No matter how tired I am, I never seen to be able to go to bed before 1 a.m. I’m starting to accept that it’s just my natural circadian rhythm. Oh wellz.
I’m currently waiting for a file transfer to finish. Actually, it’s a file copy, and it’s files. I’m copying most of my pictures, documents, and other files from my laptop’s hard drive onto my external 500GB USB drive. Right-clicking on my main My Documents folder shows that it has about 14,000+ files in it. Egads, Batman. How did I let it get so out of hand? (Psst… I’m a packrat.) I really should go through and sort through them and decide what to keep and what to leave behind, but I’m not about to sort through 14,000 files right now.
After the transfer, I’m wiping my laptop clean and restoring the drive to factory settings. Despite my warranty having expired a year ago, Dell was kind enough to mail me some restore CDs upon request. Yay! I’m hoping this will fix the performance issues I’ve been having with the machine for over a year now.
In other news, I didn’t really do anything excited this weekend. Hollywood & Highland had their tree lighting on Saturday evening with the American Idol runner up, David Archuleta, performing. I walked to the gym and spent a couple hours working out and relaxing in the sauna, and then had lunch and did some shopping at H&H (my gym is adjacent to the complex). There was a crew setting up the stage and lights in the courtyard, but surprisingly, not many people were out. Well, there’s always a good amount of people out at H&H, especially tourists, but I had expected to see more people given the weather; it was an amazing day, sunny, hot and breezy. I loved every second of it.
By the time I headed home after a little bit of shopping at Sephora, it was becoming a bit crowded. Families had shown up to get a good spot to view the tree lighting and more shoppers had come out. As for me, however, it was time to head home and walk the dogs. I briefly thought about heading back out afterward to watch the tree lighting, but I didn’t want to deal with the crowd and it’s not like I’m a bit David Archulelta fan or anything. Besides, I’m at Hollywood & Highland at least 3 or 4 days a week. I’ll see the lit tree at some point and many times over at that.
The best part of my weekend would have to be my discovery earlier today of Natalie Peruvian Seafood Restaurant. It’s not really a discovery. The place is right across the street, hidden in the strip mall behind 7-Eleven and often obscured by parked cars. I’ve heard good things about them, but have just never made the move to go in despite being within a stone’s throw from them for about 4 years now. I noticed yesterday that they got 7-Eleven to put up a colorful banner oh the outside wall that faces Hollywood Blvd. It’s a blown-up photo of Mayan ruins with a smiling girl in Mayan attire and pictures of several of their dishes.
I really like Peruvian food. One of my favorite restaurants is Balcones de Peru on Vine and Fountain. After having had Palms Thai (yet again), we decided to finally give Natalie’s a try and headed over for lunch. The menu was similar to Balcones, with a lot of items with french fries and egg (a Peruvian thing), fresh seafood, soups, steak, yucca, corn, potatoes, and ceviches.
I don’t remember what they were called on the menu, but I ordered a dish of fried fish, shrimp, and calamari. It came on a bed of lettuce leaves with tangy marinated raw onion strands. We also got the seafood soup, and Tim got something with pork and rice. It was a lot of food. The waitress even asked us if we were sure we wanted 3 dishes; guess she’s not used to people who eat like we do!
So, yes, it was a lot of food, and yes, it was absolutely delicious! I cannot believe how much food we got plus there was tons and tons of calamari tentacles. It’s becoming rarer and rarer to get the tentacles. Usually, you just get the rings, but Natalie’s was very generous with the tentacles in both my fried order and our seafood soup. Both dishes also had jumbo shrimp that were, to our surprise, fresh! You could taste it in every juicy bite. The soup also had mussels, crab legs, and fish in a very flavorful tomato broth. My fried shrimp was cooked perfectly and the shell became so thin and crisp that even Tim ate the shell (he still gave the tail to me though, oh well, his lost!) I nearly forgot to mention the yummy green salsa that was served with fresh, chewy bread before our meal. It was creamier than the version at Balcones but was just as good in its own way.
We left very full and with a little bit of leftovers that we finished a few hours later. This is definitely the beginning of what will be a very long relationship with Natalie. I’m sorry I ignored you all these years!
P.S. I also seem to have a new boba addiction. Despite my laziness and the cold, I went out around 9 tonight to get a green apple boba smoothie. It wasn’t as good as my strawberry boba from earlier. The bartender used smaller boba balls instead of the large ones I had the first time around. I really do prefer the larger balls. They just feel better in my mouth. 
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