Dominica and I had a hard time getting out of New York last night so that we could head south to Maryland. We had some car trouble and ended up having to switch cars and take mine instead of hers after we were completely packed and all ready into that car and halfway out of the drive. That didn’t make for a happy start. We had originally hoped to have left Geneseo around 9:30 or a little later but we did not, in fact, end up leaving until just about 11:00. That is a long drive to make very late at night and we were both pretty tired.
The drive ended up being mostly uneventful. It is a neat time of year to drive from Geneseo to Annapolis because you can see the weather go from near zero degree Fahrenheit in Geneseo to well above freezing in Annapolis. That was a welcome relief. It has been so cold the last two weeks or so. During the drive we started listening to Sue Grafton’s “S is for Silence”. We are almost three hours into the book now. I am itching to hear more of it. Sue Grafton rocks. Her books are so good. She really manages to reel you in and get you hooked.
The weary travellers arrived in Annapolis (Arnold to be exact) just after 5:00 in the morning. We pulled into the driveway and Tommy came out to welcome us down. There were still a couple of stragglers hanging out at the party. Tommy and Cookie were just about to leave and their car was even running in the driveway. Adam, John’s brother, was still up but winding down quickly. Tommy and Cookie left just a few minutes after we arrived and the rest of us stayed up talking until 6:00 or maybe 6:30. It was so late that we didn’t even bother with a tour of the new house.
This morning we slept in until 1:00. That seems like it is really late until you realize that that is only a maximum or about six hours of sleep and then it doesn’t seem so bad. John came in to wake us up so that we could all go out to “breakfast.” Originally we were going to be quite the group, ten or so, for breakfast but Adam and his girlfriend decided to take off as did her sister and her boyfriend (or so we assumed that is who he was – it is hard to keep up with people you only see once every several years.) They hadn’t been up when we got in last night so we hadn’t had a chance to talk at all. So breakfast ended up being just John and Michelle (plus Frankie) along with Dominica and I. We went to Annapolis to the Double T Diner. Where else is there to go in Annapolis.
I ordered cheese blintzes for lunch. When they came and there was a small Greek salad on my plate as well. Dominica decided to complain about the salad against my wishes. It turned into a big joke at lunch that she had complained about more or less an extra garnish being on my plate. They didn’t even give me dressing for it. But I had thought that the blintzes didn’t come with anything so I didn’t feel like I was missing out. So it became the big joke at lunch and I had promised to mention it on the blog so that we would remember it later. So here it is.
After lunch it was back to the house. John gave Dominica and I the grand tour. The house is unbelievably huge. You don’t really realize how big a 6,500 square foot house has to be until you are walking around one. Let me tell you, it is BIG. Huge. Massive. They have a three car garage, five or six bedrooms. Many baths, I have no idea how many. Seven I think but I really don’t know. There is a cool loft above the garage that John is using as his temporary office. There is a library that is really cool. As we got the tour I took lots of videos with my Kodak digital camera so I should have those up on the vlog sometime the middle of this week along with the videos that we took last night at the Relyea’s Christmas Party. I know that people from that party are all ready logging on to SGL to look for those videos. Well sorry guys, I am out of town. It will just have to wait.
After the tour John and I went into Annapolis to do some quick shopping. Min and Michelle stayed back to relax at the house. John and I went to Petsmart and got some pet supplies and did some movie shopping at Blockbuster. I got a good selection including Spanglish, Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, Batman Begins, Ocean’s Twelve and In Good Company. Cheap movies rock. We stopped and had a quick drink on the Gov. Richie Highway before coming back.
On the way back to the house John and I took a swing over to their old house which is only two blocks away and picked up the cats who have been living over there alone for the past several weeks. The cats were really appreciative of the company and were relatively happy to be coming back with us even if it meant being in a cat carrier.
We got back and the four of us got some Domino’s pizza for dinner. It was really funny: John called and the Domino’s had the phone number on file with my name and knew what we wanted to order. How funny is it that after years of living down here at the same place with the same phone number John has never called and ordered Domino’s pizza until one time that I was here and they happened to have my name on file with the phone number? That is pretty wacky. We got the pizza and we watched Land of the Dead. John all ready owned it but we had gone to Blockbuster looking for it anyway. We spent probably twenty minutes looking for it before we finally gave up. Once we got back to the house he remembered that he thought that he might have bought it previously. So we got to see it. It is definitely not a classic. It is a really weak fourth member of the “Dead” quadrilogy. Dawn of the Dead was so much better. It is kind of like they had decided that “Dawn” was way too dark at the end so their made “Land” to ease up the dispair of it all.
After the movie we all decided that it was a good time to get off to bed. John and I are going into Washington in the morning for a meeting at Sibley Hospital on the northwest side of town. Then the plan is to take the afternoon off and we will all go up to Baltimore to the famous aquarium that I am always hearing so much about. Dominica will kill us all if we work all day and don’t do something fun. We are planning on heading back to New York late tomorrow evening so that we can get the puppy from dad and get some sleep before Dominica has to get up to get to Canandaigua for her final day of class. I hopped onto the new laptop and checked my messages and wrote today’s update. Min found a copy of C.S. Lewis’ “The Last Battle” which is the final book in the Chronicles of Narnia but the only one that she has never read. So she read a considerable amount of that while I wrote the daily.