GIRLS DAY OUT- HENDERSON, NEVADA.

Sunday, the party is over, we decide to have a girls day out. before the hard work of moving begins. Virginia will leave Monday morning and we don’t often find time for just we girls to have fun time together. We headed for the nail spa. Laurie, Kris and I chose to have a pedicure.

Virginia opted for a manicure.

Kris was in the habit of treating me to a pedicure when I visited her in Southern California, many years ago. I remember them as sitting on a fairly normal chair, soaking my feet in a pan of water. The technician sat on her knees with a towel covering her clothes and finished working on your nails. This was an entirely different experience. The plush chairs, give you a massage while your feet get softened.

The technician sands the rough skin off the bottom of Kris’s feet.

After the scrubbing and softening, we each got a defoliating toes to knee massage. What a great feeling.

The nails and cuticles are given special attention. The techs laugh and talk while they work.

Kris had them really laughing as she counted from one to ten in Vietnamese. They corrected her pronunciation a couple of times.

Then the color and hardner are added.

A relaxing and fun hour later, we showed off our feet and hands, and headed out for Sushi.

There are several really good sushi restaurants in the area, but not many of them are open on Sunday. This one is Midori, on N. Green Valley Pkwy, in nearby Henderson.

We had appetizers of salmon and tuna, fried tofu, and seaweed salad. All delicious. I forgot to take pictures of everything but the first plate.

We were having too much fun for me to remember the exotic names of these dishes. Just that they were all delicious as we tasted back and forth. Virginia’s order with rice above.

My entre had three different types of tuna plus octopus, shrimp, caviar,  and salmon.  Extremely fresh and tasty,  served on a combined bed of fine rice noodles and sticky rice.

Kris and Laurie both tried a conventional sushi dish. All were good.

We headed for Laurie’s and Virginia made the perfect statement. “We need to do this more often.” I’ll go for that!

LAUREL WOOD AND GREEK LUNCH AT OPAS.

Laurel Wood is a lovely public garden in Wayne, New Jersey about a mile from my friend, Ginnie’s, house. She and her husband often walk the 33 acre garden to enjoy its beauty and quiet. We decided to have a girls day outing and visited the garden before lunch. The Japanese kousa dogwood is madly blooming. Huge trees with branches that look like umbrellas of creamy blossoms were strategically planted all over the woods.

The trail is paved and has many interesting features, arches, little coves with resting spots, beautiful benches, a gazebo, running water, fountains, a small lake, and many botanical specimens imported here by the original owners of the garden.

The sight garden, which is replanted frequently for its blooms and beauty is part of a foursome. Sight, smell, taste and touch.

You may recognize the foxtail fern, fuzzy leaves, spiky plants and how different they can feel. It makes it a nice place for a blind person to visit.

Edible flowers, nasturtiums, mints, sages etc. all fun.

The garden designers made a point of contrasting colors and textures. The hostas here grow to gigantic size with a wide variety of types, as well.

Again, that mix of textures, hard and soft leaves, gravel, wood, shade  and density.

It had rained hard the day before and Japanese iris were still carrying drops of rain.

Ginnie and I both liked the peonies. Almost done blooming Ginnie found one large pink blossom bent over with the recent rains.

The single petal peonies were still going strong, lush and pastel. One round ball not yet open. I miss my blooms at home so a public garden is a real treat.

We lunched at Opas Greek restaurant nearby. Ginnie is Greek and she knows what dishes to order. We started with the pellini, an assortment of dips eaten with crisp pieces of pita bread. Upper left is taramosolata, which is made with fish roe and is a greek way with caviar. Right is a spiced beets, za’atar with garlic potato, lower left tzatziki, cucumber with herbs and creamy yoghurt,  and feta with kalamata olives. All excellent.

I ordered bronzini, a very tasty fish.

We laughed because Ginnie doesn’t like to see the fish with the head and eyes on the plate but I told her I’d make sure it was dead.

The fish came with a wonderful Greek salad with a stuffed grape leaf (dolmada) in the center.

Ginnie ordered the ibrami, (I’m not sure that is spelled right), it is a roasted tomato, eggplant and onion loaf. Girls share and we both tasted everything. One of the benefits of having girls day out. The pellini sauces enhanced the loaf. Every bite a treat. I hope I’ve made you hungry for Greek food, because just writing this makes me want to go back.