Week 18

A & J moved into their log cabin this week. I was their first visitor. Yay me!

In an admirable show of consistency, the counter showed no signs of deterioration this past week.

Week 17

[Re-do] I heard the Canterbury Cathedral Choir when they stopped in Richmond as part of their U.S. tour. The choir performed at St. James in the evening. We started out sitting in the pews on the ground level, but an overhang was baffling the sound, so we moved up to the mezzanine. It is hard to find any criticism of the concert, especially from a novice such as myself. I take comfort in the fact that Antonia and Darien, as well as all of the accomplished musicians in the audience, agreed with me. I find safety in numbers. We were also delighted to host Kim and Julian, two of the chaperons of the choristers and parents to one of the young choristers, at our house for several days. The only disappointment was we didn't have time to show them around Richmond before they had to scurry off to New York.

In an amazing turn of events, significant progress was made on the counter this past week. The left image is the one that I was prepared to use this week, but then Darien got a spurt of energy and spent her Saturday evening going through lots of papers. It was worth it, even though she had promised me we were going to watch a movie. Do we know how to have fun, or what?

Week 16

Darien had another birthday this week. She turned 39 for the first time. Ooops, I probably shouldn't reveal her age like that. The damage is already done, so I will just have to let it stand.

As I said, Darien had a birthday. I thought it would be fun to surprise her for a change, so Antonia and I schemed and came up with the idea of asking a chef from one of her favorite restaurants in town to come over to the house and give her a cooking lesson. As you can see from the picture, she was a bit taken in. The dinner was a smashing success. All of the kids came over to enjoy in the sight of watching Darien sing for her dinner. The food was stunning. Antonia contributed a killer tiramisu that the chef instructed her the day before in how to make. I hope Darien remembers how she prepared everything. Part of the idea here was that I was going to continue to get superb meals for a long, long time after the leftovers were gone.

The weird thing is, Darien came up with the same idea -- inviting the chef over to cook -- several weeks after we did. Fortunately, Antonia poo-pooed the idea and Darien let it drop. Sometimes it is so hard to fool that woman.

On another front, I think we have some backsliding going on in the rest of the kitchen.

Week 15

I visited Lewis G. Larus Park for the first time. This is a mysterious park near the Ukrop's on Huguenot. There is a sign on the corner announcing the park, but no obvious way to get in. We noticed the sign a number of years ago, but never got around to actually exploring it. What happened was, Darien and I were on our bikes last Sunday, having finished our workout at the gym. In another first, we decided to ride to the cabin. This was one of the routes that is on our to-do list, coupled with a lunch prepared by Antonia, but we went anyway just for practice. The idea is to avoid the main, busy streets, so we had to wend our way through a hilly neighborhood. It was a good workout. For the way home, I suggested we try taking the park route back, which arcs through the neighborhood. Darien was very resistant because we didn't have real mountain bikes, because we might not make it through, because we could get lost, because there might be lions and tigers and bears, and probably some other reasons too. We went anyway. Sometimes it's tough to do new things.

In recognition of Darien's birthday, I am not going to post a picture of the counter this week. However, I will point out the excellent work on cleaning off the front of the refrigerator and the freezer. Good job, Darien!

Week 14

I took another dip in the blog pool and started my Duke Dip. This isn't really the first blog I've ever started. But it is the first in which I've invited others to be co-authors with me. We'll have to see how that is going to work out.

It is a bit unbalanced, but there is some visible progress. Too bad she didn't decide to tackle the right side first.

Week 13

I've been thinking lately that since I am feeling better, I want to return to more genealogy work. I've been fiddling some with Family Tree, understanding the new interface and cleaning up a lot of the database. Unfortunately, leetllama is dead and neither Peter or I want to pay what it would take to revive it. I have a vague feeling that I have the whole thing backed upon my network drive, but I am not able to connect to it, so that is another problem I need to work on. I have all the content, but all the pictures are up in leetllama somewhere.

So, for the first time, I moved Casimir off leetlama, and he is now living on blogspot. I am still hoping to recover the StorCenter so I can easily move the pictures over; otherwise I will have to figure out where all the pictures are in the blog and what they are supposed to be. The good thing about moving to blogspot is that it makes changing the format much easier. I'm still not happy with what I have, but it's a start.

I'm calling in the Lumpkin's Jail crew to see if they can find bottom.

Week 12

This week was the first time I used the E-ZPass lane on the tollway. E-ZPass is a system where high-tech transponders in your car allow you to whiz through the tollbooth without slowing down, automatically recognizing your vehicle and deducting the toll from your prepaid account. Unfortunately, I had neither a high-tech gadget or an account.

I had not been through the Powhite tollbooth since it had undergone renovation. A long stretch of Jersey wall that was not there previously separates those with E-ZPasses from those who must pay with cash. This Jersey wall was not there before. I thought the wall was for cars getting off on Forest, and expected to be able to merge down the road. My expectations were wrong.

As I realized what was happening, I also remembered the stark sign I had passed warning of up to $500 fines for something, which I had a sinking feeling was for being in the wrong lane at the wrong time. Being a good citizen with an aversion to large fines, and even though it meant I would be late for a doctor's appointment, I found an exit several miles up the road and turned around to settle things with the Toll Lady. Unfortunately, the Toll Lady said not only would I have to call in to talk to the Toll People, but I would have to pay the toll now that I was going north. 70 cents. So I did that, went several miles up the road and headed back south, this time being careful to stay to the right of Jersey. A new Toll Lady was happy to relieve me of another 70 cents.

I dutifully called and pleaded my case to the Phone Lady. She asked my license plate number. "Did this violation happen at 3:12 PM?" I neglected to check the time, but that sounded about right. "Were you driving a C230 Mercedes Benz?" I realized I wasn't going to be able to claim it was a case of mistaken identity, so I told Phone Lady I wanted to pay. "Credit or debit?" Credit, of course. "70 cents will be deducted from your next credit statement." I don't think I have ever used a credit card for such a small amount, or spent so much time trying to get through a tollbooth. There was nothing E-Z about this at all.

I think I'm going to have to reconsider this resolution thing next year.