Sheep Guarding Llama

We had to be up at eight this morning. I actually got a very good night’s sleep in the girls’ room.  They were very happy that I had agreed to sleep in there with them.  They thought that it was just the coolest thing.  They both fought over how they were going to get to sleep but eventually they worked something out that made them both happy with Liesl sharing a pillow with me and Luciana sleeping at my feet.  I have no idea why they were both so happy with that arrangement but they were.  Whatever keeps them happy.

As usual on a night before traveling Dominica did not sleep well but she did sleep much better than had the girls tried to sleep in our bed or were up all night coming into our room every thirty minutes.  Dominica actually woke up at seven and got up and was doing well getting ready this morning.

We were packed up and left the house at ten.  We made a quick run down to the downtown library and dropped off the library books that were going to come due this week so that I would not have to deal with them and then we drove down to Brooklyn to get everyone to JFK.  The drive down was not bad at all and we got there at exactly the time that we had hoped that we would.

With the girls and so much luggage, Dominica did not feel that she would be able to handle everything by herself, and I don’t believe that she could have, so we parked in the garage and I went into the airport with them to at least get them up to the security gate.  We put Luciana into a stroller and Liesl walked holding my hand while I carried two big pieces of luggage.  Dominica had Luciana’s stroller and the rolling luggage.  It was a long walk from the parking lot to the terminal.  That took quite a bit of time and would have been horrible if she had had to have done that without me helping her.

Liesl was so excited the entire time.  She was just bouncing and super happy.  She is very excited to get to go see her cousins.  She was bouncing and skipping and giggling the whole time.  She was so excited that at one point she fell over and got her Care Bear all dirty which was not good.  But we managed to get that washed up before they left.

We got the luggage checked and I gave everyone hugs at the beginning of the security line and watched them head down to the inspection station.  Then I walked back to the car and drove back home in heavy traffic.  On the way back I stopped in Yorktown Heights and got myself an omelette even though, by that time, it was nearly one in the afternoon.  I wanted to get a healthy meal in while I was out of the house so that I would be less tempted to eat something unhealthy later on.  Then it was back to the house for about an hour.

At three I ran out to get a drug screening done that has been needing to be done for a week.  It turns out that there was a Qwest Diagnostics in the most convenient place that was super easy to deal with.  It ended up being no effort and took no time at all.  But it felt good to get that done, that has been just one of those things that has been hanging over me to do for a while.

After that I hit the gas station and fueled up the Acadia just for good measure then went to CVS and stocked up on hygiene products, I had been running low.  I got a small frozen yoghurt at Sweet Frog while I was there, just $3 of the sugar free cotton candy.  Then I went back home.  It was nearly five when I got back to the house.  But I had needed to run those errands and it was good that I took the time to do so.

I was home about half an hour before Dominica emailed me to let me know that they had arrived safely in Houston and were on their way to the Grices’.  Their flight had gone well and Luciana had managed to sleep for a bit of it.

I did some work this evening although not a lot.  I decided that I really wanted to see “A Million Ways to Die in the West” so I bought in on Amazon Video on Demand and watched it in the living room.  It was pretty good.  An amazing cast.  Not a movie that is in any way appropriate for children.  Not at all.  Pretty much like watching a live action Family Guy episode set in the frontier.  Very well done, though.

I started watching “Event Horizon” which I have not seen in forever, probably not since the year that it was released.  If I remember correctly, I rented it on Laserdisc.  I am sure that I never owned it but it was one of those movies that I think that I saw in my own theatre.  But I decided after a little bit that I was not into it tonight.  So I switched to Kevin Kline in “In & Out”, one of my all time favourite movies and one that I do own on Laserdisc and I have not seen probably since that era.  Both movies are in the free collection on Amazon so that worked out great.

Got to bed probably around two in the morning.  Today went well but I saw the family for a bit of it.  By Friday I am likely going to be getting pretty lonely.

My new article on the StorageCraft Blog is going live tonight.  This is an article that I have been needing to write for over a year and just have not found time to do so.  I am pretty excited to finally get it published.  This is my post on One Big Flat Networks.

Dominica spent much of the day packing today.  She and the girls are flying out to Houston tomorrow morning.  I did a bit of work, mostly in the morning, in the bedroom office today but let the girls hang out in the office for most of the day so that we could spend time together.

Tonight I took some time with the girls to play some more of Space Quest IV.  They just love that game.  We played for about an hour.  We are probably most of the way through the game at this point.  It is always a bit hard to tell, of course.

We watched some of “How I Met Your Mother” before going to bed.  We got the girls to bed around midnight. They had all kinds of energy tonight and there was just no hope of getting them to bed any sooner than that.

After we were in bed for a bit, Luciana sneaked into our room and got into bed.  Dominica was going to ignore her until Liesl came in ten minutes later asking where everyone was and wanting to climb into bed too.  Dominica said that she would not get any sleep.  But I didn’t want the girls to be sad.  So I packed up my CPAP and I moved into their room with them and slept in there which made them very happy.  They have never had anyone sleep in their room before, I don’t think, so this was like a sleepover.  They were both very good and actually went to sleep right away.  I was quite impressed.

Today is Monday and today marks the beginning of my second full week of pseudo-vacation time at home.  It feels weird.  Really weird.  I have never been at home (and on full pay) for so long before.  This is very much a novel experience.  I have had weekends, even extended weekends, at home alone before.  Long ago I worked from home but that was different.  Although it is interesting to note that back when I did work from home full time last that it was in this very house.  All of the time in Texas and Connecticut since then has been time in an office.  I have forgotten how nice it is to be home all day long and get to have a completely flexible schedule.  And I have forgotten how nice it is to get to just enjoy your home.  And my days are so much longer now.  I am sleeping more and still having far more time to work on things.  It is great.

I worked in the office all day today.  No need to go anywhere.  The girls came in and hung out in the office for much of the morning.  Today and tomorrow are my last days with them as they are heading out to Houston on Wednesday morning from JFK in Brooklyn.  So we are starting to prepare for two weeks apart.  Originally when this trip was scheduled we assumed that I would be in the office and it would only go over one weekend.  But instead it is turning out that they are going to be gone while I am home alone for two weeks.  That really did not end up being a very ideal situation.

After getting some stuff done during the day we just relaxed in the living room this evening and watched some of “How I Met Your Mother.”

So we got up this morning and made the call to skip the “sofa ride” into the woods and instead take the time to go down to Mt. Morris to have breakfast again at Brian’s USA Diner.  It took us all morning to get everyone up and ready and packed and out of the door.  We were late enough that we were concerned about going anywhere specific for breakfast because we were going to hit the lunch crowd and Brian’s is always so busy, but doing anything else wasn’t really what we wanted, might have been packed too and would not have been so ideally on the way out of town.

We had a nice breakfast and from there we got on the road to drive back to Peekskill.  Originally we were supposed to meet up with Mary before we left town but there just wasn’t time as the plan was to get back to the house in time to meet up with Rob as he was coming back through from Boston.

The drive back down to Peekskill went very well.  Light traffic and no issues the entire way.  Even getting around Orange County was fine.  We had to wait for just a few minutes at Bear Mountain Bridge but nothing else.

Rob ended up needing to cancel today so we ended up having the afternoon to ourselves at home.  We spent the evening relaxing and hanging out as a family.

Today is our one full day back home.  We have to head back down to Peekskill tomorrow around lunch time.  We slept in a bit today.  Dominica and I did not sleep in all that much.  The girls, however, slept a very long time.  Their sleeping schedule is completely disrupted at this point and they are no longer on any normal schedule.  They stay up super late and sleep in super late.  Dominica will probably try to blame this on my being home all of the time.  I have no idea how that makes it my fault.

While we were waiting for the girls to get up we visited and I set up Dominica’s “old” desktop (the one that is identical to my own) and started installing Windows 10 Technology Preview on it.  Art is going to be using that desktop once we get it all set up and working properly.  I figured that if I got started early that we would have a good chance of getting it all taken care of today.  So far, after having gotten Windows 1o onto Dominica’s laptop two nights ago, we are pretty impressed with it.  It is the nicest Windows product to use in several generations.  A clear improvement on Windows 8.1 which is what I use most of the time.

Once the girls were finally awake we loaded into the Acadia and went to Mt. Morris to get lunch at Brian’s USA Diner.  Dad and I both got the fish and chips.  Dominica got breakfast.  The girls split pancakes.

After lunch we drove into Letchworth State Park.  Believe it or not this place that was so central to my childhood, neither of my girls have ever been there.  Unbelievable. They were mostly excited to go to go there because they got to see some pictures of the gorge and the waterfalls while at the diner so they had an idea of what they were going to get to see.

We first stopped at the dam overlook.  Dominica hit the giftshop there to get postcards for friends in Texas and to get some surprises for the girls.  She got Liesl a black bear that can be stuffed into a giant paw (you have to see it to understand.)  And she got Luciana a raccoon.  While she was in there, the girls sat on a giant chair that sits at the overlook and just hung out on it thinking that, for some strange reason, that that was the best thing around to do.  They pretty much ignored the view of the canyon and the dam.  Although, to be fair, there was no river flowing.  It was all dry.

We finally got them to leave the chair and we drove on.  We went to the Tea Table area where they spent maybe twenty minutes playing on a tiny playground there.  They were itching to be out of the car and do something.  They associate parks with playgrounds so were expecting playground time.  Each time that we got out of the car we took some pictures with Flat Stanley whom we brought with us.

Next we went to Inspiration Point and walked around a little.  They have done a bit of work there this past year fixing the stonework up around the little pond.  This is the first that the girls got to see the waterfalls.

Our last stop was the upper falls area.  We parked by the Upper Falls Snack Bar and we got a coffee for Dominica and ice cream for the girls and I.  We finished the ice cream and then walked over to the Middle Falls to show it to the girls.  There was a wedding going on right there while we were looking at the falls.  Then Liesl, dad and Dominica went to look at the falls more and I took a rather impatient Luciana to the large playground there and let her work off some energy.  Liesl came over later and used the swings there a lot.  It started raining while dad, Dominica and I sat on a bench swing.

From the falls we drove out the Castile exit and back to dad’s house.  Sharon and Leo were already at the house waiting for us.  The plan had been to do a sofa ride through the woods but it was getting cold and there was a light rain and there wasn’t enough time for Dominica and I to go as well because we had to get up to Rochester to meet Tricia.  So we had to skip the sofa ride tonight.

We left at four twenty five and drove up to the South Wedge to meet Tricia and Kathy at 140 Alex, near where I used to hang out when I still lived in Rochester.  The place was empty when we first arrived but after a few hours was really busy.  We had a really good time hanging out there.  We stayed until just after eleven.

We got home and dad was pretty exhausted from watching the girls all night.  They were finally in bed but they were wide awake still.  It took a bit to get them to calm down and really go to sleep.