We got into dad’s last night (well, very early this morning) and so today we get to be here all day. It was a great decision to come up as early as we did. The snow really did hit hard back home. School was closed in Peekskill today. Roads are closed all over. It would have been a terrible drive for us.
This morning Dominica and Danielle drove up to Rochester first thing to go to the T-Mobile store and deal with getting Dominica a new phone. Dominica has been on Verizon for forever and she has been living with a broken iPhone 4s for a really long time. Not only has it had a cracked screen for what seems like a year or more but it has not been charging properly for many months. Easily more than six months. It has been horrible for her. But we kept waiting so that she could get an iPhone 6, and waiting to know about my job and waiting to know about which carrier she wants to use.
Finally, T-Mobile appears to have come out on top. So she is finally joining me on the low cost plan with unlimited data. The Verizon phones have been so expensive and it was because of Verizon politics that she has been stuck with a broken phone for so long. And we are discussing our next trip to Europe and it was absolutely horrible dealing with Verizon last time that we went there and if she stays with Verizon she will be phoneless in Europe again. Going with T-Mobile means that both of us will have working phones while we are there. That is a really big deal for safety and convenience. Being at home without two phones is bad enough. Being in another country seems crazy. And now that T-Mobile offers calling over WiFi and Verizon does not means that the use of the T-Mobile phones is better for us nearly everywhere. That was really the trump card.
Dominica was not sure what she was going to get, the iPhone 6 or the 6+ but after seeing how much larger the iPhone 6 was than the iPhone 4s she went with the smaller option.
On the way back from the city they stopped in Avon at the cake shop where Dominica had ordered Liesl’s birthday cake and picked that up so that we would not need to run out and deal with that later.
Once Dominica was back home we drove down to Perry to go to Commodore Liquors where we picked up wine for Thanksgiving tomorrow. They have an awesome selection of Finger Lakes wines there and they are the closest liquor store to dad’s house too. Very handy.
From there we went to the Farmer’s Wife, the fruit and vegetable stand right around the corner from dad’s house, that now sells food. I have not been in there since they first started selling veggies from the farm about a decade ago. It’s a full restaurant now! They have a big menu, lots of food items and a few tables. It is funny because it still looks like a fruit stand and while waiting on your sandwiches you can see cows right at the back door. It’s very Covington.
Aunt Sharon and Uncle Leo stopped by briefly to drop off some stuff for tomorrow while on their way up to the city to see Jim who had a stroke a couple of days ago and has been in the hospital ever since. They are hoping that he can come home tomorrow but there is no telling at this point.
I had to be on the phone much of the afternoon. Had a good day, though. And, among other things, I am now scheduled to be flying out to Seattle on Tuesday morning. I will be there all day on Wednesday. That is very exciting both for the reason that I am going there as well as I have never seen the Pacific Northwest let alone Seattle itself. I have always wanted to see it and now I will get a chance. Our plan is to stay upstate until Monday to avoid the holiday traffic. We will be at dad’s until Saturday morning and then drive out to Frankfort and stay with Dominica’s parents until Monday morning. Then home just in time for me to get all ready to fly out to Seattle. We are all very excited about that.
This evening, around nine thirty, Nate came by and picked me up and we went down to Retsof to the Krash Landing, what used to be the Capa Lounge, to see Art and Danielle play with the band. There was rather a sizable crowd there, which was surprising. I got to check out their menu which looked really good. Maybe we will get a chance to eat there this Friday. I really want to try their salmon reuben!
Nate and I only stayed out until eleven. He hung out at the house to see Dominica for maybe half an hour. They almost never get to see each other. Hopefully we will all get some time to hang out tomorrow night if we can make it up to Nick Tahou’s for the traditional Thanksgiving evening gang reunion. It’s been running for twenty continuous years, I believe. Joe is the historian and will know for sure. If this is not the twentieth year then it is very close to being it. We’ve been doing that for a long time but we have not managed to do it since Liesl was born since we were in the hospital for her birth that year and moved to Texas after that. This year is our first real chance in a very long time.
Luciana was already asleep when we got back from the Krash Landing. Liesl was upstairs with Dominica. Dad was already in bed. I took Liesl downstairs and set her up with an iPad watching a movie on our futon where Dominica and I sleep so that she could entertain herself but not wake up her sister. I can’t believe that she is all done being five! Only minutes left to go.
The big Steam holiday sales started today (I watch these things religiously.) I spend the whole year being ready to pick up lots of our video games for the year during these sales. Today I was only able to get four titles, but four is pretty good. We added Broken Sword 5, Assassin’s Creed Liberation HD, Broken Age and Banner Saga to our library today. We have a great year of video gaming in front of us.
Dominica, Liesl and I were all off to bed at a quarter after midnight. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day. Sixteen people anticipated for Thanksgiving at dad’s house. Dominica has to be up on the early side to start cooking.