Did I say that I'd update all of you with details about my adventures "tomorrow"? How naive of me. I've been way too busy to blog in such great detail. Rest assured that I will follow up on that promise. Soon.
I will go ahead and say that you should go see Fahrenheit 9/11, if you haven't already.
The DSL modem works directly with my laptop! While I can't use my laptop anywhere in the house, the purple guest room will do nicely until I can get a wireless router that actually works.
I can't believe it's been two weeks since I've blogged. It's definitely a habit of convenience and lately it's been inconvenient. I'll leave the highlights of the past couple weeks until tomorrow.
I had a great weekend!
I saw the movie, "Saved!" with JJ, JA and DS. It was one of the best comedies that I've seen in ages. It falls into the "I'd be happy to see it again" category and very few movies do. I heartily recommend it.
Afterwards, we went to Big Bowl and I had the same dish that I always have, the crispy orange peel shrimp. Ordering anything else is difficult even though I'd love to try several things on the menu. I also got the ginger soda and didn't like it nearly as much. I really enjoyed the vegetable potstickers again, though.
My washer and dryer were delivered Sunday morning. I haven't actually used them yet, but I need to do that soon. I'm pleased with how much space is left in the hallway. They don't take up nearly as much room as I thought they would. They are some of the new front loading ones, made by Frigidaire. Unlike most models, they don't have quite as fancy an exterior (the dryer doesn't have a window), but they cost a lot less, too.
Saturday night, my parents and I went to Margaret's Cantina. I had a vegetable plate with squash/corn/cheese things, tomato stuffed with tofu, saffron pickled cucumbers and clear (white grape) jello filled with blackberries, peaches and other fruit.
My mom had the monkfish, which really has the consistency of lobster. My dad had the traditional shrimp quesadillas, which are a delicious bargain. For dessert we shared cherry sorbet and angel food cake with lemon custard and blackberries. Wow! We were celebrating Father's Day, because I'll be busy this weekend. Actually, initially I had decided that it was this weekend.
Perhaps even more exciting was that I cooked a meal for my parents! I cooked butternut squash ravioli with a minced garlic butter sauce. I had to call JA and ask him how to make the sauce. He made this dish for me a while back, as I believe was recorded in an earlier blog post. It was a lot of fun although slightly more challenging than I imagined, since timing is so important. My mom provided verbal guidance, which definitely helped. The best thing is that it turned out very well and felt like a major accomplishment. Yes, folks, I, too, can boil water. I only made one three serving package, so we followed it with watermelon.
I also spent lots of time unpacking more of my grandmother's things. I loaded and ran the dishwasher a couple of times. I am now the proud owner of 39,275 small glass bowls.
Thursday was definitely the most interesting day toward the end of the week. I drove into the main gate at work, because I was a few minutes later than usual. I think I had gotten gas or something like that and that's the reason. At any rate, as I drove in, there were cops all over the place near the railroad crossing at Miami Blvd and Cornwallis Rd. At that point there were probably 10 or 12 cop cars and 5 or 6 emergency vehicles and more were arriving. I would have like to have lingered longer, but the light was green and I needed to turn. It turned out that smoke bombs had been left at various points along the railroad and signs had been put on bridges, all protesting the G8 summit. There was even an announcement in our building, not long after I finally got in, saying a suspicious harmless package had been left and since there would be a heightened police presence in the area travel was not recommended.
I had plans to go to the Asian market with PS and we didn't want to cancel, so off we went to Cary at lunchtime. Around the World Market was simply awesome. I bought tons of frozen Indian dinners for only $2 a piece. PS recommended various spice mixes and sauces. We also ate lunch there and it was great! I only got parts of the names of the dishes down, so I'll have to keep working on that. It was a little hotter than I'm used to, but very good. I also tried sugar cane juice for the first time and I liked that. I'm really looking forward to cooking with some of the ingredients I bought. When I'm too tired to cook, I have plenty of things to choose from in my freezer!
Yesterday, I had lunch at Fowler's with JJ again. I had samosas and gazpacho. I'm definitely in a delicious ordering rut when I go there. Their gazpacho is almost as good as Pyewacket's was.
Otherwise, I'm still doing a lot of unpacking. I'm going through box after box of my grandmother's stuff, trying decide what I want to keep. I need to train myself to be more selective.
I'll try to keep this brief, because I need to go home and unpack more.
I ended up buying a 1.0 cubic foot GE microwave from Walmart. It turns out that Walmart has a nice selection of small microwaves.
I started working again on Monday. My vacation is over.
I went to lunch at Dales Indian Cuisine on 9th Street with JJ and EB today. I enjoyed it. It's pretty convenient because it shares a parking lot with One World Market and Bali Hai.
My dad and I went by Lowe's again yesterday. They still didn't have the GE JES1039WF. I could have ordered one on-line by now! Now that I look at the GE site, they don't have that model anymore, so maybe it's been discontinued. That could explain why it was so cheap.
For lunch on Friday, my parents and I went to the new Maple View Farms ice cream store near the new Walmart on 86, in Hillsborough. It's about 7 or 8 minutes from my house. Ideal. It's a lot closer than the original Maple View Farms dairy. I had a sundae with with honey almond ice cream, hot fudge, walnuts, pineapple, whipped cream and, of course, a marachino cherry.
Friday night, I cooked for the first time! Well, a long time ago, I baked a few things when my grandmother handed me the ingredients, but this was the first time I'd done the whole thing for myself. I made myself scrambled eggs with sharp cheddar cheese mixed in. I also added chives, thyme and parsley. I took photographs of the various stages and maybe I'll put them up here someday if I ever have time to check out hello. The important things were that it was quite edible and I didn't burn myself or burn my house down. The greatest difficulty was getting the canola oil bottle open. The pull top broke off twice, but my needle node pliers from my studio did the trick.
Saturday night, we went to Taverna Nikos for dinner. I had the linguinette with tomato basil sauce, feta and romano cheese. They've finished the renovations of Brightleaf Square, so it's convenient to go there again. The renovations look nice, although it's weird having the place change so much after over 20 years of shopping and dining there. There aren't a lot of open stores there and there weren't many people eating at Nikos, which worries me. We're going to have to eat there more often. Remember to support your local restaurants!
Afterwards, my dad and I went to Circuit City to look for microwaves and check out the televisions. It turns out that they quit selling appliances about four years ago. Obviously, I don't go shopping there or anywhere very often. That meant we were able to devote the entire visit to looking at the various sizes of Sony Grand WEGA HD-Ready Rear-Projection LCD TV, model KF50WE610. Regular readers of my blog may remember that I've been looking at this model for some time.
This was actually the first time I'd seen one in person. They are quite beautiful. Now I just have to get cable or satellite and figure out whether I want the 42" or the 50". Time Warner doesn't want to give me cable, apparently, because I live too far from the nearest cable box. Unfortunately, satellite isn't so easy either, because my house is surrounded by trees and the dish has to be within 100 feet of the house. It sounds as if I may have to look into getting a signal amplifier. I really thought these issues would go away, since I live much closer to the main road than my parents, but apparently not.
I also watched the defeat of Smarty Jones yesterday. It was sad, but that's the way it goes.
I've been doing a lot of unpacking, dusting, cleaning and buying. I haven't cooked anything yet, but I will do that as soon as I have something to cook in. Actually, I have some corningware that I inherited from my grandmother, but I need something in which I can cook an omelet, since I have leftover Korean food from the other day.
I bought some patio furniture from CostCo made out of cumaru wood. It's supposedly very comfortable and fairly nice looking. I got six chairs and a table, which will take up most of my deck. Hopefully without the leaves and tucking a couple chairs in a corner, I will still be able to get around find. The wood is kind of pinkish in the sunlight, but the brochure assured me that it will be gray eventually. The pink actually goes pretty well with the brick. Cumaru wood is supposedly farmed so I don't feel as if I am personally responsible for the destruction of the rain forest. ...although only 71% of the wood is supposed to come from responsibly maintained forests, so I should feel 29% guilty. It seemed like a good deal.
The amazing thing is that all seven boxes fit in my van, even though the table is huge.
Lowe's has been out of little GE microwaves since Monday. I like them because that's what we have at my parents' house and at work. The Express Cook feature is so handy. They were supposed to come in yesterday and last night and my dad and I dropped by after dinner at Nantucket. They had one box there under the display model. Unfortunately, it had a large dent. The scary thing is that they probably would have sold it to me anyway, but at least they said they wouldn't put it back out for sale. Hopefully more will come in soon.
Today I brought leftover pizza with me to my parents' house to microwave it there.
I've been having fun with a new AT&T cordless phone/corded phone with answering machine that I got from Sam's Club. So far I'm pretty pleased with it. Most of the phones from Sam's and CostCo were brands I'd never heard of, so I was reluctant to get them. This one has a speaker phone, too, which seems to be very good. My minimum criteria for a cordless phone is that one can adjust the volume. My parents have a Radio Shack one and you can't hear half the conversations on it, in part because you can't adjust it. One important thing here is that I now have a phone line! They haven't buried the cable yet and it's just lying on the ground, but it does work.
One of the acquisitions that I'm most pleased about is a Swiffer duster with a telescoping handle. (It's not hard to make me happy.) It's the coolest thing and I can think of all kinds of other uses for the handle. For example, I think I can just attach a sponge or a damp paper towel with a rubber band. I could attach a paint brush for a large painting. I could whack people with it.
The PSNC Energy crew is back cleaning up the mess from Saturday. I was on a temporary gas line and they switched it to the new main line. They needed to bleed the line at my house a guy with a large dump truck came over to my parents' house to tell us while I was over here. Much to my mom's horror, some of her plants got run over by the truck. I drove back home and watched them bleed the line at my meter and my hot water heater and went back. Apparently, I have a nice new load of gravel on my driveway now.
As I mentioned earlier, I went to Nantucket with my dad last night. They had a delicious special, grilled halibut over herbed rice with lemon butter, served with roasted corn.
I've spent the last couple of days doing a lot of shopping for stuff for my house. I've been to CostCo, Bed Bath & Beyond, Sam's Club and Lowe's. Wandering around all those stores, driving in between them and unpacking stuff (new and old) is exhausting.
I had no idea just how much stuff I would need. Some of it I need to buy and some of it I just need to find in what I've inherited.
My parents and I tried out the Korean Garden restaurant, in Cary, before we went to Sam's. It was pretty good. We particularly enjoyed a large scallion and seafood pancake as an appetizer.
So far, my house doesn't feel like "home" yet. I'll keep you all posted as to when it does.
There's been another big gap in postings, but for good reason! In addition my being extremely busy at work, my insurance company alerted me that my driver's license had been cancelled and I moved into my new house. It may be a while before I have cable hooked up, so my posts will continue to be sporadic.
Last Friday I got the call about my license. It had a medical cancellation. The DMV claimed that they had sent me notices last December stating that I had to come in to be re-examined and that my license had been revoked when I didn't show up. I never received any mail from them. You'd think that they would at least use registered mail when notifying you that your driver's license had been cancelled. I called several people at the main office, but I was unable to get them to extend it until I could get to the DMV or even drive home from work. The earliest appointment I could get for a new road test was Thursday at 9am. It was pretty ridiculous and I did far better than when I actually got my license, but they were all very nice. I needed to change my address on my license anyway. Somehow it seems worse if your license is taken away from you for almost a week than it is when your van is in the shop. It is, however, a lot cheaper.
Last Saturday, I also had an excellent dinner at WH and BZ's house. She served tilapia, rice, asparagus and cantaloupe salsa. It was pretty amazing. I went with JJ and JA and we all had a good time.
This Friday morning, at 8:30am, the movers came! DeHaven's did a fantastic job, moving all the heavy furniture and boxes of books. I spent the night there last night and it was the first time I'd ever spent a night in a house by myself. I neglected to turn off the bathroom fan, which masked any bumps in the middle of the night. My new ice maker sometimes sounds just like someone's knocking at the door. The one wrinkle in all this is that, until this morning, they still hadn't hooked up the gas line to the road. No hot water. No hot showers. No clean dishes. I don't have a clothes washer and dryer yet, so it didn't affect that.
When I got up this morning to brush my teeth, I discovered that I also didn't have any cold water. It looked as if the gas people accidently cut the water main immediately after they started working on the gas. I was going over to my parents' house to take a shower, but, of course, they didn't have water either. I do think I might be able to have a bog garden at the edge of my property... It's back on now and hopefully the gas people will finish someday. My builder has been trying to get PS Energy to hook up my gas since November!
It keeps getting longer and longer between posts. I've figured that it would make more sense to actually get some sleep than complain about how much I've been working every night. Before today I only had two off in three weeks and they weren't consecutive.
Last Sunday, I did go to the computer science department's graduation ceremony. I didn't know any of the students who were graduating. They didn't know me either. I go for the free food. It's catered by the guy who runs the cafeteria closest to the department. He gave me a big hug when he saw me. I went into work immediately after the luncheon.
I had lunch at the India Palace II on Tuesday with PS. We decided if we didn't decide to just go that we'd never do it. It was good. It was so nice getting out during the day and having a good meal.
Wednesday night, I dragged my family to Tosca, where they'd never been before. I had shrimp stuffed ravioli with a lobster something sauce. The sauce was brown. It was very good. For dessert, I had a scoop of hazelnut chocolate gelato with a scoop of mixed berry sorbetto. The waiters kept giving me a hard time that it was a strange combination, but I thought it was perfect.
Today I went to GM's house and watched Mystery Science Theatre 3000 present "The Cave Dwellers". Like all MST3000 episodes, it was fairly hilarious. I hadn't seen GM in five years, but he seemed just the same, but with a beard. I met two of his other friends, A and J.
After I got home, we watched the Preakness. Smarty Jones can really move. We may have a triple crown winner yet. Afterwards, we went to ACME once again. In their e-mail newsletter I had read that they were going to have soft shell crabs and soft shell crawfish over lemony cheese grits with brocolli raab. I reserved two orders for my mom and me when I made the reservations. My dad and I split yet another strawberry rhubarb cobbler to finish it off.
Actually, the major thing this week is that my move got postponed. My builder couldn't get the grading scheduled and the concrete poured until the day after I was supposed to move That wouldn't exactly have worked out. The movers couldn't reschedule until a week and a half later, so it looks as if I'll me moving on Memorial Day weekend. I had really been looking forward to the vacation and moving in, so these next couple of weeks are going to take forever.
Since I neglected my blog for so long, I just have to post more than once today. I went to the graduation reception on the Duke East Campus lawn. My dad and I go every year, because it's often very pleasant eating and talking under the giant oak trees. The food has been kind of detiorating over the years, though. When my mom graduated, they had shrimp wrapped in bacon. Last year's was particularly bad and even the punch was watered down. The punch used to be a combination of kool-aid and Sprite. Now it's pineapple juice and Sprite. Surprisingly enough, I prefer the kool-aid. This year, almost none of the hors d'ouevres contained meat. Of course, that suited me just fine. They had vegetable sandwiches, which were pretty good, lots of fruit and cookies, etc.
Is it only about the food? Well.... There are always lots of parents and graduating seniors milling about. It's a good time for watching people. This is especially true for me now that I'm no longer on the look-out for students that I know. Occasionally I do see one or more of my former professors, which can be cool. Today I saw Dr. BB, since his daughter was graduating.
One of the more entertaining things is observing how people dress. It ranges from formal attire, including uncomfortable looking shoes, to torn jeans and t-shirts. I saw so many women wearing spiked heels with pointy toes. In some cases, the heels sank right into the ground, which looked particularly awkward. Why would anyone do that to their feet? I saw so many ankle straps that seemed to be wreaking havoc to the backs of ankles. I didn't see any outlandish or inspired dresses, though.
Goodness! I haven't gone this long without posting since I started last Christmas. Unfortunately, work can interfere with whatever I'd rather be doing and I haven't had time to let my readers know what I've been up to. For three nights in a row, I worked until close to 11pm. I've decided to take today off, but I'll probably go in tomorrow, after graduation. Fortunately, I know my code works, but I just have to test it a little more to make sure.
Here are some random highlights from the last few days:
Tuesday morning, I met with the Builder Products/Closetmaid guy and we figured out what kind of wire shelves I want in my house. I also specified where the towel rods and things like that should go. While I was there, Baby, one of our neighbors' three dogs got in my van and ate an entire bag of liver treats.
That night, I went with my dad to buy a spotlight from Lowe's. I had decided at one point that I wasn't going to have a light over my stove, but then JJ suggested that I might want to have an electrical plate above it, just in case I decided that I wanted one later. Finally, my builder suggested that I just buy a single track light for it. I went in there intending to buy a $10 light and I ended up buying my refrigerator. I got a Frigidaire and it didn't sound as if they usually kept many of the particular model in stock and it might take two weeks to get one. Hopefully everything will go as planned and I'll be able to have it delivered as scheduled on the 18th. The funniest thing was that they had a label on it describing all the features and it said that the buttons on the front "doubled as a nightlight". That's one expensive nightlight...
Wednesday night, I met my dad over at Neomonde for dinner. We got to eat our sampler platters outside, which was nice. After getting my labneh fix, I went back to work.
Thursday and Friday consisted almost entirely of working. I did try a Starkist make-your-own tuna salad kit Friday night at the office. It was terribly cute, since it came with tuna, crackers, low-calorie mayo, relish and even a mint.
Today, I went over to the new house. They've made a lot of progress. The carpet and vinyl are in and both look great. The gray carpet isn't too dark or too light. It's just perfect and it goes well with the paint colors. The spotlight is up now and doesn't look too bad. My dad had commented that it didn't look as good as all my other light fixtures, but it really doesn't look bad. It doesn't stand out, which is a good thing. I have a garage door now. They were working on the deck while I was there and it even has a floor. It's a good size and I think I will really enjoy it. Considering how little we've used my parents' deck, that may be overly optimistic, but we'll see. I think patio furniture will help.
Yesterday I spent the morning sleeping and my afternoon and evening at work. I brought a frozen dinner in with me, so at least I wasn't hungry when I got home around 10 pm.
KS was in town for a wedding this past weekend and I took the day off to spend some time with her. She met me over at the new house and I showed her around. Since Saturday, the biggest changes were more progress on the deck, particularly the ramp, and the ceiling fan is now up in my bedroom. It looks just as I had imagined it would. It's a Minka Aire "Flyte", which is perfect for the angles in the room. One of the funny things was when I was showing off the guest bathroom and I was startled by a small piece of insulation that came up through the floor vent and a hand that poked up to make sure it got through. I said, "Hello there!" and my builder said hi and that he was just cleaning up the crawl space.
Afterwards, I took KS over to my parents' house, to meet FIFO. He really liked her. He really likes everyone, but he was particularly enthusiastic about meeting her. He must have sensed that her sister has a Weimaraner. We sat and talked for quite a while and then went with my parents to Tupelo's for dinner. KS had been to ACME the night before, so we couldn't take her there. As always, I chose the crawfish ravioli and I thought it was excellent. My parents had never been there before, because it's usually very busy on Saturday nights, when I usually desert them.
It was a good day.. It's always fun to hang out with KS and I hadn't seen her in a couple years. We keep in touch very well by IMing, but that's just not the same as getting to talk to her in person.
Early this afternoon, my parents and I went over to the new house. It's still stunning to me how much progress has been made. Now that almost all the lights are installed, some of the finished plumbing fixtures are in, the deck is progressing and the cabinet knobs/pulls are in place, it's incredible. It's just amazing to think about all the plans, sketches and agonizing decisions that have produced such a beautiful three dimensional dwelling. I still can't believe that I actually get to live in such a cool place.
After I left the house, I went to the office to work for the rest of the afternoon. It wasn't my idea of the best way to spend a Saturday, even a rainy one, but I needed to get some work done. My teammates were also there, so it certainly wasn't a lonely effort.
Around dinnertime, I left for EB's house. JJ and JA brought Chinese food from Eastern Lights and we had quite a feast. I was tempted to have some pork fried rice, but I was a good little quasi-vegetarian and stuck to sweet and sour shrimp and Ma Po tofu. Sable seems to be recovering nicely and did not seem to be suffering from her van exit method. I met Sheba and she's seems like a frisky gal. They have very different personalities and coloring considering they were littermates. FIFO was eager to sniff all the olfactory information off me as soon as I got home.
Late this morning, we had a large meeting at IBM's recreation center. They actually handed out "buzzword bingo" sheets so we could play during the presentation. I'd always heard of that as something to play if you're bored in a meeting, so it was pretty funny to have it as a prescribed activity. Basically, the grid was filled with words and phrases like "value-add", "partner", and "leverage". As we heard them in the presentation or read them in the slides, we circled the words. The first four people who matched the various patterns won a free cafeteria lunch. I think it definitely helped me stay awake, but it's easy to concentrate on listening for the words and not actually focus on what the presenter is talking about. After the presentation was over, we played a game that our organization played a couple of years ago. Basically, everyone sits around in a circle and one standing person asks a question, such as, "How many of you are older than 35? Butts up!" Then everyone is supposed to run to different seats. Since there are more people than chairs, one person is left standing. He or she is supposed to ask another question, and so on. It's a lot of fun, but it's potentially dangerous. At the very least, it looks as if it would be easy to twist an ankle.
Finally, we had a potluck lunch. The funny thing was that no one brought any plasticware. I guessed no one noticed that something was missing on the sign-up sheet. It was a great excuse to eat more chips than usual. Potato chips are actually excellent with good coleslaw on top of them.
EB's dog, Sable, has been sick. She took her to the vet school and found out that she had a ruptured spleen. They operated Wednesday and she was supposed to come home today. We thought she might be able to use the lift on my van, since she probably wouldn't be able to jump into EB's truck. Late this afternoon, we drove over there and picked her up. I raised up the lift with EB and Sable on it, but it freaked her out and she just walked up the step into the van. Everything seemed good and we drove to their house. Well, EB always lets her out of the back of her truck. So, as soon as we got to her house, Sable decided to leave by going out the back of my van! Unfortunately, she decided the only way to do this was go between the backseat (the "couch") and the side of the van. I forgot to mention that Sable is an Akita. She's very large and simply can't do that. She got stuck. EB opened the back doors and she was able to get out, but that can't be a good thing to do after having surgery. So, the whole idea of transporting S from the vet school to her house in the least traumatic way possible failed miserably. Maybe it was still better than her attempting to jump. Maybe.
I went back to work afterwards and was there until around 9. At least I had Neomonde food waiting for me at home.
Yesterday, after work, we went to ACME Food & Beverage Company, to celebrate my mom's birthday. Before that, I met my parents at the new house, so I could see the latest progress. The windows were all clean, the counter tops were on, and several lights and ceiling fans had been installed. It's just looks amazing. It's also nice to be able to go there as it's getting dark and still see inside.
We had another delightful dinner at ACME. I had a small plate of fried calamari and fried green tomatoes. It was a nice combination, served with a basil and chipotle dipping sauces. For dessert, I had another strawberry and rhubarb cobbler. It was a late meal, because I didn't even leave work until 7:30.
The final activity of the day was giving my mom her birthday presents. My brother and I got her some Nikon Eagleview 8-24x25 Zoom II binoculars. I have a pair of Nikon 9x25 binoculars that my parents gave me about twenty years ago, but I'll be taking those with me when I move. I wanted to get something a little different, so I thought she might want to try the zoom. I've only looked through them in the house at night, but I was very impressed. I'm looking forward to looking at some turtles across the pond this weekend. My dad got her
a Night Owl Cyclops Compact Night Vision Scope. As far as I know, none of us have tried it out yet, but it looks very cool.
Today I went to Fowler's for lunch with JJ. It wasn't easy making up my mind as to whether I should go. It was such a beautiful day for a patio lunch, but I had way too much to do. I'm glad I made the right decision, because I had a great time, as always, and they had wonderful gazpacho today.
My mom has had an interesting week. Her driver's license expired on her birthday and she went to the DMV to get a new one. When she got her first driver's license after getting married, they shortened her name on the license, because it didn't fix in the space allotted. February 2nd, they tied their database into the social security system and they now require the names to match. They would not give her a new license unless she brought something from the Social Security office that said she was really the person with that particular number. That meant that on her birthday, she had to spend time at the Social Security office trying to get her name changed and then today my dad had to drive her back to the DMV to get a license. Obviously, this is going to be a problem for any woman who has changed her name in any way. One would think that they would be able to warn people when they mail out reminders that the license has to be renewed. I'm very thankful that my full name is only ten characters long!
I actually posted last night, but I must have closed the preview window, instead of publishing it. My cleverness never ceases to amaze me.
My post wasn't that sensational anyway. I mainly reported that the Republican National Committee seems to think I'm a Republican. I think this is a good thing, because they are wasting their money sending me propaganda. I also have the opportunity to mail heavy things in their postage-paid return envelopes. Perhaps I should endeavor to get on more conservative mailing lists.
I also complained that I have not yet received my free Kerry bumperstickers.
Today was nice because a few of us ate lunch on the patio at work. I came close, once again, to getting a sunburn. My skin just feels a little sensitive, but it doesn't look that pink or feel that hot. It was nice, warm and breezy and we just didn't feel like going back inside. Having a lot of work to do may have had just a little to do with that as well. We also saw a small black snake slithering over the concrete and into the grass.
I got home late and missed about half of American Idol. I'm sure I'll be damaged permanently. I'm just not sure whether the damage will come from missing it or from having watched it all season.
I got the Skovby catalog that I ordered! Now I can drool over pictures of my dining room table and chairs. They're a lot cheaper if I just look at them in the catalog instead of actually buying them.
I apologize for depriving my faithful readers of new posts for the past few days. Friday was fairly boring, as I worked until 8, ate lunch by myself (outside) and then goofed off in a non-descript manner when I got home.
Saturday night, I got home too late to blog. I went with SH to JG and BK's wedding. In the afternoon, my dad and I drove to the Governor's Club, which is south of Chapel Hill, in Chatham County. Given my propensity for getting lost my mom argued that this was a good idea. Eventually, I relented. It was a good idea. While the directions weren't that complicated, there is a funny little jog that you have to do around the Carolina Inn and one of the roads is poorly marked. Plus, it was nice to drive through the Governor's Club "gated community" when I wasn't in a hurry. It's an incredibly ritzy neighborhood with several million dollar houses. You can interpret that sentence either way and it's accurate. One of the houses, in particular, is at the top of the highest hill and must have a spectacular view. I later learned at the reception that it cost 4 million and the buyers paid in cash. All the yards are perfectly neat and landscaped with lots of blooming azaleas. The one thing that seemed inconsistent was that the main road was poorly maintained concrete that was falling apart. It was 2 miles from the entrance to the clubhouse, so this whole place was enormous and like nothing I'd ever seen before.
Later, that evening, I met SH in the parking lot for the club house. We went inside and had plenty of time to find the appropriate ballroom. The back wall of the room was all glass, so BK and JG were married in front of a lovely view of the golf course. Afterwards, we enjoyed hors d'oeuvres. We talked to random people and one of SH's friends and her boyfriend. I also got to talk to DS, which was great, since I'd only seen him on Orkut since graduation. Afterwards, we went to a different ballroom for a sit-down dinner. We all had an absolutely delicious crab bisque. I had tuna and it was excellent. It was served with a nice selection of vegetables. It was fun being able to chat with JG and briefly talk to BK. They used to both hang out and work in the computer science labs that I lived in. I once ran into JG on the main campus and he said he practically didn't recognize me outside the Majors' Lab. It was true that I considered it to be almost like my office. SH and I sat with a lot of other people who work for IBM, one of whom I already knew, from recruiting and working as a "campus ambassador" for IBM. I really enjoyed talking to the people at our table and hope I run into them again someday.
The bouquet toss was the most violent one that I'd ever seen. It looked as if several people were knocked over and I'm hoping that none of the flower girls were injured. I was very glad that I had decided not to participate in the custom. The "winner" was the friend of SH's that I met before the meal. She was "somewhat" inebriated and very proud of her victory. Fortunately, her boyfriend seemed pleased, which is a good sign.
This morning I had brunch with JJ and JA at Fowler's. It was a beautiful day to sit on the patio and we actually remembered to sit outside this time. I had a wonderful zucchini and roasted tomato omelet with home fries and fresh fruit. The tomatoes were regular tomatoes, rather than sundried tomatoes, so I liked it quite a bit.
Not too long after I got back, my dad and I went over to the new house again. My builder had finished installing the motor for the adjustable sink, so I wanted to see it. It's very impressive and the hardware looks like good heavy duty stuff. My builder has it covered up with a sign saying "Do not touch", because he is afraid that everyone will spend lots of time playing with it before I even get a chance to move in. The paint is also looking very good. It looks as if they have just a little left to do. The dark green trim in the great room looks really nice and provides just the effect that I wanted. The tile is finished in the master bathroom and that looks perfect, too.
For dinner, my parents I went to Vin Rouge. It was only the second time I'd been there for dinner, but I've been there for brunch several times. I ordered a salad with mixed greens, poached pears, bleu cheese and walnuts. It also had lardons, which are cubes of bacon. I asked for them to leave those off, but I guess they had forgotten. So, being the second-rate vegetarian that I am, I just ate them. I also had a side order of pommes frites. Those were some of the best fries I've had lately. They were uniformly crisp and flavorful. For dessert, I had chocolate mousse, which was very chocolatey, a good choice.
I was just looking at the Blogger community on Orkut and someone posted a link to Evan William's blog, which had a link to Tim O'Reilly's article on Gmail. If that isn't a little indirect, I don't know what it is, but I thought it was a good article. Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for my Duke alumni e-mail reflector to switch from hotmail to Gmail. It should happen late Friday night, I think.
The raccoons are making loud noises outside.
Today was Take Your Kid to Work day and there were lot of kids running around, particularly after the scheduled activities were over. I keep my office filled with toys and candy, so it's a popular destination. The day always seems a bit odd to me because IBM has lots of special programs, so the kids don't see what status meetings, conference calls and work are really like. It's probably designed to keep children from away from all the swearing programmers. GA and her daughter stopped by and gave me a beautiful yellow rose sculpture that they got at Busch Gardens. It's really gorgeous with very thin hand-painted petals.
I didn't want to get up this morning. With the window next to my bed open, the temperature was perfect when my alarm went off. I debated whether I should reset my alarm for an hour later. In fact, I did. ..but then a few minutes later, I thought better of it and got on up. It wasn't a particularly good decision.
At lunch, I got a cell phone call from my mom, who was at Thrifty Office Furniture looking for the Hon tables I wanted. She said they had a larger wood laminate circular table and wondered if I wanted it. I was eating with MS and TH and they were laughing at me. I thought my mom would make a good decision, so I told her to go ahead and get it. I didn't know where I would put or use a larger table, since I mainly wanted them for moving stuff, like baking sheets full of cookies, around the kitchen and great room. I also wasn't excited about buying three tables, since I've been trying to avoid spending too much money, so I can spend too much money in the future instead. In any case, MS and TH said they didn't think I wanted the table, based on the expression on my face. My mom said it would be a gift, if I liked it. It's a very nice table. I'm using this laptop on it right now. Fortunately, my dad claimed it before I got home from work.
I just got an invitation for Gmail, because I use blogspot for this blog. That's pretty exciting. I'd love to quit using hotmail, if I possibly can. If nothing else, I don't like the ads with the pictures of scantily clad women. They could at least give me ads with pictures of men instead. Hotmail knows I'm female, so that's particularly annoying. Gmail only has text ads. We'll see if I like it.
