October 8, 2006: Sunday in Frankfort

I am so used to getting up early in the mornings that even after staying up late watching cooking shows I was still up at half past seven this morning. I really wish that I could have slept some more. It is nice having two dogs to snuggle with but they really compete for space. Dexter loves it when we visit and always sleeps with us.

It was a short morning today. We had some work to do at the Toccos’ before we could leave. The big thing was getting Dominica’s father set up with his birthday present which was a new Creative MuVo digital audio player and a subscription to Audible.com. We got the player working and the account set up and his first book downloaded and moved over to the player.

For lunch before leaving Utica we went to Babe’s Macaroni Grill. Babe’s is a local chain from Utica that feels similar to a TGI Fridays or Applebee’s but the menu isn’t as broad and is more Italian based. The food was okay but nothing special. Definitely not up to par with the Kitlas but they are closed on Sundays.

Dominica and her dad went out to Walmart and did a little shopping today. We wanted new video games for the Nintendo DSs so she picked up Mario Basketball 3on3 and Nicktoons Unite. We tried playing Mario Basketball but have discovered, we believe, that my NDSL has a bad touchscreen and games the need it don’t work. So that is something that we are going to have to deal with. The screen appears to always think that it is being touched and anything reading the screen all of the time just doesn’t function. What a pain. Just another “thing” that needs to be dealt with. Nothing is ever simple.

I did have to work for an hour this afternoon but that was all. Nothing much. Nothing like what I have been working for the past month.

Back at the house we had birthday cake and packed up the car. Time to travel back down to Newark. After our last experience of attempting to take the New York Thruway down to New Jersey we decided that it was better to drive the much longer way through Pennsylvania. It is hard to believe that New York hasn’t figured out what a critical highway route 87 is and widen it to accommodate more traffic. It is the only real north/south road in the whole region! That is a gigantic population that has only that one highway to travel down – it services NYC, Long Island, Albany, the Hudson Valley and all the way north almost to Montreal!

The drive back went fairly quickly. It wasn’t too late when we arrived in Newark. Maybe ten or so. We unpacked the car and got everything moved into the apartment and then it was time for bed. Tomorrow is a work day for Dominica but I have it off, more or less. It is Columbus Day (apparently the celebration of genocide) and banks are closed.

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