Sheep Guarding Llama

Today consisted of a whole bunch of sleep. We didn’t get out of bed until 2:00 in the afternoon. Oreo loved all of the snuggling. The phone kept ringing with a bunch of people calling all at once so we decided that it was finally time to get out of bed.

We did a little work around the house during the little afternoon that we had but got little done. Then dad came over at 4:30 and the three of us went over to the Omega Grill for some dinner. Min and I were starving not having eaten anything all day. On the way back from dinner we went to Walmart and did some quick shopping. It is new movie release Tuesday and we picked up Serenity which is the movie based on the television show Firefly as well as Must Love Dogs which we have both been wanting to see.

After dinner we had to run up to Henrietta to take care of the last bits of our Christmas shopping. We put off the last few items for about as long as we could without it becoming a problem. Actually doing the shopping tonight was great because there was almost no one out shopping at all. We hit a couple of stores like Best Buy (why do we do so much shopping there when we dislike the store so much?), Linens and Things and Old Navy. The Linens and Things was for us. After staying in Arnold, Maryland at John and Michelle’s where we were introduced to flannel sheets Dominica decided that we just had to have some so she picked some up. I spent most of the trip sitting in the car listening to the events of “S is for Silence” unravel. Once I start a murder mystery I really need to hear the end of it as quickly as possible.

We got back from Rochester and watched the remaining portion of the second season of Chef. We were both pretty tired today and just wanted to relax in the living room. We didn’t bother to go to bed until after 1:00 in the morning and still our day was under twelve hours long! Back to the grind tomorrow and we need to be ready.

Having WordPress powering SGL is really making my life a ton easier. I had no idea how much it was going to help or I really would have made the time to have made the switch a year or more ago. The ability to work on the site on any computer and pick up where I left off on another computer during a different session is an amazingly convenient feature that should help to eliminate past problems of posting gaps that we have suffered.

I had to be up decently early this morning. Early for me at least. John woke me up at 6:30 so that I could shower quickly and we could run out the door to go into DC. We grabbed the usual morning coffee at the deli at Bay Dale where we have been getting coffee for so many years it is just silly. Since 2001 if I was to venture a guess. Then we drove the Hummer into the city. We spent several hours at Sibley Hospital just north of Georgetown – I think that it is officially in the Palisades. That is a really beautiful area. You have no idea that you are in Washington. Then we worked for just a little while at Georgetown Hospital and then drove back out to Annapolis. With traffic and everything we didn’t end up making it back to the house until 2:00

The plan had been to go to Baltimore’s National Aquarium but we got back a lot later than we had intended to and then John had to work for about an hour. Then we realized that the aquarium closed at 5:00 and was some distance away so we gave up on the idea of making it up there.

We all hung out at the house until 4:00 or so and then John, Michelle, Frankie, Dominica and I went into Annapolis to get dinner at the Melting Pot. The Melting Pot specializes in fondue. How cool is that? We started with a cheese fondue which was really good and then had a water based fondue which I had never heard of before. I am not sure that I would go that way again. All of the food was boiled. I have always had fondue that was oil based and so you fried the food that you had. That is what my mom always did when I was growing up. We used to have it fairly often and it was really good. Boiled food just lacks something. There was salmon and that boiled really well. But the shrimp and scallops didn’t do as well. We also got a lot of veggies and those were good that way. Just not unhealthy enough for my taste.

We took off right after dinner. We have a long drive back to New York and I didn’t want to be falling asleep. We hit the road north at 8:30. We listened to “S is for Silence” almost the entire way. We had two pit stops while we were driving and it took us almost exactly six hours to reach dad’s house to pick up Oreo. We pulled in just a little before 2:30. If I was driving alone and was going home instead of to dad’s house it would have taken about five hours and forty five minutes. Not nearly as fast as it used to be going from Ithaca but not bad at all. The drive wasn’t bad. There was no snow or ice on the road until we turned onto Peoria Road. Suddenly it went from totally clear to drifting snow and snow so deep that it was hitting the floor pan of the car! No wonder I always felt like I grew up with an absolute ton of snow.

We got Oreo and ended up staying at dad’s house until 4:30 talking. That is 4:30 am – in the morning! We were all getting pretty tired so we headed for Geneseo to get some sleep. Oreo was very happy to be going home. The house was freezing when we got there. The living room was 54F and the master bathroom was down to 49.3F!! That was pretty cold. The bed was so cold to climb into. Oreo went to bed with his coat on to keep himself warm. I had turned down the heat while we were out so it will take a while for the house to warm back up.