New Converse Sneakers

Today I went to Stonestown Mall in San Francisco to purchase my new Converse sneakers which is actually a birthday present from my boyfriend but he doesn't have time to shop so he just gives me the $.

So everything was great! It was a nice day. Stonestown Mall has two Footlocker stores. One for men and one for women. I checked out both and settled on a black/white pair of low top All Stars with pink ribbon laces and pink satin lining. Perfect for me since I normally wear my Converse with pink laces anyway, and sometimes red laces. But they were out of my size, so I ventured over to another store which I believe is called Champs also owned by Footlocker and purchased a very basic black/white pair of Converse which when all was said and done came to $48. Apparently Converse are considered high fashion now. Well all the Footlocker stores in this mall no longer carry shoe laces and I can't have white laces so they sent me over to the Vans store where I found some black laces with white skulls on them. These will have to do until I find pink laces. Then I thought I should check out Hot Topic because they might have some cool laces and sure enough they did so I bought some cool tattoo style laces with swallows on them and nautical stars. Very cute! But I also noticed that they have Converse low tops and high tops for about $5 cheaper. Unfortunately I had worn the new pair out of the store so I couldn't take them back now. Funny thought actually....I had asked the salesman at Champs if they recycle old tennis shoes, thinking maybe they do that now. He said, "oh sure we can throw them out for you." I said no thanks and threw out the thought that maybe they could actually recycle them. He then told me that Nike recycles old tennis shoes but no other companies do. Upon returning to my computer I have looked up the information on Nike recycling and here is the info: http://www.letmeplay.com/reuseashoe/overview.html. Nike recycles old tennis shoes and turns them into playgrounds, etc. You can either send the shoes to the address listed on the above website or look for a location near you in which to drop them off. Nice!

So then I decided that I would go to my favorite Chinese restaurant in San Francisco. I haven't been there in about 8 or 9 years. It's called Mandarin Villa and is on Oak Street at Franklin. I have been craving this food for years and usually when I'm in the city it is a Monday and they are closed. So I made a special trip over there. I noticed right away that the original owners were not behind the counter so I asked if it was under new ownership and the new people said yes that they had bought it. I then asked if they still use the same recipes and I was told that they do so I ordered my favorite chicken fried rice and mongolian beef. I couldn't believe that I was actually going to get to have some of this food and could hardly contain myself from bursting with delight. Well the new owner lied, they do not use the same recipes at all. The rice was white, barely fried and had frozen peas and carrots in it. The mongolian beef which was sweet and savory served over crunchy white noodles was now smothered in onions, not sweet and savory and no crunchy white noodles. These two items cost me $17. Quite high for not getting exactly what I wanted. So I thought, oh well, I'll just doctor it up later for dinner and hopefully it will be yummy.

So I left the city and made my way down the coast to meet my boyfriend (Dave) at work so we could ride home together. Traffic was moving along fine and I was following behind a blue Ford Explorer most of the way. Suddenly the blue Ford Explorer kicked up a rock that cracked my windshield. I actually saw the rock fly up and there was no avoiding it. Ugh! I did find out that if I take it to a windshield repair shop they can put some goop on it and fix it before it spreads. I have to get to that right away!

When I got home I threw the rice in a fry pan and began the process of browning the rice, then I added the onion and beef mixture to it and stir fried it for a few minutes. I took a spoon full of it to taste and it was so hot (heat hot not spicy) it burned the roof of my mouth and now I have a huge blister on my palate. So I drove down to the store and bought my favorite ice cream to make all my wounds feel better.

Oh and did I mention that I only got 6 games right in the football pool today. It's been a helluva day.