May 23, 2009: Ralstons Discover Cold Stone

It is supposed to be a holiday weekend.  A nice, long three day chance to relax.  I, of course, do not get the weekend off at all.  I have a lot of work to do this morning basically in a panic and I have to work tomorrow as well.  At least on Monday I am actually off of work.

I was really exhausted when I went to bed last night having gotten no sleep at all the night before.  Last night I managed to sleep a bit.  Dominica got up to take care of Liesl so that I could sleep.  I ended up sleeping from roughly midnight until six thirty this morning when Liesl was so upset that there was just no way for me to sleep any longer.  I tried to sleep but at seven thirty I realized that there was far too much to do this morning and that there was no way for me to get any additional sleep tonight.

The air conditioning worked great.  No problems as far as I can tell.  I am sure that it really helped with getting sleep last night.

I got to my desk at eight and started working.  We have to pick up the cargo van from Enterprise in Peekskill, which is just around the corner, at ten.  From there we are supposed to go on to breakfast with everyone, including Deb and Lisa.  There was no way for me to be able to go to breakfast with everyone, though, that was really out of the question.  Way too much work assigned to me for me to be able to do anything like that.

I worked solid until almost exactly ten when Art and I had to run out the door to get out to Enterprise to pick up the cargo van.  That was quick and easy taking no more than fifteen minutes if that.  I had Art added as a driver so he was able to drive down to the Peekskill Inn and get Deb and Lisa there while I ran back to the house to continue working.

It worked out well having me run back to the house because with the extra time of luggage being relocated, extra driving, people visiting, et cetera I had until almost noon to keep working and ended up being able to complete enough of my work that I was able to join everyone for brunch.  We ended up going to Grandma’a Famous Pies for lunch so had I missed it I would have been very upset.  I love eating there.

Brunch was really nice.  I got the bagel and lox platter which sounds small but is actually a rather significant meal with a mound of cured salmon.  It was awesome.  The massive tomato slices were some of the best ever.  Everyone really enjoyed their food.  Then everyone got pie.  Yummy pie from the massive pie menu.  Very good.  Not like “home” though.

Dominica has decided that I need to start baking again as I am one of the few successors to my grandmother’s pie making and the only successor to my mother’s (as far as I know – no other pie making protege lurking around.)  My mother and grandmother come from a long line of Dutch and Pennsylvania Dutch pie makers.  It has been almost two decades since I have made my mother’s pies so I will need some practice, but Dominica wants me to be able to teach Liesl how to make them.  Especially apple, rhubard, rhubard custard and strawberry rhubard.

After lunch, Deb and Lisa said their goodbyes, which was rather emotional – Michael may not see his grandmother again until he is about sixteen – and then they headed out for the Bear Mountain Parkway to head back towards Rochester.  Then Dominica, Liesl, Oreo and I went back home and the Ralstons went to the Beach Shopping Center to go to GameStop to see if there was anything to pick up to keep them occupied during their really, really long flight from New York to Morocco to the Congo on Monday.

We all relaxed and visited for the afternoon.  One of the few moments of downtime that the Ralstons will get before the flight.  Then, this evening, we had dinner – the last tilapia meal for a very long time for them – that Danielle cooked.  For dessert we drove out to Cold Stone Creamery which they had never had before.  The first Cold Stone has only just opened in Rochester.  They were pretty impressed.  Boy are they going to miss ice cream in Impfondo!

Then we made a trip to Walmart for some last minute supplies.  From there Art and Dominica went back to the house while Danielle, Michael and I went to Panera Bread to pick up bagels for tomorrow morning.  Because we went so late they were 50% off which makes breakfast very cheap.

We hung out for a little while this evening but it was around then when we got back to the house and everyone was pretty much asleep by midnight or so.  I am hopeful that tonight may actually be a chance for me to get some sleep finally.  While we were hanging out this evening I managed to get a bit of work done on our Elastix installation.  That is coming along well.   I am really excited to get that working soon.  One more major task to knock out and get out of the way.  I am slowly making progress.  After this the Amanda backup server is the next major task.

Tomorrow we have no real plans.  Art and Danielle have a lot of luggage shuffling to do to make sure that everything is ready for the flight.  Then we will back up the cargo van so that nothing is lingering until Monday.