EXCESSIVENESS

This weekend has been rainy.  It started Friday night and will end sometime tonight.  Ray and I continuously got caught in the rain.  It poured running into Costco yesterday, but it was a clean break leaving.  It started raining on the way into the restaurant last night, but again, we lucked out leaving.  Today, it poured driving  to the grocery store, and this time it POURED on Ray (of course) when he ran to get the car. I stayed with the cart under shelter J It wanted to rain on me when I had to run back to the store a few hours later (can't have a taco salad without Mexican cheese), but I made some dry runs into and out of the store.  We have had an excessively rainy weekend. (Mind you that on Thursday, the weathermen—all of them, said it was going to be a GREAT Friday and pretty good Saturday with 30% chance of rain LATE in the day--why do we pay them again?  At least in Panama, I know it will rain from May through November).  It’s good for the 18% of Virginia that is suffering from the drought.  It’s good for Lake Anna since the lake is looking a little low around the edges.  Hurricane Isaac is making the residents of Key West miserable right now.  Isaac is upsetting the dynamics of the Republican Convention slated to start tomorrow (now Tuesday) in Tampa.  I hope this hurricane stalls out on us and stays away for Labor Day weekend at the lake.  I can hope. And I can't take too much more of it with the disturbances it has caused my body shape.

With the excessive and intrusive rain, I decided to stay in the house a lot and be excessive myself…with some food.  Go back to my previous post and there you will see why.  Ray lacks this excuse though.  First, I attacked the bag of Tostitos Artisan Chips (Chipotle flavor) with Mango Salsa while watching “Hunger Games”.  Love that movie!  I had already attacked all of the Costco ladies with the samples (bread, popcorn chips, three different kinds of chicken nuggets, ice cream, two kinds of cheeses, and some whole grain stuff) earlier in the day.  Then Ray and I chose a new-to-us restaurant to try for dinner.  I put aside my chips and salsa craving (been there, done that) and decided to go back to craving stir-fry type food.  I had just been to Kobe Japanese Steakhouse for lunch with the office the day before, and Ray had made beef stir fry the night before, so I suggested Hibachi Grill Sushi and Seafood.
  

There are three things Ray and I don’t do when eating out.   Sushi, seafood and buffets.  This place had all three!  Talk about excessive!  It had over 200 buffet items (we avoided the buffet until dessert)!  There was soup, Korean Chicken, General Tso’s Chicken, beef, beef with veggies, string beans, rice, lo mein noodles, shrimp, crab, crabcakes, lobster, salad, fruit, chicken nuggets, French fries, onion rings, and so much more!  We marched over to the grill and had stir fry made to order.  I stuck with chicken, and Ray had them make him fried rice with some beef.  I tried some veggie sushi (nah).  I was super stuffed.  But wait.  Dessert.  I tried two different cakes, cream puff of Ray’s, a cookie of Ray’s, an ice cream sandwich (half), some chocolate pudding and some of Ray’s peach frozen yogurt (had to be good somewhere)!  It’s a good thing this is the type of restaurant Ray and I never go to.  I don’t need to go back. 

 So today the clouds are weighing me down, the rain is weighing my flip flops and umbrella down and all the food weighed me down!  I told Ray the only things I hope to see excessively in Panama are arepa’s.  From what I learned through Clyde and Terry’s blog (Along the Gringo Trail), these are flat and round cornmeal or flour stuffed patties—I want mine stuffed with cheese.  Excessive amounts of cheese. (Ray just said he was starving.  Oh dear.).