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Yesterday's anniversary dinner did not disappoint. While it's true that the food at Umani's is better than at the Royal, we were pleasantly surprised at our dinner. The Royal Restaurant is also mostly Chinese food. Who knew? I had NO idea there were THREE different kosher Chinese restaurants in Pikesville. On Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, the Royal also has a Chinese buffet in addition to the menu items. The buffet is very reasonably priced at about $14 and includes soup. We had the wonton soup, and it was delicious. The buffet included salad, sponge cake for dessert, and at least 10 or so other items, including non-Chinese entrees like stuffed cabbage and fried chicken wings. The only thing I did not think was great was the stuffed cabbage. The sauce was good, but the stuffing was just rice and sort of tasteless. I really enjoyed the many other items, and I certainly did stuff myself silly! Like David Chu's, there is no liquor license at this place, so we drank only water and hot tea (a modest charge extra). In general, we'd like to go back and order from the menu. In addition to an extensive Chinese menu, there are many other things to order, including steaks and salmon. Mark is very eager to try the steak, so I'm sure we'll go back. I'm going to miss the easy access to all of these kosher restaurants when we move to Florida. Pikesville was a good 45 minute drive from our house in Laurel, so we rarely went up there to these restaurants. Now it's a 20 minute drive, so we are taking advantage of that.

Ha Ha!! Another restaurant review for a blog. Well, I just couldn't resist since it was the highlight of my day yesterday. Sadly, I'm up FOUR pounds today, 244, because of last night's splurge. Maybe it's just water weight from too much sodium in the Chinese food? Oh, please let it be that!

Today Mark and I will be heading south to Bowie in about an hour and a half. We are having lunch with some of his former co-workers from a different Goddard group. This is a group that does not get together once a month and most of them are still working. At any rate, I was also invited to this luncheon, so I'm going. We have not tried this restaurant before either, so maybe there will be yet a third restaurant review tomorrow. LOL

My cold is settling in nicely. It's worse this morning than the last two days. I have been eating one or two oranges every day for the vitamin C and sucking a zinc lozenge after each meal. Of course, those things can only do so much for me, I know. My white cell count is going down now, so I know I'm vulnerable. I just hope this cold doesn't go to the chest and turn into something worse like pneumonia. I fear that would cause another hospitalization. OY!! Let's don't even think like that.

I made one stupid mistake yesterday regarding my meds. I have alarms set for the various pills throughout the day, or I would never remember them. So when the alarm went off, I took the Celebrex and Claritin in the morning and the Celebrex again in the evening. OOPS! I wasn't supposed to take them yesterday. They were for five days after the chemo, ending on Monday. I did it right the first cycle, but yesterday the alarms went off and I took them. That's not going to hurt me, for sure, but I will be short a day on the final cycle. Now there is only enough to go Thursday through Sunday instead of Monday in January on the final cycle. I'm not too worried, though, because I really had very little joint pain this cycle, so I bet on the last cycle I won't really need that fifth day of Celebrex. At least, I hope not. I turned the alarm off today, so that's good. Hm...can we say Pavlov's dogs? The alarm goes off; I swallow a pill. LOL