The Addition of RT, etc

I bought a fish!
Well, the boyfriend bought me a fish.

It's my first fish!
Well, sort of. See, we've tried this before, this whole fish buying business. But they died (Rest in Peace Grumpy and Chrys).

This time is different, though! We bought RT (whose full name is Rainbow Trout because he, well, looks sort of like a rainbow trout) at a different place!

Kyoto Aquarium is this awesome tiny fish store on Wilshire, almost downtown. When you walk into the store, the walls are simply lined with fish tanks and there are books/magazines/other whatevers on the floor, leaving only a 1-person wide path through the store. Definitely hole-in-the-wall and a bit...intimidating, at first. But Kyoto, the owner, is a cute little Japanese man. He's got white hair and a white bushy beard. He's a little hard to understand, but the struggle for understanding is worth it because he's so awesome. Once we picked out my fish, we showed Kyoto the bowl I'd be using, and he made some suggestions ("YOU NEED SAND!") for the bottom and the plant to put in it. After that, he rang us up on his old-school cash register, the kind with the hand crank on the side and the domino-looking flip cards for the total read-out. Once the transaction was complete, he bowed to us several times, repeatedly uttering "Thank you! Thank you! Come again!" We politely bowed "You're welcome. We will." Awesome. So, if you're looking for a fish, definitely go to Kyoto Aquarium, if you can.








In other weekend news, the boyfriend and I made dinner last night, not an uncommon occurrence, really. But we grilled! And it was one of my first times grilling! And it was definitely my first time making burgers. But it ended up being one of the best meals we've made thus far in our cooking careers. We found a recipe online for Bleu Cheese Burgers (after I saw a recipe in a recipe book I had at home and thought "we should make those sometime," but I didn't have the book with me, hence the online-looking-upage). We also decided grilled corn-on-the-cob would make an excellent addition, and an easy grilling vegetable. And to top off the whole evening, I had seen a recipe for S'More Nachos on the Food Network, so we decided to try a stab at that as well. We modified the recipes to fit our tastes a bit, and let me tell you, it was great. We topped the burgers with barbecue sauce, two different kinds, one on one burger, the other on the other. We cut them in half and then swapped so we'd each get to try the burger with the two BBQ sauces. They were both Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue sauce. One was the Honey BBQ and the other was the Hickory and Brown Sugar BBQ. The Honey was good, but the Hickory and Brown Sugar was the clear winner on first bite. The sweetness the brown sugar added was just the right kind to enhance the burger. The burgers were on some onion rolls we bought at Ralphs, where we also purchased some Tamarind pop, which was also pretty dang good. And the S'More Nachos (which we modified a little to be more of a pie/casserole dish) was voted "best dessert we've made thus far." All in all a good night. I wish I had taken pictures of the meal, though. But never fear! The burger recipe was for 4 burgers, so we have two patties still waiting for us. When we cook those, I'll be sure to have my camera along.

And finally, I have a new toothbrush! It's a Colgate 360 degree, and it is probably the best toothbrush I've ever had. It's got the tongue scrubber thing on the back of the head, and these great grippies on the sides of the brush and I just want to brush my teeth all the time. And, yes, I have a picture of it: