D officially left the company, and announced his new job. Reminds me of the time we had dinner at Charlie, Don't Surf. Here's a photo of the dry ribs and a sliver of the plate of calamari that we devoured, while chatting about the news: 

Clearly, these appetizers were good, because they disappeared quickly, and I almost forgot to take a photo. The calamari were some of the crispiest that I've had recently, and the dry ribs were not too chewy, fell off the bones easily.

The service did not move as quickly as we ate those delicious ribs. It felt like an eternity before this plate of average jambalaya (flavor? hello? where were the chorizo slices?) appeared in front of me.

Good thing we had good company and interesting topics to discuss, and did not mind the wait. H had the ahi tuna club, which I took a few bites of. I don't remember tasting the ahi tuna, because the bacon and sauces were overpowering.

Closed the meal off with this chocolate brownie and giant scoop of vanilla ice cream (no complaints about this, it was good):

I would come back for the appetizers, but would not expect too much from the rest of the menu, including the drinks, and definitely low expectations for the service, which was probably exceptionally slow because the restaurant was packed. This area usually gets too busy when the weather starts to turn nice, as it is a beautiful spot to stroll along the pier in the evenings and catch the sunset.

Other than eating, I've been going to yoga, getting fresh air, really trying to work out my happiness muscles lately. Forget the stressful moments, stop wasting time remembering the embarrassing things I say or do, and practice being happy... Maybe this helped me survive this week, which turned out to be a productive one for wedding planning, starting with a wedding dress fitting, sending out wedding invites, and going for an engagement photo shoot at Lynn Canyon. The work never ends. 

H and I visited North Noodle House right before watching Black Panther:

Above is the Zhajiang Pork with Cucumber on noodles, the lamb skewer, and the pork dumplings in sour soup. Honest opinion was that this place is not worth sitting down to eat at. Get the dumplings to go, and don’t bother trying to get comfortable in the cramped sitting area. It’s not even the servers that make this place hard to eat at, but it’s just the close quarters with strangers, who may or may not be rude (they were rude that night). I’ll give it a 4 for the food.

After all that food, I fell into a food coma and slept through 90% of the movie.

That was last week. I think I’m much happier this week.

I’ve heard that everybody has a default mood, a base happiness (or sadness) level that they revert back to no matter what happens. I’m sure there are some habits that happy people have, which make them default to positive, like eating better food or getting outside more or being surrounded by certain people. For some people, their whole life might be about figuring out how to elevate their mood, and there are different formulas for different people. I can’t make you happy, that’s up to you!