felt deserted. It was so weird.

We did not find any custard.

Then, we went back to her place and did an I Ching reading because she had wanted to do one all day but didn’t want to do it by herself. It was a lot of fun because it was very spot on and also a little rude in its accuracy. Since I didn’t have a copy of the book, she was like, “I need you to take a picture of that page and read it every morning.” As I was leaving, she said that she might think about what her reading says tomorrow because she didn’t want to deal with it tonight. The whole experience cracked us both up the entire time.

And then I drove home, which only took 30 minutes. And now I’m writing this before I fall asleep.

Good day, for sure.